I invented my anxiety to be alone. All the groups of the family who were stuck to the table, leaning against the wardrobes, lying in the armchairs, coming from the cellars ,climbing on the vine ready to take even the last ripe bunch, went back to the back yard. For only one moment I cannot. be seen by them. They wanted to say good bye, talking in a clearly understanding tone. I stayed alone with Magdalena because she has the right to hear what I have to tell her. Two days ago I heard , among the noise of jokes, laughs and endless stories of old events with what they want to entertain the five minutes they are with us, that Magdalena is inevitably dying in a few hours. As today they have come in big groups and it is any day of the week, it seems that in a while we are not escaping from the sticky cloud of the smell of piled flowers coming to us.
On the days after Magdalena´s death, I will become a question of time for the ones who are watching the thing. They´will accomodate to wait for the neighbour who passed by to do an errand at the other corner. Each one of them will repeat his telephone number for the other, who never calls him, so that he will immediately phone in case something happens; this is the way the news of my death will be called.
The family is big, although it seemed to be bigger when we were fewer and the priest used to come to eat and talk, when we had the book from the store which was getting longer and longer for several months and then it was paid when the wool was sold, also when our mother´s voice was heard everywhere telling us the things to do in the house. We were the ones who had to cook the things that weren´t bought ready made as we do at present.
The house and the secret will die with me. Because I will tell nobody that Magdalena, the sister who dies being a virgin for everybody, like the ones who stayed to watch the house, actually had a son she did not see or know the sex, she did not even know if he was born alive.
The eight sisters who were around mother at the moment of taking the decision, pointed our father as the guilty person for such a misbehaviour of his favourite daughter. He allowed her to leave the house more than it was convenient.
Four of us were chosen to have children and they left with their husbands. The other four, we were the pillars of the family: the ones who baptized, made the shawls for the babies, the laces of the sheets, and we received on Sunday teas. We were called at parties so everybody could feel the arrival of the blessing of the surname. Our sisters ´husbands pushed themselves to sit in our father´s place while their women competed in having the bigger number of children.
Why, Magdalena, are we going to remember those endless siestas that only finished when we had to return to listen to the radio and drink mate and for you to go to the kitchen? Only when some people visited us, you came nearer, wisely, at the suitable moment so nobody missed you. You used to sit half step behind the others and on a chair, never in an armchair. You had accepted the condemn without saying anything and without any explanation from anybody. Maybe because you understood that your belly was like a scoop of earth on each dining-room picture and that only by mentioning your pregnancy , an entrance of the Evil was allowed in the house.
You have paid for your sin, Magdalena. You were good, you worked and you never asked the question about the destiny of your son. We did not let you confess so that not even the priest could look at us accusingly. You mustn´t think that the promise of silence we did among us was easy. You cannot forget anything so easily. There was always something in your clothes, your expression, or you r silences that reminded us of your story, Magdalena.
Nobody went into our bedrooms but when the nephews began to walk, they invariably wanted to ask what there was inside. We taught one that he couldn´t go in and when he finally learnt, there was already another one with the same impertinence.. Our married sisters renewed us that trouble again and again as if they had forgotten that they had lived just like us: each one protecting her room with closed shutters and doors void between our rooms, the ones which led to the living-room and the interior patio were carefully locked. Now I go into yours and sit as I remember I did only when we were young. And I do it because your arms and your legs have been weak for two days. And now I am telling you.
We did what we should when we made your son disappear. Everything was well done, clean and without any suspicions. Lilith took him, the same person who assisted you when your delivery. We knew that she existed and that she had a good clientele in the city because the priest always abhorred of her. And we paid her so she would give him to somebody who did not live in Salto. Lilith left the house with him (we never knew where), and curiously she never came back. Not long ago, perhaps months or years ago, a neighbour told me that Lilith had died in Buenos Aires. We did not tell you anything not to remind you of your sin. You accepted to continue half hidden after those months when ,for everybody, you were ill.
We never knew anything about who the father was and you might have forgotten his figure and name. I also ignore how many times you saw that man. But what I did know was that since you were discovered, you did not see him any more, not even once. You accepted you were guilty. And we watched you carefully from behind the doors.
Our nephews might think that your secondary place was natural because they never knew any other thing; and you were supposed to do all the duties in the house because surely you could do them better than anyone else. There is no danger that their mothers had told them anything. There was something worse for them than for us the single ones: the clean surname they had taken to their husbands´families.
I tell you that you had a son. Think that our parents spent their whole lives expecting a son and you had him without deserving him. Many years have passed because you were young then; he must be like us now, an old person. Our father could never be an old man. And at this very moment he may have his grandchildren around him and he might be telling them stories about a childhood nobody knows. Seventy years have passed. But I am absolutely sure you do not want to see your son. You two will be calculating your age, looking at the features on your faces, not trusting each other, accusing yourselves and wishing that the other one had vanished under the earth.
Is it worth for you to die with the idea that you had a fertile belly, not like mine mixed among vapours of eucalyptus and clouds of naphthalene to make the spiders go away?
First the younger single ones, and then one after the other the married ones also died, seen by their husbands and their children. We always arrived to take care of the shroud, the stamps and the medals that should go with their bodies. The same happened when any cousin died. And it was also our duty to sit on the header of the bed and to be the first in receiving the condolences.
When we feel that we are leaving, that we are taking the last glance around us, we need the sympathy even of the unknown people who are beside us by chance. I learnt it the day they left me alone with a heart-attack. What is more important is the good look, the understanding and pitiful look of the nurse and not the reproval or disinterestedness of the person we love. There is no time to make anything clear. We only realize that the world unbelievably remains and we leave it without affecting anybody.
The young priest, the first one in our cathedral who dared not to wear his cassock, may not give importance in his response, that Heavens receives a virgin. And without knowing it, he will not be lying.
I brought you the forgiveness that I have been trying to tell you for two days. I believe, Magdalena, that when I agonize, only one curious nephew will be next to me. I was always afraid of that when I thought I would be the last one. But instead of mine, it is your look which shows forgiveness, and perhaps I will never know what to do with that look of sympathy that your face shows.
Translated: Teresita Barreiro
Tomado de El libro de los suicidas, 2005