Sònia Hernández - Prosopagnosia

Among the images that reproduced the artist’s work, I lingered over one, in which a series of pyramids in brown tones rested on what looked like a watery surface, as if the painting had captured that exact moment when it stops raining and the ground becomes like a mirror. Each of the pyramids had another symmetrical one joined at its base, which meant the landscape doubled and revealed another dimension. In paintings like these, my daughter searches for the new dimensions of reality, the perspective that will reveal the way everything truly functions: the answer to all the mysteries.

I also stopped to look, once more, at the legendary cover that Vicente Rojo had designed for One Hundred Years of Solitude . A professor in one of my literature classes had spoken about it. That’s probably the only thing I thought about, the first time I googled Vicente Rojo. Before the first interview, when I wanted to know who the Mexican artist was, I typed his name into the search engine. This was before embarking upon a series of interviews that led nowhere. Back then I had been overwhelmed by the quantity of material about the artist that already existed, and I had been dismayed at my own ignorance and my daring at the thought that I could possibly write something about him. This is why I hadn’t paid any attention to the face in the photos. I’d had no interest in the face of Vicente Rojo that was offered to me by the internet; I was satisfied with what I’d seen of the man who followed my daughter home one day because she had fainted at school, who gave her a painting and told me his name was Vicente Rojo. I had come down with a clear case of prosopagnosia.

I had to get in touch with Isabel and tell her that the man who thought he was Vicente Rojo was crazy. A fraud, an imposter. The idea that I wouldn’t have to write the article for the newspaper was a relief, but it also made me sad. The feeling of having been deceived was much more complicated, and as such, much more difficult to describe. I could fall into my habitual state of victimhood and arrive at the conclusion that human beings are toxic to one another, and that there are many ways to destroy the stage upon which other people are supposed to play out their lives. It was much more soothing to conclude that he was crazy, because then there would be no point wasting energy trying to understand his motives, or hoping for an explanation. However, all these days I had spent thinking I had to write the article about the artist had made my job in the communications department of the insurance company much more bearable. That had been because I thought I was finally learning important truths while I was immersed in Vicente Rojo’s world, where human beings are linked to the essential material of life. In Vicente Rojo’s world, colours, which are nothing more than reflections, can shake our souls and reveal things we don’t see at first glance. In his world, it is possible to live alongside intellectuals and geniuses who have different ways of explaining things and can offer us comfort because everything they have learned moves us closer to truth, harmony, and peace. All of this translated into a feeling like satisfaction, the tranquillity that comes from feeling like you are capable of giving shape to tiny events that little by little fill the void. It doesn’t matter if it’s a bottomless abyss, because the truly transcendental things are the tiny events we create ourselves.

None of this would help me find the right words to explain to Isabel that I wouldn’t be turning in an interview or an article or anything about Vicente Rojo. Despite having felt so close to an important revelation, despite almost having grasped the sort of mystical truth that seems capable of transforming a human being, everything was very confused. I had ignored Isabel’s calls along with the emails where, for the millionth time, she asked me when I would be able to send her the text. She had said it was a good week to find space for it in the newspaper. It was as if she was addressing herself to a person who wasn’t me. Those calls and messages seemed to be for a journalist who was capable of making decisions and working through any setback. I was an insecure, timid, and fat woman, unable even to comfort her own fifteen-year-old daughter, who was going through a traumatic experience.

When Berta arrived home, I asked her to show me how to play prosopagnosia. At first, she didn’t understand, because she and her friends must have called it something else. She told me she was very tired, because she had spent the afternoon with Mario. When I asked her how he was, she didn’t answer. I’ve already tried to describe how during those weeks any comment or gesture related to Mario acquired a theatrical patina. It was clear that my daughter’s response to her friend’s situation was a solemn silence. But she did explain that playing just for the sake of playing didn’t work. When they did it, they were training themselves to see things differently. I asked her if she’d achieved her goal. It took her a while to answer, and after a silence that had nothing dramatic about it at all she told me that for her, the ibis wasn’t ugly at all. And without waiting for me to respond, she told me how her classmates had decided to paint a mural with Mario’s face on the wall of the gym at school. It would be a huge mural, a tribute to Mario from all his classmates.

She had fallen into the sofa, her head resting on a pillow, her eyes closed. I was surprised by what I was seeing, as if we had already started playing prosopagnosia. She had shaved her hair again, and you could the little hairs beginning to emerge from her stubbly scalp. I didn’t recognise the huge hoodie she was wearing, and I imagined it must belong to Mario, but I didn’t ask her about it.

‘The art teacher won’t let us paint the mural.’

‘Well, I think it sounds like a nice idea.’

She opened her eyes at the sound of my voice, but she wasn’t looking at me. She was staring at some fixed, unknown spot. I thought that she had, in fact, learned how to see things differently.

‘They’re waiting for the final act.’

I was surprised to hear my daughter use the phrase ‘final act’, another sign of the drama imposed by Mario’s illness.

‘They say we have to wait, but the art teacher said it’s not a good idea to cover a whole wall with graffiti. She doesn’t understand anything. She couldn’t care less about the students. I bet she’s angry because we asked that artist friend of yours to help us.’

At that point she turned her gaze on me, and it felt like she was trying to look at me from the back of her eyes, from the exact point where the optic nerve transmits images to the brain.

‘You know he’s not my friend, and besides—’

‘Daniel says he can do it himself, because he’s good at drawing and he’s done some cool graffiti already, but I think it’s a good idea for a real artist to help us so it doesn’t turn out to be a crappy portrait. That’s why the art teacher got so angry. They’re waiting for the final act and then they want to do something more formal, but we want to paint the mural now, so Mario can see it. We already know that artist guy is crazy, but I bet he can help us, he must know something about painting. If they don’t let us, we’ll go at night and do it, but then everything will be much more difficult.’

‘I met with your teacher this afternoon.’

‘I know, Mum, I know. But all you parents have to help us now, because it’s really important for all the students, and even more so for Mario. I already told everyone you’d talk to the artist and ask him to help us.’

Berta’s gaze had softened again, and she looked at me in the way she had since the truce imposed by her friend’s illness. She was demanding once more that I behave like a mother. My voice sounded almost painful.