We may also note her tonal humor, seen in the proliferation of exclamation points and rhetorical questions, the alternation of brusque statements with long chattering sentences, like the schoolgirls playing the game of “conversation,” imitating old ladies. Boullosa’s vigorously conversational style maintains a steady, intimate bond with her readers, even as it keeps us off-balance. Less noticeable, perhaps, is a current of anger that runs underneath the humor and high spirits, as when our protagonist thrashes a girl who had snatched her sister’s valise: “they tried to pull me off her, but the rage I felt was such that it wouldn’t let me open my jaws as the leg owner shrieked…” In Boullosa, there is always a trace of political anger or protest. Among other things, Before is a subtle portrait of the Mexican upper-middle class, circa late ’50s-early ’60s, who expect nothing but service from the lower classes. They seem shielded from the heavier blows of life, which is why the mother’s death comes as such a shock, almost an obscenity. This novella, germinated in grief, or what Thomas Mann called “disorder and early sorrow,” has been transformed through Boullosa’s literary art and salutary detachment into a lyrical, playful gem.
New York City, February 2016
1
Where were we before we got to this point? Didn’t they tell you? Who could tell you if you had nobody to ask? And do you yourself remember? How could you remember? Particularly as you’re not here…And if I keep on? Well, if I keep on perhaps you’ll show up.
How would I like you to be? I’d like you to be whatever you were! Just warm, not necessarily hot, a piece of dough, to touch, to feel…I’d be happy to feel something, feel it gently, to caress without scratching or hurting and with nothing but nothing at all left on my hands…nothing at all…not a single mark…
But nobody’s with me. Nobody, apart from my fear, my panic, my terror…Fear of whom? There’s no way I can be afraid! I’ve shown in a thousand ways how harmless I am, like a duck on the lakeside waiting for children to throw me a scrap of food or leave something in the paper they carelessly drop…But they’re disgusted by me, disgusted, disgusted is the word. I dirtied their “day out in the country,” dirtied their lakeside breakfast, turned their breakfast haven into a sludgy mess…kids, I’m like you, leave something for me, someone wait for me, stay with me, just for a second, come on, kids!
They leave. Their Dad will take them straight to school now. They didn’t have that disappointed look of wanting to breakfast here…
But I’ll start at the beginning. Sure, I was like those children, I was one of those awkward children, and here I am cut off from their world forever. Children! I was like you once!
I really must overcome my fear and start telling my story.
I was born in Mexico City in 1954. I clearly remember the day I was born. The fear, naturally, I understand her and don’t reproach her — perhaps if I got to be in her situation (I never imagine I could be so lucky) I’d also feel afraid.
The fear was because of grandmother, not to do with me. What about me? I still couldn’t see myself…I was so defenseless…More defenseless than any child of my age, than any other newly born child.
I return to the fear, a woman’s fear: the young woman bathed in sweat, her body suffering the violence of birth stripped of all coquettish charms, visibly beautiful. That day she was paler than usual and when I saw her for the first time every small feature reflected the fear I never imagined would spring upon me and lock its jaw.
Her name was completely different to mine. More resonant, a name I’d give to a son if I had one. Her name was Esther.
Although I’d always seen her in a very distinctive light, I loved her as much as if she were my mother.
How long did it take me to realize she wasn’t my mother? I always knew, but up to the day they came for me, everything acted as if she were.
On the other hand I don’t remember him that night. What was he doing? I’ll say he was at work, give him the benefit of the doubt, but when I saw her pallor, the strange mess between her sheets and the cold (pitiless and uncaring) hands around her, I understood everything. What good was her defiant beauty if the man she wanted wouldn’t love her? Perhaps she was too beautiful to be loved by anyone. I don’t know.
The moment I was born, my grandmother stopped talking outside the house. Complained no more. She took a breath and something or other soothed her. Was it I? She fell asleep immediately. The woman who ought to be my mother, on the other hand, did not sleep; she gave me a look that ran over my body, anointed every component part with its respective name, turned me upside down with a feeling similar to tenderness, as nobody has ever looked at me since.
My grandmother looked at me disappointedly because I wasn’t the boy she would have liked. My dad…he didn’t look at me that day or any subsequent day, till I lost count. Then, when I stopped noticing he wasn’t looking at me, he did look and did play with me. He was fantastic to play games with.
The girls had no idea about playing games. As a baby, she invented memories for me to send me to sleep. I remembered (played at remembering) how one of the two Esthers had played with me: at making tea, at mom and dad, at dolls, at whatever. She said that to soothe me while they lay their too-soft hands on me and sang out-of-tune songs. But I liked them a lot; not only did I doze off with them but when I woke up in the mornings my first thoughts were of those two, and when I left school it was no different. For most of my childhood.
Sometimes I hear them being chased and they’re never caught. Or are they different ones? They shriek, are scared of what’s chasing them. They run, fly, will do anything to make their escape. It must be other girls each night, must, it must be, because nobody could escape, lest anyone deceive themselves, it is impossible to escape. One night I shouted to the desperate one, but she didn’t hear me. I prefer not to shout anymore, it makes no sense and makes me ill. I am ill. I’m so afraid. I’m so afraid and can’t shout Mom. It’s a cry I can’t utter, because I don’t possess that word.
I have other words alright. I have trees, I have house, clearly I have the word fear, and above all I have the word ducksinthepark because today that’s what I want to tell you about.
Who can I tell about them? Who? Tonight out of darkness I’ll create people I can tell.
Ducksinthepark, Dad…he used to take us. They prepared breakfast at home. Then he’d head for school, speaking about the usual, a harmless game, so he thought, but which I found violent and disturbing. “I’m not your Dad…I’m not your Dad…I’m a man who’s going to steal you, a child-snatcher…a thief…I’ll take you away and ask for money for you. If they don’t pay up, I’ll make mincemeat out of you.” Then he and my sisters burst out laughing. They laughed and laughed, guffawed, relished it while I thought: “Mincemeat? Money? What on earth…what on earth are we made of?”