by Sarah Booker
I must have assumed an expression of combined shock and disbelief, because the True One raised her arms and gesticulated in the air with an elegance that I had only seen in some old and, frankly, outdated movies.
“Don’t be intimidated by them,” she asserted. “They aren’t dangerous. You’ll see. When they learned of my disappearance, some years ago, they got organized. It was back when young women still liked to call themselves feminists. Do you remember?” She didn’t give me time to respond. “Well, these girls took it seriously and formed a group of emissaries.” She hesitated, looked at me out of the corner of her eye, and, after a wary silence, decided to continue. “Emissaries from the past.”
“And their mission is?” I asked with an irony I wasn’t able to hide.
“To safeguard my words, naturally,” she said without blinking. “You see, dear, if they do vanish, my young followers won’t have the means to describe their own experiences on this earth. Like you, when you were a tree.”
By then I’d had it, and I let out a loud, robust guffaw. The story I was hearing was completely ridiculous and, moreover, impossible. Women had never liked to call themselves feminists, as far as I knew. And no one with even the slightest amount of intelligence would waste their time and energy forming an absurd organization to communicate with the past in order to resolve a disappearance that, judging by the obvious presence of my interlocutor, never amounted to more than a mere delusion. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t stop laughing, and it continued with the same intensity as the remorse I’d felt only a few minutes before. I again found myself with tears in my eyes, except this time they were not from pain, but self-pity.
“I see that you are one of the Incredulous Women,” murmured the True One once my fit of laughter had passed. “You shouldn’t be. We need certain words to fathom what we are. If those words are taken from us, as they have been, we’d only spit out lies.”
Her informal manner of address bothered me. And it bothered me even more that she had referred to me as a woman. I assumed her vision was poor. And I deduced that surely that was why she opened her eyes in such an exaggerated manner. Anyone with normal vision would realize I had neither breasts, nor a waistline, nor long hair, nor painted nails. Anyone with normal vision would have noticed my facial hair, the broadness of my shoulders, the narrowness of my hips, the bulge between my legs. Anyone, in other words, besides Amparo Dávila and her horde of emissaries. They were all blind. Out of their minds, it’s true, and blind. I was fed up. I was fed up with myself, above all, and so I stood up and headed toward the door.
“Take this to the Little One,” she said, distractedly, glancing pointedly at the manuscript. “She’ll miss it more than I will.”
“But it’s yours,” I said.
“Perhaps, but do we ever really know who owns the words in a book?”
That was the last straw. To refer to the Emissary I had at home as the Little One was outrageous, not to mention insidious, and the assumption that I would obey her bordered on arrogance. In that moment, I did take the manuscript, but with the clear intention of keeping it for myself. It would never find its way into the hands of my guest. Of this I was sure. I would read it, I would understand everything there was to understand, and then I would hide it once more without saying anything to anyone, without relaying any truths or revealing any mysteries. That would be my revenge. I would read the book and then close it forever. In this way, I’d get even with the brutal, unjust, and cruel imposition of my guest.
I was going to leave without saying goodbye, and would have done so without a second thought, but when I went to turn the doorknob it was locked. So I paused and turned to look at her. An aura of uncertain provenance clouded the gaze of Amparo Dávila, the True One. I was certain she was internally mocking me.
“Come here,” she said, showing me the key, and I went toward her because I had no other choice. When I was at her side, bending over her shrunken body, she placed her bony hand on my left forearm. A claw. A bird of prey. Her breath smelled of mildew and anise. The cavities in her teeth confirmed yet again that the woman was real. That time passes. Her cavernous mouth approached my ear.
“We all know your secret,” she whispered. “Don’t worry, but don’t try to deceive us, either.”
I took the key without looking back and inserted it into the keyhole. I tossed it onto the chair and left, running, without closing the door behind me. The mirrors in the elevator reflected a stable image of my face and this calmed me somewhat, but something sticky I hadn’t been able to escape in the True One’s minimalist apartment clung to me like a spiderweb. Crossing the courtyard, I saw the old woman in the rocking chair again. She made a sound as I passed, and when I turned she removed her glasses. The sight terrified me—the empty sockets of her eyes—and I froze. I remembered my life as a tree, and the idea of remaining rigid, paralyzed forever, only made me run faster, not sure of where I was going. I was so disoriented by the ancient woman I almost fell into the pool, only just stopping in time. And then I saw them, at the bottom, waiting for me. A myriad of perfect blue eyes, fixedly, elliptically watching me from under the water. And then I turned back, back.
I turned back.
YOU NEED THE OCEAN FOR THIS: TO STOP BELIEVING IN REALITY. To ask yourself impossible questions. To not know. To cease knowing. To become intoxicated by the smell. To close your eyes. To stop believing in reality.
A HOSPITAL SECURITY GUARD APPEARED AT MY HOUSE ONE MONDAY morning. When I heard the knock at the door, I was filled with dread thinking it could be another emissary or, even worse, another woman I had betrayed in my past life. As such, when I opened the door and saw the olive-green uniform and ratlike eyes, rather than harbor any sense of unease or suspicion, I only felt relief, something guards everywhere are generally unaccustomed to inspiring before nine in the morning. Nevertheless, my relief quickly turned into disbelief and then exasperation.
“It’s nothing personal, Doctor, but you truly must come with me,” he repeated several times before I understood that he really was prepared to take me to the hospital’s administrative offices, even if it meant doing so against my will. Amparo Dávila, the False One, simply watched with her motionless eyes as I finally followed him to the military truck waiting a few yards from the house. The Betrayed appeared in the second-floor window and, like an ancient statue, watched me leave with a blank expression on her face. Still lacking any clear idea of the accusations levied against me, I already suspected it had to do with my foolish proximity to both Amparos, the True as much as the False. However, sitting in the back seat of the vehicle, I asked myself if this could instead be the work of the Betrayed and her insatiable thirst for vengeance. But as the coastal view unfolded on the left side of the highway, my mind went blank, a phenomenon I still associate with calmness.
Just as I’d expected, as soon as we arrived at the institution, the guard led me to the office of the head administrator, a middle-aged man with thinning hair whom I rarely saw and I’d only spoken with on a few occasions since his appointment some three years ago. I knew he was a cultured man with refined tastes because of the music I’d occasionally heard drifting from under his office door, and one of the two times we had talked, he had been kind enough to offer me a whiskey; I still salivate when I think about its flavor. Accordingly, he was isolated in his personal ivory tower within the institution not only because of his position as General Director but also, and above all, his tastes, his manners, his chivalry. Few of us behaved like that, living, as we did, among the dead. The dying.
“I’m very sorry to have brought you in like this,” he said by way of a greeting, with a polite smile on his lips, “but this is what the manual indicates.”
He lifted a little book before his eyes and, with an ironic gesture, threw it on his desk. The officer had barely left when the General Director offered me the whiskey my salivary glands had been eagerly anticipating. I accepted it without a second thought, without asking myself what exactly I
was doing in the Director’s office drinking whiskey at such an early hour.
“I’ve been told that you have been looking into the history of certain patients, Doctor,” said the Director as a preamble to his lecture, simultaneously placing in my hands the glass of liquor that compelled me to experience nothing but the anticipation of its flavor, texture, smell.
Without paying attention, transported to a better place by the whiskey’s aroma, I was silent.
“Perhaps these reports are wrong,” he benevolently offered. “In which case it would be appropriate to ask your forgiveness for this awkward misunderstanding.”
I held the first sip on my tongue for a few seconds, which seemed to multiply from a single point in time to occupy ever-lengthening minutes. A cancer in expansion. I let it slide down my esophagus, feeling with incomparable pleasure the way it clung to my organs before falling, slowly, drop by drop, into the very center of my stomach. A delicate warmth surged through me, moving in opposition to the falling liquor and, without even seeing them, I knew that my cheeks had acquired the light rosy color of someone transported by supreme pleasure. Still in that place, I extended my arm to let him know that I wanted more. The General Director, confused but polite if nothing else, refilled my glass.
“I assure you, Doctor,” he insisted, “that if these reports turn out to be unfounded, those responsible will be punished to the full extent of the law. You know how careful we are with information, especially when it comes to any of our patients.”
The second glass of whiskey caused the same pleasurable sensation but to a lesser degree. This time I heard my interrogator’s comments, and I realized I had to make a decision immediately. I could, of course, deny the accusation, which the Director seemed desperate for me to do. I was sure he would put a stop to any investigation and no one would be harmed, not even “those responsible.” I could tell the truth, but at that point I wasn’t sure what it was. I could give my version of the facts or invent something. Or shut up. But, because of the liquor, I answered from a state of complete relaxation and joy.
“It has to do with an old patient, sir, by the name of Juan Escutia: a man who arrived to us suffering from a mysterious condition that—I find myself forced to share with you—seems to be repeating itself among the dying recently admitted to our establishment,” I said without stuttering, without looking away, without pausing for a moment to breathe.
As his only response, the Director turned his back to me. He was exasperated, filled with rage. He would have to continue with the inquiry now. He would have to stop listening to his music and move his bottle of whiskey to another room. He would have to accept visits from police, investigators, judges, perhaps. And, furthermore, he felt betrayed. He didn’t know what to do. I am under the impression, even now, after so much time, that the word ungrateful passed through his lips at that moment.
“You wanted it to be like this, Doctor,” he confirmed, opening the door and allowing the slight, rat-eyed guard who had brought me to the office to enter. “Bring him first to the infirmary, please. They will know what to do.”
The guard, visibly surprised by the order, didn’t react for a moment. Once he regained his bearings, he took me by the elbow and, at a military march, led me to the infirmary. Those in charge, in effect, would know what to do with me.
First they undressed me and smeared my body with the same substance we used to avoid the spread of cutaneous infections. Then, hurriedly and crudely, they threw one of the patients’ blue robes on me. A nurse pointed to a metal bench where he wanted me to sit immediately. Which I did. I obeyed all of their instructions without saying a word, without putting up any sort of a fight. I think that, just like the guard, I still couldn’t believe the response I had given the General Director, and I was even more skeptical of the unexpected turn of events leading to my body being violently manipulated and half-clothed in the infirmary. Thus, imprisoned in my disbelief, I sat staring fixedly at the blue wall in front of me. The tiny cracks, running up and down it like spiderwebs, posed intellectual puzzles that left me speechless.
I quickly lost any sense of time.
I quickly realized that I had lost this sense of time much earlier.
“How long have you been working for us, Doctor?” one of the department chiefs asked as she sat down on the metal bench directly in front of me, a new folder in her hand. I heard the word again and again: time. I repeated it. I heard its echo. Time. Even through the confusion, even from within the echoes of the word time, the use of the preposition for instead of the usual with seemed all too interesting to me.
“Twenty-five years,” I answered without lifting my gaze.
“And how many vacations have you taken since then?” she continued.
“Two,” I murmured. “During the first and fifth year I was here.”
“Ah,” sighed the administrator. And she smiled as if she had known me my entire life. She left the room without adding anything else.
The blue wall ensnared my gaze again.
Then a second team of nurses entered the room. Just as the first team had done, they manipulated my body in silence, quickly, almost roughly. They removed my blue robe and, after tossing me my clothes, they left without closing the door. I dressed with a dissociative, unresponsive slowness. Outside, the blazing sun brought to mind the warmth of the whiskey—I yearned for it now—from ages before. Thus, in the glare of the afternoon, traveling through centuries, I walked the five miles separating me from my house beside the sea.
The Emissary and the Betrayed were waiting for me. In fact, they opened the door just as I placed my hand on the doorknob. Their concern surprised me.
“Did they ask you about Amparo?” they asked in unison. It was obvious my own fate mattered very little to them.
“No,” I tersely informed them, without pausing. I crossed through the house and walked out the back door. As soon as I was on the sand, I took off my shoes and began to run until I was forced to stop, breathless. What do I know about the great wings of love? I asked myself as if I understood the question’s significance. Then, lifting my gaze, I let the night’s aroma envelop me. I felt at peace. I felt an unparalleled sweetness.
THE IDEA BEGAN TO TEMPT ME SOME DAYS LATER. AT FIRST IT was only a game, something like an image within an image. Then, gradually, my eyes began to transform into invisible microscopes. I looked at everything with hubris, greed, discipline. I spied on myself at every turn. Touching myself became one more way of seeing myself in the world. I am here, I said to myself. I am me. And, with the same grim diligence, I spied on others.
For example, I watched the conduct of the female nurses in the hospital and was relieved to discover that their cruelty didn’t differ in the slightest from my own. They didn’t touch the elbow of some dying man with any more or less care. In their eyes, as in mine, there was no sense of a tenderness that softened the image of the decaying bodies. I paid attention, too, to the hustle and bustle of the cooks—rough country women in whom it would perhaps be easier to identify those feminine virtues, which are supposedly innate and thus natural. Just as had happened with the nurses, though, it didn’t take me long to confirm that their roughness and vulgarity was the same as that of the guards. There was no grace, for example, in the way they maneuvered their bodies between the huge pots where they deposited, almost without looking, the spices that gave their concoctions that unclassifiable flavor. There was no dedication, sense of sacrifice, or any trace of commiseration. Those women were just as feminine as the tree I had once been.
I supposed that my observations up until then had been unfairly influenced by the nurses’ social standing as much as that of the kitchen employees, so I paid attention to the administrative workers as well. There honestly weren’t many, given that the job required training many women did not have access to, but among the secretaries, file clerks, and heads of departments I saw the same astonishing tendency toward indifference and professed maliciousness—almost militaristic—that men of sim
ilar standings possessed. None of them demonstrated any sort of singular passion for a job that, certainly, offered few opportunities for advancement. In fact, all of them spent their time sitting at their desks, tapping on their keyboards in the uniform rhythms of those who write memoranda and reports. Many of them displayed more interest in their manicures than in the spelling mistakes plaguing their official documents. There was little, I mean to say, that you’d consider purely tender, compassionate, obsequious, about those women.
And the same thing happened among our patients. At death’s door, almost within her arms, there were few things that differentiated a dying woman from a dying man. Those with a lachrymose temperament would cry, regardless of the internal and external form of their genitals. All of them dirty, equally malnourished, terminally ill, without hope or expectation, by then with a minimal connection to what is presumptuously called reality—to these patients it mattered very little whether in life they had been men or women.
“That’s what you believe,” Amparo Dávila, the False One, interrupted when I’d made the mistake of telling them about my discoveries. “Because, as far as I can tell, you haven’t asked them anything.”
“But how can you say that?” I answered somewhat angrily, regretting having given up so predictably before her unexpected outburst. “When those people barely know whether they are alive or dead.”
The Emissary shrugged her shoulders and continued writing in her notebook with its thick covers. It was obvious she wasn’t interested in trying to convince me. This attitude, which in another moment would have brought me relief, ended up rousing my spirits. Did she consider me to be of such little importance, of such low rank, that persuading me wasn’t even worth her time and energy? If this were true, as I feared, I could do nothing but consider it an affront. I suppose that is why I fueled the fire of our exasperating conversation. I was in the mood to provoke her. I needed, in other words, to prove myself—both to her and to me.