by Sara Mesa
“The apartment is empty. I checked it myself.”
“And yuh-yuh-you are … ?”
I told her again.
“The owner’s brother.”
Despite my best efforts and all the paperwork, I haven’t been able to locate her. They gave me various phone numbers to call: the first is always busy, another is never answered, the third is a wrong number, the automated message is from an insurance agency. The fourth one puts me on hold while they check their lists for her name; I’m told she doesn’t appear on any of them. They tell me to try again in a few days.
No one understands why she doesn’t call me.
They insinuate that maybe she doesn’t want to be found. They suggest I wait for her to call. They don’t trust me.
I let them talk and don’t contradict them. Finally, I admit they’re right and give up.
I change the dead bolt on the door, buy a blow up mattress and a cook stove. I get used to the noise, or exhaustion does it for me. I sleep a lot. Sometimes, I dream of the noises at Wybrany. Sometimes, I even hear a lark outside my window. I haven’t had any more nightmares.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 23RD
I started this without drama. Modestly, clumsily. I must end the same way: this diary became pointless a while ago. It was always the story of the colich, not the city. I didn’t know it, but I was writing the story of the not-city, the flip side of the life I live now. What I had to tell, I have told. Poorly, because I could only ever grasp a part of it. Poorly, because I didn’t completely understand that part I did see. Poorly, because I always was a wannabe writer—oh, darling Lola, how right you were.
Poorly, but this story has been told.
I have to go, I know.
There is an epilogue, of course. There is an epilogue to every story.
It was Gabriela’s only request. I had to fulfill it.
(…)
She wasn’t expecting me. She couldn’t have been. I considered myself immune to everything, but I still felt a heaviness in the pit of my stomach when I decided to ring the doorbell. Aftershocks of anxiety spread through my body. I was almost drowning.
I could hear through the distortion of the call box that it was just a girl who answered. “Does Valentina live here?” I asked.
“Valen? Yeah, but she’s not home.”
I decided to wait for her near the front entrance.
I spent several hours watching the brick wall, chocolate-brown apartment blocks, chipped and peeling, haphazardly hung laundry, bird shit accumulating on windowsills. The noise, people, smells: a uniform, monotonous show. It was hypnotizing, to watch without having to be aware of my every move.
A tall girl in sports clothes arrived at the building, pulling a shopping cart behind her. Valen? I shouted. She turned to look. It wasn’t her.
And then another girl came. Squat and enormous, with very short hair and ruddy skin, chomping on gum as she dug for the key in her bag. She didn’t hear me call to her. I got up and went over, said her name. She looked at me without a reaction: dull eyes in deep black circles, a double chin. She asked what I wanted. I told her. She considered this for a few seconds and then let me inside.
The apartment was dark and damp. There was hardly anywhere to sit; the couch was covered in laundry waiting to be folded, piles of boxes were heaped on the chairs. An adolescent, her face covered in pimples, sat in a rocking chair watching television. Valen brought me a plastic folding chair and sat herself down on a stool, studying me with the same indolence. With unbroken focus, the girl kept watching TV. She didn’t seem to have noticed me.
“She’s one of my roommate’s sisters,” Valen explained. “She comes over some afternoons.”
Though I hadn’t asked, she started to tell me in a flat voice that there were four of them, they all worked in this place or that, living together wasn’t always easy.
“Sometimes they bring their boyfriends home. There’s not enough space as it is and then they bring their boyfriends. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. I have to sleep on the couch because they have company.”
Valen obviously didn’t have a boyfriend. Observing her, I realized she was going to have a very rough time. I tried to discern something of Gabriela in her. Gabriela wasn’t beautiful, but there was sweetness in her drooping lids and the corners of her mouth, always ready to smile or apologize. Valen had none of that. Puffy, yellow, sordid suffering and profound indifference reflected on her face. Rolls of fat cascaded down her belly; she was so large that she had to spread her thighs in order to sit. She breathed heavily. Bitterness and despondency lurked in her eyes. I suddenly felt something akin to compassion, but I was repulsed, as well. I tried to smile. Judging from her glacial expression, it came across as more of a grimace.
The colich did this to her, I thought.
She knew that I was an emissary of her mother. She gave me her report and waited for my questions.
But I didn’t know what to ask. I wasn’t interested in her current life—it was all right there around me—but rather in her time at the school. It was hard to believe she had ever attended class in the clean, modern lecture hall, or played on the paddle courts or sung the hymn during the Wybrany anniversary festivities. That mass of flesh, devoid of all passion and charm, was my only connection to that completely unreal world, fruit of some nightmare.
I stammered, not knowing where to begin.
She stood up. She hadn’t eaten lunch yet and was hungry. Did I want something? I shook my head and she went into the kitchen.
Now that we were alone, the girl watching the soap opera turned to me, suddenly aware that I was there. With a smirk, she winked at me. I looked away. She taunted me, running her tongue over her lips.
I heard the ding of the microwave and Valen returned with a steaming bowl of lasagna. The other girl sunk back into silence. The glow of the screen lit up her face, her skin devastated by acne.
Valen stuffed herself, scattering grated cheese with every bite. And as she stuffed herself, she watched me with a static expression and waited for me to break the silence.
I tapped my fingers on my knees, took another look around the room, and inhaled, ready to begin.
“You knew Celia, didn’t you Valen?”
She chewed before answering. I’d seen a flash in her eyes, a spark of anger, perhaps. She hadn’t expected the question. She was surprised and obviously trying to compose herself. Resentment brought her back to the present.
“Yeah, of course I knew her. We shared a room. She was just another girl, but everybody looked out for her. I’m not surprised that you’ve heard of her.”
“And what happened?”
“What happened? They expelled her. She got kicked out. She was always in trouble. She never studied. She interrupted in class. Really mouthy, really rude. She did whatever she wanted. Her mother and father didn’t work there, which was weird. Nobody had any idea how she ended up at the colich. But there she was, and she didn’t answer to anyone. Out of control. I guess nobody really took responsibility for her.”
She got up for some chocolate. She kept eating and talking, unexpectedly animated.
“She planned an escape, once. She roped a few of us in, convinced us we should go with her. She said it would only be a few days outside the school, that we had to see the world. She planned to make it all the way here to Cárdenas, but she didn’t know how. We left before sunup through a hole in the fence and made it through the woods, totally freezing. It was pointless. They caught us right away.”
“Were you punished?”
“No. We were never punished in the colich. They only lectured us, changed the rules if we did something wrong. Whatever had been allowed up till then suddenly wasn’t anymore; that was their tactic. It was almost worse. I would have preferred to be punished.”
She peeled the foil on another chocolate and watched me for a few seconds before speaking. She searched my eyes: something had dawned on her.
“I bet my mother told you that Celia
was involved with the Advisor.”
“Your mother didn’t tell me anything.”
Valen laughed with disdain.
“I don’t believe you. You asked about Celia so that I would tell you. You know something.”
“Well, it wasn’t your mother. I was told by a colleague.”
“And you want me to give you details?”
Her lips were stained with chocolate. She smiled in disgust.
“No, I don’t want the details,” I lied.
She sighed and raised her eyebrows.
“Good, because if you want them, I can’t give them to you. I got along with her okay. There were other girls who ruined me, always insulting me. Other girls like me, scholarship girls. I didn’t expect any better from them, actually. But Celia was different. She pretty much kept out of that shit. I think she might have liked me a little. But she didn’t confide in me about her life. She kept to herself. She only told her secrets to this half-wit, one of the posh girls—Teeny. Small, skinny, always sniffling. She knew everything. Not me. I don’t have anything to tell you.”
She stood up quickly, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She apparently considered our conversation over. I was disappointed. That’s all she could tell me? Had they really covered up the scandal so successfully? Had everyone actually been fooled?
Valen had no desire to hear any more from me, but I wasn’t willing to hide the truth. She watched me, her flat eyes ringed with dark circles.
None of this was what I expected. I spoke out of desperation:
“Celia wasn’t expelled, Valen. Celia killed herself.”
The other girl shifted to see us better, turning her eyes toward what—for her—was just another soap opera. Valen looked stunned. Like she had aged years in an instant. The room was completely quiet, except for the sound from the TV, a conversation outside any frame of reference. Valen threw up her arms—thick, white—and shook her head furiously, shouting.
“Why are you telling me this shit? What am I supposed to do?”
“Nothing, I don’t want you to do anything,” I whispered. “I only wanted you to know the truth.”
“The truth? What truth? What the fuck are you talking about? What do you know about the truth? You think you’re the one who knows the truth? You fucked my mother and that gives you the right to come here and tell me the truth? Did you stop to think about my truth?”
Sounds started to come from behind the other doors, footsteps making their way down the hall. Valen’s roommates smelled blood, and they swarmed like flies. I stood up, grabbing my jacket. I went for the door.
Valen was distraught. She couldn’t stop screaming. She grabbed my arm, tried to force me to listen. I saw that her eyes were wet. Her chin trembled in fury.
“Why didn’t you do something?”
“There was nothing I could do, Valen. I arrived a long time after,” I argued.
“After what?” she wailed. “I’m not talking about Celia! I’m talking about everything! Everything else! Why didn’t you do something to stop it? Why did you come here to tell me truths? Why don’t you tell other people the truth? Why doesn’t anyone dare to do that? Why don’t you leave me alone? You, my mother …” She spun around toward her roommates, who glanced at each other, amused. “All of you!”
I knew there was nothing I could do to calm her. I shook her off, made it to the entryway, and put my hand on the doorknob. I turned to look at her one last time, waiting for a goodbye, or an apology.
And then, it struck me. The final chord. A thick loogie, flecked with bits of food, slid down my face. Hatred, unadulterated rancor, resentment, bitterness—all of it, and all of it hers. The soap opera ended, and the theme music swirled between us.
That gob of spit. It was the colich and Cárdenas; the acne-ridden girl and her wink, Ledesma’s desecrated body, Gabriela’s stoicism; it was Marcela, spirited away in secret, pulled by the hand; it was Sacra’s lewdness and Martínez’s cynicism; it was García Medrano’s papers, no longer a mystery to me.
No, the gob of spit wasn’t a humiliation. It made absolute sense: the inescapable, final message. To be heard, and obeyed.
Valen was trembling, sobbing, beside herself.
I took a handkerchief from my pocket and wiped my cheek.
I hung my head, and left.
HEROES AND MERCENARIES
(GARCÍA MEDRANO’S PAPERS)
FOUR BY FOUR. Her little world. The girl paces the room, goes to bed, gets up. Waits.
Sometimes they open the door. It’s usually to leave her food, good food served on plastic plates with small plastic utensils. But sometimes they open the door to let her out for a bit, too.
She likes when they let her out. She gets some fresh air. Has contact. It’s more than four meters by four meters, the outside world.
Outside, they treat her well. They cherish her.
She likes when they let her out.
Her body is damp. Damp with sweat and desire to be let out.
THE CITY IS FORTIFIED. It’s surrounded by a wall three meters high. The wall is made of stone. There’s some graffiti, not much.
Graffiti written in an unknown language. No one knows what it says. But even if they could understand the words, the city’s inhabitants wouldn’t be able to read them: the graffiti appears only on the outside. There’s not a single word on the inside of the wall. No drawn hearts, not a single I was here, not even a little obscene drawing. Nothing.
Politics don’t exist in the city. Or at least the inhabitants aren’t aware of the existence of politics.
The existence of something comes into being only through the awareness that it exists. That’s why.
THE WALL WAS BUILT just a few years ago by thousands of men. But all the city’s inhabitants believe it’s been there for centuries, despite the fact that they are only just seeing it now.
Sometimes they gathered to watch the men lifting and setting the stones, but they’ve forgotten this too.
The building of the wall and the building of a consciousness of its antiquity were simultaneous. That’s why.
FOUR BY FOUR. The girl doesn’t know that she has another little four-by-four world beside her, containing a different girl who doesn’t know that she exists, either.
If she knew, she would try to communicate with her.
If the other girl knew, she would try as well.
Perhaps they would invent a code of long and short knocks on the wall. A new Morse code, since they don’t know about the old one. It would make them feel better. They would be capable of imagining that perhaps there were even more girls; that perhaps there were more four-by-four cells, built one after another in an orderly fashion, to infinity.
But both think they’re alone and so they keep silent, and anxiously wait.
MORE SPACE IS AVAILABLE, of course, but it’s the confinement to four by four that produces pleasure for the one who locks and unlocks the door.
The pleasure isn’t the girl. The pleasure is in controlling the girl’s availability. The pleasure is in erasing the girl’s notion of a world beyond the dimension of four by four, in erasing the notion of something other than those brief moments when he’s with her and her world expands.
The pleasure is in having various girls who think they’re the only one.
The pleasure is in making these girls happy with what would make other girls unhappy.
Changing the rules, the way the world works.
THE CITY’S INHABITANTS are constantly trading. Transaction is their way of life. There is no production of any kind. They trade with things they can touch and with things that are intangible, with things that are clean and things that are dirty, with people, objects, concepts.
The inhabitants like to trade. They’re happy trading. They cannot conceive of another way of life.
Everything is vulnerable to being traded, including the inhabitants themselves.
The value of the transaction is stipulated by agreements drawn down to the
last detail; there is no place for improvisation. Agreements are never considered in terms of fairness or unfairness, but in terms of plausibility. An agreement is made when it’s plausible.
If two or more people believe in something, it’s plausible, and therefore it’s susceptible to becoming an agreement, a transaction, a trade.
THEY WERE TOLD IT WAS WORTH trying this way of life. A simple and easy life. They accepted. They forgot the old one.
Once in a while a girl disappears. Or a boy.
This became frequent and it became normal. And in becoming normal, it was accepted as the natural order of things. No one was overly sorry about it, just like no one is overly sorry about the fact that occasionally it rains or hails, given that naturally, it has to rain and hail.
THE CONTRAST BETWEEN THEIR SKIN is gratifying. Between bodies and ages. The contrast is sometimes grotesque, but always stimulating.
There are those who take pleasure in seeing it like this. The girl is thin, compliant; the man is slack, covered in veins. A difference of forty years, perhaps more.
Symbols of power: pants down and bunched over his shoes, cigar in hand, an early sign of victory as he assails her over and over.
The girl doesn’t remember anything else and she prefers it to solitude.
She holds him when he’s finished, calls him papi. The one watching moves away, leaving them alone.
He doesn’t believe anyone should question this coupling, since it’s perfectly clear that it works.
One doesn’t interfere with the laws of the market.
THERE IS A SINK, a toilet. The girl turns on the faucet and watches as one drop of water drips slowly, then another, and another. Droplets, marking time.
She looks closer. At first, it’s nothing but a shiny quiver in the mouth of the spout, but it grows fuller and fatter, heavier, drops, and explodes.
One droplet. Then another.
Robinet, the girl whispers. She remembers that word from school.
She doesn’t remember “sink” or “toilet.” She doesn’t remember the school. She only remembers robinet, robinet.
WORDS become isolated. They don’t know that other words exist. They grow bigger this way, more powerful perhaps.