Plaza Requiem Page 4

“Will you have this man to be your husband, and to serve him and keep him in sickness and in health?” the priest asked. I stayed silent, wishing I could answer no. I could hear Father cough behind me, sitting in the front pew, and Albert cleared his throat loudly, but without turning to look at me. I understood that those seconds, those mere seconds that I had needed to compose myself, nod and then whisper “I will,” had probably been enough to make him feel humiliated and, therefore, furious.

  After our wedding reception was over, I went with my husband to the fancy apartment he had bought for us. The honeymoon had to be delayed because Albert was busy closing some deals that were very important for his business, and he was required to stay in Oslo. Or so he said. It took me almost a year to realize he never had any intention of going on a honeymoon.

  As my most precious possession, I brought along in my suitcase, in its own box, the doll that Mother had given me. Her blue dress had slightly faded, and her blond hair was unkempt. I hadn’t paid attention to her for years, that was true, but I was still hurt by what Albert said.

  “What do you have in there?” he asked with a mix of curiosity and disdain.

  “A doll,” I replied.

  He let out a guffaw. “A doll? At your age? Ridiculous!”

  I did not answer. I found a place for the box with my doll at the very back of the wardrobe that Albert had assigned to me. I sat down on our bed to await my fate.

  He came close to me and lifted my wedding gown violently, forced me on my back, tore my underwear, and let out a scream of joy when he pushed himself inside me and confirmed I was, indeed, a virgin.

  “Good girl!” he panted. His breath was no longer appealing to me, the smell of his sweat made me nauseous, but I knew better than to let it show.

  Truth number six: You don’t know what you’re capable of doing, until you’re forced to do it. That’s how you learn how strong you are.

  After that day, he would come home after work and force himself on me with such strength that sometimes I found it hard to sit down afterwards. How I yearned to go back to Father’s house and beg for help, but it was impossible. I was so confused and embarrassed. Were all marriages like this? Was Albert’s behaviour normal? In front of other people he was sweet and doting, but when we were alone he became a different person. Anne Marie and Father couldn’t have handled hearing what my life was like. And I couldn’t count on my brothers. They would just think I was as useless and irresponsible as Mother, and that if I was unhappy I had only myself to blame. Of course, he didn’t allow me to find a job. He wanted me to stay home and keep everything impeccable, to keep myself pretty for him – no more chocolates or macaroons, lest I gained weight. I remembered Mother eating treats when she thought no one could see her, and wondered if Father had been the same kind of man behind closed doors.

  Then the unimaginable happened: I was late. That is when I finally broke down and went back to look for Isabella.

  “Forgive me, I need your help. I can’t be a mother. What if it’s a girl? I can’t pass on this curse.”

  Isabella listened to me, held my hands, caressed my hair, and found me help. Herbs. And she suggested I throw myself down a flight of stairs, protecting my head but trying to get my stomach hit. I did not tell Albert I was in touch with my only friend again. Then, the blessed hemorrhage came. I’m going to hell for this, I thought, but that was not true. I was already there.

  Truth number seven: You don’t go to hell. Hell comes to you.

  Once the doctor left, Albert walked into our room, took a look at me – my eyes were so swollen that I could hardly see him – and declared:

  “Don’t worry, you’ll recover soon. And you will give me a son.”

  Did he know what I had done? Was he suspicious? I didn’t want to know, and was not going to ask. In the next few days, while Albert was not home, Isabella came to visit me once. Albert had hired a maid to take care of me and instructed her to never leave me alone, so it was not easy to find a moment to see Isabella, to thank her, to collapse in her embrace. I had to pretend I had a migraine. I sent the maid to a pharmacy on the other side of the city so I could have some time on my own. Isabella lay down beside me, braided and unbraided my hair as she reminded me of stories from our childhood; stories that I had long forgotten and she thought would lift my spirits. We remembered our school, our teachers, the poems we were forced to recite, the shoes we used to wear. Then she asked where my doll was. She remembered! So I got up and took my doll out of the box, and we both admired her and took turns holding her.

  “She’s so beautiful!” Isabella said, and I knew she meant it, but I could not feel any joy. I had already decided no baby of mine would ever hold that doll. She and I were condemned to be alone.

  I was still holding my doll when Albert arrived back home.

  Truth number eight: Nothing hurts more than a mother’s empty arms.

  Broken glass, broken mirror, broken doll, broken window. It would soon be Christmas again, and our first wedding anniversary, and I had just recovered from another “bleeding.” The wind blew strong and icy and its power inspired me to act. I will not be your organ grinder’s monkey again, Albert. I’m going to leave you. But he wouldn’t let me. He threw his wineglass against the mirror and broke it. Aiming at me, he threw a vase but hit the window instead. He ran after me and made my jaw blue and swollen, and punched me until my ribs ached. When I was finally able to stand up, I discovered my doll’s porcelain head had been smashed. There are no words to describe how I felt – how I feel even today, remembering it.

  I knew that, in order to be able to leave, I would have to get Albert to calm down. So I forced myself to apologize to him, and promised I’d stay. I begged for forgiveness. To show I meant to be better, I began picking up the pieces of the broken mirror that were scattered on the floor.

  “You know why I married you?” Albert asked, his voice as piercing as the glass pieces I was putting together in a pile. “To show the entire country that I could domesticate you, the daughter of the whore who ran away.”

  When he turned his back against me in order to leave the room, I knew it was my chance. I took the largest piece of the broken mirror and held it firmly in my hand, knowing it would cut us both, but hoping it would hurt him more.

  Truth number nine: Blood bonds are sacred, and profaning the sacred can never be forgiven.

  They say you always return to the places where you loved your life. I had never been in Italy before, but my arrival did feel like a return. This is the place where Father regained his health before I was born. The place where he and Mother spent their happiest months together. I wanted to see its beauty for myself. See the place where the sun is an actual star that caresses your skin.

  I’m sorry I left behind such a huge stigma for you to carry. I had to escape, I couldn’t risk being sent to jail and hurt our family even further. What was written about Mother in the papers back in the day, and what they said about me when it was my turn, was bad enough. I hope Father, Anne Marie, Ivar and Bobby found it in themselves to forgive me. And I hope you will do so, too.

  I decided to write this letter hoping you will not tolerate the same humiliations that I grew up enduring. That you will not let any man choose your life. That you will be curious about the world out there, beyond the peace of home and the small circle of people who surround you.

  To this day I still do not know where Mother went after she left us, but I’m sure she did well. As for me, I’m fine, too. I left home with only one suitcase that I packed in a hurry, and the box that held the pieces of my broken doll. I wanted to repair it but, in the end, chose not to. She’s a reminder of what was and must never be again.

  Truth number ten: To find true happiness, you must first face who you really are, and honour where you come from. My name is Emma Helmer, and my mother’s name was Nora. A brave woman of whom you, too, should be proud.

  Plaza Requiem

  I mix among the people who are protesting in groups, showin
g photographs, big signs with messages I don’t dare read. Some are singing; others, sobbing. A group at the back chants for justice, fists up in the air. I try to look away but can’t. I recognize two of the faces on large black-and-white posters. I feel a pang of anxiety. The images are old, and I’ve seen them many times. When I was little they were a source of pride. There’s another face I can identify now – Elena’s. Her story was unknown to me until recently. An urge to run away overtakes me, what am I doing here? I clench my teeth and force myself to keep walking: I’m here because I chose to be, because I need to see the plaza for myself. My hands are sweating, my knees shake. I’m glad – if I can be glad about anything – to have hidden my face behind dark glasses, to have my hair nested underneath this old baseball cap, to not have anything that might identify me. It is reassuring that nobody looks at me twice, because I couldn’t hold anyone’s gaze right now. Shame would break my face into pieces. I’m scared about what they might do to me. But I’m more scared about what has been done to them.

  It’s another anniversary and the square is filling up with memories. No one must find out how different mine are. I came because I wanted to join their protests – join them in their effort to never forget, although nothing that rests in my memory resembles what happened in this place.

  Tanks had blocked the roads behind the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the public housing building that’s still there to the left. There were many tanks coming so close side-by-side, that there was no way to escape. Sharpshooters were stationed on the roofs of the surrounding buildings. More tanks had come down from the main avenue.

  As I walk around the edges, away from most of the people gathered here, I’m struck by an acid, aged smell. It must to be easy to lose control over your body when fear invades you with the certainty of a violent death. I wonder how much urine was mixed up with the blood of the dead… I don’t dare ask those who were here and lived to tell about it – to describe, to confirm what we all know now… those bullets, the deafening explosions, the screams and cries that carve a tattoo inside your ears so deep that you can never sleep well again. I close my eyes very tight, tight, tighter, until it hurts. Then I shake my head like a dog shakes off water, trying to rid myself of what I’ve read, what I’ve heard. What no one ever told me.

  Tanks and soldiers surrounded them, not leaving a space free for anyone to even breathe. They were as old as I am now. Students, like me. But they knew much more about life, because I’ve never been hungry, I’ve never feared jail, and nobody has ever snatched my loved ones from me to torture them, and then, to disappear them… I don’t dare ask what is worse: to be certain that someone died here, in this plaza, in what might have been a more or less quick way (could it ever be quick enough?), or to be forever in the dark about what happened between the walls of a clandestine jail… What could be worse than to ask yourself how many hours did suffering have to be endured; to never know the whereabouts of that beloved person whose absence you came to cry about in this plaza today; to never know where the body finally turned to rot?

  My homeland looks so different now… I haven’t walked through its streets for such a long time. I wonder what he will say when he finds out I came? What will I tell him when we’re together again? Look, I just had to go to la Plaza… Still, I shouldn’t worry about explanations. I should worry about asking for them, but I know I’ll never be brave enough.

  My knees feel like they’ll fail me. I’m afraid the slightest breeze might make me lose my balance. I nail my eyes to the asphalt that drowned in blood that day: it must have been very hard to try and run through scarlet puddles. I read once that blood smells like rusty metal. Bullets are made of metal. The blending must have been unbearable. How many shoes went missing in the rush; futile, trying to escape an inescapable army. The smoke made their eyes burn, they say. Doctors and ambulances were denied access, and so many of the wounded died waiting for help, as the dead lay beside them, eyes open. Soldiers piled them up, ordered to bury the corpses without counting them, without identifying anyone. How many mothers and sisters and fathers and brothers held their hopes high, expecting to find out that their loved ones were only missing, not really dead? They speak of thousands of missing persons during those years – over three hundred in this plaza alone. I close my eyes and try to imagine three hundred young people like myself running to escape the bullets, stomping each other, clawing at the floor and the walls… What was done to Elena I don’t want to think about. It’s enough that I remember the knife. I force myself to stay strong even though I know I’m approaching the exact spot where it happened. The biggest, brightest altar is set there.

  I try to see the plaza in its silence, after everything was ended. I try to imagine what it feels like to see your friends die beside you, to bleed to death. I don’t ask – I can’t ask. I’m walking through sorrow: I feel it caressing my skin, oozing out of my people’s pores.

  Mother died before I could miss the feel of her skin. I’d always thought I would never need her, but now, in this place, I stand very still as I finally understand that you can never become used to such absences. My difference is, I know where her body is, I know she died peacefully. Morphine helped ease her pain. I suddenly understand what a privilege both her death and her grave are.

  I turned seven years old the day this historic plaza became a killing field. I remember that afternoon very clearly. They were both there, Papa and my godfather, who I always called Padrino. He had strong, long arms. I loved how he threw me up in the air, and how he never missed my birthdays, no matter how busy he was. That same afternoon he gave me a magic set, and we started playing right away. Papa put a light bulb against his ear and it lit up, but only against his ear, not against mine, and I couldn’t stop laughing. From between his fingers came coins that disappeared before my eyes, and from his suit he brought out long scarves knotted into an endless, colourful snake he put around my neck, calling me his rainbow princess… From a hat he took out Susa, so fragile and small.

  “My own puppy!” I shrieked with joy, and Father and Padrino laughed. Their plan had worked. I’d never suspected my greatest wish was about to come true. It was the most magical, unforgettable afternoon ever. And the worst afternoon for the woman who is walking past me and who, in a broken voice that seeps through my skin and makes me feel unspeakably guilty, is praying loudly for her son.

  I hadn’t seen Papa give the order. I only remember Padrino leaving in a rush after patting my puppy’s head and giving me a quick kiss on the forehead. Everything must’ve happened without warning. I was holding Susa, busy choosing a proper name for her… Papa refuses to speak about that day, and why he refused to let me see my Padrino afterwards. He acts as if nothing ever happened, as if breathing in another language is normal for us.

  For a long time I didn’t know the real reason why we had never returned to our homeland, why he kept insisting that it didn’t matter where we lived, or how we were called, as long as we stayed together. So we had settled down in our modest Canadian home in our rural Canadian town, without any guards or servants, just the two of us, playing with the snow in winter. He said snow made everything look clean, so soft and trouble-free. He said he felt at peace with the world. I believed him, and never asked about the past, though for many years I secretly wished for Padrino’s return. I missed his sense of humour, his strong arms holding me and tossing me in the air.

  It was hard for me to believe the newspapers, the reports; those magazines I accidentally found online. They had to be mistaken. Every day I thought, Today will be the day I confront him. And every day, after watching him prepare dinner, having him help me with my homework, and tend to old Susa with great tenderness, I couldn’t. I had decided back then to wait until I could return to the plaza by myself.

  I was shaking last night when I arrived at the airport. Yes, I’m here on holiday, I told the immigration officer, my spoken Spanish strange and rusty. Corroded. I didn’t get much sleep in the hotel. So many memories had come
rushing back: my home-schooled years, the palatial house where I’d spent my early childhood. Idle hours of childhood calm, a stillness close to serenity. But I am finally here, and I can’t control my body, can’t stop it shaking. I don’t know how I’ll look at my father’s hands again, when I go back to him. I examine my own hands. Our fingers are the same. Long, slender. Even delicate. We’ll never be able to escape who we are.

  The altar is located against the wall of the church. It’s a few metres wide, and looks taller than I am. There are dozens of candles, flowers, photos of people, pictures of saints. Incense permeates the air. Suffocating. It’s hot and sunny, my shirt is soaked in sweat. Elena was a year younger than I am, seven months pregnant. She had tried to escape and had been arrested. I’ve seen photos of young people lined up against the wall, their pants pulled down, heads bleeding. Elena was among them but she was not tame, she had not followed orders like everyone else. Angry, she had yelled at the soldiers, insulting them. They say that’s the reason why Padrino made an example of her. With his favourite knife. The silver one he always carried in a leather sheath that hung from his belt. The one he’d never allow me to touch because it was honed so sharp.

  When I first read about it I found it impossible to believe. Witnesses said they’d seen him cut her belly open and tear the baby out. Nail him to the wall, I cried to myself. To this wall right in front of me. With his knife. The knife he wouldn’t let me touch, because it was so sharp.

  “You want trouble, hijos de su reputísima madre?” they say he yelled. I can imagine – no, I can hear him articulate each word. He was a man of precision. His hands always manicured. I wonder if Padrino had told Papa how it had happened, what he had done. I wish that I might find the strength to ask him one day if he’d felt proud of himself that afternoon, or horrified as I am now.

  The scar on the wall makes me believe it all really happened. I believe it, and the brutality of it swamps me like a wave. There’s no way out, no way back, no air. I fall to my knees – I can’t breathe. A woman bends down.