ANZJFT Volume 29 Number 1 2008 pp. 54–5554

Summer was almost over. Her friend had already leftafter a long talk, the kind that starts early in the afternoonand lasts until dawn. Scenes ran through Inés’s mind whereshe imagined different listeners, their reactions, the meetingplace, the lighting, the weather. Her friend, who had beenher classmate since high school, had told her, asked her —begged her: ‘You have to tell someone about your life’. Shedid not want Inés’s life to be invisible.

All of us have many lives: the life we dream of, the lifewe generate in spite of the difficulties our era confronts uswith the life we produce, the life we live, the differentphases we go through.

‘What she wants me to tell is not a story, it’s the actualtruth,’ Inés thought. She had spent what had seemed a life-time in prison (five years) — a life that she had not chosen.When she got out, hardly anyone had asked her anything.For her, it had been better not to speak. Silence had becomea way of living. Whom, and what to tell? Inés felt that thewords would bring back what she had intended to keepbehind her, in the past. Silence was a warm blanket.

Now she had lived a little over 50 years. She had gottenmarried, had a family and held a good job that gave her sat-isfaction. Life in prison had left its scars and like all markslife leaves on us, the injuries had remained with her throughall her changes thereafter.

She was 30 years older than when the Joint Forces (LasFuerzas Conjuntas — joint military and police) paid her avisit one summer afternoon, and they weren’t inviting heron a friendly stroll. She had known it was likely to happen;it was the predictable consequence of thinking differently,for not signing the ‘Democratic Faith’1 declaration, andtherefore getting classified with the ‘C’, for wanting anequal and just life for everyone. Yet the moment took her bysurprise. One is never quite ready for moments like that.

And now, like every year since that day, starting with herbirthday, the ‘liturgical year’ began. This was her privatename for the succession of fateful events that had led to thefate of her friends, and were now ‘anniversaries’. These alonewere enough to make her lose herself in music, or the soundof the sea, or a novel, the kind you get totally absorbed in,and never want to stop. But her friend knew about this.

She made an effort, trying to think what her friendwanted people to know about her ...

From the moment she was imprisoned, she was neverthe same, from her skin outwards. The prison uniformadhered to her skin like a tattoo. Even after she came out, itwas always on, although nobody else saw it. Even if shewore the most elegant suit, to the most important ceremonyin the world, she could still feel the touch of the cold, roughfabric. But her friend was not talking about the ‘tattoo’.

There were always scenes replaying in her mind. It onlytook one small effort for them to surge up in all sorts offorms. Her eyes wide open, afraid and furious, she saw fourhooded figures in gray and brown, tossed like uselessrubbish on the tiled floor of a small room, maybe twometres square. Each figure in a corner. Silent. They wereforbidden to talk to one another. They were being tortured.Resisting. And in the moments of respite from the horrorthey received a bit of warmth — a word or gesture kept sep-arate from the humiliation of the oppressors. This is howthey supported each other. A vivid image of pain entwinedwith horror. Dignity amid the darkest cruelty.

But Inés knew that her friend was talking about oneparticular moment in which she had been the heroine. Itwasn’t just ‘any old’ moment. She knew she was avoiding,not wanting to recover that moment from the back of hermind. She thought of music, of the pigeon on the cannonfrom the Kusturika film, she thought of the ocean, the sky,trees, anything that would keep her from remembering. Sheasked herself if it was worth it, if it was worth rememberingcertain life experiences shut in the depths of her soul. Couldit be true that someone would want to listen, to know?Could something of hers be exposed, or revealed? Could herstory reach out to others? At times she thought that it wasbest not to tell, best to keep it inside her, and look at thestars, just as she was doing now.

Silence had become a good friend, had protected hercountless times. To abandon that silence, even for a single

You Have to Tell SomeoneAbout Your Life

Olga Rochkovski

Story Corner

Olga Rochkovski is a family therapist andteaches family therapy in Montevideo.Address for correspondence: TacuarembÛ1442, Montevideo, Uruguay. Phone: 4806585.E-mail: obidart@adinet.com.uy

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You Have to Tell Someone About Your Life

ANZJFT March 2008

minute, terrified her. And then? Would she be targeted forwhat she had lived through, or for what she had said? Itwould never be the same. Inés knew that companions ofhers had written books, but they only allowed them to bepublished after their death. But even beyond her fear, some-times, just a little, she wanted someone to listen. She had afeeling that her life could change for the better, if she facedthe risks, if she stopped seeking the refuge of silence.

In that other life, she had lived too much. She wasforced to walk the frontier between life and death. She hadalmost crossed it, yet here she was, as her friend alwayssaid, alive to tell what she had been through. She had beenforced to touch the forbidden fruit of multiple insanitiesand to see the most obscure atrocities ever produced bythe human race.

‘I can continue going in circles’, thought Inés, ‘or I canface this now and maybe something good will come out of it’.

When she was taken captive, she was tortured, as wereall the others. Endless days, nights, where each would resistas he best could. One night, that she later discovered washer last, they were torturing her on the rooftop of a bar-racks. At a certain moment, the oppressors realised she wasflatlining. They gave her mouth-to-mouth resuscitationsince they did not want to shoulder responsibility foranother death.

That’s what they were doing, when Inés vomited. Thebitter bile, impossible to swallow, the hate, the craziness,

were expelled violently, all the evil, the malice were pro-pelled from her body. Many questions: why? why? Pain,hate, and so much helplessness.

All the darkness in the world discharged like a lightningbolt. Stinking, rotten shrieks of pain. The vomit with all thedisgust it carried, landed on the shirt of one of the torturers.Inés said, ‘I’m sorry’. And the torturers froze. All of themwere disturbed. What had just happened? Had she justapologised? Had she said she was sorry? And why had theystopped torturing her?

Suddenly, a flock of birds circled above them, and thesky filled with stars, and the sun rose. A forbidden spacehad opened up between Inés and the torturers. She had pro-voked a human encounter. Evil had been suspended for asecond. For that moment, they were not ‘heavies’ andpublic servants. Human beings were suddenly separate fromthe ‘jobs’ they performed.

Life was a miracle.

Endnote1 During the dictatorship (i.e. between 1973 and 1985),

public employees had to sign a ‘Democratic Faith’ decla-ration. Afterwards, all were classified A, B or C (C wasthe worst, and meant that that person was leftist andcouldn’t work any more in Government offices).

The ice-cream sticks to the roof of my mouthThe nutty ice-cream, little flakes of almondOr pecan or macadamia, you seeEven when you are gone these little flakes of happinessCan occur to me

But I cannot enjoy them to the full, perhapsI will leave them in my willTo my beautiful daughterLike a surpriseAnd one dayShe will wake to find little flakesOf nutty ice-creamLike a snowstorm in her mouth.

Now You Are Gone

Lyndon WalkerSaturday, August 5, 200612:09 pm