The new year began a month ago. In that time, at least ten women have been killed for being women. I say at least because these are the names that appeared in the papers, the ones that counted as news.
Mariela Bustos, stabbed twenty-two times, in Las Caleras, Córdoba. Marina Soledad Da Silva, beaten and thrown down a well, in Nemesio Parma, Misiones. Zulma Brochero, knifed in the forehead, and Arnulfa Ríos, shot, both in Río Segundo, Córdoba. Paola Tomé, strangled, in Junín, Buenos Aires. Priscila Lafuente, beaten to death, half-burned on a barbecue and then thrown in a stream, in Berazategui. Carolina Arcos, killed with a blow to the head, on a building site in Rafaela, Santa Fe. Nanci Molina, stabbed, in Presidencia de la Plaza, Chaco. Luciana Rodríguez, beaten to death, in the capital of Mendoza. Querlinda Vásquez, strangled, in Las Heras, Santa Cruz.
We’re in summer now and it’s hot, almost like the morning of November 16th, 1986, when, in a way, this book began to be written, when the dead girl crossed my path. Now I’m forty and, unlike her and the thousands of women murdered in my country since then, I’m still alive. Purely a matter of luck.
Yesterday I said goodbye to the Señora. The pack of tarot cards was in the green cloth as usual, but we didn’t touch them, I didn’t move the cards in circles with my right hand, I didn’t ask any questions. She told me it’s time to let go, that it’s not good to spend too long drifting from one side to the other, from life into death. That now the girls have to go back to where they belong.
As she said this, she reached over the table between us and took my hand in hers. Squeezing it, each of us sitting where we’d sat in every session. I squeezed her hand back and then gradually she began to let go. I held on a little, a moment longer, I could still feel the girls through her. She looked at me. Or they looked at me and I understood and I began to let go as well.
Three white candles. My farewell to the girls.
One white candle for Andrea. One white candle for María Luisa. One white candle for Sarita, and if Sarita is alive, please let her be alive, then the candle is for that nameless girl who washed up on the banks of the Tcalamochita river over twenty years ago. The same wish for all of them: sleep well.
I spent the summer before Andrea’s murder in the countryside, at my grandparents’ place. It was the last summer I’d spend there with my aunt Liliana, who was about to get married and move to the town, to her new house. In the siesta one day we went to see Teya, her neighbour and confidante, a woman with grown-up children. It was about three miles from my grandpa’s farm to Teya’s. That year I’d had a growth spurt and was as tall as my aunt, who was a short woman. We walked along arm in arm, and slowly, though the sun was fierce. I knew my aunt wouldn’t be the same after she got married, that this intimate bond we’d shared ever since I was little, and that had become closer as I grew up, wouldn’t be the same either. From then on, she would live with a man, her husband. We’d never again sleep in the same bed, or be able to stay up until all hours chatting about nothing. That walk was special.
I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want us to get sad. But I think she was feeling something similar. Then she told me a story I’d always heard in bits, the way children eavesdrop on conversations they shouldn’t. I don’t know if she told me by chance or because she also sensed the finality of that walk through the countryside and wanted to tell me something that was important to her.
A few years back, she’d been walking by herself along that same dirt track. On the way to Teya’s again, at siesta time, to listen to the radio under the trees, drink mate and gossip. Halfway there, a figure emerged from the crops that grew on each side of the little dirt track: Tatú, a cousin in his forties who’d been ogling her for a long time. Tatú was single and had never been known to have a girlfriend or go to a dance.
What are you doing, you klutz, you scared me, my aunt said, then turned to carry on her way. But he didn’t answer and grabbed hold of her arm, so hard it seemed he might yank it from the socket. My aunt tried to struggle free and he seized her other arm. For a moment he was so close she could smell the wine and cigarettes on his breath, his eyes like two burning coals. He began to drag her with him. He wanted to get her into the cornfield.
I thought once he had me in there, first he’d rape me then he’d kill me, she said in a trembling voice. I’m sure he was going to kill me.
Tatú was a strong man, but he was also drunk and heady with lust. My aunt was a slight girl. She could never explain how she found the strength to shake off those calloused hands clutching her arms. But she managed to wriggle free and even give him a shove that sent him staggering back into the dusty rubble in the ditch. She ran and ran until she thought she might burst, like horses do.
I’ve never been so afraid and I’ve never been so brave as I was then, she said.
Her eyes were shining, but perhaps it was the sun, so strong the landscape shimmered in the distance.
After that, her grandfather gave Tatú a beating and he never went near my aunt again, or, I hope, any other girl.
We carried on walking, pressed closer together now, our arms sticky from the heat.
The north wind made the rough leaves of the corn rub together and the stems sway from side to side, producing a menacing sound that, if you listened closely, could also be the music of a small victory.
Buenos Aires, 30th January 2014