12 July, 2005 Los Angeles, CA.
For Wim Lindeque, Melanie “Miss Mellie” Maree and Shaun Levin Para Eunice Van Wagner Chávez, in memoriam

Afrikaans words and phrases insinuate themselves into my head, my consciousness, aun sin querer. Meer en meer. Not sure I even want them in there, presies, although tengo que admitir they do stir something in me. Algo del orden de (pace Andrea Gutiérrez, your fave phrase, o al menos, one of them) la añoranza. Yebo, longing, comfort, long ago pain. Memory.

Of my self hace años, en Pretoria. Después de casi un año, holding myself apart, gingerly beginning to let the words–and those who spoke them from birth–touch me, assuage the biting loneliness. Kom ons jol! Ag, nee man. Lekker, my china.

Still not sure about–hasta ahora, desde aquí, después de todos estos años and even with all this reading, these movies, trying to prepare myself, somehow, for my return, mi iminente retorno a Sudafrica, después de 20 años–my relationship to that taal.

Hace unos días, more terrorist bombings. En Londres. Impotencia. Miedo. Ons kannie anywhere trek anymore, it seems. Last night I watched John Boorman’s film, “In My Country.” Basado en ese libro, which I haven’t found yet, but which that girl told me to read, esa niña que había estado de Study Abroad in South Africa, cuando fui a leer en la University of Redlands, invitada por mi amiga la Eva Valle. Anygüey, you know the boek I’m talking about, “The Country of my Skull” (weird title: Pierre dixit, claro, es adrede, pero it sounds pirate-y to me, not poetic) by Antjie Kroeg. The movie was sappy, a bit Manichean, pero even so, not bad.

And you know me, anygüey, for so many years the slightest reference to Suid-Afrika, just the slightest mention and I’d get teary, nostalgic, angry: I was there. I lived there. I know that place. When did that reaksie change? Was it when I began to embrace my Latinidad, con ahinco, en serio, for reals, como quien dice, my self en relación a mi Latinidad, a California, L.A., to a feeling of home, belonging, en vez de mi yo, for years siempre y siempre en relación al Africa?

Oh, why did I leave? Was it right to come back here, to come home? Is this home?

Pero anygüey, sentí una immediate–y al principio inexplicable– repugnancia atroz toward the character played by el Samuel L. Jackson. Pero luego it hit me: that was precisely how I felt and acted when I first pitched up in So. Africa. Shit, and I’m not even noire! Y bueno, antes, en la universidad, en la graduate school: oh little Miss Divestment, little Miss Anti-apartheid. Miss Marxista. Al nada más llegar, eché la culpa de 40 años de historia on poor Howard, en su familia. He never had a chance. We never had a chance!

So righteous, tan superior porque nunca había tenido una empleada doméstica. Never had a maid (a meid). If you get right down to it, rompí con Howard porque no podía bregar con la gran culpabilidad que sentí. It overwhelmed me como una ola: sudden, nauseating.

From the minute my feet hit the tarmac at Jan Smuts International airport, en agosto del ’82, it hit me: el peso de la culpabilidad, of whiteness, y de todo lo que ese whiteness implicaba en Sudafrica. Porque that’s the way I was read there: como blanca. En la paranoia taxonómica del apartheid, no había modo de leer a una Chicana. And besides, bueno, let’s face it: casi nunca me reconocen como Raza, not even in the USA. Anygüey, ni modo. La cosa es que I couldn’t get out from under it.

Pero, vaya arrogancia. What assumptions. Ag, I feel such retroactive self-loathing now, después de ver ese film, for the way I was then: intransigente, smug. Seeing myself now in Samuel Jackson’s periodista. A white-skinned, Jewish brown girl whose skin could not be read “properly” en ese país and so, para que los Afrikaners no me pensaran uno de ellos I kept myself apart: insular yet achingly lonely, angry, accusatory and aloof. My own private apartheid del corazón.

It was only my innate, insatiable linguistic curiosidad–y el que mi amigo negro, Mmome Neppe Selabe, who worked in the photocopying department at UNISA, me dijera, “oh come on Suzi, you’ve got to learn their language, girl. To understand therm. To understand all of us!”—que finalmente me indujo hacia el deshielo. To begin, grudgingly, tentative, to thaw. To listen. To speak.

Oh Wim, you helped me melt then, learn to laugh, live. You who grew up entre Engels and Afrikaner, me enseñaste a negociar con las posibilidades–and the limitations–de lo que podíamos hacer. Om te speel, even! Entonces. Oh Father (you, un cura católico ahora: adiós Mr. Polisie, tot siens bifeliz party boytjie, hey?), forgive me now. Bless me. Ayúdame a perdonarme…

Ah, but I did learn (didn’t I?). Ese learning que sólo viene de vivir en un lugar. Conocer. Living in and among. Los pactos, la rabia e impotencia y el júbilo diarios. Seeing. Writing.

Such shame and anger, de repente, at myself. De nuevo. Just like 20 years ago and just from a movie! Ay, cómo eres susceptible. Pierre me dijo: no te odies tanto. You need your own Truth and Reconciliation Commission, niña.

Hot tears spill down; I cringe, al escuchar los (after all only) skin-deep, righteous, outraged pronouncements del suddenly so glaringly American Sam Jackson, as the African American reportero del Washington Post at the TRC. Mientras tanto los otros, los non-hyphenated africanos– Africans a secas, South Africans black and white– try to explain to him, to show him, to make him understand ubuntu: forgiveness. Interconnectedness.

Ay, sha sé que it’s only a movie. Pero still, there’s a knot inside me, este nudo a need to be there again. Ahora, nou-nou, hot tears spilling onto the tarmac, onto that red rooi roja tierra. I want to apologize (por mi presencia? Por mi ausencia?) Quiero agradecer.

I know so much less now, a veces pienso. And yet, I feel even more, si cabe (yet so much more ambiguously) than ever before.

Mi Agüela Eunice, tras un fulminante debate entre life and death, falleció hace dos días. Mi hijo Etienne está lejos. Oh, I want to fuzz his hair, look into his almond-shaped dark eyes, see them, see me seeing him in them, ojalá fueran sus ojos no nublados de rabia, resentimiento. What I miss isn’t here any more. Isn’t him any more. (Bueno OB-vio). Oh my god, parezco esa canción “Los recuerdos no abrazan”, bien sappy y completely oxymoronic de Luciano “El Pibe de Luján” Pereyra.

That’s what I want. Estar…allí, de nuevo. Or, patrás al futuro. Hoping we can be…algo, juntos. Saam. Again.

Tengo miedo. Stomach a knot of apprehension, nausea, no puedo comer, duermo pésimo. What will you be like? What will we all be like, together again? Pero I’m dreaming about you, Wimmie en Mellie. My skatties, so far away pero ever closer. Pronto, pronto. Julle en Afrika, my Afrika, every night. Goeie naand.

8 January, 2008
Somewhere en el Evil, oops, Inland Imperio de Califas

For Laura Gutiérrez, Elaine S. Brooks, Raphael Kadushin y Florence Moorhead-Rosenberg,Tauruses all, con amor y sangre

Well, mi colega y amigo el José C-2 accompanied me to the hospie yesterday for a biopsy. It was extremely unpleasant, to say the least, and, as could be predicted, my BP was off the radar, que digamos Richter (more el upper que el lower numerito, pero I forget which way is more dire, lo cual me hace stress out even more, OB-vio…) en los momentos just before the “procedure”. I am trying not to be too alarmed about THAT, since the arribas and abajos of my BP are intimately related to my emo state, and I’ve been faithfully using my new Resperate machine, que te hace una especie de biofeedback pa’ aletargarte la breathing. Plus, he seguido con el estúpido sécate-toda diuretic, los health walks, y bla bla (ay, todo tan boring).

Anygüey, I won’t go into detalle about el procedimiento mismo: it was unnerving, demoralising and mega-estresante, even bajo los efectos del Xanax and local lidocane (the installation of which was maybe even casi casi lo PEOR). Por suerte, the pathologist who performed the stereotactic biopsy era un puertorriqueño who appreciated the bizarre humor I was somehow able to muster cuando, mientras yacía, boca abajo, en ese heartlessly cold metal table (images of la parrilla–como le decían al torture table que usaban durante la dictadura en Argentina—kept popping into my admittedly paranoid and hyperbolic imaginación), le pregunté, apropos of a teensy titanium CLIP (?) they inserted into my buhto—AND LEFT THERE—supuestamente at the precise site of the microcalcificaciones, if I was now officially some sort of Sci Fi Alien. El tipo, cool as a pepino, hasta me hizo un little quip patrás, “why, are you an unofficial alien now?”

Actually, it is the thought of having that tiny “clip” inside me, in such an intimate locus of my geografía interior, that I find most unsettling and yet (bueno, you know how genuinely STRANGE I am)… also somehow intriguing. En la X-ray que me mostró el médico, it looks a bit like a tiny (we’re talking, about the size of a pen point) antenna, or a blue ribbon (as the Chicana nurse, Melissa, cheerfully prompted me to appreciate). To me, it looks most like the glyph for the astrological sign Taurus, el signo de varios de mis MAXimos carnales. And so, I will hold on to the idea of this semaphor. Me reconforta, de alguna manera, la idea de shevarlo a Uds. tan close to my too-excitable heart, entangled con mis entrañas…and in imminent danger (aunque el patólogo assured me this would not happen!) of setting off los detectores de metal en los aeropuertos.

Can you imagine? First my 24 South African bracelets—que eventualmente tuve que dejar de llevar, por el tema del beefed-up security en los aeropuertos, post 9/11, después de más de 20 años, so much jingle jangle and weight on that left side; I even gave birth in them, coño!–and now un Taurean titanium clip, marking off the site of former microcalcificaciones busteriles.

Mientras me hacían la jodida biopsia, the nurse had to call in una über-enfermera, porque aparentemente, there was a blood vessel too close to the site of the little chips de calcio, and they had to do this most uncomfy manipulating operación to get it (la vesícula) out of the way.

Bueno, al regresar a casa entré al cobalt blue guest bath, abajo. I took in the fantastic, little-girl-lost Camille Rose García prints, the beautiful caldera-colored mosaic-tiled counter, the gorgeously Goth, black, drippy-looking wrought iron light fixture, worthy of the Addams Family manse, installed by Pierre en las últimas refacciones del 2006. I took off my ancient (according to fashion’s ever-fickle seasons) black Prada ski jacket (second-hand regalo de mi hermana Wiggue, before I went to Buenos Aires for the first time, en el ‘99—y creo que estaba past-season even then!). In that penumbral, Alice in Wonderland a lo Chicana luz, I saw three sort of beautiful pero definitely crimson spots flowering on my chest, left side. I wriggled out of the left side of my grey American Apparel raglan-sleeved, tissueweight cotton sweatshirt, cupped my breast instinctively and my hand came away filled with blood.

Como en una película de horror, like in “Carrie,” la sangre saturaba el petite round ice pack que las enfermeras me habían insertado en el sexy yet sort of stern black Olga bra (my good-luck corpiño). Todavía pathetically clutching my breast, con la bahtante menos eficaz diestra, I stripped off the top, y el bra; los tiré al sink con ese crimson icepack, les eché agua fría encima and watched it bloom scarlet. Just like ese Easter egg dye que nos preparaba mamá, musité. El espejo me devolvió una imagen espectral, oddly placid. Blood covered the left side of my torso. How could so much blood emerge from a tiny nick, pensé, y luego, immediately, pensé en ese famoso cuadro de Frida Kahlo, “Unos cuantos piquetitos.” Can you imagine? Typical me: there I am, dripping, pulsing, coursing sangre, pensando en la moda, en películas, paintings.

I unzipped my grey-green Levi pinwale stretch cords; I was intensely conscious I would drip blood all over the floor; me preocupaban las gatas, Esmeralda y Alejandra, que ya maullaban, worried (bueno OK, also hungry, a decir verdad…). I remembered about pressure. Aplicar presión. I held my breast more insistently, con la mano derecha, pero somehow, I couldn’t believe that only that would staunch the flow. Llamé a Pierre al trabajo, porque conoce un chingo de First Aid, pero to my horror, he was barely even conscious himself, having been stricken con un fast-moving stomach flu. Apenitas tenía la fuerza, as it turned out, to drive himself home.

Para cuando llegó, I’d already spoken to the enfermera, y al mere mere Puerto Rican pathologist, quien me dijo que (natuurlik) lo que me pasó was “unusual,” pero that there can always be some little artery or vesícula “in the way,” invisible. A fount of unexpected blood. He told me, bien matter of fact, que hasta en el peor de los casos (cutting “a major artery”, dijo, creo) if you apply pressure “for about an hour”, it will stop.

Bueno gente, apreté like there was no tomorrow; I set the little red, retro timer en la blood-red, PoMo, retro cocina, and pressed, 20 minutos, como si fuera uno de los trials de Hércules.

It stopped.

By the time it stopped, había blood spatters on the made-in-Argentina (it’s true, el downstairs floor tile hasta se shama “Pampa”), faux-Spanish–or faux-Mexican—Saltillo tile; blood had soaked through the rolled up paper tower I was clutching; it caked my hand, la axila, streaked my torso y hasta trickled down into my chonies. El full-length espejo en el living, donde generalmente chequeo mi look antes de salir al mundo, me devolvió una imagen espeluznante. Somehow ghoulish y compellingly erotic a la vez.

OK, OK, sha sé. Leave it to me.

Y bueno, it’s Kaiser Permanente. It’s an HMO mundo we inhabit (digo, those of us even lucky enough to have healthcare coverage), so I won’t know anything for up to 10 days, can you believe it? Y eso que sólo me van a llamar para hacer una cita for me to return, again, to that rasquache Kaiser Permanente hospital in the heart of the Evil, qiue digamos Inland Empire, en Fontana, Califas, para que me den los resultados in person. Me dijeron: whether the news is good or bad, they have to give it to you in person. Es la ley.

So now, a esperar. Tic tac tic tac. Um, not something my grand trine in Fuego personality excels at, pero you already know that. Y… qué remedio, no?

So, les escribo esto, Tauruses, seeking comfort, seeking…que sé sho, connection. Sigh. As usual. My words looking for your words, wishing it were your eyes, your mouth I could see talking, reassuring, laughing with me. Pero for now, heme aquí, a la espera. This is it.