Plaza Requiem

by Martha Bátiz

  Formatting note:

  In the electronic versions of this book blank pages that appear in the paperback have been removed.

  PLAZA REQUIEM

  STORIES AT THE EDGE OF ORDINARY LIVES

  MARTHA BÁTIZ

  Publishers of Singular Fiction, Poetry, Nonfiction, Translation, Drama and Graphic Books

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Bátiz, Martha, author

  Plaza requiem : stories at the edge of ordinary lives / Martha Bátiz.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-55096-682-4 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-55096-683-1 (EPUB).-- ISBN 978-1-55096-684-8 (Kindle).--ISBN 978-1-55096-685-5 (PDF)

  I. Title.

  PS8603.A856P53 2017 C813'.6 C2017-905881-9 / C2017-905882-7

  Copyright © Martha Bátiz, 2017

  Design and Composition by Mishi Uroborus

  These stories are works of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Published by Exile Editions Ltd ~ www.ExileEditions.com

  144483 Southgate Road 14 – GD, Holstein, Ontario, N0G 2A0

  PDF, ePUB and MOBI versions by Melissa Campos Mendivil

  Publication Copyright © Exile Editions, 2017. All rights reserved

  We gratefully acknowledge, for their support toward our publishing activities, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

  Exile Editions eBooks are for personal use of the original buyer only. You may not modify, transmit, publish, participate in the transfer or sale of, reproduce, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, display, or in any way exploit, any of the content of this eBook, in whole or in part, without the expressed written consent of the publisher; to do so is an infringement of the copyright and other intellectual property laws. Any inquiries regarding publication rights, translation rights, or film rights – or if you consider this version to be a pirated copy – please contact us via e-mail at: info@exileeditions.com

  For Edgar

  “There, in each one of my actions,

  I always find the enemy: the I,

  The Fascist from within,

  The dragon or the sea urchin whose insatiable mouth

  Can only pronounce verbs:

  I want, I devour, give me, move out of my way, revere me.”

  —José Emilio Pacheco, The enemy

  Paternity, Revisited

  In Transit

  Decalogue for a Doll Without a House

  Plaza Requiem

  Maria Times Seven

  The First Cup of Coffee

  Still Watching; Still Waiting

  Polar Bears are Bullshit

  Aztec Woman

  Paganini for Two

  Ants

  R is for Radishes on Remembrance Day

  The Last Confession

  Acknowledgements

  Paternity, revisited

  For Eduardo Pavlovsky

  White and blue flag, blue and white sky. It’s a sunny, crisp, spring morning that smells of cut grass and newborn flowers. Sunday. The surface of the river sparkles like satin with sequin embroidery. The Río de la Plata is bigger than she remembers; it’s dark, and endless, like the sorrow it was forced to keep secret years ago. The park has not changed and, apparently, neither have his habits because he’s right there, where she was expecting to find him. Where they used to sit every Sunday morning to watch boats drift down the river, eating medias lunas and sipping mate.

  She fights the urge to turn back and run away. Her body has always been wiser than herself. It has made her vomit or has blinded her with headaches when she’s needed to escape from certain moments. An ingrown toenail, she once read, means that you’re not ready to move on with your life. She’s always paid attention to the aches and pains in her feet. As if to punish them for knowing her better than she knows herself, she’d spent most of the previous evening trimming around her toenails until they bled – cutting a bit of skin here, a piece of nail there, digging deep into the flesh. Now the bandages are bulky under her wellcita asangreworn running shoes; walking is painful, and she’s forced to let her weight fall on her heels. Everyone must be thinking she walks funny, like a duck. What would they say if they knew why she’s here? That small boy riding a bike with his father running close behind him; the woman pushing a stroller; those young people jogging…

  The man is sitting on their bench, his back turned against her. She can still leave, but why bother coming all this way only to give up at the most crucial moment? She takes a deep breath and small, careful steps toward the allcita asangretoocita asangrefamiliar bench. Stopping a couple of feet behind him, she examines his thick, silver hair. It used to be dark brown, and she remembers it being soft. But not as soft as hers used to be. What if she swung her weighted bag now, like a mace, crushing his skull? One swift, precise movement, an impulse stemming from the depth of her fury. Her purse is heavy on her right shoulder so she switches it to the left, and looks around. Is anyone watching? Just then, the wind blows her way and the smell of his cologne hits her. She’s eight again, longing for his embrace – and she freezes. How can her body be such a traitor? And then, as if this were a conspiracy, her shadow betrays her, too, and he turns around. When their eyes meet, he lets out a faint cry.

  “Adriana!”

  Taken by surprise, she adjusts the baseball cap she is wearing, which she had hoped would make it harder to be recognized. She looks right and left, wondering if running away is still an option, but his eyes are on her. She stays put.

  “I knew you’d be here,” she whispers.

  Once he realizes it’s truly her he stands up, arms wide open. She stalls. The air is fresh and clean and yet she finds it hard to breathe. He points to the bench.

  “Want to sit down?” he asks, tears rolling down his withered cheeks.

  She opens up her purse and pulls out a tissue packet. After handing it to him, she takes a seat, placing her purse as a barrier between them.

  “You know my name is Paula.”

  He gives her a look like the one she once saw in a dog that had just been run over in the middle of a busy intersection. A dog she didn’t stop to help because she was running late for an appointment that was important for her at the time. She has often felt guilty about leaving the dog there, alone. It has been years, yet Paula feels ashamed whenever she remembers. A dog she could have helped but didn’t. That vivid image of a dog staggering about to collapse still gives her sleepless nights. Wondering if he, this man sitting on the bench beside her, has ever felt the same way. How such feelings play out when you’re talking about human beings and not dogs. Does death by indifference – death by inaction – have a name, other than murder?

  “Paula, yes,” he says after a long silence. He can’t stop staring at her while fidgeting with the tissues, turning one after another into a small ball between his hands. “You’ve not changed at all.”

  Oh, yes, I’ve changed. You’ve no idea how I’ve changed. But instead of saying so, Paula smiles at him without showing her teeth.

  “Have you changed?” she replies.

  “I never stopped looking for you, Adr… Paula. We never stopped looking for you, waiting. Hoping you’d call.”

  It’s obvious to her that he hasn’t changed. He has aged, of course, but remains good at dodging topics he doesn’t want to touch. She wants to say she was never his to wait for, but a hummingbird sipping nectar from a beautiful orange flower distracts her. How many times has she heard people say that they wished they could fly away and leave everything behind. But one thing life has taught her is tha
t you can never really leave. That wherever it is you fly to, you always drag your misery along. Human beings are made up of 70 per cent water and 30 per cent of their past; what is done to them is indelible. This, Paula knows for sure.

  “I was very far away. I couldn’t—”

  He doesn’t let her finish her sentence.

  “I understand, baby girl. No need to explain. What matters is you’re here now! You have no idea how much I missed those blue eyes of yours.”

  He used to say her eyes matched the flag, and that she should be immensely proud of forever carrying her homeland within her. When she grew up, however, Paula couldn’t bear to look at herself in the mirror, so she wore tinted contacts. She said they were a fashion statement and liked them because they matched her mood, her fate – and the horror of believing that her eyes embodied everything she had lost, or grown to hate.

  “How’s Ana María?” she asks, proving she can also dodge a subject that makes her feel uncomfortable. He frowns, and looks down at his shoes. They’re clean and shiny, as usual. His Sunday shoes. He has probably been to Mass early that morning. She hasn’t been to church, not since leaving the country. Another abyss she has to thank him for.

  Instead of answering her question about Ana María, the man lifts his hand and tries to hold hers. Paula leaps up from the bench, as if stung.

  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” he apologizes, looking mortified, gesturing clumsily.

  “Don’t touch me!” she hisses, her voice rising. A man walking his dog stops to look at her. The dog decides that it is a good place to defecate, and it does. The man walks away without cleaning up after his pet. She had spent the previous day walking around the city, stepping over dog turds left on the sidewalks, crossing paths with dog walkers who, like those in New York or Toronto, were holding multiple leashes. Here they were incapable of stooping to clean up, utterly oblivious to what they were doing to their own hometown. A perfect reflection of what this country is about. Too bad no one else has realized that the greatness of a nation can also be measured by how many of its people are actually willing to clean up their own shit.

  “Please sit down again, baby girl. I’m sorry.”

  She takes a deep breath…and a seat on the bench once more, only this time a few inches farther away from him. He puts a tissue ball inside his pocket, and places the tissue packet close to her purse.

  “Ana María died,” he says, biting his lower lip. Paula takes in his words slowly; they hurt like stab wounds. She has been hoping to see Ana María. Hear her voice, smell her perfume. Anaïs Anaïs, all the rage while she was growing up. A few years ago, she found a small bottle of it at a discount store and bought it. She dabbed a little of it on her pillow and cried. Helpless; alone.

  “How did she die?” she gathers the courage to ask.

  He looks down at his shoes again as if that’s the place where the right words to say can be found, lifts his gaze and fixes it on the river. A small boat is passing by. They hear laughter.

  “You don’t need to know. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Yes, it does!” she replies, firmly. “I want to know.”

  He shakes his head, No.

  “Tell me! I have a right to know!”

  He pauses for a few seconds.

  “She killed herself.”

  Paula puts her fist to her mouth and bites on her first knuckle. It’s what she does when she doesn’t want to scream. She can’t say a single word. He seems to understand. He’d always known what she wanted to say before she said it.

  “She just never got used to it,” he says, mattercita asangreofcita asangrefactly.

  “Used to what?”

  “To life without you.”

  Paula buries her face between her knees, hugs her legs tight, and cries. Loud, intermittent sobs, her shoulders shaking.

  After a few minutes she lifts her head, wipes her face with her Tcita asangreshirt, and when he offers her a tissue, slaps his hand as hard as she can, surprising herself. His hands used to seem big and strong. Now they’re bony and blotchy with age spots. He pulls back, afraid of her.

  “How dare you blame me?”

  “I don’t blame you. I’m just telling you the truth,” he replies, rubbing his hand where she hit him. “She couldn’t live without you. No: she didn’t want to live without you. I did what I could to help her, but it was useless. We just missed you so much!”

  She gets to her feet and walks away, toward the river. The water is calm and deep, brownish. Nature’s perfect hiding spot. No wonder they used it to dump bodies. A colossal oxymoron, this strange beast in front of her: its water a peculiar womb that both embraces the dead while nourishing the hopes of the living. At least, those who still have hope and can feel proud.

  “I wish you’d let me explain things to you,” he says, getting up as well and approaching her at a safe distance. The park has been slowly filling with people, families out to have fun, playing. The way the man and Paula used to do in another life, once upon a time. “And you shouldn’t leave your purse unattended back there on the bench. This is not Canada, you know? People steal a lot here.”

  “So you knew where I was,” she says turning to look at him.

  “Yes,” he replies, blushing slightly.

  “And you never came to look for me. Instead, you let Ana María kill herself.”

  He brings his hands to his head. It’s obvious to her that he’s unable to hide his desperation.

  “Adriana, don’t be so unfair. I couldn’t just go looking for you! And I saved her twice before she finally succeeded.”

  Perverse how he attached success to suicide as if it were the most natural combination. Don’t forget who you’re dealing with. Why you came back.

  “No, you couldn’t just come looking for me, that’s true. And my name is Paula!”

  He lets out a sigh that sounds almost like a grunt.

  “Please. Let me explain.”

  Paula waits a little, knowing every second of her silence hurts him. She wants to hurt him, and enjoys her small power, before relenting.

  “I’m all ears,” she says, adjusting the cap on her head, closing her eyes, lifting her face to the sun. Here, on the other end of the continent, the sun feels different – apologetic, perhaps. As if trying to make it up to her, to everyone for the chaotic state of affairs in the land.

  The man walks back to the bench to fetch Paula’s purse. He appears surprised at its weight, but he’s sensible enough not to ask. He simply places it on the ground close to where they are standing now, and they both can see it. Then he tucks his hands into his pockets, and gazes into the horizon.

  “They were shitty times, baby girl.”

  A boy runs past them, chasing a red ball. Laughing. Neither the man nor she manage to smile.

  “We were at war.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know. And stop calling me ‘baby girl.’”

  He nods abjectly.

  “Well, we were at war and—”

  “And whose side were you on, huh?” she interrupts.

  The man takes his hands out of his pockets and cracks his knuckles, one by one. Paula cringes. She forgot this is what he does when he’s nervous or upset.

  “I love this country. I wanted it to be safe, a country in unity. And there were people doing everything they could to prevent that.”

  “People like my parents, you mean.”

  He chooses not to answer.

  “They were putting bombs everywhere. Blowing up people’s houses, buildings. Creating chaos. If you didn’t shoot the hell out of them, they’d shoot the hell out of you. That’s simply how it was.”

  “So that’s why you and your friends had to burst into their houses, to kidnap, torture, and kill them, right? It was the patriotic thing to do.” The man is shifting his weight from one leg to the other, clearly not knowing what to say or do. Paula looks at the river and remembers he doesn’t know how to swim. She wonders if she could get away with pushing him into the wa
ter and letting him drown. Death by drowning is silent.

  “I didn’t kill anyone, I swear.”

  She finds it impossible to remain silent.

  “You did – just by working with them.”

  Another boat goes by. People wave. Paula and the man don’t respond and are booed for their lack of enthusiasm. Someone, in a shrill voice, probably a teenager, calls them a couple of lame asses.

  “They always called me after the fact.”

  “What do you mean?” she asks, genuinely eager to know.

  “To tell them if… To make sure they were dead.”

  A wave of rage takes over her body.

  “I was so proud of you when I was little, saying you were a doctor.” She pronounces the word doctor with contempt, to emphasize her disgust. “Turns out you were a doctor who helped to kill.”

  “No, I didn’t! I just told them…if they were really dead.”

  Paula closes her fists, hits her hips. Hard. Hard enough for it to hurt.

  “And if they were not really dead? What then? You stayed there until they had been tortured enough to die?”

  She can tell he’s irritated by her hitting herself, and gets ready to hit him instead if he comes anywhere near her.

  “No! I brought them back to life. I saved them!”

  “So they could be electrocuted some more? How kind of you,” she retorts, letting out a bitter guffaw. The man takes a few seconds to respond. Paula can tell he’s trying to find the right words.

  “No, I never worked in those…centres.”

  This time she laughs out loud, without holding herself back.

  “You’re the king of euphemisms. Congratulations.”

  “Look!” he says, exasperated. “If it helps you to know this, your parents were never tortured. They died quickly, all right? In their own bed. And when I got there, they were already dead.”

  Paula can’t keep herself together anymore. She lets out a scream. A long, intense scream. The man looks around, nervously. People are staring at them, alarmed.