WHEN EVITA PERÓN ENTERED INTO IMMORTALITY, for the first time I became acutely aware of the
relationship between things that demand our undivided attention and daily
life, which only pretends to go on around us.
Since then, winter has always
smelled of death to me.
The perfume of jasmine announcing
the arrival of summer, butterflies, hair and clothing
flowing in the breeze, allowed me to imagine I could find a new place
in my world. I seemed to drag the rest around with me like a
burden, an unsettling awareness of shapeless spaces created by my
mother and set adrift on a ship that never fully set anchor in
the port of Buenos Aires. With time I became the captain of that
ghost ship. Her attempts to conceal that legacy were brimming with
food, layers of warm clothing and, at times a gentle embrace
during my weekly bath that she gave to me in the tub filled with
warm water. A longing caress, warm, snug, moist, felt through
the towel.
“Essay topic”: Mother’s Day. I
used to invent a different Tinkeleh for this homework assignment. She
opened my notebook once, which almost never
happened, and came across the image of her own unrecognizable face.
She didn’t know what to say. She would have loved to say
something, but breaking the pact of silence between us was unthinkable.
Her heavy sigh became the strongest element of the bond
between us.
My father is a meticulous
storyteller, from Bible stories to family chronicles. I learned from
him to follow the paths of exotic tales that took place both
in the realm of fantasy and the concrete world. We covered it
all, from using tools or making adhesive to fix furniture, to
delving into the Jewish past through literature and interweaving the
stories of ancestors and those close to us. How we cherished
those moments together. In school there were three basic
subject areas: letters, numbers, and useless things. I love
letters, I detest numbers, and I was forced to take useless
things. Cross-stitch, for example, mending old socks, sewing a hem
on a skirt. I felt like dashing off to the worlds I discovered
wide-eyed with my father. I preferred a hundred times over the macramé
shoulder bags, the fishing rods, and the carving boards that the
boys made to those insipid chores of “young ladies.” The way social
roles are assigned is appalling; pre-arranged attitudes and roles
ruin the fun in everything.
She’s here again, sustaining a
windstorm of memories with yerba mate and milk. Here, in this
place, she’s stuck to my skin, tattooed like a number.
Hysterical teachers who yell more
than they speak, neighborhood women whose words are as frayed
as their bedroom slippers, all passing through life on the
installment plan. That’s how I felt at times, like I was on a payment
plan, always choosing between woodworking and cross-stitch, or
the bread that makes up the body and soul of Tinkeleh. Those
that she cared and longed for remain hidden amongst the
shadows. My world consisted of the afternoon soaps or the Cine Lux
radio show on Saturday night. Fernando Siro and Rosa Rosen,
Julio César Barton and “The Princess Who Wanted to Live.” I
imagined my own Gregory Peck getting out of his Fiat 600 to
take me in his arms. And, of course, there were the books with which I
created my living environment. Being able to discover the melody
hidden behind words turned me into an avid reader, an
attentive listener, and a subtle observer. Among the white pages
and the silence, I was able to interpret the symbols of a
narrative that transpires between what’s known as reality and the
afternoon soaps.
Smokes, yerba mate, literature. Saratoga, Cruz Malta, Corín Tellado. Yerba mate, smokes, literature.
Taragü., Le Mans, Simone de Beauvoir. Literature, yerba
mate, and smokes. Emily Dickenson, Cruz Malta, and Marlboro.
Choosing. An obsession? Or militancy? Tinkeleh, Rivka,
Hannah, Eva Perón. Without repeating or stalling. Mate, literature,
smokes, militancy. That’s how it got started. In that order. Unsweetened mate with milk, lots of poetry, some novels, constant
reading, filtered cigarettes, and a lot of smoke to fill my lungs
with Evita.
My father played the role of fire
stoker in all this. Topics and concerns: the destiny of Israel,
the survival of Judaism, chess,Yiddish, a few legendary writers.
A narrative I’ve been embroidering since adolescence with a sloppy
but convincing stitch. Every once in a while I completed a
woodworking project that took the home economics teacher by
surprise. That’s how I made up for the embarrassment over the
horrible scarf I knitted wider that it was long or the unacceptable
knickers that turned out like briefs and made me the butt of jokes about
my so-called feminine abilities.
At fifteen I added splendid tales
about heroes and novels with various Quixotes. I invented
stories while daydreaming of her and watching her slowly drift off. I
also included the Zionist fervor of my father, who considered
himself a reservist at the ready to be called upon by the Israeli
army. I left aside the neighborhood girls, so close and yet so far
from being the women that I desired them to be and that they refused
to be. Goodbye, Glostora Tango Club, Cine Lux Radio, Samson and
Delilah, forever. I crumpled them all into a ball and I threw
it into a little container I used for a wastebasket. We shall meet
again in one of Che Guevara’s chapters, in Neruda’s “Heights of
Machu Picchu,” or in the punches thrown by Bonavena. With
or without them, within reach of Roberto Arlt or one of
his melancholy ruffians who take me in along the way and we keep
each other company without making any demands.
No demands? Those were the days! I, who molded myself in the image and likeness of duty.
A hand claws at this hood
underneath which I desperately try to breathe. What else will they do
if I don’t play by the rules? Do they have any concept of mercy?
What are you rambling about, Rita? Am I who I hoped to be or
am I the hand that pulls at this rag as if it were the curtain for
a show that demands many encores? I’m an actress in an unstable
cast of characters. I’m a momentary detour in her sea of uncertainty.
I
did set anchor in the Río de la Plata, and in this unrecognizable frozen morgue that’s overflowing with viscous anger-filled bodies, in a fierce struggle with that hell they try to reproduce in their harsh cackles.
did set anchor in the Río de la Plata, and in this unrecognizable frozen morgue that’s overflowing with viscous anger-filled bodies, in a fierce struggle with that hell they try to reproduce in their harsh cackles.
Tinkeleh, Rivka, Hannah, Evita.
Am I headed in your direction? Toward each one of you? Life
flows from them into me. The furtive passion of what I
desired, of what I don’t yet know, of all they inspired in me flows from me
to them.
I
drag them with me as I drag myself desperately along.
No comments:
Post a Comment