Irma Voth

by Miriam Toews

  So there we were. I cried quietly for everything that I had lost and for a few things that I had found and for reasons I couldn’t explain and Aggie was I think trying hard not to giggle. We saw Oveja and she grabbed my arm and said he’s alive! Which I thought was interesting in its way. In the way that it might not actually be true but that it seemed true in that very moment. I saw myself lying under a tree with my back to the camera. Diego had used me as a body double for Marijke who had refused to do that scene because of the snakes. It was amazing. I had never seen a photo of myself, let alone a moving picture. I saw Marijke’s giant face fill every inch of the screen. I almost screamed. When we saw the kids from our campo Aggie said ha! Look! It’s Aughte! And somebody behind us told her to be quiet. The fields and the skies were so empty and lonely and alluring. I asked Aggie in a whisper if it made her want to go home and she said no in a loud voice and was told again to shut up. The movie ended and we stretched our legs out and got ready to leave but then the lights came on and a woman with a microphone walked up to the front of the theatre and onto the stage and said that tonight was a very special night because Diego Nolasco was with us and would now be answering questions from the audience.

  I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want Diego to see us and tell someone, anyone, the police, our father, where we were. But the lights were on and if we stood up now and tried to leave we’d be completely conspicuous and I imagined Diego calling out hello Irma and Aggie, cómo están? So I hunkered down a bit in my seat and told Aggie we’d stay for the questions and then leave.

  Can I ask one? said Aggie.

  No! I said.

  The woman behind us had clearly been tested. My God, she said, have you no respect?

  I’m sorry, I said. We do, we do. I’m sorry.

  Aggie turned around to say something to the woman and I dug my fingers into her leg and whispered in Low German that she should just shut up and stay calm and then the woman started to say something about how Aggie was a kid, a punk, and shouldn’t be there and I thought about agreeing with her but then Diego’s voice was everywhere and he was up there on the stage in nice clothes and talking into the microphone and smiling and there was applause, a lot of it, that drowned us all out and Aggie settled back into her chair and the woman did too and we all more or less listened to what he had to say.

  Audience member: How did the Mennonites feel about a movie being made about them?

  Diego: There was some interference, certainly. There was some resistance initially. But eventually they realized that we were there to make a respectful film which I think you would agree with, having seen it now. Alfredo, who plays the husband, was very co-operative and helped smooth things out for everyone. For the most part the Mennonites were happy to have us there and were very generous with their time and their land and homes, locations where we shot.

  Audience member: Had you considered opening the film in Chihuahua, where the Mennonites might have seen it?

  Diego: I had, yes, and I still want to bring it to the community so that they can see it, but the logistics of that, now, are still … complicated.

  Audience member: The film is stunning. It’s awe-inspiring. Thank you for making it. My question is, what was the shoot like? What were some of the difficulties you encountered?

  Diego: Thanks. Um, thanks a lot. Well, we had to wait for the right weather, often. It was the rainy season when we were shooting, it was supposed to be, but the rain didn’t come when it was supposed to so we had to use artificial rain. That was problematic but it worked eventually. There also, it was often very hot, and in fact we lost … or one of our lead actors went missing for several days because … she had heatstroke and went missing in the desert. She walked away from the shoot and got lost. We had warned her not to walk but … Originally I had a girl from the community that I had hired as a translator and sort of companion but she was … she wasn’t able to stay so … But … anyway … the actress was okay in the end. She had to be hospitalized for exhaustion or … for several days so during that time we shot other scenes.

  Audience member: Hello Diego. I want to first of all congratulate you. In my opinion Campo Siete is a masterpiece. You are an extra ordinary artist. You’ve transformed a place of austerity and poverty into a place of strange beauty. I don’t know how you do it but I think I can say for everyone here tonight that we are all so grateful that you do do it. Congratulations. Bravo.

  Diego: Oh, well, thanks very much.

  Audience member: Why did you choose to make a movie about Mennonites?

  Diego: I don’t care about the Mennonites as a group. Not at all. I’m interested in the fact that nobody would understand their language and that they were uniform. There’s no distinction, one from the other, and so they are props, essentially, for pure emotion. Even their setting, you don’t know what era it is or where, blonds in Mexico, it doesn’t matter, ultimately, when all you want is to communicate an emotional truth.

  Audience member: I read something in one of the papers here months ago that there had been a violent incident at the campo where you were making the film. Can you speak of that?

  Diego: Yes, there was a shooting.

  Audience member: Did it involve your crew or any people involved in the making of the film?

  Diego: No. No, no, it was … there was a shooting at the farm down the road.

  Audience member: In the paper it said that the shooting was drug related. I found that so surprising, that the Mennonites would be involved in that type of thing.

  Diego: Yes, well … it is, I guess. I don’t know the details. I believe it was a debt of some kind.

  Audience member: A drug debt?

  Diego: Yeah … I think so. The guy who lived there was just … he just stored the drugs for … I don’t know who. It’s a very remote area so it’s a good place for that. The people are very poor. There were … there aren’t many opportunities. And apparently the person came to get the … to get it … and it wasn’t there and he became very angry and killed the … guy.

  Audience member: In the paper it mentioned, I think, that the victim was related to a member of your crew.

  Diego: Member of my crew? No, no, I don’t think … oh, yeah, well … the person I was talking about before, the girl I had hired as a translator for Marijke … that person … the victim … or … he was her relative.

  Audience member: He was her father?

  Diego: He was her husband.

  Audience member: I understand you used natural lighting in the making of your film. I’m curious about how that worked for interior shots.

  Diego: I’m sorry?

  Audience member: I understand you used natural lighting in the making of your film. How did you manage to get enough light for the interior shots?

  Diego: If there’s not a lot of natural light coming in from windows or with one or two lamps, then that’s how it is. The shot is dark. (He turns to the woman who introduced him, indicating that he’d like the question-and-answer period to be over.)

  Woman: We only have time for one or two more questions. Yes?

  Audience member: Are you in the process of working on something new? Are you writing another script?

  Diego: Yes, of course. I’m always working on something new.

  Audience member: Can you tell us what it’s about?

  Diego: It’s not about Mennonites, that much I’ll say. (The audience laughs and Diego smiles and waves goodbye.)

  Audience member: Is it—

  Woman: I’m sorry, we’ll have to stop there. Thank you, Diego, for—(The audience bursts into applause and drowns out the woman and Diego waves again and leaves the stage.)

  Aggie and I left the theatre and walked into a park across the street. It was very dark for Mexico City. We sat down on a small wooden bench and Aggie whispered things to me, the consolation of a thirteen-year-old. He came back! she said, beautiful words and sweet promises and hugs, while I wept. Aggie didn’t loosen her grip, though. Then later, at h
ome, after she had fallen asleep with streaks of eyeliner on her face and Ximena had polished off her bottle and flung it at the wall, I took my notebook out and wrote a list of the sins I had committed. It’s good to have an itinerary even if it only leads to hell.

  I broke a promise and told my father the truth, that Katie was planning to go to Vancouver, because I didn’t want her to leave and because of that she ended up dead.

  I lied to the police about everything because I didn’t want my dad to go to jail and because of that we had to move to Mexico where the life gradually drained out of my mother.

  By lying to the police I killed my soul and stopped believing in an afterlife because life after death seemed almost exactly the same as life before it.

  I selfishly took a job as a translator which resulted in Aggie being curious about filmmaking and late nights and boys which resulted in her being beaten by our father.

  I stole Jorge’s drugs to sell for money to run away from home and buy plane tickets with my little sisters so we wouldn’t end up being killed by my father. (I also took Diego’s truck for a while, which constituted more stealing.)

  By stealing Jorge’s drugs to sell to Carlito Wiebe to save myself Jorge ended up dead.

  I killed my sister.

  I killed my mother.

  I killed my husband.

  I killed my soul.

  I read over my sins. I hit myself on the side of my head. I pressed my hands into my face. I tried to push back. I walked into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. I saw the red outlines of ten fingers on my face. I picked up the bottle that Ximena had thrown away and put it in the sink. I walked back into the bedroom and looked at my sleeping sisters. I remembered Jorge’s foaming shoes. How he waited on that corner. His shame. My shame. I didn’t know what to do. I wondered if this was how it always was when you realize big things, for instance, that you’re a serial murderer, that all you can do is go into different rooms and look at things and people and not understand. Marijke had been wrong. What’s terrible is not easy to endure and what’s good is not easy to get. Why had she looked so haunted in the movie? I don’t know. I touched the spot between my eyes, the source of my internal light and cosmic energy. I waited for something to happen but nothing did. I knelt beside the bed and covered my face again with my hands and prayed for forgiveness. Please God, I said. Help me to live. When I opened my eyes nothing had changed. I closed them again and again. I remembered Marijke telling me that she had done that too, in the desert, hoping that the next time she opened her eyes she’d see her son. And then I remembered that she had never told me why she’d stopped aging at fourteen. I closed my eyes and tried to see Jorge. I opened them again and went back into the bathroom and sat on the edge of the tub and washed my feet thoroughly and then dried them very carefully, between each toe, all over. I went to bed. I dreamed that I was standing in the front yard of my house in Canada and waving goodbye to everyone I loved. I had to go away, I didn’t know where, and the sun was shining beautifully and my grandma and my parents and my brothers and sisters and Jorge and all my friends from school were standing on the front steps and smiling and waving and telling me they loved me. Maybe they were crying a little bit but they were also trying to look happy and positive. And in that moment it was too much, I felt all the love, more than I had ever felt before in my life, a universal love, and I didn’t want to go after all. But in my dream I had to go. I didn’t know why.

  After that day I developed a headache that wouldn’t go away. I saw lightning flashes in the corners of my eyes like two storms coming in slowly from both the east and the west. Aggie bought me a giant bottle of Tylenol and I popped them all day long while I tried to get my work done. Natalie said that it might be because of the changing season, it was spring and the jacarandas were exploding, or it might be allergies or it might be stress. Or it might be a brain tumour, said Aggie, pressing down on my optical nerve. It’s just storms, I’d say. I don’t know.

  Do you hear thunder? said Aggie. Do you feel the wind picking up in your brain? She threw the giant bottle of Tylenol at me and I shook them straight out of the bottle into my mouth without using water to wash them down. Hubertus got me a bunch of vitamins and minerals and cod liver oil too, but none of that stuff worked at all. He told me not to work for a few days and lie in the dark with a cold cloth on my forehead so I tried doing that but lying around all day just made me restless and nervous. Aggie stayed home from school to take care of Ximena so I could rest but that wasn’t really working either because X. liked to crawl all over me and suck on the wet washcloth and Aggie was getting bored and pissed off. She wanted to go to school and she wanted to see Israel and get on with her regular life.

  I’m trying to work something out, I told her.

  What are you trying to work out?

  I don’t know, I said.

  That’s why the storms?

  Do you study English in school? I asked her.

  Israel’s mom thinks you should talk to a priest.

  I’m not Catholic, I said.

  She said it doesn’t matter, said Aggie. You get to hear him say my daughter.

  Say my daughter?

  He has to call you my daughter, she said. It’s just how they talk.

  You went? I said.

  Yeah, I go sometimes with Israel. His mom makes him.

  Really? I said.

  So the next day I asked Natalie if she could watch X. for an hour or so while I went to church and she said sure and I found a church and walked into a confession booth. I waited for the priest to call me his daughter but he didn’t. He waited for me to speak, to confess something, and I wanted to tell him all about the lies and the stealing and the murders but I couldn’t speak. I didn’t want to tell him anything because I was still afraid that if I did, something bad would happen to my father. I was silent. The priest asked me if I was going to talk to him and I said no. Then after a little while he told me that he had quite a lot of people to talk to that day. I didn’t say anything. He said so if I wanted to come back another time that would be okay with him but that he should probably make himself available for other people now. He said it kindly. He apologized for his awkwardness. I waited for him to say my daughter. I didn’t say anything. He asked me again if I would prefer to come back another time and I still didn’t say anything and then he said please, my daughter, I honestly don’t know what to tell you.

  I was back in my bed with lightning raining down on my cerebral cortex and Ximena’s screams drifting up from the courtyard. I was still trying to form a picture of Jorge in my mind. I saw Katie getting ready to leave, stuffing clothes into a backpack and begging me to promise not to tell. I saw my father as a little boy on a road in Russia. I was trying to get to the bottom of things. I was trying to formulate a thought. Or a cure. Even a cure that had only one part would be enough for now. Aggie was walking around with Ximena trying to get her to calm down after she bit into a live electrical cord. She was singing to her, a silly little Low German song about ducks swimming in the sea. It was a new kind of scream for Ximena. She was in real pain. She had suffered a serious shock. I was familiar with her entire repertoire of screams and what they meant but this was something much different. She was surprised and hurt. She was fragile after all, a helpless baby. I listened to her screams and then I put the pillow over my head but I could still hear them. And then, because my little sister had bit into an electrical cord and would not be consoled, or something, I’m not sure why, really, the gathering storms in my head disappeared and I had figured out the solution to my own problem. I understood what it was to want someone to stay. And I knew what to do next. And I knew the answer to my own question: if this was the last day of your life what kind of a story would you write?

  YOU MUST BE PREPARED TO DIE!

  I read over the original heading in my notebook, the one that Diego had given me a long time ago to record my thoughts and observations. I pondered his dark advice. I scratched out the word DIE
and wrote LIVE. Then that seemed cheesy and too uncooly emphatic so I added the words SORT OF. AT LEAST TRY. Even that seemed bossy so I added, in parentheses, a joke: OR DIE TRYING. Then I told myself that it wasn’t funny and crossed it all, every word of it, out and started again.

  I’m on a plane to Chihuahua city. I have a photograph for my mother that she will have to hide and only look at while my father’s in the field. It’s of the three of us, her Mexico City girls. Aggie has a pierced eyebrow now and the craziest smile and most beautiful eyes and Ximena is struggling to get out of my arms so that she can assault the photographer (Noehmi). I’m holding on to her and saying something. My mouth is half open and my eyebrows are furrowed, like always.