Beyond Babylon
Page 22
I didn’t enjoy myself with him. It was all about obedience, a perpetual sir, yessir. I never orgasmed with Carlos. With Elias, your father, yes. The first and only time. Elias was kind. He knew where to touch me, what to do, what to say. It was so unusual for me to be treated like a person that I had multiple orgasms out of joy. I don’t know why I let Carlos do those things to me. After making love with your father, I knew that another Miranda was possible. Another way was allowed. When I think about it, Carlos and I never even had a nice conversation. Yes, he was handsome, very handsome, but was that enough for me? His colors were subdued, different from my own. Carlos was pastel, not olive like me. He was the pretense I was searching for. The pretense that, in a certain sense, I wanted to imitate. I’d watch as he got dressed. He was slow and meticulous. Each article of clothing was a ritual. In private he sprayed everything on you, but the public had to see him as an honest, upright man without perversions. To satisfy those, he had my dumb ass and the desaparecidos whose suffering gave him pleasure as they roasted from the picana. The desaparecidos and I, complementary, interchangeable.
Carlos died, someone told me, in forgettable fashion. An accident. A car cut him off on the street. They say he died on impact. He didn’t suffer. There was no justice. The news left me indifferent.
After all, he didn’t look me in the eye when he stuck his penis in my ass.
Flaca, though, was someone who looked you in the eye. She recognized you well before picking up your scent. She loved you even before you looked for her. I loved her. As a sister, as a friend, a woman, and a lover. We weren’t actually lovers. I only gave her that one kiss at the movies. She responded by opening her mouth and sticking out her tongue. It was dark. No one saw us. The moviegoers were more interested in the late Marilyn Monroe’s breasts. I still wonder why she responded to the kiss. We never spoke about it. Two days later, Ernesto asked us, “So, what have you done, liars?” Flaca tenderly took his hand and said, “We gave each other a kiss.” My blood froze. Ernesto laughed amiably. “You’re becoming good friends.”
Flaca didn’t know how to lie. Ernesto, on the other hand, rarely picked up on low blows. He was too pure to think his sister was in love with the woman he intended to marry. It didn’t register with him that women could love other women. I, however, didn’t love all women, only Flaca. She was and is my only great love. The only one I’ve truly had. The only one Ernesto truly had.
How silly my brother was, from the time he started loving that girl. He was peculiar in a harmonious way, with dissonances that concluded in logic. He blushed, trembled, stammered. Perfectly in love, with its clear, unmistakable symptoms. He was delicate with her, sometimes too delicate. Ernesto was afraid of breaking her, his Flaca. He believed she was angelic, incorporeal, barely human. He touched her tenderly and cautiously. She was the most important string of his guitar, the string which kept the entire melody of life alive. His Flaca, su mujer, ahí, qué lindo vivir junto a ella. Her fragile, compact, tiny essence. A flash of light in his beautiful, boyish eyes.
I loved watching those two. They gave me hope. They were in love, happy, and reckless. They made love in hidden alcoves. Their sighs elided with those of nocturnal animals. Ernesto was big, giant, muscular; Flaca, small, delicate, impalpable. In the end that small woman didn’t die at Esma like her muscular man. She survived the torture and everything else. The picana, the insults, the humiliations, the beatings, the spit, the threats, the agony. She, slight and fragile, had made it. She was a survivor, a dragonfly held up by her pain. Oh, if only it had been that way for Ernesto. He was too good to survive, too much of a man to make others less fortunate than him take his place.
I will die in your place, companions. Me, friends. Go on with your lives, I beg you. Laugh, eat, amuse yourselves, make love. I will take your place in death’s carriage. I am tired of smiling while they burn my testicles. Tired of resisting. I don’t want these scum to see me cry. I am thinking about my mother when she sang while trying to wash clothes. Ah, Ma, you were never good at cleaning. You weren’t cut out to be a housewife. You always had the foibles of a diva. And Ma, you have beautiful hands. One wouldn’t know you salted fish for half your life. You should’ve been singing your fados in some smoky place, in your adored Lisbon, not washing our soiled underwear. It’s a shame I never saw Lisbon, Ma. Sometimes I dream of it in this prison.
I enjoyed hearing you sing, Ma. I accompanied you, clumsy with the notes I didn’t know how to make sense of. No one sings here, Ma. Here, all anybody does is cry and groan. Most of the time we stay silent. Ma…
Not him, Mar. He didn’t make it. He was broken, insulted, and mistreated. I don’t know where he died. Without a burial, without the comfort of a visit, yours or mine.
Desaparecido, one of many. A number, not a goodbye.
The end was only a distraction for him. The sedative injection and the drop toward Río de la Plata, perhaps not the relief he was expecting. I can’t imagine my brother in there. I can’t imagine anyone in there. I’ve read many books over the years. Testimonials, fiction, reconstructions. I’ve read confounding details, prosaic details, details of details. I’ve read and tried to understand, I’ve tried putting myself in those people’s shoes. I’ve gone mad in the attempt. And I’ve written. Mar, I still don’t understand anything. They tell you things, many things. But deep down you don’t really understand. How can one conceive of such horror? How can one enter into another’s pain? You can’t. You can do anything, try any road, but the truth is that you won’t enter it. The road is blocked. You can approach it if you’d like, become acquainted, help others become acquainted with it. We can’t understand the pain of the desaparecidos. We can’t understand anyone’s pain, but we don’t have to forget. That’s why I write, why I try.
I had no memory of the ludicrous Rome of the late seventies. I didn’t try remembering it either. I lived in the present with annoying interferences from the past. Finding Flaca again warmed my heart. I was happy to see her, happy to chat with Pablo and relive the Buenos Aires of the time when I was still pure. Flaca bore on her body the signs of something I didn’t want to think about. She was of unsound mind. She no longer thought the way she used to. No irony, no wordplay, nothing. Emptiness. She never took off her white Marilyn Monroe dress. There was no way to make her take it off. Sometimes, to take a bit of the stench away, she rubbed dry soap over herself. Flaca reeked. She reeked of memories, fears, and cauliflower. She reeked and I wept.
One day I came to the little room in San Lorenzo with a plan. I wanted to motivate her. I wanted to reclaim my friend from a time long since past.
“Go clean up, Rosa, we’re leaving.”
She wasn’t speaking much anymore. Pablo explained that whenever she did grunt some small word, it was barely audible. Her muteness had begun in Europe.
“With every journey, one word less.”
In Rome, Rosa exhausted her stockpile of words. She still sang, even if it was always that one Dylan song. She went to wash up and I swapped out her dress. I’d found a theatrical costume seller near Piazza Cavour who had a lot of Marilyn garb. The owner was a heavyset man, chatty and stylish. He gave me an honest price that bled me dry. I was so poor in those days. It was a sacrifice that I made freely for Flaca. I would’ve prostituted myself for her. Anything for her.
The shower gave me time to fill Pablo in on my plans.
“I want to see her dance one more time.”
Pablo shook his head. “She won’t do it.”
I will never forgive myself for bringing her to that place. I led her to a horrible fate. But how could I have known? How…? I wanted to do her some good, give her a shock, just a little one. I forgot that at Esma she’d had plenty. I was a fool for trying to elicit a simple emotion.
I was full of ideas at the time. Pure effervescence. Maybe you, Mar, were the one who pumped so much enthusiasm into my life? I’d slept with your father. I was already pregnant. Everything happened very quickly. Our meeting up agai
n, our distracted loving, piecing ourselves back together. I needed warmth and I needed him. Your father was worn down—a man in exile. He wanted to feel like a human being. I did too. We hugged each other. A joke, an aside.
When I brought Flaca to the dance studio, no one knew about my pregnancy except me, Elias and, of course, you, my daughter. I was never able to hide things from him. I respected him. Likewise, he respected me. It may have been the most stable relationship I’ve ever had. Men always used me, hija, and took me for a fool.
I was obsessed with dancing in those days, especially the dancers themselves. I was obsessed with Flaca and her lost dance. Did you know she was a wonderful ballerina? A promise for Argentina. Do you know what they did? They broke her points. Those bastards struck her on her legs, her future. They flattened her feet. Many years later, after Flaca was gone, one of her prison mates told me that a “green,” a soldier named Ruiz, would pull her big toe until it bled. He enjoyed watching her bleed.
I wanted to do something for her, Mar, the only woman who was my friend, whom I loved more than a sister, more than my mother. I only wanted to see her dance. She was gorgeous when she did. Everything seemed possible, the entire universe was manageable. I didn’t want to hurt her. I didn’t imagine that fate…
I thought about her and Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires for me was Rosa dancing happily, not the cemetery that the soldiers had made it into. Dancing Rosa. I wanted to see her dance in Rome. That’s all. I wasn’t trying to be selfish.
I’m skipping the context, the characters, the lives. First I should tell you who Rosa was in Buenos Aires, but I haven’t been doing that. Rosa was beautiful. I don’t know what else to tell you. She wasn’t like the dancers now who dance for applause and glory. She danced for the dance itself, for the music. She was a go-getter who put her heart into whatever she did. She didn’t want to show the world that she was the greatest. Flaca danced because she had no other choice. It was like breathing. “I want to be music,” she told me, “I want to transform into a note.” When she soared toward heaven, you believed that she was a note, she was music. Rosa worked hard. Ernesto griped about her fastidiousness, her overzealousness. “She never thinks of me.” In this regard, Ernesto was an idiot like all men. She took a step and everyone fell silent, even him. He adored seeing her dance. Rosa was technical in her training, to a fault. She tried and tried again. She sweated like a ram and was happy when she performed a step as she’d envisioned it. “It’s the only way I can free myself.” That was her favorite thing to say. Her teacher Igor Ivanovic, who had trained the greats, instructed her properly. She wanted to memorize the techniques and moves, then forget them when the dance began. She wanted to play with the dance, improvise, discover herself. She performed as anyone, any woman. With her steps she was a queen and a whore, a saint and a sinner, a leper and a prisoner. She was Carmen, Odette, Juliette, Manon. She was Rosa. She was Buenos Aires. She was the person I didn’t know I could be.
That day in Rome, each of her movements was a ritual. She wore her consecrated white dress that afternoon, as one wears a tunic for a secret rite. She was the vestal Norma Jeane Baker, the priestess of a lost memory. I had on a brown dress that I’d bought the week before at Porta Portese. I spoke in rapid bursts about something or other. I was like a radio gone haywire. She was mute beside me. We were a strange couple.
The dance school was downtown on Via dei Giubbonari, in a condominium built before the ventennio. The plaster was falling to pieces, everything was flaking off. I went in warily. I didn’t know what I would’ve done to protect myself. I was met by a woman with sunken cheeks. You could see in her face the effort it took to be someone she wasn’t. She opened the door and said, “Good evening, Argentinian friends.” Una sonrisa norteamericana que no me gustaba, carajo. The woman smiled too much, it was strained.
“Which one of you is Rosa?”
Flaca stepped forward. It was a graceful dance step, a gift. The sunken-cheeked woman looked at her disdainfully. I didn’t see it at first. I thought it was admiration. No. This was pure hatred, dark envy.
“We don’t dance here, miss. We do that later, in the gym. Didn’t they ever teach you discipline?” The word made me shiver.
Had I perhaps brought my Flaca back to Esma? Instead of Videla and his minions, who was there now? This ugly woman, that’s who. An ugly, sunken-cheeked woman in leggings.
I wanted to take my Rosa away from there, but something held me back. A charge in the air, I think. A charge with a face, a name: Elsa. For her, it was worth resisting, breathing.
A woman formed in miniature. A perfect woman. A bundle of muscles and efficiency.
“Don’t mind Barbara,” she told us. “She’s jealous by nature. She can’t stomach other people’s talents.”
The woman with the sonrisa norteamericana retreated with her tail between her legs. She looked like she might retch.
“Barbara is a perfectionist. Don’t pay her any mind.”
“Does she know it?” I asked stupidly.
“Of course she knows, otherwise she wouldn’t come here to let me insult her and be my helper. She’s sadistic and thinks that makes her stronger. Besides saying it, what can I do?”
Elsa was Hungarian. She’d been deported to Auschwitz, and at that point she no longer had any reservations. Barbara, however, doesn’t come back into our story again. She was kind, despite everything, especially when she spoke about her Fiat 500. Thinking about it makes me sad. She didn’t have anything that was truly hers, except her perfectionism.
You should remember another name. Alberto Tatti. A man I met in a stairwell who worked for a local radio station. I think it was fate. Ah, why did I bring her there?
THE PESSOPTIMIST
Somalia now is only its war.
“The people know nothing else, Zuhra. They know that there is dying in Mogadishu, but they don’t know much else. They don’t even know where we are on the map. Once, a lady asked me if Fidel Castro was the leader of Somalia. I laughed, but Zuhra, I should’ve cried. It’s the Italians’ fault we’re doing badly today and they don’t even know how to point us out on their garish maps.”
For Maryam Laamane, Somalia wasn’t only its war, but also the most beautiful peace. That’s why she remembered the way it was before. The age of independence, when the Horn had hopes and beautiful dreams.
July 1, 1960. It was Africa’s year. Everyone believed it was Africa’s year, and not only because of independence. Africans especially believed it. Those from the North, the South, the East, the West. The islanders, too.
Muslims and Christians believed it. And Jews with them. And animists with them. And atheists, too, along with the communists. Some anarchists believed it as well. Those who didn’t believe in anything started believing it.
It was because of their ebullient dreams and willpower. People rooted for those who were not yet free, like Algeria two years later. The cheering was unbridled, bordering on indecency. They shouted that name, Algeria, lifting their arms in the air. They lifted their arms to pray, fight, rejoice, and hope. Algeria! Africa shouted and rose up. A grand contest between the oppressed and the oppressor.
1960 was Africa’s year because Africans dreamed, their hearts beat, their minds were stimulated, their stomachs never begged. It was a good year.
Then it was over. There were mistakes afterward. An array of nightmares. Delusions, cruelties, foolishness. Many realized that nothing changed. They had become the Third World. It was somewhat like being a colony. They still depended on others. Their leaders, champions of liberty, were corrupt. Those who weren’t were assassinated. Military powers, sacred powers, bureaucratic powers, depraved powers. All the powers in the limelight, excepting one. That of the people.
The year passed. 1960, the people’s year, lasted for a single beautiful moment.
Maryam Laamane remembered that she was young in 1960. She was young and tender like a growing calf.
“Yes, my Zuhra, like a beautiful calf.”
Not even Maryam understood. At the time, she didn’t understand many things about the world. She dreamed and walked the streets without a care. She wasn’t a fool. She knew this was a special day, one she’d remember. But in the moment she didn’t make much of it. Maryam was easily distracted. That, for her, would be remembered as the day she became Howa Rosario’s friend.
They went to the movies to see Marilyn Monroe, a plump white girl with a big chest, light hair, a full mouth, and a funny face. Maryam was disppointed when she saw the film poster outside the theater.
“Are there Indians with feathers—alibesten—in this movie?” she asked her new friend.
“I don’t think so,” Howa replied, ever spare with her words.
“That’s too bad. I like the alibesten. I always cheer for them. I don’t like the cowboys. They have hideous blue clothes and nasty hair. The alibesten have long black hair that they braid. They’re very beautiful.”
“Now then, little girl, have you lied to me?” Howa asked with false reproach.
“I don’t tell lies,” Maryam declared indignantly.
“You told me you’ve never been to the cinema! Now I find out you know all there is to know about alibesten and cowboys.”
“No, Howa, I told you the truth,” the girl whined.