Arturo Fontaine: La Vida Doble

Nothing I think gets me out of here. This stubbornness is a form of subsistence, a way of continuing to be me thanks to the guilt that is my past, the only bit of it that’s still alive. That day, all my hopes were emptied out and turned into regrets.

And the burn never stops stinging. Could things have happened some other way? Was it mere chance? But isn’t chance just the name we give to the reason we do not know? Were there, then, objective reasons? Then I return to how the events took place; I return, then, to the pain that exists within a time that expands and defers, that doesn’t pass and won’t allow me to forget for one minute the density of its presence. Pain is jealous like no other.

Once it has stopped, it’s hard to understand what happened. It’s a vertigo you cannot re-create. There is an impassable abyss between who you are under that pain and who you are one second later. There is no bridge between the two points. You ask why they are doing this to you. Images go by, they turn on and off, and you try to put them in order: my fingertips covered in layers of hardened glue, my awareness of Canelo behind me, the woman with glasses and the black Bic pen who passes me the receipt through the teller window — she is “fixed,” we’d been informed, she will collaborate — the sketch I drew spread out on the dining room table in the safe house — it’s the night before, we’re going over the plan in detail — my drawing of the bars that protect the safes, the lying silence that follows Canelo’s shouted order, the sound of the dial on the door of the Bash safe, the used bills encircled with elastic, my spacious black leather purse open, the sound of the purse’s clasp closing. All of this is clear and makes sense. You knew it would be like this.

This is a fight for information. You are in a process of truth production, your body will be the living truth. And so they ask you for “the meet,” where was “the meet,” fucking cunt, tell us and we’ll leave you alone, shit. Half a minute later they come back and the information you gave them was worthless. All is once again incomprehensible. And the spasms start up again, your body leaps, it lashes out uncontrollably, you are an insane doll hurting itself. It’s an unbearable explosion that comes from within and that your own organism retains, convulsing, a crash of opposing waves in which your body is no longer yours, it escapes from you, breaks away, and nonetheless you go on suffering with endless ferocity. You want to give it up, your body, to let it go and keep your soul. Because it’s your soul that can’t take any more pain and terror and wants to flee. It can’t, of course. Like feeling the rhythm of music without a body. I try to travel back through my memories. It’s what we’ve been taught to do. But I can’t think about anything now, and I moan, I shout for them to stop, but the gag swallows my shouts and I hear a groan rising from my guts. The impotent writhing hammers your impotence into your brain. Its counterpart: the power of that treacherous voice that gives and takes away this pain that is splintering you. For this to stop, you have to raise a finger. If you do, it’s to confess, to denounce. The word you deny them is the only thing left of you. If it doesn’t come, they punish you. The pain moves. Your own pain drives you mad, dislocates you. My pain is my pain. No one else can get inside it.

All this is what I say now. At the time. . That experience of mine, only mine in that here and now, was everything, and it erased everything. No one else existed. That was the idea, as I see it. Only me, tied up and splayed out and shaking; me, invaded and run through by that evil flow that shot into me and dispersed. Just me and them, the ones who have the power to put a stop to all this. The pain ceases and yet — how can I explain — what has just happened goes on terrifying you. That’s what fucks you. We’re in another pause. When? It could start up again, right now. These memories are all confused for me. I’m putting this material of vague, nightmarish horror in order for your benefit, and for mine. I’ve spent years and years with all of this pent up and eating away at me from inside. I didn’t want to talk about this. I didn’t want the obscenity of these detailed descriptions that only dilute it all. I didn’t want it. But I’m the one who does what I don’t want to do. That’s who I am.

Since I was a little girl, I’ve been that way. Obedient and scrupulous. Ever since the convent school where I lived in reverential terror of the nuns, whose authority I blindly obeyed; ever since, later on, my mother made me shave and wax my body; ever since I yanked out the first hair that sprouted from my nipple — so Rodrigo wouldn’t see it — because yes, sometimes I get long hairs growing from my nipples; men think it doesn’t happen to women, but it does to me. And it’s those same nipples that two little pinchers are now biting into, two little metal clamps tormenting me. I’m not at all sure about the things I seem sure about. In that place, time stretches out like gum and loses its shape. You float, trapped in confused scenes made of spongelike material. I string together shadowy blotches; that’s what I do when I tell you all this. I know I should construct a metaphor. A metaphor of the absurd, for example. But as you know, in the absurd no one is guilty. Here, yes.

The sound of water from a hose. An old voice tells you, as if talking to a baby: Get up, child. Let me get some water on you. An old woman who does the cleaning here. I hear the footsteps of her rubber boots. The smell reaches me, and it’s a smell that is terrifyingly mine. I obey, ashamed, and I stand up as best I can and I show myself. It’s offensive, I know. And? The stream of cold water. Now I remember that when they made me get undressed and they tied me to the metal bed frame, a woman shaved me. I am a baby, then. I’m tired. The shame leaves me. My body belongs to them and I let it go. Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done unto me according to thy word. My flesh suffocates my conscience. But my freedom to refuse survives. They want to take possession of that when they go to work on my body. Let the fuckers throw water on me, then. Let them take their time. I have to endure five hours. They take it all calmly, though they are diligent as well. They know they are racing the clock. If I give them the “alternative meet” in time, they can catch the rest of my cell. If I don’t, the others will vanish and the trail will go cold.

It hits, and the shock is even stronger. The first moment is always the worst. You flail out, and it’s as if your arms, legs, and head were going to be severed from you. You feel that they are taking you apart; they’re going to tear you to pieces. The unbearable pain and trepidation. The straps hold you down; otherwise you would go flying through the air. The pressure of opposing forces crushes you. I am a body that escapes from its body, a being that dislocates from its being. It’s an impossible escape. It’s suffocating. It’s desperate. I lift a trembling finger. I can’t take any more. I have to give them something.

“The meet,” I say. “I’m going to give you the meet. We. . we. . agreed. .” I’m panting and my tongue is awkward and swollen. “We agreeeed. . to mee. . meeeet in Caaaa. . in Caa. . fé Haití, the one on Caaaaaalle Ahuuu. . mada.”

Silence. It’s the lie that Canelo, ever prepared, had made up for me. Canelo protected me. I’m overcome by a terrible sorrow for him, for myself. As I think of him my resolve hardens; I want to be faithful to him, like a widow who wants or needs to be faithful and is resolved to stay true unto death. Why didn’t I ask him more about the war in the desert of Ogaden? He didn’t like to talk about that. Once, he told me about how that arid African soil trembled under the Soviet T-55 caterpillar tanks as they advanced toward the enemy. And another time he told me about that night, the night of the decisive attack, just before his column set off on the secret march to place themselves behind enemy lines, when General Ochoa came in person to rally them. He remembered almost nothing of what the mulatto had said to them, except: “If anyone falls prisoner, die in silence. Real men don’t talk.” That, Canelo remembered. And also: “The truth was invented not to be told.”