This story is from Mexican writer Teresa Icaza’s collection of stories De regreso (The Way Back) (Bonilla Artigas Editores, Mexico, 2021). Teresa Icaza is a poet, novelist and short fiction writer based in Mexico City. Her recent publications also include the novel Una fisura en el tiempo (Bonilla Artigas Editores, 2020). This story is translated from the Spanish by D. P. Snyder. The original follows the translation.
The Last Assignment
The painting you entered has been selected, and now you’ll be part of a group exhibition. You’ve left the cultural institute, trying to contain the joy that is obvious on your face from miles away. Today is your afternoon off. You decide to walk home. You turn left on Havre. Since you entered art school, you’ve gotten used to your job as a waitress. If you hadn’t, tell me how you would have been able to afford art supplies? You manage to cross Avenida Chapultepec, entering La Colonia Roma. You hope to sell one of your canvases so you can exclusively devote yourself to painting. Don’t kid yourself: Getting into this group show was a stroke of good luck. Sometimes, there are so many works submitted to these contests that the judges don’t even bother to look at all of them. At least now, crowds of visitors will pass by your painting where it hangs on the wall. And if they don’t like it? Well, that’s okay.
Stunned, you stop dead in your tracks. You’re standing in front of your childhood home. How did you end up on this street? You must have unconsciously turned at some corner instead of going straight. While it’s true that you’ve carried around the key in your purse for a long time, you’d already decided never to return. In fact, you couldn’t get that dream sequence, always the same one, out of your head: You have to go into the house, and your godmother is waiting for you at the top of the stairs. How long do you plan to keep dragging that thing around with you, m’ijita? You glance at your cell phone. There’s another hour of daylight left. You’ve made it this far, and now it’s up to you to end all that nonsense, once and for all. Your madrina is not waiting for you at the top of the stairs. Stop imagining that she is!
“If the key’s still in my bag, I’ll go in,” you say to yourself, praying you won’t find it there.
But you feel the cold key at the very bottom. You resist. Just do it! You open the door warily. The creaking of the hinges makes you shiver. The stale air inside exhales fragmented scenes from your childhood. You enter the foyer’s dead silence. Images you’ve forgotten flood back, and conflicting emotions swirl through your body. You don’t know where this guilt comes from or the fears that you’ve always tried to shake off but still refuse to leave you in peace. And so it is that after all these years, you have no other option but to accept the assignment of returning to leave everything in order, as your godmother always said. You decide to make sure she’s not waiting for you at the top of the stairs.
That sensation of immobility washes over you again. It enters through every pore, overtaking you bit by bit. You shake your hands vigorously and breathe deeply, but the feeling keeps shooting through you mercilessly, flooding your whole body. Trying to snap out of it, you jump up and down a few times.
“It’s just my imagination,” you say to yourself. “This place has no power over me.”
You succeed in making the sensation fade for a moment so it doesn’t keep you from moving forward.
The tenebrous late afternoon light filtering through the stained glass windows dimly illuminates the foyer. Humidity has left its sketches on the walls, cutting across the clear silhouettes of paintings that are no longer there.
For the first time, you can truly see the opulence of these old objects you lived with your whole life. The Greek vase, the silver cardholder, and a frayed folder seem to be choking beneath layers of dust on the side table. Impulsively, you lift the vase to make sure it’s not glued in place. You understand what an absurd notion that is and put it back where it belongs, as your godmother would say, like every object and stick of furniture in this house. You don’t have to glue objects down to keep them from being misplaced by whoever wanders by, she used to say. But the rule to never move a single thing left you with the impression that these objects were frozen where they were. Back then, when Albertina’s helper didn’t leave an object just so, your godmother adjusted it when she passed by and gave the new girl a sideways glance. The following Monday, that maid didn’t return.
You figure that, if you decided to live here, it would take several days to give away all this stuff that had never been out of order. After that, people would suggest organizing a sale of whatever was left. Of course, you’d have to consult with a long list of relatives who always pitied your orphaned state, as well as those who considered you ungrateful. No doubt somebody would call you ungrateful for leaving home without saying goodbye. But if you had said goodbye, you might have ended up stuck here forever.
You’ve come to finish once and for all the assignment your godmother gave you, but you’re also starting to crack open the source of the block inside you. Cautiously, you proceed down the hall. You had forgotten there were so many decorations, and all of them are still in the same positions, exactly where they were after the accident when your godmother welcomed you at the front door of this house.
You were eight. You came here, your mind full of the image of that barren field at the bottom of the cliff, where the inert bodies of your father, mother, and little brother lay scattered not far from the crumpled car, smoke everywhere. That was the first time you became aware of that block in your body. You didn’t want to keep living.
In here, you notice the murkiness of the air, how the dim environment overwhelms everything like some sort of fabric shrouding the light. You think that if you made a painting of it, you’d apply different shades of gray so the scene appeared to be draped with a transparent cloth. The final, secret touch: folds lying crumpled on the floor.
Soon, night will fall. You pluck up your courage and make your way up the stairs. The wooden steps creak, just as they did years ago. The sound makes your body feel like no time at all has passed. The images from the dream drop before your eyes like curtains: You try to push them aside, reassuring yourself again that your godmother is not waiting for you at the top.
Each creak is different, depending on who’s walking upstairs. As a child, you heard those distinct sounds and took appropriate precautions. Certain noises let you know whether you had to hide your sketchbook under your school binder or could keep on drawing. It’s not as if you were afraid of your madrina. It’s just that you developed a strategy to let her keep believing that she was in control and that her goddaughter, comfortably cared for, would become a well-respected accountant just like her. But by then, you had been painting for years. One night, you would walk out that door and never return.
You see? There’s no one there at the top of the stairs! You knew that, but you had to come here to prove it.
You peek into your old bedroom, where no doubt your own, particular way of walking up each step was audible just now. Again, you have to remind yourself that this whole business about your godmother is just a scene from a nightmare. No one’s waiting for you here. The house is empty. End of story. The pink quilt is still on your brass bed, and on the white bookshelf sit your Civics II textbook and your tattered old teddy bear.
In her opinion, none of your arguments were valid. Even at seventeen, every afternoon when you returned from high school, your dolls still greeted you lined up on your bed. She never would have let you leave. You were the dolly she was supposed to protect and in whom she found her reason for being. You can still hear your relatives’ voices: How hard-hearted you are! Your godmother is so good to you. Well, let them cart away from this place whatever they want! As long as they keep their opinions to themselves, you murmur uneasily. You’ve escaped these walls you inherited from your godmother. But not your own.
Could she genuinely have believed you would stay on and live in her house after putting her affairs in order? That you’d leave everything in its place? With all that rigidity that pursued you, even as you fled thousands of miles away? That same quality that destroyed her cervical vertebrae, ended in Parkinson’s disease, and finally killed her?
From the hallway, you can also see into the room your godmother had dedicated to the hours she planned to write after the first day of her retirement. You come closer. The sunlight struggles to filter through the veil of dust accumulated on the windows, barely illuminating the desk. The chair is still there. You note the precise distance that accommodated the length of her legs so she could sit in front of the notebook destined for the memoir she could never write. You realize that this room was the perfect setting for never even starting.
Many mornings, she sat facing that desk, her posture rod-straight, obeying every rule of the discipline she had developed over those thirty years when her motivation was a time clock. But then, she would remember some phone call she had to make or a household repair that awaited her attention. Only once did you find her sitting in front of the blank pieces of paper with a pen in her hand, anguish etched on her face, jaw fixed, and writer’s block that just wouldn’t quit.
Remembering this scene, you feel immobility beginning to grow like a rock in your belly. You have to jump up and down several times to shake off the sensation. It’s still in your fingers, so you flap your hands in the air until it’s gone. There it is again, this time in your spine. You move your shoulder blades back and forth until it fades.
The block is like waves of invisible rigidity entering you and spreading, but it doesn’t keep you from moving as it did your godmother. It’s just an uncomfortable sensation you have to dispel.
The pencil cans with their mechanical pencils and erasers are there, along with an array of intriguing objects from her endless trips to stationery stores. Reaching through the layers of dust to grab a pen would be pointless. You know this, but you try anyway. The pen makes no mark. Perhaps there was never any ink in them to at last compose that first sentence. Maybe someone else needed them to write messages and knew your godmother would never even notice the pen was empty. Or maybe the ink just dried up like a dream delayed.
Over there sit the classics and the popular books of her time, still stuck to the shelves, titles no one remembers anymore. It’s as if they had remained frozen in the order of their arrival, according to when they were purchased, maybe the first two pages read if that. All this to decorate the room where she would finally begin her deferred passion, day after day, until the end.
You’re in her office giving free rein to your judgment of your godmother’s fears when you hear a distant noise. You can’t tell if it’s coming from one of the walls or the attic. It sounds like one of those creaks caused by shifts in temperature or the effects of rigidity. You take a few steps. You hear it again. Do these sounds have something to do with your nightmare? What if it’s her? They are dry noises, as if someone were scraping in different spots. A shiver passes through your body. Your arms and legs go rubbery, the opposite feeling of the block. You’re on high alert now, your gaze fixed. But now you don’t hear anything.
You cross the hallway from the bedrooms and open the little white door that leads to the maid’s quarters, the only door that had to stay closed when your godmother was home. You can still make out the smell of Albertina’s casseroles permeating the walls of the passageway. Since the house is empty, you can decide whether to go upstairs or down. Upstairs are the rooms where you went to smoke with the nannies and downstairs is the storeroom full of specialty foods for visitors and the door that opens directly into the kitchen.
So, there you stand at the threshold of the little door, like when you used to escape from the other wing of the house, and you felt you were the captain of your own fate. You turn on your cell phone flashlight and descend slowly, step by step, to see what’s down there. You enter the humid chill of the vaulted storeroom. From the stairs, you can shine your light on the cobweb-covered bottles lined up on the shelves at the back. A scratching, crunching sound gives you goosebumps. You think it’s coming from the second floor. The idea of a noise coming from the same place you just left only intensifies the tingles traveling up and down your spine. Quickly and cautiously, you stride back up the stairs. With your hand hovering above the knob of the white door, you listen, frozen, as if something muffled yet shrill were charging at you from the other side, something splitting apart. And suddenly, an enormous bang makes the house shudder. Warily, you open the door, Your heart is pounding in your chest like a drum. Your field of vision widens. Something in the study is billowing and starting to emerge.
Enveloped by a cloud and with a mouthful of plaster dust, you repeatedly struggle to return to reality. It occurs to you that the creaking sounds are emerging from the objects. Their rigidity must have been expanding inside them, just as it does in you sometimes, and now they are at last cracking open. From the threshold of the little white door, you feel the pressure of that stone in your belly. The rumbling comes to a stop, and time stands still. You, too, are suspended there with your eyes more open than ever before. There’s no doubt about it, you think, the stiffness has gotten into me for good.
As the cloud of dust settles to the floor and you can see more clearly, a slender thread of air enters your windpipe, and little by little, you start breathing again. Your cell phone is on the floor, next to your foot. You pick it up. Near her office now, you cautiously peek inside. There, in the silence, everything is now stone colored. Another chunk falls. The floor rumbles, and your body contracts as if you had received an electric shock. With the cell phone in your hand, you again dare to peek inside. The grit shaken loose by the last chunk of ceiling keeps raining down, and you can see how the objects on this motionless stage have been crushed and smashed to bits. Such careful curation only for them to end up in pieces! If she were still alive, your godmother would finally have something to say without thinking too hard about it.
A fine layer of plaster covers every surface. Of course, you couldn’t have done anything either to keep the ceiling from falling or the car from plunging off the cliff, despite that accusatory look on your godmother’s face when they brought you to her house with the news about the accident in which everyone died but you.
Ah! Now, the penny drops. Your godmother’s look wasn’t reproach at all. It was compassion for your orphaned state.
You don’t know how you managed to survive or how long you lay there, unmoving amid the stink of blood and scorched oil. All you could see was the grey strip, from which you could barely make out the shore’s edge. You pretended to be hard and unfeeling just to survive.
As you stand there facing the chunks of ceiling on the floor and the shattered pieces of your godmother’s precious objects, you feel relief. The monstrous rigidity has finally cracked.
After the accident, that invisible wall, dense and ethereal all at once, remained stuck to your body when you misread your godmother’s gaze, calcifying your guilt. Now, at last, it sets you free.
You fall to your knees on the floor with a cry of anguish, and through it emerges the uncontrollable wail of a child. You weep, moan, yell, calm down slightly, and then remember that little eight-year-old girl on the barren field surrounded by her motionless family, who meant everything to her. And then you start wailing again, over, and over, and over.
Emptied and calmer, you realize that darkness has fallen around you. Who knows how much time has passed? You turn on your cell phone light. You’re in your childhood home, the one your godmother put in your name when she was alive so she could continue to hold you close, even after death.
“Thank you, madrina,” you say, even though she’s not there anymore to hear you. You decide you’ll stay and live there, this time with your own paintings on the walls. There won’t be any giving away of objects, calls to relatives, or a sale of any kind.
“I know! Where the plaster’s fallen, I’ll install a transparent ceiling to let the sunlight in, and then, in the hallway, I’ll put so many plants, it’ll be like an indoor garden…” And you keep talking to yourself this way as you leave the house and walk out into the noise and bustle of the Mexico City night, gently closing the door behind you.
La última encomienda
La obra que mandaste fue seleccionada y ahora formas parte de la colectiva. Ya saliste del instituto cutural y sigues tratando de disimular la felicidad que se te nota a leguas. Hoy es tu tarde libre. Decides regresarte caminando. Giras a la izquierda en Havre. Te acostumbraste a trabajar como mesera desde que estudiabas en la escuela de arte. Si no, dime tú con qué comprarías los materiales. Logras atravesar Chapultepec y entras a la Roma. Sales de una colonia para entrar a otra. Ojalá se vendan algunas piezas y puedas dedicarte sólo a pintar. Entrar en esta colectiva es un golpe de suerte, no te engañas, a veces llegan tantas obras a los concursos que ni siquiera los jurados se detienen a verlas todas. Por lo menos muchas personas pasarán frente a tu cuadro ahí colgado. Ya si no les gusta, pues ni modo.
Pasmada, te detienes en seco. Estás frente a la casa de tu infancia. ¿Cómo es que viniste a dar precisamente a esta calle? Sin darte cuenta seguro doblaste en alguna esquina en vez de seguir derecho. Sí es cierto que mucho tiempo cargaste con la llave en la bolsa, pero ya habías decidido no regresar. Esa escena del sueño sí que nunca pudiste sacártela de la cabeza; en resumidas cuentas, es siempre la misma: tienes que entrar a la casa y tu madrina te espera al final de las escaleras en el segundo piso. ¿Cuánto tiempo seguirás arrastrándolo, mijita? Miras el celular; queda más de una hora con luz. Si llegaste hasta aquí, te toca resolverlo.Tu madrina no te espera al final de las escaleras. Ya no lo pienses más.
“Si sigue la llave en la bolsa, entro”, murmuras con ganas de no encontrarla.
Sientes la llave fría en el fondo. Te resistes. Sólo hazlo. Abres la puerta con precaución. El chirrido de las bisagras te provoca un escalofrío. El encierro exhala escenas confusas de tu infancia. Entras al silencio opaco del vestíbulo. Imágenes de las que ya ni te acuerdas regresan a tu memoria y emociones contradictorias se te atropellan dentro del cuerpo. Ni siquiera sabes de dónde viene la culpa, ni los temores que seguido evadías y nunca te dejaron en paz. Así es que después de años no queda más que ocuparte del encargo de regresar y “dejar todo en orden”, como decía tu madrina. En realidad, te decidiste para comprobar que ella no te espera al final de las escaleras.
La sensación de inmovilidad también reaparece; entra por cualquier parte del cuerpo, invadiéndote, por tramos. Sacudes rápido las manos y haces respiraciones profundas, pero la sensación sigue entrando despiadada, permeando cada parte. Das varios saltos para despegártela. Es sólo mi imaginación, te dices, no me domina. Por lo pronto, logras que se disuelva y no derive en el impedimento.
El vestíbulo está apenas iluminado con la escasa luz vespertina que se cuela por los vitrales. La humedad terminó dibujándose en los muros y atraviesa las siluetas claras de los cuadros que ya no están.
Por primera vez notas la opulencia de los objetos antiguos de toda la vida. La vasija griega, el tarjetero de plata y la carpeta deshilada parecieran ahogados bajo el polvo acumulado sobre la consola. Un impulso te lleva a levantar la vasija y comprobar que no se quedó pegada. Entiendes lo absurdo de la idea y vuelves a “colocarla en su sitio”, como decía tu madrina, como cada objeto y cada mueble de esta casa. Las piezas no necesitan estar pegadas para que quien pase por aquí no las desordene, decía. Pero la orden de no mover ningún objeto hizo que se te instalara la sensación de que las cosas estaban pegadas. Cuando la ayudante en turno de Albertina no dejó la pieza como tenía que quedar, tu madrina la acomodó al pasar por ahí y miró de reojo a “la nueva”. El lunes siguiente la muchacha no volvió.
Crees que si decidieras ocuparte, te tomaría varios días la repartición de todos esos objetos que nunca se movieron de su lugar. Después te recomendarían organizar una venta con lo que sobre. Tendrías que conversar con una larga lista de familiares siempre piadosos por tu condición de huérfana, o de “malagradecida”, claro. Seguro alguien te llamaría así por haberte ido de casa sin despedirte. Claro que si te hubieras despedido, aquí te habrías quedado siempre.
Entraste para cumplir de una buena vez con “la encomienda” de tu madrina, pero también resquebrajas desde adentro el origen del impedimento. Avanzas por el pasillo con cautela. Ya habías olvidado que hubiera tantos adornos, y todos siguen en el mismo lugar, tal y como los encontraste cuando tu madrina te recibió desde el umbral después del accidente.
Tenías ocho años. Venías con la imagen del descampado al fondo del precipicio, salpicado de los cuerpos inertes de papá, mamá y tu hermanito, cerca del carro abollado, el humo por todas partes y el impedimento que te apareció por primera vez dentro del cuerpo. No querías salvarte.
Notas lo turbio del aire y hasta qué punto predomina el ambiente opaco, como si se tratara de una tela que envolviera la luz. Piensas que, si lo pintaras, distribuirías los grises de tal manera que la escena pareciera cubierta por una tela transparente, y el secreto final: los pliegues sobre el piso.
Pronto será de noche. Te armas de valor y comienzas a subir. Los escalones de madera crujen, igual que hace años. Este hecho te provoca la sensación en el cuerpo de que el tiempo no ha pasado. Las imágenes del sueño caen frente a ti como si fueran cortinas; intentas apartarlas, y convencerte de que tu madrina no te espera arriba.
Cada crujido es distinto; depende de quién suba. De niña distinguías las diferencias y podías tomar tus precauciones. Ciertas particularidades te anunciaban si debías esconder el cuaderno debajo de los apuntes de la escuela o podías seguir dibujando. No es que le tuvieras miedo a tu madrina. Sólo tenías una táctica para que creyera que mantenía el control y que su ahijada, cómodamente protegida, sería una distinguida contadora, como ella. Para entonces llevabas años pintando y una noche saldrías por la puerta para no volver.
¿Ya ves? No hay nadie al final de las escaleras. Lo sabías, pero fue necesario venir y comprobarlo.
Te asomas a tu cuarto, desde donde seguro se oyó tu manera particular de subir cada peldaño. Una vez más tienes que recordarte que lo de tu madrina sólo es la imagen de esa pesadilla. Nadie te espera. La casa está vacía, punto. Sobre la cama de latón sigue la colcha rosa, y en la repisa blanca, el libro de Civismo II y tu maltrecho oso de peluche.
Para ella no había razones que valieran. Todavía a los diecisiete las muñecas te recibían cada tarde sobre tu cama al regreso de la prepa. Por supuesto que nunca te hubiera dejado ir. Eras su muñequita a la que debía proteger y en quien encontraba una razón de su existencia. “Qué dura eres; con lo buena que es tu madrina.” Todavía tienes las voces de los familiares en el oído. Que se lleven lo que quieran pero que no opinen, murmuras incómoda. Has escapado de los muros que introyectaste de tu madrina, pero no de los tuyos.
¿Realmente habrá creído que te quedarías a vivir en su casa luego de poner los asuntos en orden? ¿Dejando cada cosa “en su sitio”? ¿Con la rigidez que te persiguió en tu huída a miles de kilómetros de distancia? ¿La que a ella le destruyó las vértebras cervicales, derivó en Parquinson y le dio muerte?
Desde el pasillo distingues el cuarto que tu madrina designó a las horas que se dedicaría a escribir a partir del primer día de su jubilación. Te acercas. La luz apenas traspasa el paño de polvo acumulado en los vidrios y no logra alcanzar el escritorio. Allí sigue la silla; notas la distancia exacta para el tamaño de sus piernas y quedar frente a la libreta destinada a las memorias que nunca llegó a escribir. Descubres que allí empezaba y terminaba el escenario perfecto para no comenzar.
Muchas mañanas se sentó frente a esta mesa muy derecha, siguiendo cada paso de la disciplina que adquirió a lo largo de 30 años impulsada por un reloj checador. Entonces se acordaba de alguna llamada por hacer o una compostura pendiente. Sólo una vez la encontraste sentada frente a las hojas en blanco con una pluma en la mano, la angustia dibujada en la cara, la quijada tensa y un bloqueo que no la soltaba.
Al recordar esta escena, la inmovilidad comienza a expandírsete desde el vientre, como una piedra; tienes que saltar varias veces para deshacerte de la sensación. Sigue en los dedos. Entonces agitas las manos y logras que desaparezca. Allí se encuentra de nuevo, por la columna vertebral. Desplazas los omóplatos hacia atrás, luego hacia adelante, hasta que se disuelve.
El impedimento es una ola de inmovilidad invisible que entra y avanza, pero no te impide moverte, como a tu madrina, sólo es la sensación incómoda que necesitas sacudir.
Sobre el escritorio siguen los botecitos con lapiceros, borradores y cantidad de curiosidades de las interminables visitas a las papelerías. De nada te servirá traspasar la capa de polvo y agarrar una pluma; lo sabes pero lo intentas: no pinta. A lo mejor nunca existió la tinta para por fin anotar la primera frase. Quizá alguien necesitó escribir un recado y sabía que tu madrina nunca notaría el vacío. Tal vez la tinta se secó, como un deseo postergado.
Allí siguen los clásicos en la estantería y los libros de moda de la época, de los que ahora ya nadie se acuerda. Es como si se hubieran quedado “pegados” por orden de llegada, según se fueron comprando, y a lo mejor se leyeron las dos primeras páginas, si acaso. Y todo para decorar el cuarto donde comenzaría por fin una pasión pospuesta día con día hasta el final.
Sigues en el estudio juzgando a rienda suelta los miedos de tu madrina, cuando oyes un ruido lejano. No logras distinguir si proviene de alguna pared o del techo. Parecieran de esos crujidos que producen los cambios de temperatura; o los efectos de la rigidez… Caminas unos pasos. Los escuchas de nuevo. ¿Tienen algo que ver con la pesadilla? ¿Y si es ella? Son sonidos secos, como si algo se hubiera rasgado, desde diferentes puntos. Un escalofrío te recorre el cuerpo. Brazos y piernas se te hacen de goma; nada parecido al impedimento. Quedas alerta, la mirada fija en un punto, pero ya no oyes nada.
Atraviesas el vestíbulo de los cuartos y abres la puertita blanca del área de servicio, la única que debía mantenerse cerrada si tu madrina estaba en la casa. Percibes el olor a los guisados de Albertina, que sigue impregnado en las paredes del pasadizo. Ahora que la casa está vacía también puedes optar por subir o bajar. Escaleras arriba se encontraban los cuartos adonde te ibas a fumar con las nanas; escaleras abajo, la bodega de manjares para las visitas y la puerta de acceso directo a la cocina.
Así te quedas en el umbral de la puertita, como cuando te escapabas a esa ala de la casa y te sentías dueña de tus decisiones. Prendes la linterna del celular. Bajas, a ver qué te encuentras, despacio, escalón por escalón. Entras al frío húmedo de la bóveda. Desde las escaleras alcanzas a iluminar botellas cubiertas de telaraña acomodadas en una estantería del fondo. Un crujido rasposo te eriza la piel. Te parece que proviene del segundo piso. La idea de un ruido que venga exactamente del mismo lugar que acabas de dejar, te intensifica el escalofrío por la espina dorsal. Regresas escaleras arriba a zancadas, con rapidez y cautela. Con la mano a punto de tocar la manija de la puerta blanca escuchas, inmóvil, como si al otro lado avanzara una estridencia ahogada y detrás, algo que se resquebrajara. De repente un golpazo hace retumbar la casa. Abres con cuidado. Tu corazón bombea cada vez con mayor fuerza. El campo visual va ensanchándose. Algo en el estudio se expande y comienza a salir.
Dentro de una nube y con un puño de cal en la boca, intentas una y otra vez volver a la realidad. Se te ocurre que los crujidos provienen de los objetos por esa rigidez que se les hubiera ido expandiendo por dentro, como a ti, y ahora se resquebrajara. Desde el umbral de la puertita blanca sientes el empuje de esa piedra en el vientre. El estruendo se detiene por completo y el tiempo se paraliza. También te quedas suspendida y con los ojos más abiertos que nunca. No cabe duda, piensas, la rigidez se me metió para quedárseme instalada adentro.
Al tiempo que la nube de polvo baja al piso y logras ver más nítidamente, entra por tu traquea un hilo delgado de aire. Poco a poco empiezas a respirar. El celular está en el piso, al lado de tu pie. Lo recoges. Ya cerca del cuarto, te asomas con cautela. Todo es color de piedra en medio del silencio. Otro bloque cae. El piso retumba y el cuerpo se te contrae como si hubiera recibido una descarga eléctrica. Con el celular en la mano, te atreves a asomarte de nuevo. La arenilla desprendida por el último trozo de plafón sigue cayendo y puedes notar que los objetos del escenario inamovible están completamente prensados, desmoronados; tanto cuidarlos para que al final queden aplastados. De seguir viva, tu madrina por fin habría tenido algo que contar sin pensarlo tanto.
Una fina capa de yeso cubre las superficies. En realidad, no hubieras podido hacer nada por impedir la caída del plafón. Tampoco la del auto por el precipicio, a pesar de la mirada de tu madrina cuando te llevaron a su casa junto con la noticia del accidente donde todos murieron menos tú.
Claro, ahora te cae el veinte, esa mirada de tu madrina no fue de reproche, sino de empatía por tu orfandad.
No sabes cómo te salvaste ni cuánto tiempo estuviste inmóvil frente a los olores a sangre y aceite quemado. Sólo veías en lo alto la tira gris, de la que apenas y alcanzabas a distinguir el filo de la orilla. Te hiciste la dura para salvarte.
Parada frente a los bloques de plafón en el piso y los trozos de los preciados objetos de tu madrina, te sientes aliviada. La rigidez extrema terminó por cuartearse.
Esa pared invisible, al mismo tiempo densa y etérea, que se te quedó pegada a la silueta cuando interpretaste la mirada de tu madrina, calcificó la culpa después del accidente, y por fin ahora te suelta.
Caes de rodillas al piso con un grito de dolor por donde sale un llanto infantil incontenible. Lloras, gimes, gritas, te calmas un poco, te recuerdas como la niña de ocho años en el descampado rodeada de los inertes seres queridos que lo eran todo para ti, y regresas al llanto, una y otra vez.
Vacía y en calma te das cuenta de la oscuridad que te rodea. Quién sabe cuánto tiempo ha pasado. Enciendes la luz de tu celular. Estás en la casa de tu infancia, la que tu madrina en vida puso a tu nombre, para seguirte abrazando después de su muerte. “Gracias, madrina”, le dices aunque ya no esté. Decides quedarte a vivir ahí, pero con tus pinturas. Tampoco habrá repartición, ni llamadas a familiares, ni venta de ningún tipo. “¡Ah!, y donde se desplomó el plafón instalaré un techo transparente, para que entre la luz, y en el pasillo meteré tantas plantas que será como mi jardín interior…”, te sigues diciendo al salir al bullicio de la noche y cerrar la puerta detrás.
About the Author
Teresa Icaza studied Hispanic Literature at the UNAM, Literary Education at the Escuela Mexicana de Escritores, and has lived in seven countries. In addition to writing poetry, short stories, and novels, she teaches courses in literary creation. Her father is the prominent Mexican painter and muralist Francisco Icaza, who counted Ray Bradbury among his friends. “The Last Assignment” is from her eight-story collection De regreso (The Way Back) (Bonilla Artigas, 2021), which features narrative portraits of eight women. Her novel, Una fisura en el tiempo (A Crack in Time) was published by Bonilla Artigas Editores in 2020.
About the Translator
D. P. Snyder is a bilingual writer and literary translator from Spanish whose work has been anthologized and also published in Ploughshares, Two Lines Press, The Massachusetts Review, and World Literature Today, among many others. Her book-length translations include Meaty Pleasures by Mónica Lavín, Arrhythmias by Angelina Muñiz-Huberman, and Scary Story by Alberto Chimal, all Mexican authors. Her translation of Teresa Icaza’s “The Aroma of Crunchiness,” another story from the collection De regreso (The Way Back) was published in Latin American Literature Today (2023). She teaches literary translation at the NYU School of Professional Studies.
