Nada más, poem by Oodgeroo Noonuccal translated from English by Daniela Trabuchi

no, yo no estaba en la plaza cuando una granada golpeó
sí, un ser querido fue herido ahí.
no, no dormí en un sótano
sí, llamaba por teléfono todas las noches a los que dormían ahí
no, no era un hombre y no me llevaron al campo
sí, vi a alguien salir de los cables con una bala en el pecho
no, no vi morir a nadie
sí, vi cadáveres flotando en el río
no, no me morí de hambre
sí, vendí un anillo de boda y compré pan y leche
no, nadie me obligó a salir de casa
sí, alguien cambió las cerraduras y se acostó en mi cama
no, no compré una pistola diminuta que vi en la tienda
sí, me gustó, cabía en mi cartera
no, no elegí la orilla del río en la que me encontraba por casualidad
sí, lo sé, podría aprender a nadar
no, no tenía miedo
sí, lloré viendo pasar los aviones
no, no me oían, estaba muy abajo
si, sabia que iban a tirar una bomba en tu patio trasero
no, de hecho no lo sabía, me preocupaba que pudieran hacerlo
sí, lo recuerdo todo
no, no hacía frío, era un verano precioso.
paseé a mi bebé en un cochecito y le canté
todo el día.
¿qué le cantaba?
sobre una nube y un pájaro
un deseo y una estrella,
la la la,
sí, nada más

Beasts, short-story by Arelis Uribe, translated from the Spanish by Andrea Meador Smith

I get off at bus stop 20. I’m feeling tipsy because I was drinking with my girlfriends from college. It’s so late that the shops on the main drag have already shuttered for the night and the air is covered with that thick fog that smells like fusty smoke, like dirty smog. There is no one out and that scares me. Empty streets creep me out more than crowded ones, I don’t know why. My only line of defense is to furrow my brow, walk fast, and hope that nothing bad happens between here and my house.  

I walk the first block and hear someone following me. My stomach clenches up. I can guess that it’s a gang of delinquents with double-edged knives or the creepy old man masturbating with his pants down. I turn around and find a mutt. Small, black, and wagging its tail. It’s that typical dog that crosses your path, those dogs that come and go, that find you by chance, like loose coins or bills, and that are impossible to recognize when you run into them again. Velcro dogs, I once heard them called. I bend down to pet the dog and he shows me his belly. Then I discover the dangling teats of a new mother. It’s the early hours of the morning and she’s wandering around alone, I think. I imagine that she goes out at night to look for something to feed her pups during the day. I invite her to follow me and she comes along. Now we are two night owls strutting around the streets of the Gran Avenida.

We walk and I hear the clicking of her little paws behind me and I see how her shadow grows and reaches mine, in a game of black and orange lights that the streetlamps cast on the sidewalk. She looks like Cholita, I think, the only dog who ever fulfilled her role of happy family pet. Cholita was a black mutt that my grandmother adopted when I was a girl and we lived in La Florida. She supposedly belonged to me and my brother, but in reality the dog only answered to my grandmother. She slept with her in bed and she stopped to look out the window at 10:00 every night, when my grandma was about to get home from work.

One afternoon she got lost. We don’t know how she learned to get out, but that day, maybe because she was in heat, she ran off. My grandmother was dyeing her hair and she went out with a plastic bag on her head to ask up and down our street if anyone had seen Cholita. No one, nothing. I remember that I cried, but not from sadness. I hadn’t become that fond of the dog. I cried because I knew that I had lost something that was mine and at the age of twelve I already had that notion of ownership.

What hurt most about losing Cholita is that all the boys and girls on our street had their own living, breathing stuffed animal in the front yard. I had nothing. One night I decided to fill in this void. I grabbed my jump rope and my camping backpack and went to look around other neighborhoods, where I didn’t know anyone who could make me feel guilty. I found wild dogs that bared their teeth at me as soon as I got close to the gate and I found houses where you couldn’t see anything inside because an enormous mass of golden privets covered everything up. Until in one house I finally saw a white poodle. I got close and it tilted its head so that I would pet it. I opened the gate to the house carefully. It was unlocked. Lights off. I went inside and put the leash around its neck. The poodle resisted a little, but he was tame and it was no trouble to put him in my backpack. I closed the gate and ran off with the dog howling on my back.

I got home and tied the poodle to a lime tree that was on the far side of the patio. I went to the kitchen and put a little beef stew in an old pot and took it to him. The poodle refused to eat, he was lying down and crying. I bent down in front of him and said: you’re mine now. I tried to hug him and he slipped out of my grasp. He ran toward the gate. The leash was hanging from the dog’s neck like a whip and his screeching was high-pitched and loud. Right then my grandma appeared. She fussed at me, she said I was doing the same thing that someone else had done to me when they stole Cholita. I knew she was right, but I didn’t tell her so.

My grandmother set the poodle free and the dog ran off. I hated her for a long time because of that.

I never had a dog again, except for those Velcro dogs that follow you in the street. Like now, when a Cholita clone with drooping teats keeps me company.

We walk. Every Friday night I go home the same way, but I had never seen this dog. I like her. I start to growl at her and jump from side to side, like a fellow beast, and she growls back at me and jumps and wags her tail because maybe it’s been a long time since anyone on the street has been playful with her. I rub her head and she shows me her belly again. And even though it’s dark outside, I see how fleas are walking around between her pink nipples.

We are already halfway home. Thanks to the walk, the tipsiness eases up and little by little the boxed wine with Kem Piña starts to lose its effect. I think I’m going to wash off the dog and give her Vienna sausages and bread soaked in milk when we get to my house.

Then something terrible happens.

We are approaching Gustavo’s cybercafe and a German shepherd (or maybe a mix) shows up and throws himself on the mama dog. On her neck, as if the dog were an antelope and the German mongrel a jaguar. And I scream, GET OFF OF HER YOU FUCKING DOG, FUCKING GERMAN, FUCKING NAZI. The shepherd tries to mount her and he bites her flank and the mama dog shrieks and it’s been a long time since I’ve been this scared and I start to cry. I grab a big rock from the sidewalk and throw it at him. The German jumps on me and grabs my pant leg and I feel his teeth but more than anything I feel how the injured dog’s eyes are watching me. I raise my right leg and I don’t know how but I kick the shepherd’s head and he backs away and I run, run, run. I run just like in all the cliche movie scenes where someone is running for their life.

I make it to the corner of San Francisco and El Parrón. I’m barely breathing and there’s a stabbing pain in my side. It’s my spleen, I think. My mom thought that pain was good, she would say “if it hurts it’s because you feel something, and if you feel something it’s because you’re alive.” And alive and in one piece is how I want to make it back to my house. I turn around and see the shepherd on top of the mama dog. I look ahead and see the nearly empty plaza and see my house and think about the light on in my grandma’s room and the endless clanking of her sewing machine. I think, am I gonna help this mutt or not. I tighten my gut and sell out the mama dog like everyone sells out and gives up on street dogs. Because they are just part of the landscape, like vagrants or pigeons that no one sees when they’re sleeping in the streets and no one misses when cars run them over.

I go inside my house and hear my grandmother yell my name. I don’t respond. I shut myself in the bathroom and take off my pants. Blood is dripping from my thigh to my foot. It’s not a lot, but it is blood. I clean myself with toilet paper and take out an iodine dropper from the medicine cabinet and put it on top of the wound. It’s small but deep and I think that if I tell my grandma they are going to give me a shot and I prefer to keep my mouth shut, because I already had enough with the German shepherd’s fangs.  

I get in the shower and then lie down to sleep with wet hair. I dream about those cartoons where a dog showed up that was so ugly it wore a doghouse on its head and in my dream the giant ugly dog takes off his house-mask and his head is the same as the German shepherd’s and he opens his crocodile mouth and he follows me because I’m a traitor and I run and I’m dressed in a tunic and sandals like the apostles wear in Jesus of Nazareth.

The next day I wake up early. I’m not hungover, but even still something hurts inside. I leave my house and my grandma asks me where I’m going. I don’t tell her. I walk towards the corner where I abandoned the mama dog and she’s obviously not there anymore. On the cement-covered ground there’s dirt and blood stains. I touch them and move my fingers to my mouth and taste the iron of live blood. I touch the wound and the burning sensation confirms that what happened to me last night was real. I get up to go back home and then I see her. The drooping teats and four little puppies as black as she is that are hiding behind their mother. I walk over and let her know with my eyes that I will seek her out. And she stays very still on the sidewalk, without a single cord that binds her there to wait for me.  

 
Translated by Andrea Meador Smith

From Quiltras (Los Libros de la Mujer Rota, 2022)

https://latinamericanliteraturetoday.org/2023/12/beasts/

Poema sobre la violencia policial, by June Jordan translated into Spanish by Flor Codagnone

Decime algo
qué creés que pasaría si
cada vez que ellos matan a un chico negro
nosotros matáramos a un policía
si cada vez que ellos matan a un hombre negro
nosotros matáramos a un policía

¿pensás que disminuiría la tasa de accidentes?

a veces a la sensación le gusta sorprenderme cariño
vuelve a mi boca y estoy callada
como piletas olímpicas de la nieve
montañosa que corre bajo el sol

a veces pensando sobre la Casa 12 del Cosmos
o el modo en que tu oreja atrapa la punta
de mi lengua o los letreros que nunca he visto
como PELIGRO MUJERES TRABAJANDO

pierdo la conciencia de la bestial fea rabiosa
y repetitiva ofensa como cuando ellos me dicen
18 policías para someter a un solo hombre
18 lo estrangularon hasta la muerte en la posterior refriega  (¿no
idolatrás la dicción de los poderosos? Someter
y refriega ¡oh!) y que el asesinato
que la matanza de Arthur Miller en una calle
de Brooklyn fue solamente un “accidente justificable” otra vez
(otra vez)
Gente teniendo accidentes alrededor del mundo
por tanto tiempo que yo calculo que lo único
seguro apropiado es un arma
estoy diciendo que la guerra no es para entenderla o repetirla
la guerra es para pelearla y ganarla

a veces a la sensación le gusta sorprenderme cariño
oculta/ lo bestial pero
no demasiado a menudo

decime algo
qué creés que pasaría si
cada vez que ellos matan a un chico negro
nosotros matáramos a un policía
si cada vez que ellos matan a un hombre negro
nosotros matáramos a un policía

¿pensás que disminuiría la tasa de accidentes?

Poema sobre mis Derechos, by June Jordan

Incluso esta noche necesito dar un paseo y aclarar
mi cabeza sobre este poema acerca de por qué no puedo
salir sin cambiar mi ropa mis zapatos
mi postura corporal mi identidad de género mi edad
mi estatus como mujer sola en la noche/
sola en las calles/ estar sola no es la cuestión/
la cuestión es que no puedo hacer lo que quiero
hacer con mi propio cuerpo porque soy del sexo
equivocado de la edad equivocada de la piel equivocada y
supongo que no fue aquí en la ciudad sino allá en la playa/
o lejos en el bosque y quería ir
allí yo sola para pensar sobre Dios/ o pensar
sobre las criaturas o pensar sobre el mundo/ todo ello
al amparo de las estrellas y el silencio:
no pude ir y no pude pensar y no pude
estar allí
sola
tal como necesitaba estar
sola porque no puedo hacer lo que quiero hacer con mi propio
cuerpo y
quién demonios organiza las cosas
así
y en Francia dicen que si el tipo te penetra
pero no eyacula entonces él no me violó
y si después de apuñalarle si después de destrozar
con un martillo su cabeza si incluso después de eso si él
y sus colegas me follan después de eso
entonces es que yo lo consentí y no  hubo
violación porque finalmente comprendes finalmente
que me follaron porque había algo equivocado en mí había algo
malo de nuevo en ser yo estando donde estaba/ algo malo
por ser quien soy
exactamente igual que en Sudáfrica
penetrando en Namibia penetrando en
Angola y eso significa, quiero decir, cómo sabes si
Pretoria eyacula cómo será la evidencia la
prueba de la eyaculación del monstruo abusador sobre las Tierras Negras
y si
después de Namibia y si después de Angola y si después de Zimbabwe
y si después de todos mis parientes y las mujeres resisten incluso
a la auto-inmolación de los pueblos y si después de eso
perdemos pese a todo qué dirán los grandes señores, ¿pedirán mi consentimiento?:
¿Me sigues?: somos la gente equivocada
con la piel equivocada en el continente equivocado y por qué
demonios está todo el mundo siendo tan razonable sobre esto
y de acuerdo al Times de esta semana
allá por 1966 la CIA decidió que tenía este problema
y que el problema era un hombre llamado Nkrumah así que
lo mataron y antes de él fue Patrice Lumumba
y antes de él fue mi padre en el campus
en mi escuela de la Ivy League y el miedo de mi padre
de entrar en la cafetería porque dijo que
él era alguien equivocado de la edad equivocada de la piel equivocada de
la identidad de género equivocada y él pagaba mi matrícula y
antes de eso
fue mi padre diciendo que yo era alguien erróneo diciendo que
yo debí haber sido un chico porque él quería uno/ un
chico y yo debería haber tenido una piel más clara y
que yo debería haber tenido el pelo más lacio y que
a mí no me deberían gustar tanto los chicos pero en cambio yo sí debería
haber sido un chico/ un chico y antes de eso
fue mi madre rogando cirugía plástica
para mi nariz y un aparato para mis dientes y diciéndome
que dejara los libros que los dejara en otras
palabras
Son muy familiares para mi los problemas de la CIA
y los problemas de Sudáfrica y los problemas
de la Empresa Exxon y los problemas de la
América blanca en general y los problemas del profesorado
y de los predicadores y del FBI y de las
trabajadoras sociales y de mi Mamá y de mi Papá/ Me son muy
familiares esos problemas porque esos problemas
resultan que soy
yo
Yo soy la historia de la violación
Yo soy la historia del rechazo de quién soy
Yo soy la historia de la reclusión aterrorizada
dentro de mí
Yo soy la historia de las agresiones físicas y las ilimitadas
tropas contra cualquier cosa que quiero hacer con mi mente
y con mi cuerpo y con mi alma y
ya sea salir por la noche
o ya sea el amor que siento o
ya sea la santidad de mi vagina o
la santidad de mis fronteras nacionales
o la santidad de mis líderes o la santidad
de cada uno de los deseos
que conozco de mi personal e idiosincrático
e indiscutiblemente único y singular corazón
Yo he sido violada
porque he sido alguien equivocado el sexo equivocado la edad equivocada
la piel equivocada la nariz equivocada el pelo equivocado
la necesidad equivocada el sueño equivocado la geografía equivocada
la manera de vestir equivocada yo
yo he sido el significado de la violación
yo he sido el problema que todo el mundo quería
eliminar con penetraciones
forzadas con o sin evidencias viscosas y/
pero deja que este poema sea inequívoco
no es consentimiento yo no consiento
a mi madre a mi padre a mi profesorado
al FBI a Sudáfrica a Bedford-Stuy
a Park Avenue a American Airlines a los vagos
problemáticos de las esquinas a los piropeadores furtivos
de los coches
No soy alguien equivocado: Equivocada no es mi nombre
Mi nombre es mío mío mío
y no puedo decirte quién demonios organiza las cosas así
pero puedo decirte que desde ahora mi resistencia
mi sencilla y diaria y nocturna autodeterminación
puede perfectamente costarte la vida

Este poema está extraído de un libro inédito en castellano: Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems of June Jordan (2005).

Poem to Take the Belt Out of My Dad’s Hands, poem by José Olivarez translated from English by Arelis Uribe

Poem to Take the Belt Out of My Dad’s Hands

in this story, he is wearing the belt instead of bringing it down. my ass
stays soft. my head hard. in this story, the belt hangs in his closet. i snatch
it & bury it. in this story, the belt acts alone. it is not his hands. he is
watching TV. SportsCenter or whatever. he would stop the belt if he could.
in this story, i grab the belt & beat myself with it—in this story, it is my
own hands. his hands stay innocent. i stand above myself and it is for my
own good. in this story, i bury the leather belt in a cement coffin. i eat a
whole cow and wear the skin like a luxurious silk. in this story, i am wait-
ing for the whip. in this story, i am already crying. in this story, he doesn’t
reach for the belt. the belt is buried. he reaches for my head and rubs it.
soft. he says it’s okay. in this story, there is no but.
this story ends here. my dad. me. still under his hands. still crying.


Poem para quitar la correa de las manos de papá

en esta historia, él se deja la correa puesta en vez de quitársela. mi culo
permanece suave. mi cabeza, dura. en esta historia, la correa cuelga en el clóset.
la robo & la entierro. en esta historia, la correa actúa sola. no son sus manos. él
está viendo tele. SportsCenter o algo así. él detendría a la correa si pudiera.
en esta historia, agarro la correa y me azoto yo mismo—en esta historia, son
mis propias manos. sus manos quedan inocentes. estoy por sobre mí por mi
propio bien. en esta historia, entierro la correa de cuero en un ataúd de concreto.
me devoro una vaca completa y visto su piel como lujosa seda. en esta historia, estoy
esperando el latigazo. en esta historia, ya estoy llorando. en esta historia, él no
toma la correa. la correa está sepultada. él toma mi cabeza y la acaricia.
suavemente. dice que todo está bien. en esta historia, no hay peros.
aquí termina esta historia. mi papá. yo. aún en sus manos. aún llorando.

"Warriache," by Daniela Catrileo, translated from Spanish by Jacob Edelstein

Santiago, San Bernardo, and back to Santiago, that's the trip. I open my eyes and listen: the music, at least, keeps me from running away. I'm crossing the city from one end to the other to celebrate my friend Yajaira's thirtieth birthday. She's my best friend, or at least the one I've known the longest. Neither one of us now lives where we were born, but every so often we go back to pick up pieces of what we abandoned, and visit family while we're there. We reappear to let each another know how the years have been treating us, now that we aren't isolated little girls at the poor Catholic school where we met.

I show up late, as always. I'm a little embarrassed. Her party is a kind of intimate dinner, at least that's what she tells me on the phone. How very her, I think. The house is just like the ones next to it, save for the shape of its fence bars. The colors don't vary much: blandness that feels distinctly middle class. I feel like this condo could be in any part of Chile, housing people who believe themselves to be of that class. I'm not sure when they began to spring up in this graveyard. When I left, we were still girls raised in projects, semidetached but disparate houses, handmade extensions and multicourts without nets. When I left, there were still hills and vineyards where we could camouflage ourselves, get drunk in peace, and lay out on our backs under the sun.

Through the window, I see the guests and don't recognize anyone except for Yajaira's parents, who look older. I feel strange. Just seeing them makes me realize how much time has passed since we lived in this place we put so much effort into hating. I'd like to skip the introductions. Maybe if I'd gotten here earlier, I wouldn't have to make an entrance in front of everyone. It doesn't matter; I head into the house. There's a knot in my stomach and I'm trying to play it cool. It's not that I feel obligated to be here, I'd just rather it was like the parties when we were teenagers, where everything was so dark you didn't have to introduce yourself. [End Page 344]

The first to greet me is Yajaira's mother, María. She hasn't changed. She says a ton of superficial, insufferable things. I've never liked her very much, probably because I know Yajaira so well. She's one of those people you respect only because someone you love respects them. Though that doesn't mean you should. I admit it's hard for me. I was there for the neglect, the separations, the screaming. Those days are etched into my memory. I'm not someone who forgets easily. Still, I can admire her strength from a distance; it's what allows her to stay here. We all drag along more ghosts than even she imagines: knots that not only entangle our hearts, but bind our tongues forever. That's why, in front of her, I prefer to stay silent.

I try to seem normal. María informs me that she no longer lives in the projects, but rather, she lives in a condo now. She speaks in a derogatory tone that I know and abhor. On the outside, I nod with a smile. Inside, I repeat, like a mantra, that she is my best friend's mother, that she has never not been this, that she will never change. Behave, I tell myself. If I keep smiling silently, she won't ask so many questions or realize I came alone. As she continues with her monologue of success, she offers me heaps of canapés. I awkwardly avoid making eye contact. Little by little, her figure begins to blur. It must be a defense mechanism. I can't clearly see her mouth moving anymore. I rub my eyes, but they've already gone...

City Unknown, shortstory by Arelis Uribe, translated into English by Allison Braden

When I was little, my cousin and I used to kiss each other. We dressed up our Barbies, built houses in the dirt, and played hand games. I stayed at her house every other weekend. We slept in her bed. Sometimes we’d take off our pajama tops and play around, touching our nipples to each other. At the time, they were barely two pink stains on a flat torso. My cousin and I had been together since forever: Our moms got pregnant two months apart. They breastfed us together and changed our diapers together. We got chicken pox together. It almost went without saying that when we grew up, we would live together and play house with dolls, but in real life. I thought it would be me and her, always. But adults mess things up.

There were seven siblings in my mom’s family. Three men and four women. The men lived like the brothers they were. They had studied engineering at the same university, liked the same soccer team, and got together to talk about wine and watches. The four women were a disaster. One left to work in Puerto Montt. We were lucky to see her at Christmas. Another followed a boyfriend and had a bunch of kids and lives in Australia now. She barely existed. The two that stayed—my mom and my cousin’s mom, my Aunt Nena—married brutish men. My dad was an animal and so was my cousin’s dad. Like those people who get drunk on New Year’s and make everyone else cry. I never saw the seven siblings reunited. Sometimes we’d run into each other at funerals or when our grandparents celebrated an anniversary. Once, we went to one of our uncles’ plots of land, and there were peacocks in the yard. Pandora, an enormous mutt who killed our neighbors’ cats, barely fit in our house. I never understood why we lived so differently if we were from the same family.

My mom and my Aunt Nena were similar, which is why they were friends. People tend to group themselves by type, in a voluntary segregation, like blood donations or the recycling. Until one day, I don’t remember why, they got mad at each other. Maybe because my mom asked Aunt Nena for money and never paid it back. Maybe because my aunt came to lunch and criticized the food. I don’t know, but they got mad at each other, and what always happens in a family like mine happened: instead of resolving their problems, they quit speaking. I suppose it was a truce, an act of faith. They trusted that silence would dissolve the problems and that by not naming them, they would cease to exist.

For my cousin and I, the distance happened by extension. The last important thing we shared was that our periods came around the same time. She had taken out a book from I-don’t-know-where that explained everything. It had drawings of a man and a woman without clothes on. We read it. That was the first time we touched like that. We checked to see if we had hair. We were alone in her house. That afternoon, my mom came to get me. She yelled at my Aunt Nena about something I didn’t understand, and we never went back.

At first, I kept going to my cousin’s birthdays. I’d go by myself on the bus because my mom didn’t even want to go near Aunt Nena’s house. I’d call her on the phone too, or we’d send each other letters in the mail. The distance grew little by little. Important things happened to me and I didn’t tell her about them. I had a boyfriend, I got involved with his friend, I kept repeating classes, they hospitalized my little brother, I went to night school for senior year. Maybe she found out anyway, because those kinds of screw-ups get around in families. I heard that she won a literary contest, that her parents separated, that she had a cast on one leg, that she left the scouts because a leader touched her. I also found out when she got into the University of Chile to study journalism. She was the oldest cousin and the news spread fast. My uncles were proud that Nena’s daughter had gotten into their university. My grandfather boasted that there would finally be a true intellectual in the family. He imagined her as a reporter at the Supreme Court or something.

I graduated after senior year and started university prep classes. I worked at a candy shop to pay for it. People cheered me on, as if I’d lost an arm and, with hard work, could recover. As if my disability was being too stupid. I didn’t tell anyone and paid my high school math and language teachers to tutor me. The only thing I wanted was to get into the University of Chile, I didn’t care which major. I wanted to prove I could do it. And I did: I got in to study philosophy. At twenty, I was the oldest student. I had to read a ton. I didn’t like it, but I resolved not to drop classes and to finish however I could.

I knew my cousin and I were on the same campus. Sometimes I wanted to run into her. Other times, I was terrified just thinking about it. One Friday, we were drinking out in the grass, and I saw her pass by. She was gorgeous. Shiny black hair down to her waist; her smooth, dark face; a hippie outfit that showed her midriff. I talked to her, and we hugged each other tight. Our chests touched like when we were kids. She invited me to hang out with her group, and I followed her. We smoked weed and told people about the dumb stuff we did when we were ten: The time we choreographed a whole Michael Jackson routine for her dad’s birthday. The year we sold copies of Sailor Moon books in catechism. The summer we founded an ecology club that cut down live trees to preserve their branches for future generations. I watched her laugh, her teeth, the knowing look in her eyes, like when you go to a club and look at a guy who looks back at you and you know and he knows that you’re looking at each other and why.

After that night, it was as if we were chasing each other. I ran into her a lot. In the humanities library, in the dining hall, on the quad. It was always the same. We talked about when we were kids and a little about the university. We didn’t talk about our moms or our soccer fan uncles or our grandfather’s illness at the time. As if our family was only what happened until the day Aunt Nena yelled at my mom, a breakup that marked a before and an after, as irreversible as the birth of Christ or the invention of writing.

The second semester, we happened to take the same seminar. It was eight classes and I saw her in the first one. She was sitting with a tall, blonde guy who had his arm around her. I sat next to her, because I didn’t know anyone else and to mark my territory, like a dog. Like Pandora, who growled at the people who passed my house. The seminar was about Latin America. Each week an expert on a different country would come and talk. The best part was that after the last class we were going to Bolivia. The coordinating professor wanted the experience to be practical. We were going to confirm that the Bolivians were real people and not details from a book or a deranged mass that allied with Peru in 1800 to force its most unpleasant neighbor into submission.

From the workshop, I concluded that if South America was a neighborhood, Chile would be the upstart neighbor that buys a big car and a tiny dog and always uses a checkbook and credit card. My cousin compared it to the TV show El Chavo and said that Chile was the Quico of the Southern Cone. I didn’t say it, but I thought about our family and felt like my uncles were Chile and her mom and my mom were the loser countries, or a mix between Doña Florinda and Don Ramón: miserable housewives, never able to pay the rent.

I talked with my cousin about the trip to Bolivia. She proposed that we go a week early and stay with a friend she’d met at a poetry reading. We got some money from our grandparents, the university gave us a small travel allowance, and we contributed all our savings. My cousin had been to Peru, but for me, it was the first time outside of Chile. We traveled by bus and got to La Paz at dawn. I pulled back the curtain and looked out the window. I noticed the advertising most. There were posters selling cell phones with company names I’d never seen. Obviously every country has businesses with different names—you even see it in the commercials on cable TV, Omo detergent is called Ala in Argentina—but confirming it affected me. I noticed how I felt like a strange body, discovering that my codes weren’t valid there, even though we shared the same language and the same corner of the continent.

We arrived at the Bolivian friend’s house. It was an old building, next to the United States embassy. The apartment was on the fourth floor and had a parquet floor, three big bedrooms, and some sort of yard. There was an enormous bookcase full of titles by authors I didn’t know. The furniture looked like it was from the last century, like the kind they sell at Persa Biobío: fancy, flashy, inherited. The friend showed us to our room and we threw our sleeping bags on the floor. I was exhausted. I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow I’d made, stuffed with a jacket and a pair of pants.

The next day we woke up late. Jessica—that was the friend’s name—had already gone to work. We went out to explore. The neighborhood was very green, with enormous mansions. Kind of like Ñuñoa, around the Juan Gómez Millas campus. I never imagined that there would be places like this in Bolivia. We walked toward downtown and that’s when we started seeing the other houses, the ones we would have lived in if we were born Bolivian. They looked like Brazilian favelas: a bunch of little boxes made of bare bricks, piled one on top of the other, covering the mountain. I thought it was just like Valparaíso, but there the misery goes unnoticed behind colorful paint.

We walked to a cyber café. We called our moms but didn’t say we were together. After checking our email, we read the newspaper a little. Later, my cousin called our grandfather, told him we were doing well, and reminded him to please not say anything. My grandfather—so loving when he was alive—said yes, he was on our side. Daughters, he said, had no reason to interfere in the affairs of granddaughters.

We kept exploring and went to the market. We ate some kind of stew, which cost about 500 Chilean pesos. Not even at university had we eaten food so cheap. We walked off our lunch. On the street we saw boys with hoods over their faces who shined shoes. We saw indigenous women carrying their children on their shoulders, like mother kangaroos, who evolved to carry and protect their young longer. We saw bare feet, police chatting and relaxing, and girls with slanted eyes and the reddest, most weather-beaten cheeks in this impossible place.

That night, Jessica made us coca tea and we sat on her terrace to smoke. I knew she worked as a language teacher in a private Montessori school. I knew what the Montessori method was. I knew that Jessica was one of those Jessicas who had English last names. I knew that in her family, she had a senator uncle and a cousin who had been Miss Bolivia.

Jessica invited us to her boyfriend’s house. We arrived at some kind of party full of white people in an apartment as big as Jessica’s. The people there studied at or used to study at the Catholic University of Bolivia. There was wine and slices of raw squash smeared in sour cream. I tried Paceña and a sweet fruit stuffed with cheese. Things I’d never even eaten at my uncle’s house. Some guy heard that we were Chilean and said we had to hear this story. He said: This happened to two Chilean friends in some kind of whorehouse, one of the ones in the center of Santiago, with the windows painted black. They ordered two cheap drinks. One looked at tits, and the other, asses. Then it was “happy hour”—he made air quotes—and this asshole Chilean, who was obsessed with enormous tits, buried his nose in the server’s cleavage. When he pulled away, he had a mouth full of cracker crumbs.

We laughed. It was a filthy anecdote and repulsive stories are always funny.

Everyone got excited and started telling vulgar stories. I didn’t have any, but my cousin did. She said: One time I went to Machu Picchu with the scouts. A lot of dirty things happened on that trip—she ended the sentence with a long, worried sigh, then continued—I’ll tell you what happened on the bus. From Cuzco to the ruins you have to go up the mountains. It’s a dirt road, full of sharp curves, along a cliff. We paid for the cheapest transportation, some trucks that smelled like the projects, with the seats losing their stuffing. The service came to pick you up at 6:30 on the morning of the camping trip. The night before, the leaders had gone out to eat and, even though it was off limits, to drink. The leader in charge of my group was Carlos, too fat and too much of a pisco lover to be a scout. We got in the van and since it was so early, I fell asleep immediately. I took my shoes off so my feet wouldn’t swell up. I left them on the floor, next to the backpack with my lunch, and I curled up on the seat. I had a dream about the rabid breath of a puma chasing me on Huayna Picchu. He roared so loudly that I woke up. I smelled a bitter odor, like something decomposing. An orange liquid ran under my feet, and it had reached my shoes and backpack. I grabbed my shoes. The laces dripped. I looked back and discovered the roaring was real. It wasn’t the puma, but the leader Carlos. He had drunk so much the night before that when the truck began to zigzag up the hills, his body regurgitated everything. It was disgusting, the scout leader Carlos was disgusting.

When my cousin finished her story, the laughs of the audience were awkward and concerned more than happy. My cousin’s face darkened, too. It made me want to hug her, want to have been with her on that trip. I looked at her clavicle and wanted to smell it. To touch her abdomen with the tip of my nose. I looked at her with eyes like a player in the club, and she winked in return. I wished that house where we were going to live existed. I wanted to fall asleep with our bodies together that night. I wanted her to tell me her secrets, to feel her sweet breath on my face.

By that time of night, Jessica was super drunk. She asked all of us if we wanted to hear something really nasty? She didn’t wait for us to respond (I wanted to say no) and started talking. Her grandfather had been an important Bolivian military man, decorated with medals, his name memorialized in history books. His proudest accomplishment, said Jessica, is that he’s the one who gave the order to kill Che. I can’t remember if she said “El Che” or “Ernesto Che Guevara” or “El Comandante Che Guevara,” but I do remember the awful silence that came after. I never found out if it was the first time she’d told her friends or not. After a few seconds, which were as intense as when you hear a song for the first time, Jessica broke the silence and said: But the really disgusting thing is that we never talk about it in my family.

That sentence killed me. The most disgusting thing is that in my family we never talk about it. I took in the words and looked at my cousin. We were both thinking the same thing, about everything vicious and rotten in silenced family secrets.

After Jessica’s story, the get-together started deflating and people began to say goodbye. Jessica said she wanted to stay at her boyfriend’s place and gave us the keys to her apartment. We walked in the dawn, alone and holding hands, through the streets of a city unknown. Dizzy but strangely happy, we laughed at every stupid thing that crossed our path. A poster for Chinese food with a printed photo of the owner, a pay phone that was too small, the top of a tree that looked like my dad’s head.

We got to the apartment and lay together in the sleeping bags on the floor. My cousin snuggled up next to me and began to shake. Gently at first, more violent later. I touched her face, and it was wet with tears. “He came into my tent, and I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to,” she started, repeating those words endlessly, like the soft tap of a hammer. “I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to.” I brought my nose to her mouth and smelled her breath, as sweet as when we were ten. “I didn’t want to either,” I told her. I took her face in my hands, dried her cheeks, and gave her a kiss, deep and slow. “Me either,” I said again, before hugging her and beginning to cry.


This story first appeared in Arelis Uribe’s collection Quiltras, published in Chile in 2016 by Los Libros de la Mujer Rota and in Spain in 2019 under the Editorial Tránsito imprint.

Apuntes de "Reportaje al pie de la horca", de Julius Fucik

"La celda 267 canta. Si canté toda mi vida, no sé por qué habría de dejar de cantar ahora, precisamente al final, cuando la vida es más intensa. ¿Y el padrecito Pesek? ¡Oh, es un caso excepcional! Canta con el corazón. No tiene ni oído ni memoria musical ni voz, pero adora el canto con tan bello y abnegado amor y encuentra en él tanta alegría que casi no percibo cuando se desliza de una tonalidad a otra e insiste testarudamente en un do aunque el oído reclame un la. Y así, cantamos cuando la nostalgia trata de invadirnos; cantamos cuando el día es alegre; con nuestro canto acompañamos al camarada que se marcha y a quien quizá no volveremos a ver nunca más; cantando recibimos las buenas noticias del frente oriental; cantamos en busca de consuelo y cantamos de alegría, tal y como los hombres han cantado siempre y como seguirán cantando mientras existan".

"No hay vida sin canto, como no hay vida sin sol. Por consiguiente, nosotros necesitamos doblemente el canto, ya que el sol no llega hasta aquí. La 267 es una celda orientada hacia el norte. Sólo en los meses de verano, y durante algunos instantes, el sol dibuja, antes de ocultarse, la sombra de los barrotes en la pared. Durante esos instantes, el padre, puesto de pie y apoyado en el camastro, sigue con sus ojos esa fugaz visita del sol... Y ésa es la mirada más triste que se pueda encontrar aquí".

"Un cobarde pierde algo más que su vida. Él ha perdido. Es un desertor del ejército glorioso y merece el desprecio del más ruin de sus enemigos. Y aunque viviese, no viviría ya, porque se ha excluido de la

colectividad. Más tarde intentó corregir algunas cosas, pero jamás pudo ganar la confianza de los compañeros. Esto es más terrible en la prisión que en cualquier otra parte".

"Sólo pido una cosa: los que sobrevivís a esta época no olvidéis. No olvidéis ni a los buenos ni a los malos. Reunid con paciencia los testimonios de los que han caído por sí y por vosotros. Un día, el hoy pertenecerá al pasado y se hablará de una gran época y de los héroes anónimos que han hecho historia. Quisiera que todo el mundo supiese que no ha habido héroes anónimos. Eran personas con su nombre, su rostro, sus deseos y sus esperanzas y el dolor del último de los últimos no ha sido menor que el del primero, cuyo nombre perdura. Yo quisiera que todos ellos estuviesen cerca de vosotros, como miembros de vuestra familia, como vosotros mismos".

Todas las noches canto para ella una canción que le gustaba: se habla allí sobre la hierba azulada de la estepa, llena de leyendas de combates guerrilleros; sobre la cosaca que, al lado de los hombres, luchaba valerosamente por conquistar la libertad hasta que en un combate: “yey podniatsia s zemli nieprislos”. “Vot, moi druzok boievoi". ¡Cuánta fuerza encierra esta fina criatura de trazos firmemente esculpidos y con grandes ojos de niña, llenos de ternura! La lucha y las continuas separaciones han hecho de nosotros dos amantes eternos, que no sólo una, sino cien veces en la vida han vivido los momentos ardorosos de las primeras caricias y de los primeros abrazos. Y sin embargo, nuestros corazones latían siempre al unísono y nuestro aliento era el mismo en las horas de felicidad y en las horas de angustia, excitación y tristeza. Durante años hemos trabajado juntos y nos hemos ayudado como sólo los camaradas saben hacerlo. Durante años ella fue mi primer lector y crítico y me era difícil escribir sin sentir sobre mí su cariñosa mirada; durante años hemos participado, uno al lado del otro, en frecuentes luchas y durante años hemos vagado, cogidos de la mano, por los lugares preferidos. Hemos conocido muchas dificultades y hemos vivido muchas y grandes alegrías, porque nosotros éramos ricos, ricos como son los pobres. Con esa riqueza que está en el interior".

"Pero eran búsquedas en un bosque intrincado. Oíamos una voz, la seguíamos y cuando estábamos a punto de darle alcance se hacía oír exactamente en el lado opuesto. La dura pérdida enseñó a todo el Partido a ser más prudente, más vigilante. Dos miembros del aparato central del Partido que quisieran encontrarse tenían que aparecer completamente diáfanos a través del sinfín de obstáculos y sondeos mutuos de los interesados y de los encargados de establecer el contacto. Era tanto más complicado, porque yo ignoraba quién estaba al otro lado y el otro desconocía a quién estaba buscando".

Librazo. Julius Fucik escribe con una sensibilidad que a una se le aprieta la guata. Perfecto en su estructura, exquisito en su prosa y admirable en su moral. Un manual de humanismo muy bien escrito. Una crónica a la altura de las de Gabriel García Márquez y Juan Cristóbal Peña. Lo recomiendo al infinito.