Cesar Aira - How I Became A Nun

YOFUCKNSONFABITCHPUSSY

I should say that Farías had not read it out aloud, so I didn’t know how those drawings translated into sound. And yet, as I wrote, I knew. Because knowledge is never monolithic. We know things in part. For example, I knew that they were swear words, that it was a conglomerate, that the mother was implied at some level; I knew about the violence, the fights, insulting the mother, the fury, the blood, the tears …There were other things I didn’t know, but they were so inextricably entwined with the things I did know that I wouldn’t have been able to tell them apart. As it happens, in this case there were things I wouldn’t discover until much later on. Until the age of fourteen, I thought children came out of their mothers’ belly buttons. And I discovered my mistake, at the age of fourteen, in a most peculiar way. I was reading an article about sex education in an issue of Selecciones , and in a paragraph about the ignorance in which young girls were kept in Japan, I found this scandalous example: a fourteen-year old Japanese girl had professed her belief that children came out of their mothers’ belly buttons. That was exactly what I, a fourteen-year old Argentinean girl, believed. Except that from then on, I knew it wasn’t true. And, rightly or wrongly, I pitied my Japanese counterpart.

That day back in first grade, when I went home, I couldn’t wait for Mom to see what I had written. But the reason I couldn’t wait was that I was terrified. I knew that something terrible would happen, but I didn’t know what. I didn’t take the exercise book out of my school bag; I didn’t show it to Mom. She got it out herself and looked at it. Why? After the repeated disappointment of finding it blank, she had given up checking regularly and hadn’t touched it for weeks. I must have given her some kind of signal. When she read it, she screamed and went pale. She was indignant for the rest of the day; she went on and on about it. That inscription was just what she had been waiting for; it unleashed her characteristic fighting spirit, which recent events had kept in check. It was an outlet for her. The next day she came to school with me and had an hour-long meeting with my teacher in the office. They called me in, but naturally they couldn’t get a word out of me. Not that they needed to. From the veranda where I was waiting (the secretary had been sent to take care of the class for the duration of the meeting) I could hear Mom shouting, hurling abuse at the teacher, arguing relentlessly (always coming back to the fact that I didn’t know how to read). It was a memorable day in the annals of Rosario’s School Number 22. Finally, just before the bell rang, the teacher came out of the office, walked along the veranda and through the first door, into the classroom. As she went past, she neither looked at me nor invited me to follow; in fact, she didn’t speak to me or look at me again for the rest of the year. Mom left during recess, but what with the chaos of kids and teachers, I didn’t see her go. When the bell rang again, I went into the classroom as usual and sat down in my place. The teacher had recovered a bit, but not much. Her eyes were red; she looked terrible. For once, a dead silence reigned. Thirty pairs of childish eyes were fixed on her. She was standing in front of the blackboard. She tried to talk, but all that came out was a hoarse squawk. She stifled a sob. Moving stiffly, like a tailor’s dummy, she stepped forward and tousled the hair of a boy sitting in the front row. The gesture was meant to be tender, and I’m sure that’s how she felt, perhaps her heart had never been so full of tenderness, but her movements were so rigid that the boy cringed. She didn’t notice and tousled his louse-ridden mop all the same. Then she did it to a second boy, and a third. She took a deep breath, and finally spoke:

“I always tell the truth. I stell it trueways. I children. I am the truth and the life. I trife. Strue. Childern. I am the second mother. Thecken smother. I love you all equally. I equal all of you for mother. I tell you the truth for love. The looth for trove. Momother love mother! For all of you! All of you! But there is one … bun their is wut … air ee wah …”

Her voice had gone all shrill and scratchy. She raised a vertical index finger. This was her only gesture during that memorable speech … The finger was steady but the rest of her was shaking; then, and simultaneously, the finger was shaking and the rest of her was steady as a block of metal … Tears ran down her cheeks. After this pause she went on:

“That Aira boy … He’s here among you, and he doesn’t seem any different. Maybe you haven’t noticed him, he’s so insignificant. But he’s here. Don’t be fooled. I always tell you the true, the theck, the trove. You are good, clever, sweet children. Even the ones who are naughty, or have to repeat, or get into fights all the time. You’re normal, you’re all the same, because you have a second mother. Aira is a moron. He might seem the same as you, but he’s a moron all the same. He’s a monster. He doesn’t have a second mother. He’s wicked. He wants to see me dead. He wants to kill me. But he’s not going to succeed! Because you are going to protect me. You will protect me from the monster, won’t you? Say it …”

“…”

“Say, ‘Yes, Miss.’”

“Yes, Miss!”

“Louder!”

“Yeess Miiisss!”

“Say, Yis Mess Rodriguez.”

“Yis Mess Ridróguez.”

“Louder!”

“Yossmessriidroogueez!”

“Loouuder!!”

“Yiiissmooossreeedroooguiiiz!!”

“Good! Gggooood! Protect your teacher. She has forty years of experience. She could die any moment, and then it’ll be too late to be sorry. The killer is after her. But it doesn’t matter. I’m not saying all this for my sake, no, I’ve had my life already. Forty years teaching first grade. The first of the second mothers. I’m saying it for you. Because he wants to kill you too. Not me. You. But don’t be afraid, teacher will protect you. You have to watch out for vipers, tarantulas and rabid dogs. And especially for Aira. Aira is a thousand times worse. Watch out for Aira! Don’t go near him! Don’t talk to him! Don’t look at him! Pretend he doesn’t exist. I always thought he was a moron, but I had nnno idea … I dddidn’t realize … Now I do! Don’t let him dirty you! Don’t let him infect you! Don’t even give him the time of day! Don’t breathe when he’s near. Die of asphyxiation if you have to, just so long as you freeze him out. He’s a monster, a killer! And your mothers will cry if you die. They’ll try and blame me, I know them. But if you watch out for the monster nothing will happen. Pretend he doesn’t exist, pretend he’s not there. If you don’t talk to him or look at him, he can’t harm you. Teacher will protect you. She is the second mother. Teacher loves you. I am the teacher. I always tell the truth …”

And so on, for quite a long time. At some point she started repeating herself, word for word, like a tape recorder. I was looking through her. I was looking at the blackboard where she had written: zebra, zero, zigzag … in perfectly formed letters … That calligraphy was her prettiest feature. And she had reached the letter Z … She seemed upset, but I didn’t think she was talking nonsense. Everything was so real, it seemed transparent, and I was reading the words on the blackboard … I was reading … Because that day I had learned to read.

MEANWHILE, DAD WAS in prison for the business with the ice-cream vendor. One afternoon, Mom took me to visit him. It was logical, because I had been at the center, at the heart of the misadventure. Did they blame me? Yes and no. They couldn’t really blame me — it would have been grossly unfair — but at the same time, they couldn’t help blaming me, because I was the origin of it all. It was the same for me; I couldn’t blame them for having these feelings, and yet I did. In any case, one or both of them had decided that it would be a good thing to take me along at visiting time. To show how his wife and daughter were standing by him and all that. How naïve. The Rosario remand center was a long way from home, right across town. We took a bus. Halfway there I had a panic attack for no reason and burst into tears. Up went the curtain of my private theater. Mom looked at me, unamazed. Yes, un amazed.