Laura Restrepo - Delirium

No matter how well those two women cover themselves, the stink of their sores gives them away and that’s why they take shelter in the abandoned courtyard of the house that used to be theirs when they were well, a grand house. My old house in Teusaquillo, where no one lives now, had a courtyard, too, and I ask my father whether dead leaves are blowing there. My mother says that the rabble who’ve risen up in the south won’t come to our new house, but I know they can because they live in my memory, or in my dreams, and all dreams come from way back, from biblical times. Aunt Sofi went to the school to complain, Don’t read the girl these things, she doesn’t understand them and her head is already full of nonsense, that’s what she said and I’m repeating it because I like how it sounds, I laugh when I remember it because I realize it’s true, ever since I was little I’ve lived the way Aunt Sofi said, with my head full of nonsense. At school they told Aunt Sofi that it was spiritual instruction and that it was required that we read such things in religion class. Don’t worry, Mommy, I know they won’t be able to get into our house, that’s the message I receive each night from my father’s hallowed hand. And if my father leaves us? When he leaves, the great panic will begin.

In the morning I shout for Aminta to bring me breakfast in bed, on the silver tray, as my mother has taught her. Orange juice, hot milk with Milo, yucca rolls, poached egg; Aminta brings me good things. But she also brings news: That man has been standing outside the house all night, waiting. Don’t lie to me, Aminta, did you see the horrible hole he has instead of a mouth? Did you see his arms, all raw? Tell me, Aminta, tell me what his sign says, how can I protect myself from him if I don’t understand his message. I think I dreamed of his rotten voice coming in my window, saying: I’m infected with Lazarus’s disease. Who was Lazarus, Mother? Leonorita Zafrané, the teacher who’s in charge on the school bus, swears that she’s seen the leper in front of my house, too. I ask her what’s written on his piece of cardboard but she doesn’t know either, and instead she scolds me, You’re not being fair to Ben-Hur’s mother and sister, she tells me, because in the end Christ the Redeemer grants them the miracle of healing. Then they don’t drag themselves through the dead leaves of the courtyard at night anymore? No, not anymore. They don’t hide in the courtyard of my old house in Teusaquillo? No, and they never did, you made that up, you make up too many things. Thank you, Leonorita Zafrané, thank you for erasing that nonsense from my head, my problem, Leonorita, is that my head is full of nonsense.

This afternoon my mother, Bichi, and I are out in our yellow Oldsmobile with the black convertible top, my mother driving and the two of us sitting in the backseat. We like to ride in the Oldsmobile because all you have to do to open and close its tinted windows is push a little automatic switch, and because it smells new. We’ve just bought it, it’s the latest model. There’s lots of traffic, we’re stuck in the crush of cars, and then my mother gets strange, she’s talking a lot and very fast. It’s hot, Mommy, let me open the window, but she won’t let me. Because of muggers? Yes, because of muggers. The other day a mugger yanked off Aunt Sofi’s gold chain and hurt her neck. The chain is the least of it, said Aunt Sofi, who was just visiting because she didn’t live with us yet, it can be replaced, but my mother’s Saint Angel medallion was hanging from the chain, Well, we’ll get you one just like it, promised my father, Impossible, said my mother, that medallion was an old gold coin, where will we ever find another one like it, It doesn’t matter, said my father, the important thing right now is to have her seen by a doctor because she has a nasty scratch and it could get infected. Two of the mugger’s fingernails left a mark on Aunt Sofi’s neck, the scars are still there and my daddy tells her it’s a Dracula bite, but her Saint Angel and her gold chain are gone and today she’s not with us in the Oldsmobile, but we still keep the windows shut tight despite the heat, just in case. If no air comes in I feel sick, Mother, Well don’t open the window even if you feel sick.

The Oldsmobile is trapped in a tight knot of cars. My mother checks again to see whether the doors are locked; she already checked but she does it again. Are you angry, Mother? I ask because when Bichi and I are noisy she gets annoyed, but she says she isn’t, it isn’t that, and she tells us to come up to the front seat, beside her. Cover your eyes, children, cover your eyes tight with both hands and promise me you won’t look, no matter what happens. We obey her. She clutches us as tight as she can with her right arm while she holds the steering wheel with her left; she won’t let us lift our heads and we can’t see what’s happening outside. But we can hear shouts in the street, shouts that come closer, and we know that, although we can’t see them, there are people passing the car, shouting. What’s happening, Mother? Nothing, nothing’s happening, those are her words but her voice is saying something else entirely. Now she tells us to get down, huddled on the floor of the car, where you put your feet, and here all I can see is the plaid of the kilt she’s wearing, the pedals, the rugs, which are gray, a lost coin, some trash, Bichi’s shoes, which are red and almost round they’re so small, like little wheels. My mother’s shoe has a very high heel and it pushes one pedal and then the other and then the first one again, accelerating and braking, accelerating and braking, and I hear her heartbeat, the ticktock of my own fear, and some little words that Bichi is saying, happy down here playing with the coin he’s found under the seat. I hug him very hard, Keep playing, Bichi Bichito, nothing’s going to happen to you, my powers tell me that you’re safe, and I play with the coin to distract him, but I know that things are happening. What is it, Mother? Nothing. Then can we get up now and sit on the seat? No, stay down there. My mother wants to protect us, from something, from someone, I realize that, I know that things are happening around us that she can see and I can’t. It’s the lepers, isn’t it, Mother? What makes you say that, what a ridiculous idea. They escaped from Agua de Dios and now they’re here? My mother tells me not to say silly things because I’ll scare my little brother. But he’s already scared and he’s crying!

I know it was the lepers even though later, at night, when we’re home and everything is over, my father tells me a thousand times that what happened today on the street was a student protest against the government. It doesn’t matter what they tell me, I don’t believe them, and the next day my father shows me the pictures of the student revolt that were published in the papers, but even the pictures don’t make me believe him. My father tries to explain that my mother didn’t want my little brother and me to be upset, and that’s why she wouldn’t let us see the students running between the cars, bleeding, with their heads smashed. But I know it isn’t true, I know that the lepers have come at last. Thousands of lepers have left Agua de Dios and invaded Bogotá; Sacred Hand of my Father, protect me from the invasion of the lepers. Though I know you shouldn’t really trust the Hand too much.

I JUST MANAGE to hit the brake so I don’t run over the beggar who suddenly appears out of the rain and crosses in front of my van, what the fuck is this suicidal lunatic doing, I almost killed him but apparently he couldn’t care less, it’s just part of his routine, a hazard of the trade, and before I realize what’s happening he sticks a begging hand in my window, Give me something for coffee, brother, I’m freezing my balls off out here, his voice is casual as if two seconds before I hadn’t nearly mowed him down and he seems satisfied, even proud of having achieved the practical and premeditated goal of stopping me by any means necessary to ask me for change: here you are again, dementia my old friend, wily bitch, I recognize your chameleon-like methods, you feed on normality and turn it to your own ends, or you mimic it so well you supplant it.