I believed that everything was this dream: on a hard bed, covered with a gleaming white sheet, I was a small girl with arms amputated at the elbows and legs cut above the knees, dressed in a tiny bathrobe that left the four stumps uncovered.
I was in a room that looked a lot like a poor doctor’s office, with antiquated glass cabinets. I knew that we were by the side of a road in the United States where all the world, sooner or later, had to pass by. And I say "we were” because next to the bed, showing me his profile, there was a young doctor, joyful, perfectly shaved, and clean. He was waiting.
The relatives of my mother entered the doctor’s office: tall, beautiful, and the room was suddenly crowded with sunlight and noise. The doctor explained to them:
-Yes, it’s her. Her parents had an accident near this road and both died, but I was able to save her. That’s why I posted the sign, so that you might stop and see her.
A very white woman (that immediately reminded me of my mother) touched my cheeks.
-She is so pretty!
-Look at her eyes!
-And she has curly, blonde hair!
My heart throbbed with joy. They were talking about our facial similarities, and in all the excitement and praise, no one mentioned anything about my mutilations. They were now debating my future: I was indeed one of them.
But for some mysterious reason, laughing and rambling, they joyfully left the doctor’s office and did not look back at all.
The relatives of my father came later. I closed my eyes. The doctor repeated the same speech that he gave to my mother’s relatives.
-Why did you save that?
-This is frankly inhuman.
-No, a freak always possesses something surprising and, in certain ways, also something funny.
Someone strong, short in height, held me by the armpits and shook me like a rattle.
-You’ll see that we can do something else with her.
And put me on a sort of rail suspended between two brackets.
-One, two, one, two.
He was positioning, one at a time, my leg trunks on the rail as if I were a tightrope walker, holding me by the neck of the bathrobe like a grotesque doll. I shut my eyes until my head hurt.
Everyone laughed.
-Of course we can do something else with her!
-This is fun!
And vulgarly laughing they left the room while my eyes were still shut.
When I opened my eyes, I woke up.
A dreadful silence crowded the dark and cold room. There was neither a doctor nor a room, nor a road. I was here. Why did I dream about the United States? I am in the interior hall of a building. No one walked by nor would ever walk by this place. Perhaps no one had ever walked by before.
The four stumps and I, lying on a bed dirty with my excrement.
My horrible face, totally different from that of my dream: facial features have no definite forms. I know it. I cannot have a face because no one never recognized me nor will they ever.
This story was first published in the short story collection Subterranean River (1979) by |nés Arredondo (México 1928-1989).
-Translated from the Spanish by Francisco Laguna-Correa
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