We will recite the beginning. We will only
recite the history, the story.
We are only returning;
we have finished our work;
our days are over. Think of us,
do not erase us from your memory,
do not forget us.

Popul Vuh (The Book of Council)

I 

 –…And then, angry, they took away what was ours, what we treasured—the word, the arc of memory. And ever since those days, they burn and are consumed with the wood in the fire.

The smoke rises in the wind and disperses. All that’s left are the ashes without a face. So that you can come, you and the one who’s younger than you and all they need is a breath, only a breath…

–Don’t tell me this story, Nana. 

–Am I talking to you? Does one talk to anise seeds?

I’m not an anise seed. I’m a girl and I’m seven years old. The five fingers on my right hand and two on my left. And when I stand up, I can see my father’s knees. Higher than that, no. I think that like a big tree he keeps growing and in the highest branch crouches a miniature tiger. My mother is different. Up above her hair—so black, so thick, and so curly—the birds fly, and they really like it and they stay. I only imagine it. I haven’t seen it. I see what’s at my height. Some bushes with their leaves eaten up by insects; the desks stained with ink. My brother. And with my brother I look down at him from above. Because he was born after me, and when he was born, I already knew many things that I now explain to him in detail. For example:

Columbus discovered America.

Mario keeps looking at me as if I didn’t deserve any credit and he shrugs his shoulders as if he didn’t care. Rage suffocates me. Once again, all the weight of injustice falls on me. 

–Don’t move so much, niña. I can’t finish combing your hair. 

Doesn’t my nana know that I hate it when she combs my hair? No, she doesn’t. She doesn’t know anything. She’s Indian. She goes barefoot and doesn’t wear any underwear under the blue cloth of her tzec.2 She’s not ashamed. She says the earth doesn’t have any eyes. 

–Now you’re ready and it’s time for breakfast. 

But eating is awful. In front of me the plate, staring at me without blinking. Then the enormous expanse of the table. And after that… I don’t know. I’m scared that on the other side there’s a mirror. 

–Drink your milk.

Every afternoon, at five o’clock, a Swiss cow goes by, making its tin bell jingle. (I’ve explained to Mario that Swiss means fat.) The owner leads it by a cord and at the corner he stops and milks her. The maids come out of their houses and buy a glass of milk. And the badly-brought-up children make faces and spill it on the tablecloth. 

–God is going to punish you for wasting it, says Nana.

–I want to drink coffee. Like you, like everyone.

–You’ll become Indian.

Her threat frightens me. Tomorrow the milk will not spill.

 II

On the street my nana leads me, holding my hand. The sidewalk is made of large flat stones, smooth and slippery, and everything else is smaller stones. Pebbles arranged like the petals of a flower.

In the cracks, weeds grow, and the Indians pull them out with the tips of their machetes. There are carts pulled by sleepy oxen, young horses that with their hooves make sparks and old horses tied up to posts with a rope, they stay there the whole day, their heads lowered, sadly moving their ears. We just passed one very close. I hold my breath and hug the wall. I’m scared that at any moment the horse will bare his many teeth—yellow, huge—and will bite my arm. And I’m ashamed because my arms are very thin and the horse is going to laugh at me.

The balconies look out at the street, watch it rise and then descend and make a turn at the corner. They watch the old men walk by with their mahogany canes, the ranchers who let their spurs drag when they walk, and the Indians who run beneath the weight of their loads. And all day long the sound of the steady trot from the donkeys’ hooves, as they carry wooden barrels full of water. It must be so beautiful to be like that, like the balconies, not busy or distracted, only watching. When I grow up…

Now we’ve started to go down the hill by the market. From inside, the sound of the butchers’ heavy knives and the flies buzz lazy and satiated. We meet the Indians who weave pichulej,3 sitting on the ground. They talk amongst themselves, in their strange language, breathless like a hunted deer. And unexpectedly, they release high pitched wails with no tears which still scare me, although I’ve heard them many times.

We go avoiding the puddles. It rained last night, the first rainfall, the one that makes the ants with wings that they call tzisim⁴ sprout from the earth. We pass in front of the stores that smell of recently dyed cloth. Behind the counter the clerk measures the cloth with a yardstick. You can hear the grains of rice sliding along the metal of the scale. Somebody grinds a handful of cacao. And in the open passageway, a girl carrying a basket on her head, shouts, fearful that the dogs will come out, fearful that the owners will come out: 

–Who will buy tamales?

My nana makes me walk quickly. Now there’s nobody in the street except a man with brand-new, squeaky yellow shoes. A gate opens wide and in front of the lit forge we can see the blacksmith, black because of his work. He strikes the iron, his chest is bare and sweaty. Pushing aside the blinds, an unmarried woman looks at us furtively. Her mouth is shut tight as if inside a secret is locked away. She’s sad because she knows that her hair is turning white.  

–Say hello to her, niña. She’s a friend of your mother’s. 

But now we’re far away. The last steps I take almost running. I’m not going to get to school late.

III

The classroom walls are whitewashed. Because of the humidity, mysterious figures form that I can decipher when I’m punished, and I’m sent to sit in the corner. Otherwise, I sit in front of Señorita Silvina at a square, low desk. I listen to her talk. Her voice is like the little machines that sharpen pencils: annoying but useful. She talks in a monotone, in front of the class, scrolling out her catalogue of knowledge. She allows each one of us to choose the thing that suits us best. From the beginning, I choose the word meteorite. And from then on it sits on my forehead, heavy, sad because it’s fallen from the sky. Nobody has been able to discover what grade each one of us is in. We’re all mixed up together even though we are all so different. There are the plump girls who sit in the last row to secretly eat their peanuts. There are girls who go up to the blackboard and multiply one number by another. There are girls who only raise their hand to ask permission to go to the “común.”⁵

All of this goes on for years, and then without any particular warning, a miracle occurs. One of the girls is singled out and she’s told:

–Bring in a large piece of poster board because you’re going to draw a map of the world. 

The girl goes back to her desk, full of importance, serious and responsible. Then she struggles with some continents larger than others and oceans without a single wave. Then later her parents come for her and take her away forever. 

(There are also girls who never reach this marvellous stage and they wander shadowy like souls in limbo.)

At noon the maids appear, their cotton petticoats rustling, smelling of brilliantine, carrying the gourds of posol.⁶ We all drink, sitting in a row on the bench in the corridor, while the maids dig between the bricks, using their big toe. 

We spend our recreation hour on the patio. We sing rounds:

Naranja dulce
limón partido…⁷

Or we fight over the angel of the golden ball or the devil with the seven whips or “we go to the orchard of the bull and lemon balm.”⁸

The teacher watches us, with a benevolent expression, from where she’s seated under the bamboo. The wind stirs the slim leaves, so they murmur incessantly and rain green and yellow. And the teacher sits there, in her black dress, so small and so alone, like a saint in its niche. 

Today a señora came looking for her. The teacher shook the leaves from her skirt, and they talked together for a long time in the corridor. But as the conversation continued, the teacher seemed more and more worried. Then the señora took her leave. 

The bell rang and recess ended. When we were all together in the classroom, the teacher said:

–Dear girls: you are too innocent to realize that these are dangerous times we are living in. We must be careful, so we don’t give our enemies any opportunity to hurt us. This school is our only patrimony and its good reputation is the pride of the town. Lately some people have been planning to take it away from us and we have to defend it with the only weapons available to us: order, rectitude and, above all, secrecy. So that what happens here doesn’t go beyond these four walls. We don’t go out, talking about our business on the street. If we do that, that is what we will become. 

We like having her say so many words in a row, quickly and without stumbling, as if reading something out of a book. Strangely, Señorita Silvina is asking us to swear an oath. And we all stand up to grant it to her. 

IV

It’s a fiesta every time the Indians of Chactajal⁹ come to the house. They bring sacks of corn and beans, dried pork tied up in bundles and blocks of raw sugar. Now the granaries will be open, and the rats will once again run, fat and sleek. 

My father receives the Indians lying in his hammock in the passageway. They approach him, one at a time, and they offer him their foreheads so that he can touch them with the three main fingers of his right hand. Then they go back to their corner. My father talks to them about the ranch. He knows their language and their ways. They answer in monosyllables, respectfully, and laugh briefly when it’s necessary.

I go to the kitchen where Nana’s heating up coffee. 

–They’ve brought bad news, like black butterflies.

I’m going through the storage room. I like the color of the lard and to touch the roundness of the fruit and to peel the skins from the onions.

–Witches, niña. They’ll eat everything. The crops, the peace in families, the health of the people.

I’ve found a basket of eggs. The speckled ones are guajolote.¹⁰

–Look what they’re doing to me.

And lifting up her tzec, nana shows me a tender, pinkish wound, that disfigures her knee. 

I look at it, my eyes wide with surprise.

–Niña, don’t say anything. I came from Chactajal so they wouldn’t follow me. But their evil reaches far.

–Why did they hurt you? 

–Because I’ve been a servant in your house. Because I love your parents and you and Mario.

–Is it bad to love us?

–It’s bad to love those who command, those who are the owners. So says the law.

The pot is quiet on the embers. Inside, the coffee has started to boil. 

–Tell them to come. Their coffee’s ready. 

I go out, sad because of what I’ve just learned. With a gesture, my father dismisses the Indians and he lies in the hammock, reading. Now I look at him for the first time. He is the one who commands, who is the owner. I can’t stand his face and I run to take refuge in the kitchen. The Indians are seated next to the fire and they delicately hold the steaming cups. Nana serves them with a measured courtesy as if they were kings. On their feet, they wear leather sandals, caked with dried mud, and their coarse cotton pants are dirty and patched and the pouches they wear at their sides are empty. 

When she’s finished serving them, Nana sits down as well. She solemnly stretches out her hands towards the fire and holds them there for a few moments. They talk and it’s as if a circle had closed around them. I break through, distraught.

–Nana, I’m cold.

And she, as she has always done, ever since I was born, pulls me into her lap. It’s warm and loving, But there’s a wound. A wound that we’ve inflamed. 

VI

They say that in the mountains there’s an animal they call the dzulúm.¹¹ Every night he comes out to roam his dominions. He comes to where the lion is with her cubs, and she surrenders the entrails of the freshly killed calf. The dzulúm takes it but he doesn’t eat because he’s not driven by hunger but by the will to command. The tigers, when they smell his presence, flee, making the fallen leaves rustle. The herds awaken decimated and the monkeys, who have no shame, holler in fear from the treetops.

–And what’s the dzulúm like? 

–Nobody who has ever seen it has lived. But I’ve heard it said that he’s very beautiful, and even gente de razón¹² pay tribute to him.

We’re in the kitchen. The embers throb under a layer of ash. The candle’s flame tells us which direction the wind is blowing. The maids jump, startled, when, in the distance, there’s the sound of thunder. Nana continues.

–Once, a long time ago, we were all in Chactajal. Your grandparents took in an orphan who they treated as their own. Her name was Angelica. She was like a stalk of sugarcane. And so gentle and obedient with her elders. And so loving and considerate with us, those who served her. She had no lack of suitors. But it was as if she no longer considered them or as if she were waiting for someone else. And the days passed. Until one morning, we woke to the news that the dzulúm was stalking around on the far edges of the hacienda. The clues were the devastation that he left everywhere. And a terror that dried up the udders of all the animals who were suckling their young. Angelica sensed it. And when she learned of his presence, she started to tremble like the thoroughbred mares when they see a shadow pass in front of them. And since that day, she never found relief. Her handiwork fell from her hands. She lost her sense of joy and she went around as if she were looking for it in the corners. She would wake, burning with thirst, in the middle of the night to drink the still water. Your grandfather thought she was sick, and he brought in the best healer in the region. The healer came and he asked to speak to her alone. Who knows what she said? But the man came out, frightened, and that night he went back home, slipping off. Angelica wasted away like the wicks of the candles. In the afternoon, she’d go out to walk in the countryside and she’d come back when it was already night, the hem of her dress torn by thorns. And when we asked her where she’d been, she’d only say that she hadn’t found the path and she’d look at us as if pleading for help. And we would all gather around her, not knowing what to say. Until one time she never came back.

Nana takes the tongs and stirs the coal. Outside the rain is knocking against the roof’s tiles.

–The Indians went out looking for her with torches of ocote.¹³ They went shouting, opening a pathway with their machetes. They followed a trail, and then, suddenly, the trail disappeared. They searched for days and days. They took out the hounds. And they never found a scrap of Angelica’s clothing, not a piece of her body.

–Did the dzulúm carry her off?

–She looked at him and she followed him as if she had been bewitched. And one step led to another until she came to the place where all roads come to an end. He went ahead, beautiful and powerful, with his name that means the desire to die.

VII

This afternoon, we’re going on an excursion. Since early in the morning, the maids have been washing their feet, rubbing them with a stone. Then, from the chest they took out their mirrors with celluloid frames and their wooden combs. They anointed their hair with fragrant oils, braided it with red ribbons and got ready to leave.

My parents rented a car that’s waiting for us outside the door. We all arrange ourselves inside, everyone except for Nana who doesn’t want to come with us because she’s scared. She says that automobiles are the devil’s invention. And she hides herself in the inside patio so as not to see it. 

Who knows if Nana’s right? The car is a monster that snorts and exhales smoke. And as soon as it has swallowed us inside, it starts up on the cobblestones. A special sense of smell guides it up against the posts and the cliffs to knock them down. But they graciously keep out of its way and we arrive, without too many bruises, at the Nicalococ Plain.¹⁴

It’s the time of year when all the families bring their sons so they can fly their kites. There are many in the sky. There’s Mario’s. It’s made of blue, green and red Chinese paper. It has a very, very long tail. There it is, high above, sounding like it’s just about to tear in two, more gallant and more adventurous than any other. With a lot of string so that it can fly high and swerve and none other can reach it.

The adults place bets. The boys run, pulled by their kites that look for the best air current. Mario trips and falls, his rough knees bleed. But he doesn’t let go of the string and he gets up, not minding what has happened, and he keeps running. We girls look at each other, in our spot, away from the boys. 

What an immense place! A plain with no herds where the only animal that plays is the wind. And how, at times, it rears up and knocks over the birds that have come to pose timidly on its rump. And how it neighs. With so much freedom! With so much life!

Now I understand that the voice that I’ve been hearing since I was born is this one. And this is my constant company. I had already seen it, in winter, come armed with long, sharp knives and pierce our flesh distressed with cold. I have felt it in the summer, lazy, yellow with pollen, come close with the taste of wild honey on its lips. And as night falls, howling with fury. And that it is tame in the middle of the day, when the Cabildo clock strikes twelve. And it knocks on doors and upsets vases of flowers and mixes up papers on the desk and wreaks havoc with girls’ dresses. But never, until today, have I come to the house of its power and will. And I stay still, with my eyes lowered because (Nana has told me) it’s in this way that respect looks at that which is great. 

–But how stupid you are. You get distracted at the very moment when your brother’s kite wins. 

He’s very proud of his success and he goes to hug my parents, breathless, his cheeks red.

It starts to get dark. It’s time to go back to Comitán. As soon as we get back to the house, I look for Nana to tell her my news.

–Do you know what? Today I met the wind. In the wind’s house. 

She doesn’t interrupt her work. She continues removing the kernels from the corn, thoughtful and not smiling. But I know she’s happy. 

–That’s good, niña. Because the wind is one of the nine guardians of your people. 

Translated by Nancy Jean Ross

From Balún Canán, edited by Dora Sales, Madrid: Cátedra: Letras Hispánicas, 2004.
The information included in the footnotes comes from this edition.
Original title: Balún Canán, by Rosario Castellanos, 6th ed., pp. 5-19
© 1957, Fondo de Cultura Económica
Carretera Picacho Ajusco 227, 14110, Mexico City

1 Balún Canán – nine stars, nine guardians. The indigenous name of the city, Comitán. The area was settled by Mayans, part of an empire that included Guatemala, El Salvador, the western part of Honduras, and the Mexican states of Chiapas, Tabasco, Quintana Roo, Campeche, and Yucatán. 

2 tzec – from tzekel, skirt of the indigenous women who speak Tzotzil or Tzeltal, made of black fabric that they would have woven, sometimes dyed with indigo. 

3 pichulej – possibly a kind of wide grass used to weave hats. 

4 tzisim – a kind of ant that, on the first rainfall, flies out to lay its eggs. It is edible and considered a delicacy.

5 común – bathroom.

6 posol – a pre-Columbian drink made from fermented corn dough (nixtamal) and cacao. 

7 Naranja dulce, limón partido – sweet orange, lime in slices.

8 “vamos a la huerta de toro, toronjil” 

9 Chactajal – the name of a small settlement in Ocosingo, a district of Chiapas. In the novel, this is where the family, the Argüellos, own a ranch. In actuality, the Castellanos’ family ranch was called El Rosario.  

10  guajolote – from the Nahuatl huexolotl – turkey, a domestic bird native to the Americas.

11 dzulúm – dzunun or dzunal, meaning “hummingbird,” exists in many Mayan languages. 

12 “gente de razón” – rational people – term used in colonial Latin America to denote people who were culturally Hispanicized, i.e. not indigenous people who lived in indigenous communities.

13 ocote – a resinous and aromatic pine that grows in the wild from Mexico to Nicaragua. 

14 Nicolococ Plain – an area near Comitán. 

Photo: Diego Lozano, Unsplash

Tuxtla, December 11, 1951

My dearest Ricardo: 

I arrived yesterday morning. The trip was full of mishaps, and I had to spend the night in Tehuantepec, in a hotel full of spiders and bugs. At first my brother received me somewhat suspiciously, but after five minutes he was very sweet and loving.  So far, everything is going well. The day after tomorrow we leave for Chapatengo. Hopefully things will continue like this.

I have so many things to tell you. Everything I see or anything that happens to me makes me think of you. It’s obsessive. I’ve been carefully going over our situation, and I’ve come to realize that I’ve been a terrible egoist and that you must really love me very much to put up with me, the way I am and all the things that I do. I want to change everything, I want to be how you want me to be, I make a thousand resolutions to improve but then when I remember that you can’t say the least thing to me without me flying into a rage, I fly into a rage. 

I love you, as much as I can love, more than I’ve ever loved anybody. But I love you very badly; I don’t know, it’s like a desperate possessiveness, a thirst for you, a desire to become completely a part of you, a pain of being separated even when we’re together, an inexpressible jealousy, a constant fear. I don’t want to analyze this anymore. In Puebla, I was very happy, especially the last night. I would have liked, like Faust, to have held on to that moment, the most beautiful, the fullest of my life. Both of us abandoned ourselves (at least that’s how I experienced it), let go of our reserve and gave ourselves fully to each other. The terrible thing is that the day and life are made up of innumerable moments when each one of us is ourselves and scarcely recognizes, when he sees the other, this being who he loves and in whom his solitude is extinguished. But it’s necessary that this moment of fulfillment permeates all the others and outlasts and overcomes them. 

Don’t forget that I love you; I entrust myself to you. Don’t be excessively unfaithful, try to restrain yourself a little and love me also a little bit.

Your Rosario

TELEGRAM

Tuxtla Gutiérrez, December 12, 1951
Ricardo Guerra Tejada
Xola 715
Del Valle, D.F.
Arrived safely. Sent letter. I love you.
Rosario Castellanos

Tuxtla, December 12, 1951

My dearest Ricardo:

I tried to mail you the letter I wrote yesterday but, since Guadalupe Day is almost a national holiday here, the post office was closed. This filled me with a metaphysical anguish and that’s why I sent you a telegram, to calm myself down. It’s terrible that you know me so well. In Puebla, you predicted that as our absence grew, so would our love. You were right but you can’t imagine by how much. I’m sad, desperate, I can’t stay calm anywhere. When I’m not with you I feel a physical unease. It’s as if your presence intoxicated me. I need you the way I’d need a drug. It’s not healthy. To put myself at ease I must change my way of thinking. But I can’t. Now that I’m not with you, I miss Lolita. If it weren’t for this total feeling of absence, your absence, I would be happy. Because my brother has been very loving and I feel very comfortable with him. There’s no tension between us. All day long we’re together and we don’t say a word. Then we’re both overcome with feelings of tenderness and we hug each other and we play cards and I always win. This worries me a lot. Lucky in cards… I catch myself trying to not talk too loudly, to not ask for the food before he’s ready, to not always answer when someone asks something. He stares at me, startled. My meekness frightens him. 

How have you been? Have you had any more headaches? Are you still giving yourself injections? I want so much, so very much for you to be well, and for you to stay well. Have you been going out much? How many Lupes1 have you congratulated?  Don’t answer me, villain.

Did you take the things to Laura? Have you read M. Luisa Algarra’s collected works? I’m reading The Plague by Camus and yesterday I read If I Were You by Julius Green. Worse than Leviathan. It seems highly implausible.

Early tomorrow we leave for La Concordia. Will I be able to stand it? I’m on the verge of hysteria: sad, agitated, and I can’t find “a center or a respite.” I want to do something, to have a fit or cut my veins, so that instead of going to La Concordia they would take me to Mexico City. And there I would see you and hug you and fight with you and love you frenetically, like I do now.

Rosario

My dearest Ricardo:

It’s the same day, the twelfth, but after midnight. And as I promised to write you daily… It’s really a sophism, but it serves its purpose because in this way I have permission to write you.

Tuxtla is an incredible place, and I almost agree with you that Chiapas doesn’t exist. Picture it: its capital consists of a cultural center, several archeological museums, a university, a relief map of the state, a well-fed zoo, the most important botanical gardens in the country, a society for friends of the orchid, etc. And with all this you can get a fairly good idea of what it’s like; if you want to keep this idea, don’t come. You would find a place with unpaved streets, no drains, no houses, with only one lonely and pathetic movie theater and with a Hotel Jardín that’s like something completely out of the past, like the magazine América.

For example: they give you a room with two beds and only one towel. If you complain they lecture you for wanting to bathe too often. Or they paint all the doors and don’t warn you. And when you get all covered in paint and you get angry they tell you that you’re the tenth person that it’s happened to. They’re only worried about statistics. And if at night you want to rest and sleep you can’t, because in the courtyard there’s marimba and a dance. And if you complain, they tell you that you’re old and you don’t know how to have any fun. It’s lovely. Grrrrrr.

We’ve gone to the movies. We saw Fierecilla with Rosita Arenas and Flor de sangre with Esther Fernández. Nobody’s been able to console me for not being able to see La marquesa del barrio.

And you, what have you been up to? When are you going to write? You know where: at La Concordia. I absolutely need to hear from you. Don’t be miserly, please.

Are you going to Acapulco? Tell me, tell me everything.

And now, mi vida, good night. I would like to be close to you, to kiss you. Do you know what I like a lot more now than before I left? Why say, you don’t? You wouldn’t be projecting? No, please, no. I need you to be attracted to me as I am to you. I like you. I miss you very much. I don’t want to fight with you anymore and even if we do fight it doesn’t matter. I love you, above and beyond anything you or I say, words don’t have as much strength. Love has its own conviction. 

Write me soon. Love me also a little. 

Rosario

Chapatengo, December 15, 1951

My dearest Ricardo:

The first legible² letter since we’ve been separated. To tell you that I’m sad and that I’m sad and what else can I say? There are many other things; but I would like to get a letter from you, a long, long letter, saying many things, explaining everything. It goes without saying that you’re not going to write me this letter. And so you’ll not allow me to write a beautiful and long and explicit letter in return. But what is it that you want? You’ve been so insistent that I cease my monologue, and now when I’m demanding a dialogue it’s precisely when there’s no one there. 

But enough vague and sibylline allusions. Let’s be abstract and objective. I made the trip, happily. From Tuxtla to La Concordia by plane, no unexpected movement, no treacherous air pockets—below us a river, not moving, and microscopic trees and animals that must be down there but were impossible to make out. Then the forced landing. La Concordia, wide, with its whitewashed walls, its sandy streets. The sky so blue, implacably blue. And then, in stark relief, a palm tree. We were there for several hours, staying in the only guest house where travelers can rest. Falling asleep, walking so we didn’t get too sluggish. We played Chinese checkers, first I played with my brother. I beat him. Then with the owner of the house. I beat him. Lastly with a man who had some very funny theories, which would all be very well, if they were applied to chess, but in checkers were useless. I beat him. And I was very glad because he was conceited and angry. But I’m alarmed. This streak of good luck in cards. The champion of Chinese checkers. That’s all I need. 

We left from there in the afternoon. They gave me the only horse that I can ride. I wish it had a romantic or mythical name. But it’s called, modestly and ridiculously, Barril.3 It has a smooth gait. It’s “a walker” as they say here. As we rode, night fell. The moon took a while to come out. Meanwhile, my horse was tripping and falling over everything. I suspect it’s more near-sighted than me. I went along singing so as to keep my fear at bay and to convince myself that I wasn’t getting tired. And I didn’t get tired.  But as soon as I was near a bed I threw myself down and fell fast asleep.

I didn’t bring any books. My brother’s sending the ones I had to Comitán. The radio’s broken. There’s absolutely nothing to do. You wake up early because the chickens and the hogs and the cows cluck, groan and moo, and conjugate all these verbs so it’s impossible to ever know exactly to whom they correspond. You drink a cup of coffee and eat some bread and stay in bed a while longer until the sun comes up. Then you straighten up the room, you fix some imperfection that occurred sometime during the night, you have lunch, and then you enter into the tunnel of several hours when you can’t even use the hammock because it’s in the sun. Today, to entertain ourselves, we came up with a fun activity that kept us busy all morning. Raúl shaved my head. First with a pair of scissors; zap, off with the long pieces, then with some smaller scissors, leaving it very short. Lastly, with the razor. He left my head shining, smooth, polished. We had a great time. And, besides, like this I can’t leave, even though I want to, until it grows, my hair, even if it’s only a centimeter. Hmm. I wonder what we’ll think up for tomorrow.

In the morning, a young girl, who I didn’t recognize, came to see me; she brought me some eggs as a gift. I asked her who she was, how long she’d been here. Only for a little while. It was only four days ago that her mother got together with one of the vaqueros. And she says it so calmly. She must be used to it. When I listened, I felt something like a chill. Today for the first time I was tempted to use curse words. Those I know; the ones I’ve been hearing since coming here. Here it’s the only way to express yourself. Saying a bad word is like fanning yourself.  It’s refreshing. And even though it’s not hot right now, on the contrary, it’s getting cold. Especially at night. You have to use a ton of blankets. Everybody has malaria.

As for my relationship with Raúl, we get along better than ever; I feel very good, very content when I’m with him. He has a package with all the letters I’ve sent him. Except for the last two: the one where I told him I wanted to get married and the one with my answer to his answer to that letter. It seems strange that he didn’t keep those two letters, don’t you think? Now he’s more settled, more confident, calmer than before. I’m very pleased. I don’t think he’s happy. But I don’t think he suffers as much as he used to. And to think that only two years ago I was in a state of despair thinking that anything that you did with him was useless. Now he’s conscious of his worth and his abilities. On the ranch, they respect him, they take him seriously and they acknowledge his abilities. And he feels very good about himself. I’m very, very happy, truly. Today he gave me some silk handkerchiefs. His name is embroidered on them. A girl gave them to him but he hasn’t wanted to use them. He also asked me if I wanted him to mail my letter knowing it was for you. I sighed a sigh of relief. He didn’t really like the gift that I brought him from Spain. What can I do? Anyway, we’re happy. 

Did you read the collected works of María Luisa Algarra? What did you think? Tell me. Write me, please, I have a crazy need to hear from you. Give me the chance to tell you so many things. Tell me how you’ve been feeling; if you’ve been back to see Cabrera, tell me if you’ve seen Lolita, if you ever did the errands for Laura Beatriz, if you’re going to Acapulco for the holiday, if you’ve been invited to a lot of Christmas parties. I’ve decided to no longer wind my watch, to not look at the calendar. It’s the most radical experiment of solitude I’ve ever tried. Let me see what happens. If I burst, or if I get used to it, or if I write my complete works.

Do you think of me sometimes? How? Please tell me. Another day when I am less literary than today I’ll send you a letter where I’ll tell you how much I love you. Now I only want you to know, like this, simply, I love you. 

Rosario 

Chapatengo, December 22, 1951

My dearest Ricardo: 

Everyday I’ve been writing you and tearing up the letters. Not one seemed satisfactory. Because I have something important to tell you and I’m not finding the right way to say it. Because I’m afraid of not being precise and that you’ll misinterpret me. For this reason I want to say, before anything else, I love you. But something has come up that absolutely must be said. And I don’t have any option but to respect that.

Life is full of surprises. Do you remember in what frame of mind I came to Chapatengo? I was expecting to find here an ogre, a thorn, one more problem that would make everything intolerable, not to mention difficult for sentimental reasons. I remember, with much bitterness and with the urge to flee, episodes from my past trips; the horse that acted up, medicines denied to me, attacks of rage, etc. All in all, I was very afraid because, faced with such situations, the only way I know how to defend myself is by disappearing. And I come here and I find a brother who’s confident and mature. And last Sunday in an intimate conversation I find out that he knows me better than any other person, that he judges everything knowing the depths of my defects and, so marvelously, he accepts me as I am and he loves me. Ever since the tension between us has evaporated. I feel completely at home and I trust him implicitly. I feel very, very happy. But I can’t give myself any credit for the fact that our relationship has been so good. It’s him, even through all our difficulties, who has found the thread and has untangled the knots. I would have continued for years and years with my mistaken attitude. That consisted, as you know so well, of unadulterated drama. Because always when I’m in front of another person, I put myself in their place, and I look at myself as I imagine they are looking at me and I immediately begin to act according to this look. In superficial relationships with people I don’t need to see very often or with whom I’m not very close, it doesn’t really matter. The farce can continue. But when the relationships are of another kind, the farce, whatever it may be, simply cannot be sustained. With my brother I had scripted for myself an extremely uncomfortable role. I was the strong woman. My heart, an unshakeable rock. My convictions, my projects, clear and steady. And, not to mention, I was an Amazon able to withstand eight and a half hours on horseback without showing the least sign of fatigue, able to help out with the branding without blinking an eyelash (the suffocating heat, those clouds of smoke, the enormous number of biting insects). And, not to mention, savvy in business, capable of getting the ranch back on its feet. When I look at all this now, it makes me laugh. Where did I get such an extravagant image? From Rómulo Gallegos’s Doña Bárbara, at the very least. But it was a role that was too big for me and demanded an enormous effort. All day long I had to be on my guard. I needed to pretend that ten minutes after I got on a horse I didn’t need to pee and sit down and cry from exhaustion; that at branding I didn’t become bored stiff; that I understood anything about the price, the age or the size of the cattle when I’ve never even been able to tell the difference between a bull and a cow. When I’ve never been able to recognize any of the pastures or corrals. I’ve always needed to be on my guard, watching myself very carefully. But I knew that despite everything my act wasn’t very convincing and that everywhere the fake ear was easily discerned.4 For this reason I got very annoyed (more like alarmed) when my brother told me I was near-sighted. A blind Amazon? It’s inconceivable. It’s completely antithetical. But I didn’t want to admit defeat and I kept trying to keep up pretenses. But the effort it required to hide my true self paid its due. So, our relationship was a disaster. Now he, without hurting me, shows me what I truly am. A weak person, who isn’t the least bit mature, voluble, inconsistent because she doesn’t know what she wants nor what she should do nor what she can do. For instance, how on a ranch, she needs to be sitting nicely inside while the men do the men’s work. And how she has the right to sleep if she wants to sleep, to write if she needs to and she doesn’t need to understand anything about the ranch even though people are always explaining it to her. And he tells me this, not as a reproach, but so that there’s nothing that comes between us and so that we can feel comfortable with each other. How happy I am. To be able to go to the river and not go in a certain part because I’m afraid; to go to the corral for a while to watch them vaccinate the calves, but, as soon as I get bored, to go back to the house. To stretch myself out in the hammock and to spend hours not doing anything, simply thinking, to write without the need to go around hiding myself, to get up late, to listen to the radio until I’m tired, to use his typewriter whenever I want, to read his magazines without the need to ask permission, to play cards and beat him and not feel offensively happy or ridiculously guilty and to lose and not take it as a personal offense. I’m near-sighted? Great. I’ve never felt so good with anybody. I compare this relationship to all my others. Why are they so problematic, and why do I consider their foundation so precarious and in danger of being broken? Because I am, in all of them, playing a role, making an effort that extracts from me, naturally, minor acts of revenge, very inconvenient for everyone. Why do I do it? Because of my desire to please, because I think nobody is going to accept me as I am. My intentions are good, but the results couldn’t be any worse. Because I don’t fool anybody, and I only manage to make myself and everybody feel as though we’re walking on eggshells. And I’m always trying to find a graceful exit from situations whose root is the anguish of the question. If they realize who I really am, what will happen? And I can’t expect that everybody and everyone with whom I have a difficult relationship should dedicate themselves, on their own initiative, to investigating who I am and, once this is discovered, a miracle will occur and they’ll feel very kindly towards me and tell me that it doesn’t matter, that they love me anyway. So I’ve personally decided, no matter how hard, no matter how painful and humiliating it may be, no matter how fearful this makes me, to unmask myself.

The first mask which I had to get rid of (because this one modifies all the others) was the one I had made for Wilberto. For three years I’ve been leaning up to him as if he were a mirror in which I could contemplate a reflection that pleased me very much; I was an exceptional human being, completely detached from the earth, ready to listen to the first summons to take flight. And I allowed everyone to believe (and I even allowed myself to believe) that the face that I showed them was that of a being who suffered a pure love, unselfish, constant, and, ay, impossible. This lent me great romantic prestige. But if this homemade being and this love had been real, it would have manifested itself in acts, and not in just letters (that can be confused with a simple predilection to cultivate a certain literary style) and from time to time with an unexpected and brief meeting. But at the hour of the cocolazas, what’s happened? Nothing. Anything that would prevent our romantic romance from materializing. And previously I would be full of remorse for my refusals. But now I’m sure that Wilberto was as scared as me that at some time we would take our flirtations to a more serious level. But now that I’ve decided to become a serious person and to throw out any skeletons; no matter how old, I’ve screwed up my courage (I should also mention that I’ve consumed a steak for sustenance) and I wrote Wilberto a letter, a very long letter, describing, from my point of view, our situation. I don’t know what he’ll think. I think that he’ll be in for a mild shock. I don’t want to hurt him, but I was very direct. When he gets this letter, he’ll know that there’s no point in ever mentioning the word marriage. Friendship, yes. I’m very fond of him. And it hurts me very much to destroy myself in front of him in such an inexorable way. But it was necessary, absolutely necessary. Only by acting like this can I aspire to not completely hate myself.  

And now it’s necessary, Ricardo, that before you, I strip off another mask. I don’t know how you see me. How was I to know? I needed to concentrate on you, on what you think, on what you want. And this I’ve never done. And know that you see me, putting myself in your place, and through your eyes, as a woman so feminine, so tender, so sweet, so loyal, so faithful, so discreet and so much in love.

From what romance novel did I get this type? I don’t know. The only thing I can tell you (and this isn’t news to you) is that I’m not like this. I’m very different and I don’t say this with pride and by shrugging my shoulders so as to imply, so what? But with humility along with a very well-founded suspicion that I can’t change.

Let’s take it slowly, we’ll start at the beginning. So feminine… Well, not really. It could be that I am (I don’t have any special interest in denying it), it could be that I am… But together with this and as much as this, I’m an asexual being who simply believes, with a certain ferocity and deep intensity, in her vocation. And that this vocation is neither maternal nor amorous but literary. And up until now, when both these qualities have come into conflict, the first one ends up being completely “knocked out.” So tender… Well, if I’m going to concede this one it will have to be with the qualification that only at times. Most of the time, sarcastic and obstinate. So sweet… Really? So loyal. Inasmuch as loyalty is compatible with a morbidly acute sense of criticism. So faithful. Physically yes, irreproachably so. I’m intact. Nobody has touched me except for you. But let’s not forget that I’ve had dreams (I couldn’t help it, how could I?). I write letters and, on occasion, receive them. So discreet: But sometimes I have a very strong desire to confide in someone. And Lolita is so close and is my most intimate friend. (But neither am I very demanding when it comes to finding a listener when I need to get something off my chest and this is always the case when I feel remorse and I always feel full of remorse, I tell everything to the first person I meet, I’m completely incapable of keeping any secret.) And so in love… I admit it on the days when we get along… I doubt it or deny it the rest of the time. 

I know that someone like me can’t be a very satisfactory girlfriend, she is very far from what one needs, one desires, what one wishes for, especially for you, who more than needing to love, needs people to love you. For this reason, I’ve tried to be different, at least to seem to be. Before going away this seemed relatively easy and possible. Not because I loved you more than I do now (on the contrary) but because you were less demanding. I saw right away that my efforts were successful and I felt encouraged to continue. But now, no matter what I do, I can’t get anywhere. You always realize my faults. And if only it was your astuteness that I so feared. It’s also your lack of interest, your desperation. You reproach my egoism, my fault of attention, my stubbornness, callousness. I swear to you that I try to destroy them. It’s useless. And then I feel like a wall that people are hitting to extract some blood that it just doesn’t possess. It’s awful discovering that at every moment I lack the least little bit of generosity, that my whole exterior is a barrier that neither your deeds nor your voice can penetrate. I invent you to keep you at a distance, I don’t see you, I don’t listen to you. And instead of admitting the obvious, I come back with a very feminine logic, against you. I reproach you to justify my own shortcomings. Which, according to you, can be reduced to one only: I don’t love you enough.

But the worst thing is that, inside this monstrosity that is Rosario, I love you. But it’s a love that, if I could describe it to you, would seem like an insult for its stinginess and for how different it is from the love that you want, that you need. I am ashamed to love in this way (I’m so proud that I feel obligated to do everything perfectly) and I start to perform a series of acts that are what other people do when they fall in love. But you can see through these acts and see that there’s something else which, if it were left to be free, would express itself in another way.

It’s not that I’m not trying. As much as I can love, I love you. As much as a person can be to my liking, you are. With all my heart I want us to get along well. But if this is not enough for you, it would be pointlessly sad for us to keep trying and hurting ourselves and each other. Look at me closely, think about it carefully. And without trusting that I can change with time, and our time together and the good advice that you give me, think if I seem satisfactory. If not, I prefer that you tell me now. (If this is the case, I’d indefinitely prolong my stay in Chiapas.) If you want me, I’ll come back very happily and we’ll try to negotiate our future.

How have you been? Are you still giving yourself injections? Are you finally going to go to Acapulco? Did Emilia go to Europe? What happened with Morelia? I’m bursting with questions. Your answers must cover everything. I send you millions of happy wishes for Christmas and the New Year. And all, all of my love.

Rosario

P.S. Tell Jorge that I have the words for “Modesto Ayala.” I’ll send them to him soon. Right now, I’m very tired.

Tell Archie and Lucinda that I’ve dreamt about them twice. My hair has grown a quarter of a centimeter. I’m writing theater, in verse! 

Chapatengo, January 10, 1952

My dearest Ricardo:

Really, I believe there wasn’t any need to write this letter. It would have been enough to prolong the silence.  But unclear situations upset me and I prefer to end this once and for all. 

I don’t want to make a list of my merits, but I do want to say that I did all that was in my power to prolong a love that you never bothered to respect. I won’t deny that when I came here from Mexico City, I was already very disillusioned. But, out of loyalty, I still wrote you a few letters and I didn’t show you how bad things were with me until I was sure that I wasn’t going to use my liberty to marry someone else, because, to me, this wouldn’t seem right no matter who was involved and I just couldn’t do it. In all the time I’ve been here, I haven’t gotten one letter from you. I must interpret your silence, now without any appeal, as a complete lack of interest and love. And now that I no longer find those two things, where before I always could, in me, I really don’t know what game we’re playing. 

I also don’t want to blame you for anything. What I feel for you is much more like friendship than love. And this is what I offer you. But as I doubt you are interested in something that you have such an abundance of everywhere, I won’t insist.

I beg you to give Lolita, if you haven’t already given them to their owner, the books by María Luisa Algarra. Also, the letters you have which were sent to me in Spain.

Give my regards to your mamá. Tell her I got her very kind note and I’ll reply with pleasure and, as I don’t know how to say good-bye to you, I’ll say good-bye by simply saying adiós.

Rosario

Translated by Nancy Jean Ross

Original title: Cartas a Ricardo, by Rosario Castellanos, pp. 169-179 & 181
© Gabriel Guerra Castellanos

1 Lupe is a girl’s name, short for Guadalupe. Castellanos is referring to the saint’s day, which in Mexico is celebrated like a birthday.

2 It is likely that Castellanos is referring to the fact that she now has access to a typewriter, while she wrote her previous letters by hand. 

3 “Barrel”

4 Possibly a reference to Charles Perrault’s fairy tale, “Peau d’Âne” (Donkey Skin), in which a princess with the help of a fairy godmother disguises herself with a donkey skin so as to escape her father’s attention. 

Photo: Mexican writer Rosario Castellanos, 1925-1974.

The Feather Bolster

Horacio Quiroga

Her honeymoon was one long shiver. She was blonde, angelic and shy, and her husband’s harsh nature chilled her young girl’s dreams of being a bride.  Yet she loved him dearly, although sometimes with a slight shudder whenever, returning home together at night along the streets, she cast a furtive glance at the tall figure of Jordan, who had not said a word for an hour. For his part, he loved her deeply, without ever showing it. 

For three months—they had been married in April—they lived a kind of bliss. No doubt she could have wished for less severity in their austere sky of love, more open, spontaneous affection; but her husband’s unresponsive ways always held her back.

The house they lived in had more than a little influence on her state of mind. The white expanse of the courtyard, with its friezes, columns, and marble statues, gave the kind of autumnal impression of an enchanted palace. Inside, the glacial gleam of stucco covering the high walls without blemish reinforced the feeling she had of uncomfortable coldness. When she went from one room to another, her footsteps echoed throughout the house, as if a long abandonment had increased its sensitivity to sound.

Alicia spent the entire autumn in this strange love nest.  She had though resolved to cast a veil over her earlier dreams, and sleepwalked round the hostile house, trying to avoid thinking of anything until her husband returned. 

It’s not odd that she lost weight. She had a slight bout of influenza that dragged stubbornly on day after day: Alicia never seemed to recover. Finally one evening she was able to go out into the garden, supported on her husband’s arm. She gazed listlessly all around her.  All at once, Jordan stroked her head with great tenderness. Alicia burst into tears and threw her arms round him. She wept and wept, releasing all her pent-up fears, her sobs redoubling at Jordan’s slightest caress. Her sobs gradually eased, but she remained a long while nestling against him, without moving or saying a word.

That was the last day Alicia was up and about. The next morning she woke feeling faint. Jordan’s doctor examined her with great care, and prescribed absolute calm and rest.

“I’m at a loss,” he told Jordan on the front doorstep. “I can’t explain why she is so weak. She isn’t vomiting or anything… If she wakes tomorrow in the same state, call me at once.” 

The next morning, Alicia was worse. The doctor returned. She showed signs of a galloping anaemia that was completely unfathomable. She did not lose consciousness again, but seemed visibly to be on her deathbed. Her bedroom was lit with lamps and stayed silent all through the day: hours dragged by without the slightest sound being heard. Alicia lay dozing. Jordan spent almost the whole of his time in the living room, which was always lit as well. Tirelessly stubborn, he paced from one side of the room to the other, the carpet muffling his steps. Occasionally, he went into the bedroom and continued his silent pacing round the bed, pausing for a moment at each end to gaze at his wife.  

Before long, Alicia began to suffer hallucinations. At first they floated confusedly in the air, then descended to the floor. Eyes gaping wide, the young woman stared at the carpet on either side of the headboard. One night she suddenly focussed on something… then opened her mouth to scream, her nostrils and lips beading with sweat.

“Jordan! Jordan!” she cried, rigid with terror, her eyes still fixed on the carpet. 

Jordan ran into the bedroom. When she saw him come in, Alicia gave a cry of terror. 

“It’s me, Alicia! It’s me!”

Alicia looked at him with wild eyes, then down at the carpet, back at him, and after long moments of stupefied confrontation, she slowly recovered her senses. She smiled and took her husband’s hand in hers, stroking it for half an hour, trembling all the while.

Among her most persistent hallucinations was of an ape squatting with his knuckles on the floor, staring straight at her. 

The doctors returned, but to no avail.  They could see a life draining away before their eyes, day by day, hour after hour, but could find absolutely no explanation for it. During their final consultation, Alicia lay in a stupor while they took her pulse, passing her inert wrist from one to another. They observed her for a long while in silence, then filed out into the dining room. 

“Hmm…” the family doctor said with a shrug. “It’s a mystery…There’s not a great deal we can do.” 

“That’s all I needed,” groaned Jordan, his fingers drumming on the table. 

Alicia was slipping away in an anaemic coma, which worsened in the evenings, but seemed to ease in the early hours. By day the illness did not progress, but every morning she woke up pallid, almost unconscious.  It seemed it was only during the night that her life ebbed away in bloody waves. Whenever she woke, she felt as if she was being crushed in her bed under a million kilogram weight. 

From the third day on, this sensation never left her. She could barely move her head. She did not want anyone to make her bed, not even to plump the bolster. Her twilight terrors now took the form of monsters dragging themselves towards the bed, then crawling up the bedspread. 

After that, she fell back unconscious. In her two final days she was raving deliriously the whole time. The lights still cast a funereal glow in the bedroom and living room. In the house’s agonising silence, the only sounds were her monotonous mumbling from the bed, and the dull slap of Jordan’s unending footsteps.

Alicia died. Entering later to strip the bed, the maid stared for a few moments at the bolster. 

“Señor!” she called out softly to Jordan. “There are stains on the bolster that look like blood.” 

Jordan rushed in and bent over the pillow.  It was true: on either side of the hollow left by Alicia’s head, there were small, dark stains. 

“They look like bites,” muttered the maid, after studying them for a while without moving. 

“Raise it to the light,” Jordan told her.

The maid picked up the bolster, but dropped it at once, staring at it white-faced and trembling. Without knowing why, Jordan could feel the hairs on the back of his neck bristling. 

“What is it?” he asked hoarsely. 

“It’s very heavy,” said the maid, still shaking.

Jordan picked up the bolster: it was extraordinarily heavy. They carried it out between the two of them, and on the dining room table Jordan slashed open the slip and case. The topmost layer of feathers flew out; the maid opened her mouth wide in a cry of horror, and raised her clenched fists to her cheeks. Deep inside the bolster, slowly moving its hairy legs, lay a monstrous-looking creature, a slimy living ball. It was so swollen its mouth was barely visible. 

Night after night, ever since Alicia had taken to her bed, it had stealthily applied its mouth—or rather, its proboscis—to the young woman’s temples, and sucked her blood. The bites were almost imperceptible. At first, when the bolster was still being shaken out every day, this had impeded its progress: but from the moment Alicia could no longer move, its bites had become voracious. In five days and nights, the monster had emptied Alicia of all her blood. 

These parasites that live on birds are tiny in their natural habitat, but in certain circumstances can assume gigantic proportions. They seem to particularly thrive on human blood, and it is not uncommon to encounter them in feather bolsters.

Translated by Nick Caistor