Except for my visits and those of his older brother Luis, Juan lived practically alone in Uncle Jorge’s gloomy apartment. His mother came to see him at first, but she soon died. I remember her well: she came dressed in her factory uniform, and sometimes her fingernails were dirty. She had even offered to work in the house as a maid so she could be near her son. She looked so sad. Her hair was cut short and neat. Her size was impressive, and so was Juan’s father’s, whom I only saw once. They were Swedish immigrants from Misiones, workers on the yerba plantations who had left their town because it had no resources to medically treat someone as sick as Juan. The father acceded to my uncle’s deal and handed Juan over in exchange for a lot of money, but the mother didn’t give up, and on every visit she would ask, please, when were they going to let her live with her son again. I heard her crying and I felt bad for her, but I didn’t want her to take Juan away. I asked my uncle not to return him and he told me: Don’t worry.
In any case, I never imagined what Mercedes, my mother, was going to do. I’ve had enough of this woman, she said one day, and soon after that we learned Juan’s mother was sick: she died in a matter of weeks from a sudden and terminal cancer. Juan’s brother Luis informed us of his mother’s illness and death. The father had already disavowed his son by then. That man wanted to get rid of his sick son because he was expensive. Luis, on the other hand, came to visit every weekend, and whenever he could he took Juan out for walks or to swim, listening closely to my uncle’s instructions about what he could and couldn’t do. My mother used to make him wait on the landing, and sometimes, if it was raining, she would ask the doorman not to let him inside. One time Luis shot my mother a murderous look, heavy with the hatred of generations, and then I loved him eternally. I’m going to help you, I promised him when he brought Juan back that day, I won’t let her separate you. I was just saying it, because I never had and never will have any power over my mother. If she didn’t kill Luis, it was because she didn’t want to or because she was bored or because she didn’t think he was a danger.
Juan changed a little when his mother died. He would sit on the wooden floor near the window, and sometimes I’d have the feeling that we were meeting in a desolate place. From the balcony, we could look out on to the avenue’s jacaranda trees. He was sad and very distant: I spent all day thinking about how to entertain him, what kind of stories would satisfy the young rajah. When I realized my family had gotten Juan’s parents out of the picture so they could keep him, I wanted to know more. This wasn’t just about Uncle Jorge’s career. I confronted my grandfather: I have a right to know, I said. And he told me without much beating around the bush. We believe the boy could be the medium the Order is looking for. Your uncle had a revelation when he operated on him, which has not been repeated. That’s why sometimes, when we take him to the hospital, we visit the operating room. We want to see if he manifests again. It hasn’t happened yet, but I think we have to give it time. He’s too young.
It’s a good thing he told me. Otherwise, when Juan did manifest, I would have been in danger. That day, my grandfather saved me from the Darkness.
That was the year Tali, my half-sister, came to Buenos Aires to study. It was a violent, difficult time. Tali couldn’t stand the city and she cried, pleaded for her mother, pulled out her hair. Mercedes beat her; if I intervened, I was in for it too. We tried to run away once, with Juan. Our plan was discovered, and we had to go without dinner for a month.
Mercedes hated Tali because she hated her mother, Leandra. She never cared that my father had lovers; plus, in the Order that kind of possessive jealousy was and still is considered shameful. But Tali’s mother was competition for something other than my father’s erotic attention. She was a healer, and she had her own temple to San La Muerte in Corrientes. And she was a beauty; I don’t know if I ever again saw a woman so naturally magnificent and alluring. My father spent a lot of time in the north with Leandra, and whenever he could, he took me with him. Tali and I would run along the dirt roads and shake the lemon trees to make white flowers rain down on us. Leandra received the faithful in her temple; Tali and I would clean the effigies of San La Muerte while we listened to the sobs of the pilgrims. The heat was suffocating: Tali always wore her hair down, and when she perspired a lot she would jump into the river. I never learned to swim like her. The Paraná has whirlpools: it’s said they’re made by the dead who live under the water and long for company, so they produce those swirls of water to drown swimmers. Leandra taught us how to avoid them, and she kissed my father on the beach. I understood why Tali didn’t want to stay in Buenos Aires: I wouldn’t have stayed either. The city, especially our apartment, was an opiate. The only bad thing was that my uncle wouldn’t let Juan come with us to the north, saying he was in no condition to go so far away. Juan, however, listened to our adventures enthusiastically.
When the news came that Leandra had cancer, my mother clapped and celebrated with those little steps she always does when she’s euphoric, one hand over her belly and the other in the air, like in a tango. Then she dropped on to a sofa and told us, me and my father: You two are some real cowards, you never dare to get rid of what bothers you. Just look at that kid Jorge’s got his mind set on—I’ve already gotten rid of his mother.
And just how does Leandra bother you? Dad asked her.
That squaw doesn’t bother me in the slightest, replied my mother. My father told me to go to my room, but Mercedes said: Let Rosario stay, let her listen, she has to learn—you all just teach her little stories and nonsense. Your Indian lover, Adolfo, is irrelevant to me. But you care about her. I’ll let you sleep with all the whores in this country, but I cannot allow you to care about any of them. You want to know, Rosario, how I made Leandra sick? You want to know how I made your dying little friend’s mother sick? Come visit me tonight and I’ll tell you. It’s time you learned who you really are. This bunch of sissies coddle you too much.
I never went to her room to learn how she had made Leandra and Juan’s mother sick. When she tired of waiting for me, Mercedes went out: she put on lipstick and high heels and went across to the hotel sweet shop she liked, and she celebrated with champagne. She wouldn’t let me go visit Tali in Corrientes, and Tali never came back to Buenos Aires. My father gave up on his plans to educate her in the capital, and he responded to my pleas with a convincing argument: If your mother starts gunning for Tali, you’ve seen what will happen.
My mother sent me to the Chascomús house that summer, alone. I knew it was a punishment, but at first I didn’t really understand how it could be. I had always liked the countryside, the horses, running with the dogs, nights around the bonfire, all the stories I could write down in my notebook, the smell of smoke at dusk. I begged to have someone come with me, Juan or Tali or some friend from school, even Betty, but Mercedes refused and slapped me with her ring-covered hand until she drew blood from my cheeks. Make friends with the paupers who work there, she told me. You always get along with those people, you little brat.
She drove me herself to Chascomús. And she gave me her instructions. I was to feed the caged ones every day. My mother is not the only member of the Order who searches for a medium or tries to summon the Darkness on her own, but as far as I know, she’s the only one who uses this method. She brought me to the shack where the cages were, and then she left. The smell made me vomit and I ruined my red Mary Janes, my favorites. I ran out. But the next day I went back: one of the employees left the food at the door of my room, and he had orders to force me to fulfill the task. Otherwise, my mother would come back. That possibility was worse than the shack. It was kept locked with a padlock, and inside, the darkness was absolute. I left the trays inside the cages. The smell of shit and piss and blood made me throw up every time. All that summer I brought plates of food, very often spoiled, to the caged ones. I walked with my hands extended, and if I noticed they were very still, I prodded them to see which ones were alive and which dead. If there was a dead one, I also had to take care of the body. I buried two under the pear trees, following instructions my mother gave me over the phone. They didn’t look human, and the smaller one had no eyes. One day, I heard a howl so intense coming from one corner that I disobeyed the orders I’d received and went to get a flashlight. The light made all the others shriek and for a moment I thought I was surrounded by winged demons, but I took a deep breath and steeled myself. I could always be tough when I needed to. I recognized the face that was wailing: they were looking for him in town, there were posters of a rough identikit drawing up everywhere, in the shop, on light poles, in the police station. Someone wanted him back, someone loved him. The rag over his eyes was so dirty it had maggots. I bore the filth, his suffering, for several days, until I couldn’t take it anymore and removed the bandage. I cleaned him up as best I could, but I’m sure he’d already lost his eyes by the time Mercedes decided he was no good to her and threw him out like all the others. His name was Francisco, and he was four years old. The identikit said he had dark hair, but in my mother’s prison he’d gone completely bald.