father, face full of love, at my bedside at night as he stroked my hair and sang a lullaby off-key. I heard his laugh, watching television, the sound of him round and generous and dropping slowly in pitch, ha-ha-ha , as ifsomersaulting down steep stairs. I heard the long push of his breath as he filled an inflatable pool for me, in the summer, the pfffhhh, pffffhhh of his dedication to my joy. I saw him eating breakfast, about to leave for work, in proud clean uniform, the golden buttons shining on his cuffs. He was not a—no. Could not be. I was enraged. I was ashamed. I felt like breaking everything in sight, only there was nothing in my sight except the blistered paint on the stall door.
The stall door stayed closed in front of me, dispassionate, unyielding, worn.
I stood and stood while time stretched and moaned and pressed around me, until the bell rang to signal the end of lunch. I had forgotten to eat, I was late for class, I was not hungry. I took the note back out, unfolded it, and read it again. It had not changed. I read it and read it and read it. Then I tore it into many little pieces and flushed it down the toilet, a futile act that could not keep me from reading those words incessantly in the coming months, in the dark of night, where they blazed and hovered over my bed.
After this, the crimes of my father—the crimes of the nation, also, crimes to which I had not given words—settled on me, rode my back, draped my shoulders, stuck to me and refused to wipe away. They were not delusions. I could no longer believe they were delusions. Things had happened in this nation, they were true, and Romina’s family had played one role while my family had played another, a role that could not easily be cleansed, and that clung to the underside of my skin like a dense sheet of lead that made it difficult to rise from bed in the mornings. I couldn’t clearly see what my father had done—the images only came in fractured pieces, his gleaming cuffs against a desk, his face gazing through iron bars—nor did I want to see any more clearly. But I had accepted that the disappeared had truly disappeared, and this was enough for condemnation. I was guilty by inheritance. There was no trial, no choice, only the here you go this belongs to you of guilt, which increased with every bite of bread from the dinner table, every absent smile from Papá as he looked up brieflyfrom the morning paper, every brisk kiss I accepted from Mamá as I left for school, every night I burrowed into fresh linens that had been washed by a woman who was paid with pesos that my father earned the way he’d earned them. With every turn and motion and common daily act, the stain occupied more space beneath my skin. It was inescapable. I could no more free myself of it than I could free myself of my own face.
I said nothing to my parents, and they did not seem to suspect that I had changed, that the secret at our family’s heart had become exposed.
At that time, of course, I was sure that it had.
My old friends accepted me back, though gradually and not without a few barbs, which I met with amiable shrugs. I did not explain and they did not ask for explanation. They were popular girls who did not care about French poets or Thursday marches or experiences that led down hazardous roads. Instead they were obsessed with eye shadow and hairstyles gleaned from fashion magazines and losing weight they didn’t have and movies from Hollywood in which things went terribly wrong but always ended well for everyone except, of course, the villain. I buried the parts of myself that seemed radioactive. My friends made it easy to pretend, so convincingly that on good days I lulled myself into believing my own act, and became a girl who was not haunted by the echoes of a question on a torn sheet of paper. She was an easier girl to be. So I became her.
From then on, there were two Perlas: one on the surface who had good grades and good friends and smiled a lot and
The stall door stayed closed in front of me, dispassionate, unyielding, worn.
I stood and stood while time stretched and moaned and pressed around me, until the bell rang to signal the end of lunch. I had forgotten to eat, I was late for class, I was not hungry. I took the note back out, unfolded it, and read it again. It had not changed. I read it and read it and read it. Then I tore it into many little pieces and flushed it down the toilet, a futile act that could not keep me from reading those words incessantly in the coming months, in the dark of night, where they blazed and hovered over my bed.
After this, the crimes of my father—the crimes of the nation, also, crimes to which I had not given words—settled on me, rode my back, draped my shoulders, stuck to me and refused to wipe away. They were not delusions. I could no longer believe they were delusions. Things had happened in this nation, they were true, and Romina’s family had played one role while my family had played another, a role that could not easily be cleansed, and that clung to the underside of my skin like a dense sheet of lead that made it difficult to rise from bed in the mornings. I couldn’t clearly see what my father had done—the images only came in fractured pieces, his gleaming cuffs against a desk, his face gazing through iron bars—nor did I want to see any more clearly. But I had accepted that the disappeared had truly disappeared, and this was enough for condemnation. I was guilty by inheritance. There was no trial, no choice, only the here you go this belongs to you of guilt, which increased with every bite of bread from the dinner table, every absent smile from Papá as he looked up brieflyfrom the morning paper, every brisk kiss I accepted from Mamá as I left for school, every night I burrowed into fresh linens that had been washed by a woman who was paid with pesos that my father earned the way he’d earned them. With every turn and motion and common daily act, the stain occupied more space beneath my skin. It was inescapable. I could no more free myself of it than I could free myself of my own face.
I said nothing to my parents, and they did not seem to suspect that I had changed, that the secret at our family’s heart had become exposed.
At that time, of course, I was sure that it had.
My old friends accepted me back, though gradually and not without a few barbs, which I met with amiable shrugs. I did not explain and they did not ask for explanation. They were popular girls who did not care about French poets or Thursday marches or experiences that led down hazardous roads. Instead they were obsessed with eye shadow and hairstyles gleaned from fashion magazines and losing weight they didn’t have and movies from Hollywood in which things went terribly wrong but always ended well for everyone except, of course, the villain. I buried the parts of myself that seemed radioactive. My friends made it easy to pretend, so convincingly that on good days I lulled myself into believing my own act, and became a girl who was not haunted by the echoes of a question on a torn sheet of paper. She was an easier girl to be. So I became her.
From then on, there were two Perlas: one on the surface who had good grades and good friends and smiled a lot and
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