How I Became A Nun (3 page)

Another form of the story: I was offering poisoned chocolates to my parents …
Chocolate on the outside, then a very thin layer of glass, and, inside, a solution of
arsenic in alcohol … There was no antidote … No way back … Dad took
one, Mom too … I wanted to rewind time, I was sorry, but it was too late …
They were going to die … The police would have no trouble establishing the cause
of death … they would interrogate me … I decided to confess everything, to
cry rivers of tears and let the current sweep me away … But even death was no
consolation, since without Mom and Dad how could I live anyway? And the worst thing was
that it was unheard of for a little girl to kill her parents … absolutely unheard
of …

And another (but this was an alternative version of the Flood): an animal swimming in the
inundated house, an otter … It would bite our feet if we tried to walk in the
rising water … If my hand slipped from the sheet it would eat my fingers one by
one …

Yet another: I was still rigid with fear, my head propped up on a thick pillow, and my
mother went to open the cupboard with green glass doors opposite the bed, in which I
kept my books… To tell the truth I didn’t have any books: I was too young,
I hadn’t learnt to read … I began to panic … I could hardly breathe
… What had Mom gone to get from the cupboard? Could she have known? She was
taking advantage of my helplessness to … Any moment now she would find it, my
secret … Stop, Mom! Don’t do it! It will only bring you grief, the most
terrible grief of your life! A grief to match my shame and terror …

Needless to say there was no secret … I never had any secrets, although, at the
same time, everything was a secret, but not on purpose … Delirium provided a
model, and not just a model … Mom was rummaging through the cupboard … as
the waters rose … instead of doing something useful, like picking me up and
carrying me in her arms across the fields, over the flooded plains to a safe place! I
hated her for that … She went on searching, in a daze, although the otter, who
had suddenly become my accomplice, was gnawing at her ankles under the water …
and I knew that she had only minutes left to live, the poison would already be taking
effect … that is, if she had eaten the chocolate. And I hoped to God she had!

I hoped … if only … But no. It wasn’t a matter of this or that
happening … but of how the events were combined, or rather the order in which
they occurred … The ordering was different … They were repeating
themselves … Or rather, drifting free … When it was really bad, I wondered
if I was going crazy.

Over all these stories hovered another, more conventional in a way, but more fantastic
too. Separate from the series, it functioned like a “background,” always
there. It was a kind of static story … a chilling episode, with a wealth of
horrific details … It filled me with dread, making the four-part delirium seem
like light entertainment by comparison … Except that it wasn’t just one
more element, a bolt of lightning in a stormy sky … it was everything that was
happening to me … everything that would happen to me in an eternity that had not
yet begun and would never end … I was the girl in an illustrated book of fairy
tales; I had become a myth … I was seeing it from inside …

From inside … I was alone in the house. Mom and Dad had gone to a wake and they
had left me shut inside … in that little old house in Pringles where we no longer
lived … alone with my four cartoon stories going round and round in my head
… my crown of thorns … the two doors were locked, the wooden shutters
closed … a safe for my parents’ living treasure: me. The realism was
meticulous, hermetic … But when I say that I was alone, that the house was
locked, that it was night, these are not circumstances, or sundry elements that could be
linked in a series … The series (the flood, the otter, the chocolates, the
secret) was out there, using up all the delirium my fever could generate… The
only thing left in here was reality, in one great cumbersome, wildly plausible block
…

I had been sternly instructed not to open the door to anyone, under any circumstances. As
if I needed to be told! My life depended on it, and not only my life. It was the first
time I had been left on my own (this never happened in reality) but it was unavoidable
… The first time is always frightening, because of the unknown … I was
confident, the instructions were simple … Don’t open the door. I could do
that. It was easy. They could trust me. Anyway, who would come, at midnight …? My
life and my safety depended on the answer to that question … Who, who, who could
it be?

But someone was knocking at the front door! Beating as if they wanted to break it down!
They weren’t just knocking: they were trying to get in … Why would they
want to do that, if not to kill me? And I was alone …! They must have known
… they knew perfectly well; that was why they had come … At best, they
were burglars … The security of the house was in my hands, but my hands were so
feeble. I was shaking like a leaf, on the other side of the door … Why had they
left me on my own? What was so important that they had to abandon me?

The worst thing was … it was them … it was Mom and Dad knocking at the
door! The monsters had taken on the appearance of my Mom and Dad … I don’t
know how I saw them, through the keyhole, I guess, standing on tiptoe … I got
goose-pimples from head to foot, I froze … the likeness was amazing … they
had stolen their faces, their clothes, their hair … not much hair from Dad
because he was bald, but all Mom’s red curls … They were perfect
imitations, flawless … The trouble they had gone to! Those beings who had no
form, or wouldn’t reveal it to me … those simulacra … with their
sinister intentions … Terror froze my blood, I couldn’t think …

They were thumping at the door in a frenzy; I don’t know how it withstood the
onslaught … They were shouting my name, they had been shouting for hours …
with Mom and Dad’s voices … Even the voices! But slightly different,
slightly hoarse … They had drunk cognac at the wake, and they weren’t used
to it … they were going crazy … They had lost the key, or left it
somewhere … some story … their lying was so transparent … They were
insulting me! They were saying awful things! And I was crying, horrified, dumb,
transfixed …

Dad jumped over the wall into the yard, he went to the kitchen door and started beating
on it, kicking it … I walked through the darkened house, like a sleepwalker,
stopped in front of the kitchen door and prayed to God it would hold … and my
prayer was answered, for once … he went back to the front door …

Even if I’d wanted to let them in, how could I? I was locked in. I didn’t
have the key … Or did I?

That was beside the point. Did I want to let them in or not? Of course not. They
hadn’t fooled me … Or had they? How could I tell? They were exactly like my
parents, more real than the real thing … I kept my eye to the keyhole, hypnotized
by that unreal scene … But there they were in the midst of that unreality, my
parents, it really was them … Not just their masks, but also their expressions,
their tics, their style, their stories … That was how I saw my parents,
especially Dad … it was different with Mom … I didn’t see
Dad’s outward appearance as other people did … I saw the way he was, his
past, his reactions, his reasoning … it was the same with Mom, now that I think
of it … not that I was especially insightful, but they were my parents, so they
had no form, or didn’t reveal it to me … or wouldn’t … that
was the tragedy of my childhood and my whole life … My vision couldn’t be
satisfied with what was visible, it had to go rushing on, beyond, into the abyss,
dragging me along behind …

The blows were deafening, the house was shaking on its foundations … the shouts
grew louder … they were telling me in no uncertain terms … without words
now … but I could understand anyway … But can’t you see it’s
us? Can’t you see it’s us, you idiot? Idiot!

No! My parents wouldn’t talk to me like that … they loved me, respected me
… and yet … sometimes they lost their temper … I was a difficult
girl, a problem child in a sense … and the assailants knew that, they were using
it … all the world’s evil was the clay from which they had molded those two
ghastly dummies …

What would become of me? Would I fall into their hands? Would they get in? Would I open
the door in a reckless moment, without thinking, prompted by an idiotic optimism
… ? Would I believe them?

How could I tell? That was the worst thing: there was no end to it … Or rather:
there was. Because if the only thing missing had been the end, in a way I could have
stayed calm, waiting for it … putting it off, leaving it for later … But
the waiting
was
the end! It was and it wasn’t … It almost seemed
like nothing at all. Because I couldn’t see anything, the delirium wasn’t
strong enough, or it was too strong … I couldn’t see the house in which I
was trapped, I couldn’t see the horrendous mannequins besieging it … the
souls of Mom and Dad … It wasn’t a hallucination … If only it had
been: what a relief! No, it was a force … an invisible radiation …

It lasted a month. Amazingly, I survived. I could say: I woke up. Coming out of the
delirium was like being released from prison. It would have been logical to feel
relieved, but I didn’t. Something had broken inside me, a valve, the little safety
device that used to allow me to switch levels.

WHEN I REGAINED consciousness, I found myself in the pediatric ward of
the Rosario Central Hospital.

I opened my eyes and found myself in a world that was new to me: the world of mothers.
Dad didn’t come to visit me once. But every single day I waited for him, with a
mixture of longing and apprehension that prolonged my delirious trains of thought in a
milder form. Mom came, though, and the scent of terror she brought with her was like
Dad’s shadow. There was no escaping it, because now I was locked into the system
of accumulation, in which nothing is ever left behind. I didn’t ask her about him.
She was different. She seemed distracted, worried, anxious. She didn’t stay long;
she said she had things to do, and I understood. The other beds were attended
twenty-four hours a day by mothers, aunts and grandmothers taking turns. I was alone, a
daughter abandoned in a maternal realm.

There were about forty children in the ward with me, with all sorts of conditions, from
broken bones to leukemia. I never counted them, or made any friends; I didn’t even
speak to any of them.

It took them forever to discharge me, so all the beds were vacated and reoccupied during
my stay, ten times or more in some cases. There were all sorts, from kids who seemed to
be in excellent health and made a phenomenal racket, to others who were listless, lying
still or asleep … I was in the second category. I was so weak I couldn’t
move, and permanently drowsy. A kind of lethargy would set in mid-afternoon and last for
hours. I didn’t even swivel my eyes. Sometimes it went on for whole days or weeks;
I could feel myself falling back into that state without having come out of it, at least
not consciously … And it was a very long way to fall …

Every day, just at the worst time, or the beginning of the worst time, the doctor came to
visit me. He must have been interested in my case; survivors of the cyanide poisoning
were rare. I once heard him pronounce the word “miracle.” If there had been
a miracle, it was entirely involuntary. I was not cooperating with science. An urge, a
whim or a manic obsession that not even I could explain impelled me to sabotage the
doctor’s work, to trick him. I pretended to be stupid … I must have thought
the opportunity was too good to waste. I could be as stupid as I liked, with impunity.
But it wasn’t simply a matter of passive resistance. Doing nothing at all was too
haphazard, because sometimes nothing can be the right response, and I was determined not
to let chance determine my fate. So even though I could have left his questions
unanswered, I took the trouble to answer them. I lied. I said the opposite of the truth,
or the opposite of what seemed truest to me. But again it wasn’t simply a matter
of saying the opposite … He soon learned how to formulate his questions so that
the answer was a simple yes or no. If I had
always
lied, he would have started
translating every answer into its opposite. I considered it my duty to lie every time;
so in order to protect myself, I had to proceed in a roundabout way, which isn’t
all that easy when you have to reply yes or no, without hedging. On top of this, I had
resolved never to mix any truth with my lies. I was afraid that if I lost track, chance
would be able to intervene. I don’t know how I did it, but I managed somehow. Here
are some of my tricks (I don’t know why I’m explaining all this, unless
I’m hoping to inspire other patients by my example): I pretended not to have heard
a question, and when he asked another, I replied to the first one, with a lie, of
course; I replied, always fallaciously, to one element of the question, for example an
adjective or a verb tense, not to the question as a whole; he would ask me “Is
this where it was hurting?” and I would answer “No,” while suggesting
with an ingenious movement of my eyebrows that the place in question was not where it
was
hurting before, but where it was hurting now. He picked up all these
signals—nothing was lost on him—and despondently rephrased his question:
“Is this where it’s hurting?” But by then I had already moved on to a
new system, a new tactic … I should say in my defense that I was making it all up
as I went along. Although I had veritable eons of time in which to think, I never used
that time to plan my lies.

“And how are we today, young Master César? Don’t we look well? Ready
to play ball again? Let’s see how we’re going …”

His cheerfulness was contagious. He was a short young man with a little moustache. He
seemed to come from far away.