The Body Where I Was Born by Guadalupe Nettel

Manners for Youths of Both Sexes in Which is Found the Principles of Civility and Etiquette that One Must Observe in Diverse Social Situations, Preceded by a Brief Treatise on the Moral Obligations of Man . I bought it out of masochistic nostalgia. It proved to be a very practical and illustrative read, explaining, for example, how a woman is to step down from a carriage that is pulled by one or more horses.
    Inconspicuously, my brother and I got into the habit of inviting ourselves to eat at the house of another member of the soccer team—a different one each time—which no doubt made things very easy for our grandmother. The kids of Villa Olímpica—that is, the kids of our generation, the ones we knew and with whom we played in the afternoons—all had a double personality, or at least a double culture. In the gardens and plaza they spoke with Mexican accents and expressions, but as soon as they got home they spoke with their parents in pristine Buenos Aires Argentinean or Santiago Chilean. Many of those kids didn’t seem to be aware of the horror their families had known before leaving their birth cities. Others were tormented by memories of separation and grief—of violence and god knows what else—so much so that despite our young age it was impossible not to see it. Among them was Ximena, about whom I will say more later, the only girl I came to identify with in those days and who, perhaps without ever knowing it, left a profound impression on my story.
    It took me years to pick a soccer team I wanted to root for. I felt no affinity for any of those I had watched play in the first division tournaments. Finally, when I had to choose, I opted for the Unión de Curtidores, the least glamorous team, the most obscure, and the least likely to ever win a championship. Let me tell you, Doctor, about this team that you will probably never hear of again in your life. Most people think it’s a team of losers, and nobody can believe that I would seriously support such a scruffy squad. I’m not just talking about the white jersey with its diagonal dark blue stripe reminiscent of Miss Universe’s sash, but also about how fatalistically they played. The only thing special about them was their nervous back-and-forth between first and second division. It was a team that lived always on the edge of tragedy, on the edge of disgrace, in the darkest of uncertainties. Their goal was not to win a championship—they didn’t dream of it—but to maintain their composure. On a smaller scale, they epitomized our national team, which every four years anxiously wondered if they would make it to the World Cup. I’ve never been able to understand why so many Mexicans are for Club América and its multimillionaire owner, and not for the Unión de Curtidores, which truly represent us. I guess it’s for reasons similar to why, presidential election after presidential election, the lower classes vote for the right-wing Catholic candidate. Despite what people think, the Unión never disappeared. The team has changed its name over the years, but its essence remains the same. Like the oldest animals that roam the earth, the Curtidores have had to mutate to survive.
    Sometimes our grandmother was moved to buy chocolates or some other sweet and to distribute this wealth, which is to say that she would hide it somewhere in her closet in order to control the moment and manner in which we might eat it. One afternoon while searching for my hair tie, I peered into the space between the floor and the base of her bed, not really aware of what I was doing, and I discovered one of her best hiding places. There I found an entire bag of lychees, now completely fermented, which she had brought to the house three weeks before. There was also a cookie box full of old family photos and a pack of Belgian chocolates that, despite their still-edible appearance, I didn’t dare try. Another one of my grandmother’s habits was to write down in lined, hardcover