Carmen Boullosa - Before

My panties were wet; the white cotton impregnated by liquid warm like the heart. They were soaked and I felt it so distinctly, a warm liquid beginning to trouble me, running down my thighs. What was it? What was running from inside me, betraying me? Soon, from the moment I saw the house lights come on and heard Dad call me, I could see my white socks stained with the same blood I knew had stained my panties and legs. What had snapped inside me? I thought: “It’s because I dreamed no more,” because another night I thought the thread holding them, like the electricity cable in the eucalyptus, would at any time lash out inside me. “Is that right?”

Why did I think that? Because I’d let myself be defeated and, at a loss, was contemplating my own defeat too late. Then I thought: “Don’t be foolish, it’s the heart you’re holding!” And I let go. Then my body, with no other defense, now weightless, couldn’t stay a moment more and went up, up, and up, accompanied by those who had always pursued me.

I saw Dad come out and shout my name in the garden. I heard him run to the phone, I saw him (how did I see this?) find me in bed, in my pajamas, with my clothes scattered untidily over the floor…I was asleep, or rather, she, his daughter, was sleeping forever, in flannel pants soaked in blood, on stained sheets, her eyes closed, her face set in an undeservedly serene expression.

The doctor could not tell him why I had died.

CARMEN BOULLOSA is one of Mexico’s leading novelists, poets, playwrights, and essayists. She has published eighteen novels, two of which were designated the Best Novel Published in Mexico by the prestigious magazine Reforma —her second novel, Before , also won the renowned Xavier Villarutia Prize for Best Mexican Novel. Her most recent novel, Texas: The Great Theft won the 2014 Typographical Era Translation Award, was shortlisted for the 2015 PEN Translation Award, and was nominated for the 2016 International Dublin Literary Award.

PETER BUSH is an award-winning literary translator of Spanish, Catalan, French, and Portuguese from Oxford, UK. Peter was Professor of Literary Translation at Middlesex University and later at the University of East Anglia where he also directed the British Centre for Literary Translation. Recent translations include Fernando Royuela’s A Bad End , Emili Teixidor’s Black Bread , and Jorge Carrion’s Bookshops .

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