Universidad Veracruzana FACULTAD DE IDIOMAS

LICENCIATURA EN LENGUA INGLESA A Spanish–English translation of two chapters of Muerte por agua by Julieta Campos, linguistic implications and pitfalls.

TESINA

Que para obtener el título de

LINCENCIADO EN LENGUA INGLESA

Presenta

JULIETA PÉREZ LÓPEZ

Director MTRO. CÁNDIDO GUEVARA ZAMORA

SEPTIEMBRE 2014

INDEX INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 2 CHAPTER I ............................................................................................................. 5 The nouveou roman: Literary movement ............................................................. 5 Julieta Campos: life and work .............................................................................. 6 Muerte por agua analysis ..................................................................................... 7 CHAPTER II ............................................................................................................ 8 Translation meaning............................................................................................. 8 CHAPTER III ......................................................................................................... 10 The translation procedure .................................................................................. 10 Vazquez-Ayora: Translation procedures ............................................................ 10 Literary translation.............................................................................................. 10 Transposition .................................................................................................. 11 Modulation ...................................................................................................... 11 Adaptation....................................................................................................... 12 Omission ......................................................................................................... 12 Compensation................................................................................................. 13 Amplification ................................................................................................... 13 Analysis of Muerte por agua translation ............................................................. 14 CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................... 20 REFERENCES ...................................................................................................... 22 APPENDIX I ....................................................................................................... 24 English version of Muerte por agua.................................................................... 24 APPENDIX II ......................................................................................................... 34 1

INTRODUCTION

Since people from different cultures and languages felt the need to communicate with others, translation became necessary. It allows cultures to communicate through the different existing codes and spread knowledge all around the world. Translation has largely contributed to society’s cultural, economical, technological and scientific development. According to Wilss (1982: pag 3) translation can be defined as: “a transfer process, which aims at the transformation of a written SL text into an optimally equivalent TL text, and which requires the syntactic, the semantic and the pragmatic understanding and analytical processing of the SL”

Indeed, translation is not only the process of transferring a group of words or sentences from a source language to a target language but the rendering of a wide range of cultural and lexical issues together with a deep text analysis procedure. While translating, the traditional preference in the translation field is inclined to think the best direction to get the most accurate result is to translate into the first language. Newmark believes that: Translating into your language of habitual use is the only way you can translate naturally and accurately and with maximum effectiveness (1988:3) However, with globalization we run into an infinite number of translations, many of them inverse translations, especially into English owing to the worldwide demand for translation into it as well as the great number of English speakers around the

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globe. Inverse translation is the act of translating from your mother tongue into a foreign language. Inverse translation could be so problematic that a lot of translation experts only talk about direct translation (Hurtado 58). Many translators agree on thinking that translating from the mother tongue into a second language avoids obtaining either a natural or fluent result. It is believed that when doing an inverse translation the lack of enough lexical, grammatical, pragmatic and cultural background about the second language hinder translators from achieving an accurately translated text. According to The Institute of Translation & Interpreting Code of professional conduct in the United Kingdom (individual members): Subject to and below, members shall translate only into a language which is either their mother tongue or language of habitual use, or one in which they have satisfied the Institute that they have equal competence. They shall translate only from those languages in which they can demonstrate they have the requisite skills Translation into the mother tongue is believed to be the only feasible option for translation. I disagree with those who believe that translating into one’s non-mother tongue is not naturally and accurately. It is my contention that to accomplish an acceptable version of the translated text L2 translators require a high cultural competence in both languages. When doing an inverse translation L2 translators are likely to make deeper research into the message and vocabulary in order to understand the cultural background of the text instead of concentrating on the semantic equivalence of every line. 3

At the time of translating into a foreign language translators can run into unknown words or even cultural contexts as well as idiomatic expressions that can be unintentionally unremarked by the translator as long as in his/her mother tongue has no meaning, reason why L2 translators should investigate in minute detail. On the other hand, L2 translators must make a deeper text analysis than L1 translators. Since translation requires a great comprehension of the source text, L2 translators will not hesitate about using dictionaries and other research sources to clarify his doubts when finding a relevant but unfamiliar expression as a result of the language and cultural difficulties involved when translating into a foreign language. This paper attempts to show that an L2 translation is a feasible translation technique that is not only an excellent chance for any translator to try out their translation skills but a worthy comparable translation to L1. The aim of this paper is to track down all the relevant linguistic problems which arise while translating from Spanish into English two chapters of the novel Muerte por agua by Julieta Campos (1965). From among all the translation fields I decided to translate a sample of Spanish literature into English due to the complexity, the far-reaching cultural implications and the linguistic pitfalls which this kind of translation entails. In this paper I am going to put into practice all the translation techniques as well as cultural and linguistic knowledge acquired during the B.A in English.

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CHAPTER I

The nouveou roman: Literary movement

This is a French literary movement created by Alain Robbe-Grillet and Nathalie Serraute in the mid-fifties and early sixties (1948-1959). The first novel of this literary movement was Tropismes, written by the French novelist and literary critic Nathalie Sarraute. The name of this literary movement was created by the French literature critic Emile Henriot as shown in an article published in the newspaper Le monde on May 22, 1957. The Nouveau Roman was the attempt to change the classical novel style which invariably focused on plot-bound characters, theme, climax and conclusion for more complex structures in which the exterior world, the objects and the individual vision of things are exaggerated and somewhat out of focus, distorted. Authors describe a variety of difficulties in the present day such as individual and collective identities, responsibilities and the development of life in this consumerist society, all of this “trapped”, so to speak in a stagnant time and space, with no definite structure. Some of the most important nuances of this new style (also called “anti-novel”) are the extinction of the character as the organizing feature of the story as well as the elimination of the sequential order meant to hold the story structure together. Nouveau is a French word closely related to modernism, it derivates from an art style originated in France related to the modernism. This “new” novel also known 5

as the antinovel tries to build an offbeat structure instead of the common realism in which the realistic novels thrives. Nathalie Sarraute, Alain Robber-Grillet and Michel Buttor as well as the Irish writer Samuel Beckett are some of the founders of this movement. Julieta Campos: life and work

This project is based on a literary translation of two chapters of the novel called “Muerte por agua” written by Julieta Campos. She was a Cuban writer born in Havana on May 8th, 1932. After finishing her undergraduate studies at the University of Havana in 1952 she stayed a year on a scholarship at the Sorbonne in Paris where she was influenced by the literary movement called “nouveau roman”. She received a certificate in contemporary French literature. Campos returned to Cuba and received a PhD from the University of Havana in 1955 and eventually she immigrated to Mexico in the 1950’s after marrying a diplomat called Enrique Gonzáles Pedrero. During the next years she collaborated in magazines, including Octavio Paz's Plural, editing the important literary journal Revista de la Universidad de Mexico and translating numerous works of fiction and nonfiction into Spanish. She won the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize in 1976 by her work Tiene los cabellos rojizos y se llama Sabina. She died of cancer in Septermber. 5th. 2007 in Mexico city.

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Muerte por agua analysis

Muerte por agua was her first published book in 1965. It presents the monotonous family relationship between three characters Laura, Eloísa and Andrés. The story focuses on the daily interaction among the members of the family as well as the difficulties, illnesses and turning points among all of them born from their daily cohabitation. The text contains three important elements: the dialogues and monologues in which the surroundings are described in detail, the narrator who reveals the inside of each of the characters and the water which is the only prevailing element all along the story. This is a narrative influenced by the nouveau roman which is characterized by changing the usual literature structure where the characters, the time and the problem are described down to the last detail. The nouveau roman focuses on making a bizarre accurate story of the details in order to obtain the most closely story. In this literary genre the character’s adventures play a secondary role to highlight the writing process itself.

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CHAPTER II

Translation meaning

On the one hand, Nida and Taber state that “translating consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source language message” (1982: 12). On the other hand, Hatim and Munday define translation as “the process of transferring a written text from source language (SL) to target language (TL)” (2004: 6). In other words, translation is the process of rendering the meaning of a text into another one taking into account the reading, comprehension, investigation and creation process along with the diction, grammatical structure and cultural context, all of which lead up to a suitable translation. Literary translation When referring to literary translation we are specifically referring to the translation of an exact reading gender in which are include the prose, drama, poetry, short stories and novels. According to Johnson literature is: An apparently nebulous body of knowledge in oral or written form, an imitation of life, which reflects civilization and culture and which covers every angle of human activities culture, tradition entertainment, information among others (1999:1)

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Literature translation involves translating texts written in a specific language called literary speech. This language has a symbolic and subjective meaning able to transmit readers an infinite number of messages. Translator need not only get the best quality of the text but the acceptability to the target reader after have taken into account the literary techniques such as figures of speech, proverbs and homonyms that conform the literature translation.

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CHAPTER III

The translation procedure

This practical work is based on the translation proposal I made for two chapters of the novel Muerte por agua by Julieta Campos (1965). I decided to work with this novel because it has not been translated into English and because the unusual meaningfulness which runs against the grain, if I will. Vazquez-Ayora: Translation procedures

In order to solve the linguistic pitfalls I used the translation techniques proposed in “Introduccion a la traductologia” by Gerardo Vazquez-Ayora (1977). These technical procedures are classified in eight main techniques. Literary translation

According to Vazquez Ayora literary translation can be described as: Si dadas dos oraciones, una en ingles y otra en español, existe entre ellas una correspondencia precisa de “estructura “y de “significación”, y la equivalencia se cumple monema por monema (1977; 257). Basically, literary translation consist on finding an appropriate structure containing the same lexical construction, structure and meaning in both languages,

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Transposition

Vazquez Ayora defines this translation procedure as:

La finalidad del

procedimiento de la transposición es lograr la naturalidad de expresión en LT, en todos sus niveles, es decir, en el léxico, en la estructura y en el enunciado, y se puede definir como el procedimiento por el cual se reemplaza una parte del discurso del texto de LO por otra diferente que en el texto LT lleve el principal contenido semántico de la primera. Se nutre del principio de que la misma fuerza semántica o densidad semántica, puede existir en dos especies diferentes. La transposición se efectúa sobre especias gramaticales (1977; 268) Transposition is the procedure in which the translator replaces a part of the ST for a different one containing the same semantic content. This procedure allows translators to transmit the same idea by using a wide range of stylistic elements. Modulation

This is one of the most complicated processes in the translation field in consequence of the translator style that is able to distort the message in some cases. Vazquez Ayora stands up that: La modulación es la intervención de categorías lógicas (categorías del pensamiento) (1977; 293) It consists on the total lexical change of a statement ensuring to maintain its basic meaning. This transforms the translation into translator’s own words or opinions while the author’s message prevails. 11

Equivalence This procedure is: Es el caso extremo del procedimiento modulatorio, o lo que es lo mismo, la equivalencia es una modulación que se “lexicaliza” (1977; 314) In other words equivalence is the process in which translator finds the most suitable translation in both languages using different lexical units preserving the message and meaning of the statement. Adaptation

This process is defined by Vazquez Ayora as: El proceso de conformar un contenido a la visión particular de cada lengua, adquiere “viabilidad cultural” (1977; 324) It consists on making messages suitable in different cultures. This type of translation tries to immerse the reader into a natural cultural environment in which he/she can understand the text through known cultural examples. Omission

It is the process of keeping the message as clear and brief as possible leaving out extra information that avoids text to be natural. According to Vazquez Ayora is: La omisión obedece al principio lingüístico de la “economía” y al requisito de “naturalidad” de la equivalencia que habrá de encontrarse en la lengua receptora (1977; 361)

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Compensation

According to Vazquez Ayora this translation technique can be defined as: La compensación se nutre en dos hechos o problemas: la dificultad de encontrar la equivalencia acertada y natural, y la pérdida de contenido o matices que sufre una versión. Es el proceso mediante el cual toda “perdida de significado” que se produzca en un segmento o unidad de traducción debe compensarse en otro punto del texto (1977; 376) Amplification

In the aim of avioding the undefinited statements Vazquez Ayora describe the process of amplification as the simplification of messages by explaining the context of the main idea: La amplificación obedece principalmente a cuestiones de estructura y trata de evitar la vaguedad de las relaciones. Este método recae en la semántica y en la situación. Su función es facilitar la interpretación del mensaje (1977; 340)

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Analysis of Muerte por agua translation

In this section of my practical work I analyze the translation procedure followed and the linguistic problems I faced at the time of translating into English one of the chapters of Muerte por agua by Julieta campos. These problems were solved by applying all of the procedures proposed by Vazquez Ayora. I offer a solution for each of them by following these translation techniques. An important aim of this paper was to preserve the message as natural as it was possible and in order to explain in detail the process to get to this result I present the most remarkable pitfalls found in this translation. Transposition: Example No. 1 Source text Todavia no es media mañana pero no hay que dejar pasar el tiempo My translation proposal is: Mid-morning has not drawn on but she has no time to lose As we can see I choose to do a transposition process (adverb/verb) which is the replacement of a part of the text (grammatical structure) for another in which the content is prevailed. The word todavia is an adverb of time which was replaced by the verb drawn on. According to the Oxford Dictionary it means “come to or arrive at a point in time or in a process” and is what author is trying to express when 14

todavia, an action that hasn’t finished or accomplished. I decided to use the word draw as it offers a good and natural equivalence for English-speaking readers. Modulation Example No. 1 Source text La llaman y se acercan pasos y se alejan My translation proposal is: She hears footsteps of someone calling her name, footsteps which come close and then faint In this example I paid specifically attention to the general idea sent by the writer. The verb llaman should be specified due to in Spanish has several meanings. According to the Real Academia de la Lengua Española dictionary it refers to the act of “invocar, pedir auxilio oral o mentalmente, convocar, citar”. In this sentence I added information to clarify the indistinct idea that carried me to the conclusion to modulate the sentence.

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Equivalence Example No.1 Source text Recamados de flores, coronas, tiaras, guirnaldas, ramos colgantes, aligerados con el tejido frágil de la rejilla en el respaldo de la cama, en las mesas de noche, en el tocador. Le gustaría darse prisa pero algo se lo impide. My translation proposal is: Bedecked with flowers, crowns, tiaras, garlands, hanging bouquets being lightened with fragile fabric of network on the back of the bed, on the bedside and dressing tables. She would like to hurry but something stalls her. In this example the lexical units of the text are similar and all of them preserve the message and the meaning of the text. I used the equivalence process due to the entire words share a lexical equivalence in both languages. An example of that is the word recamados, after looking for it on the Oxford dictionary its equivalence was the word bedecked

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Adaptation Example No.1 Source text Blanda como no sabe que My translation proposal is: like something she cannot put in words. I decided to adapt this sentence. After investigate in the oxford and wordreference dictionaries this compound verb (put in) is the suitable and cultural accepted translation to the expression no se que. Both present a lexical dissimilarity with a cultural suitable translation. Amplification Example No.1 Source text Plomitos My translation proposal is: Small circular weights In this specific word I decided to use the amplification procedure as a consequence of the absence of a word that defines it. After researching the noun plomitos has not an equivalent word in English. However in the fashion web pages are called small circular weights, nomination that better describes their function. According to

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the Real Academia de la Lengua Española dictionary a plomito it’s a “pieza o pedazo de plomo que se pone en las redes y en otras cosas para darles peso”. Literary translation Example No.1 Source text La mampara. Apenas se distinguen los muebles, mezclados en su color indefinido al amarilloso de las paredes, fundidos, como una sustancia blanda, cremosa, capaz de darse todas las formas, a la manera de una mascara de goma. My translation proposal is: The partition You can barely distinguish the furniture. They are blended with the undefined yellowishness of the walls, melted like a soft, creamy substance, able to take any form just like a rubber mask. In this example I applied the literary translation. This example achieved the meaning, structure and vocabulary correspondence in both languages.

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Omission Exercise No.1 Souce text Si la llama, su madre podria oírla o no oírla y si la oye podrá venir o no venir. My translation proposal is: If she calls her, her mother could hear her or not and if she hears her she could come or not. In this example I used the omission procedure in order to avoid verbal periphrasis.

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CONCLUSION

While writing this paper I realized translation is not what I expected to be but a challenge full of obstacles. Creating a proper translation which could successfully arouse the same reaction in both the target and the source language reader proved a far too difficult task to achieve. I not only worked with a translation but I decided to work on an inverse translation. I choose to translate a text from Spanish to English because it not only improves the linguistic ability but encourages translators to peruse the cultural dissimilarities. As soon as I decided to undertake an inverse literature translation I knew it would be an exciting and challenging task. This was a long process but while working on the text I did my best to puzzle out the cultural language stumbling blocks. To accomplish this task it was necessary to complete a specific process. Firstly, I analyze the literature movement that influenced the novel in order to understand the literature speech and context contained on it. At the same time, I researched about the author, Moreover, I defined the concept of translation as well as information about what literary translation consists in. This information helped me to clarify the concepts and gave me some background in the field of literary translation. Later, I researched about the Vazuez Ayora translation techniques in which I based my project. He describes eight procedures for translation. All of these procedures

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help translator to identify the pitfalls on translation and to trace the procedure followed when obtaining the final result. This translation proposal entailed deep investigation about both, the source language and the target language because as an English language learner and Spanish speaker I am aware of the variations of each language and at the same time I had to size up the vocabulary and structure weight of a literary text without tampering with the resulting translation. This dissertation arose from the idea of taking up a mighty challenge: give a try to what might seem impossible at first sight. To this end, I resorted to the host of experiences obtained during the B.A and from the question: is it possible for a not experienced translator to make an inverse translation? Basically the aim of this paper is to render itself useful as a linguistic tool for any translator who intends to carry out an inverse translation. In fact, what seems an insurmountable task on the strength of its utmost complexity can be cautiously approached and thus make it yield a wholesome result.

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REFERENCES Hurtado, Amparo (1996) La Enseñanza de la Traducción. Castelló: Publicaciones de la Universidad Jauma I,. Newmark, P. (1981). Approaches to Translation. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Davies , A. (1991). The Native Speaker in Applied Linguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Newmark (1988). A Textbook of Translation. Hertfordshire: Prentice Hall International Nida, Eugene A and Charles R. Taber (1982). The Theory and Practice of translation. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Johnson, S. M., & Birkeland, S. (2003). Pursuing a “sense of success”: New teachers explain their career decisions. American Educational Research Journal. Johnson, S. M., & The Project on the Next Generation of Teachers (2004). Finders and keepers: Helping new teachers survive and thrive in our schools. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Vázquez-Ayora, Gerardo. Introducción a la traductología: curso básico de traducción. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1977. García Yebra, Valentín (1984). Teoría y práctica de la traducción. Madrid: Gredos.

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Web-dictionaries www.rae.es www.wordeferences.com www.dictionary-cambrige.org

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APPENDIX I English version of Muerte por agua

Mid-morning has not drawn on but she has no time to lose. She must hurry, to hurry the cleaning and hurry her mother. She must avoid all that. She will do it immediately. She is sitting there in front of the window with the shutter drawn looking at the white painted grills covered with rust. The plants on the hallway are covered with thick drops and drizzle. If only she could harten! She is sitting on the couch right in front of the window but it is another window and she is bent over with her knees between her arms on a very cold parapet hanging in the air (just as if she were) looking at some floating leaves with some lotus on them, some open lotus on the wide leaves there on the pong; down the garden. She hears footsteps of someone calling her name, footsteps which come close and then fade away. The room is then immersed in that humid semi-dark shade. She can see the outside grayish light through the shutter but if she slightly turns her head to the right she will see the partition outlined by a clearer light from the other room. The doughy, dense, dull, opaque partition whose unmarred iridescence despite its brightness, that doesn’t manage to draw not a single glint from the crystal. With that fathomless some objects have in dreams; compact, hard, impregnable objects appearing in the middle of the mist and the air’s vagueness. The partition

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You can barely distinguish the furniture. They are blended with the undefined yellowishness of the walls, melted like a soft, creamy substance, able to take any form just like a rubber mask. Bedecked with flowers, crowns, tiaras, garlands, hanging bouquets being lightened with fragile fabric of network on the back of the bed, on the bedside and dressing tables. She would like to hurry but something stalls her. Something soft that could get harden if she moved. Something secret: that’s it, a latent secret life around her. You should neither shake it nor stir it. She has the impression that a sudden movement or a word unwisely uttered would be enough to break down the barrier, to break the trick from the even coating of the walls and the furniture. The sensation of being holding in your hands a very thin crystal glass that would not resist the slightly more high-pitched musical note of a soprano and much less the lively trill of a flute. That’s why, it is said and it is preferable to stand still while it happens. Not to provoke it. After all it can’t last for long. Perhaps it is nothing. A little disturbance that she imagines, that won’t reach the surface. It seems it has let up raining only less frequently with long intervals, there are new thick drops sliding on to the leaves, drops to which other little ones have joined, drops which have swollen and slide down with aplomb to nourish the round lakes which hold themselves without bursting their boundaries over the generously overspread leaves, drops which slide to the ground and fall immediately wrecked from the other finest, thinnest and largest leaves. 25

If she decided to look for her mother, to open the partition to see if they have finished, to pretend there is no pending threat...the gesture that her empty hand suggests by swaying an imaginary fan it is the useless, empty repetition of the real gesture rooted to all nerves and muscles of her right arm. Those lapsus are so unpleasant. As if someone were spying on her, she furtively looks around her before dropping heavily her arm over her legs. The skin has been covering with a soft sweat, a secretion settled all over the open pore, she clenches her fits so that her skin gets tauter and the drops may stand out one by one. The same hot, sticky humidity on the back, forehead, thighs, forearms and between her crossed ankles. It would be better to be sweating somewhere else in the sun, in the sea (what an extravagant idea, if she has never exposed intentionally to the sun, if she has never known what does sunburn means. Perhaps this is the way the entire morning will be. The shutter, the rusty iron bars, the plants and the wall which rises from the courtyard and blocks the view of the other house, feeling like seeing a butterfly (as if there were the remote possibility of such a thing). At least a mosquito or the hum of a fly (two flies appeared in the dining room, they were surely attracted by the food). To wait for a fly to place on her wet skin and let it stay for a minute then flick it off the nail of her forefinger pressing on the thumb. But neither a mosquito nor a fly. She wasn’t averse to mice. She used to see them getting out from the holes. Not anymore. Perhaps she has taken no notice. She hasn’t heard cockroaches at night either. She could make up stories about grey and white cats roaming over the house at night and disappearing over the roofs every day at sunrise. She could also make up stories 26

about wildcats with shiny eyes that would scare her suddenly in the darkness; about little black panthers which would stealthily walk along the back rooms going and coming by the almost rotten stairs of the last room, about rats with transparent and very clear eyes as if they were birds, about silky and fluorescent insects about golden fireflies and harmless bats covered with a soft pink hair as that of felt. She is carried along by an awkward and at the same time pleasant comfort, she pictures herself wearing plenty of small circular weights sewed under her dresses to avoid wardrobe malfunction. Something like that. She remembers having decided to get up, to open the partition, to call her mother out. She remembers it as a visceral, voluptuous satisfaction. Likewise she accepts morning is wearing on and there are so many things to do. Some will power that would be enough. It is a pleasure to spin around the project, to make it roll, so that it may become bigger like a snow ball, to turn it into a feat, something that in due course could be told as a heroic act later. Every moment might as well modify the entire morning. Each of them seem capable of branching off in two very clear directions that at the same time would be branch off in other two that also would branch off in two more directions and so on. Everything is transparent. There is nothing similar to a maze. She would draw a tree skeleton and each little black line would prod you into the unknown. There are two possibilities: To get up and open the partition or to remain sitting on the couch. If she gets up and opens the partition she could get into the other room and check 27

or look at it from the partition close it and sit again. If she gets in she could call her mother out or not. If she calls her, her mother could hear her or not and if she hears her she could come or not and if she remains sitting where she is, she could swing or stop swinging and stand still and concentrate all her will (if it were necessary) on not moving whatsoever. But there are also other possibilities: To get up and not to walk to the partition which leads to the room but walk to the partition facing the living room. To open it and stand there watching the living room or not to open it and to sit again and if she opens it and goes through the living room, she could reach the balcony and draw half-open one of the blinds to take a glimpse of the street or only approach to the window, turn around and come back all the way without having e or if she even tried to look out of the window or if she brought herself to half-close the blind, she could limit herself to spying, so to speak, or to wide open the window and to go out into the balcony, to go past the leaning, slippery doorjamb and to be in the open. If it wouldn’t be raining at that moment nor started raining later she could stay there for a long time, quite a long time, indefinitely, to the extended of spending the whole morning on the balcony. She plays with those projects as if she were taking a ring off and she spun it faster and faster on her finger tip to see how far it goes, to see when it is going to slide off and roll under a piece of furniture and there it is, there is no doubt about it but it is nowhere to be found. Without stepping forward as if so many possibilities killed a

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single possibility. As if knowing that she has so many options wouldn’t allow her even to pick up between getting up and keeping herself sitting on the couch. Besides, even if she wanted to it is not up to her. She is not alone, she was not mistaken. There, that sensation comes again, the thing that can be opened and triggered at any moment. That kind of enormous hole somewhere or everywhere, a huge mice’s work, something that cannot be walled nor canceled because blends itself, it disguises itself, it covers itself with innocence, with the opaqueness, with the simulating density of furniture but there it is with an air of expectancy opening and ready to close again then swallow everything like an funnel, a hole like a world inhabited by innumerable creatures that never stop being there to strike pounce, to fake possession of the ground when least expected. Why now, now that everything is conspiring to stop her from finally standing up taking a few steps and then push the partition. Now that she could almost touch that density all around her, that humidity and heat invasion at the same time rather than anything else (how to call it if she never learnt it?) an overwhelming weight that would have suddenly descended from the roof to lean against a single spot of her head or from the materialized air like an impregnable barrier surrounding her. And then it dawns upon her. The iron bars of the gate are twist and open themselves to give way to the avalanche. The plants, leaves, that stems are growing, distorted, they turn into huge caricatures of themselves, they force open the gate, they are crawling along the ground. They are scramble by the wall, the 29

ceiling, the furniture transformed into swollen creepers, into elastic lianas, into parasitic, wet vegetation that pervades all gaps, sparing no nook and cranny created vacant space left by the furniture nor inside of furniture’s itself, taking the bedroom over and it seems to take up the air because it is leaving her out of breath, barely breathing, eager to fulfill her lungs with fresh air as long as she has the feeling of choking. She is in the middle of a garden center in continuous proliferation and it invades every single space among the walls, it makes its way to the roof, takes the other bedroom as well as the other one, it continuous with the rest of the rooms, the stairs and then it goes out to the street take down the city with its proliferation out of proportion with the threat of an unbearable life, knocking down doors and windows, holding to the columns, taking vestibules over, it capture people with its tentacles to finally swallow them such as a hideous, enormous carnivorous plant. She doesn’t know what has preserved her, what allows her to remain sitting on the couch in front of the window, surrounded by over running boiling? What makes her breathe, gasp, feeling herself moving her arms and head limply and fearfully? There is no mystery anymore, no secret life or imprecise, indefinable, hidden threat. It is just lingers that certainly of a being right and all of a sudden that could become compact and fill the emptiness, all the space where she would have been able to move The latent feeling has turned into fear. Fear of another animal life which she guesses beyond the plants, furniture and walls, fear that tries the round, tiny holes 30

on the arms of the couch where she tries to introduce the edge of a nail getting but the dispersion of a reduced to powder thin tiny wooden layer the kind of powder that can only be discovered by touching and that, in an inexplicably gesture, gets together round the termites’ hollow. There is no doubt. The boards of the door, the rocking chairs, the inside of the furniture, everything is hollow, eaten away, everything is going over by groups of heards of little insects ravenous of devouring, to stealthily undermine the order of their world, to take control the house, to gradually make it crumble, emptying it, stripping it off its own skeleton, to the shell to the bark of the walls, of the door frames. It is so easy to see it. To see it as the spectrum from oneself on a radiograph portrayed with such a distrusting insight that her retina has now. Stare at the partition of turned into a polished lace of crystals hanging up. The spider web of the walls has been gnawed by the termites (she has never seen them, she is not sure but almost) The miracles of a structure held on the vacuum, undermined by that underhanded flood of another life that could get to feed on hers, that it is doing it already, right now, avidly slurping the marrow or the core or whatever it is called other bones are called. She breathes heavily, with her mouth open, feeling the noise from the air coming in and coming out as if she needed that proof to feel alive, to convince herself that

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nothing has been accomplished and with the violent desire of filling her mouth with icy water. Perhaps, after all, she could get up to drink a glass of water. On her right foot as pinpricks, the tingling that precedes the cramp begins. It climbs and takes control of the calf which at the same time starts to weight her tremendously and starts felling it weightless like the rest of the leg, which seems to be numbed and it doesn’t stop sending her such intense sensations that we ends up feeling it like an alien limb to such a degree that she could get up and leave it on the couch without needing it to walk, move away, leave the room, the hall, to go down stairs and to go out into the open. She doesn’t hear noises in the other room anymore. They have receded like the vegetable tide that has returned to its level and the invisible tiny monsters that have retreated. Everything deflated, like a balloon which is poked by a pin. She is also deflated, pinned down on the couch nalled into and adrift but on the alert, watchful, ensuring not to let neither any image nor a single word to get through anymore, holding with both hands the avalanche that can wrench off because she is hardly holding it back in some place which may as well be called the threshold of consciousness. Because if she won’t see something like a flowered and rumpled fields, birds killed in mid-flight, sun reflections suddenly erased on the waves, mornings and noons that could be mercilessly downtrodden, she will see plenty of ruins, all of them dispersed.

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Suddenly everything is pointless; she has a very clear foresight that she no longer needs to protect herself, to reject nothing, she is no longer exposed and there is nothing to fear. She can slide down into that soft, vague indolence like something she cannot put in words like a cove and wait. It is like touching the slippery slime of wet steps when you get into a rock hollow to caress the wrinkled surface of a tree that might have grown under the water. She is protected. A dim light enters though the window, the cone of the sun that starts growing weakly, infected by humidity , softening and transforming all the solid things into a moss material, blending the colors into a green and chestnut shade. Laura is standing in bind of intimidated light of the atmosphere, to its diminished intensity and then the swarming of the things is hinted again, the creeping presence of slippery worms, she knows she will have to let herself be carried along, to be part of that strange oncoming vegetable wildlife. She has never been alone. The living bustle has always been there but she doesn’t want to be isolated anymore, she is not afraid, she is willing, ready to be embraced by the bars and elongate herself, grow, branch herself off on the fleshy leaves of a thick and trembling stem that will never end overload herself with berries, to increasingly feel her own weight until she doesn’t feel it anymore, clamber up, tangle up, grow then cover the entire ground and gently climb the bed and stay there as if she had found her final residency.

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APPENDIX II Source Text Todavía no es media mañana pero no hay que dejar pasar el tiempo. Debe apurarse. Apurar la limpieza. Apurar a su madre. Evitar todo eso. Lo hará en seguida. Esta sentada delante de la ventana, con el postigo abierto, mirando las rejas pintadas de blanco, cubiertas de herrumbre, las plantas del pasillo cubiertas de gotas gruesas y la llovizna. ¡Si pudiera apurarse! Esta sentada en el sillón justamente frente a la ventana. Pero la ventana es otra y ella esta agachada, con las rodillas entre los brazos, sobre un pretil muy frio suspendido en el aire (es como si estuviera), mirando unas hojas flotantes, unos lotos abiertos sobre las hojas flotantes, unos lotos abiertos sobre las hojas anchas, en el estanque que está abajo, en el jardín. La llaman y se acercan pasos y se alejan. El cuarto se sumerge en esa penumbra húmeda, semioscura. Por el postigo puede ver la luz grisosa de afuera pero, si dirige la cabeza ligeramente hacia la derecha, verá la la mampara recortada por una luz mas clara del otro cuarto, la mampara pastosa y densa, opaca, sin irisar el reflejo que a pesar de su claridad no alcanza a arrancar ningún destello del cristal. Con esa realidad que tienen algunos objetos en los sueños, duros, compactos, impenetrables, que aparecen en medio de la neblina, de la vaguedad del aire. La mampara.

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Apenas se distinguen los muebles, mezclados en su color indefinido al amarilloso de las paredes, fundidos, como una sustancia blanda, cremosa, capaz de darse todas las formas, a la manera de una mascara de goma. Recamados de flores, coronas, tiaras, guirnaldas, ramos colgantes, aligerados con el tejido frágil de la rejilla en el respaldo de la cama, en las mesas de noche, en el tocador. Le gustaría darse prisa pero algo se lo impide. Algo blando, que podría endurecerse si ella se moviera. Algo secreto. Eso es, Una vida secreta latente a su alrededor. No hay que agitarla. Ni removerla. Tiene la impresión de que bastaría un gesto demasiado brusco, una palabra dicha con imprudencia, para romper la barrera, el engaño de la costra lisa de las paredes, de los muebles. La sensación de sostener en la mano una copa de cristal finísimo que no resistiría a la nota ligeramente más aguda de una soprano y mucho menos al trino entusiasmado de una flauta. Por eso, se dice, es preferible quedarse quieta mientras pase. No provocarlo. Despues de todo no puede durar mucho. A lo mejor no es nada. Un pequeño desórden que se imagina, que no saldrá a la superficie. Parece que ha escampado. Solo espaciadamente, a largos intervalos, se deslizan nuevas gotas gruesas sobre las hojas, gotas donde se han juntado otras mas pequeñas, gotas que se han hinchado y descienden con aplomo, para nutrir los lagos redondos que se sostienen, sin salirse de sus límites, sobre las hojas generosamente extendidas y se resbalan y caen en seguida a la tierra desde las otras hojas más finas, delgadas y largas. 35

Si se decidiera a buscar a su madre, a abrir la mampara, a ver si ya han acabado, a hacer como si no hubiera ninguna amenaza… El gesto que esboza su mano vacía, meciendo un abanico imaginario, es la repetición inútil, hueca, del gesto verdadero, arraigado a todos los nervios, a todos los músculos de su brazo derecho. Son tan desagradables esos lapsus. Como si alguien le espiara, mira furtivamente a su alrededor antes de dejar caer el brazo, pesadamente sobre las piernas. La piel se le ha ido cubriendo de un sudor tenue, una secreción depositada sobre cada uno de los poros abiertos y aprieta los puños para que la piel se vuelva más tensa y se distingan las gotas, una por una. La misma humedad caliente, pegajosa, en la espalda, en la frente, en los muslos, en los antebrazos, entre los tobillos cruzados. Seria mejor estar sudando en otra parte, debajo del sol, en el mar (¡qué idea extravagante, si nunca se ha puesto deliberadamente al sol, si jamás ha sabido lo que es quemarse!). Quizás así va a ser toda la mañana. El postigo, los barrotes herrumbrosos, las plantas, el muro que sube del patio y tapa la vista de la otra casa. Con ganas de ver una mariposa (como si hubiera la más remota posibilidad). Siquiera un mosquito. O sentir el bordoneo de una mosca (en el comedor aparecieron dos moscas, seguramente las atrajo la comida). Esperar a que se posara sobre la piel húmeda y dejarla estar un momento y luego despedirla con la uña del dedo índice presionando sobre el pulgar. Pero ni un mosquito ni una mosca. Los ratones no le repugnaban. Antes los veía salir de los agujeros. Ahora no. Quizás no ha puesto atención. Tampoco ha oído de noche a las cucarachas. Podría inventar historias de gatos grises y blancos que recorrerían la casa por la noche y desaparecerían por las azoteas 36

todos los días al amanecer. Historias de gatos monteses con los ojos brillantes que la asustaran de pronto en la oscuridad, de pequeñas panteras negras que anduvieran sigilosamente por los cuartos del fondo y se fueran y vinieran por las escaleras casi podridas del último cuarto, de ratas con ojos transparentes y muy claros como si fueran pájaros, de insectos sedosos y fosforescentes, de luciérnagas doradas y murciélagos inofensivos, cubiertos de un suave vello rosado, como de fieltro. Se deja penetrar poco a poco por una especie de molicie física, incomoda y grata, y se imagina llena de esos plomitos ligeros, cosidos a los dobladillos de los vestidos para darles mejor caída. Algo así. Recuerda que se había propuesto levantarse, abrir la mampara. Llamar a su madre. Lo recuerda como una complacencia visceral, voluptuosa. Como acepta que va pasando la mañana y hay tantas cosas que hacer y bastaría un poco de fuerza de voluntad. Bastaría. Es un placer darle vueltas al proyecto, hacerlo rodar para que se agrande como una bola de nieve, convertirlo en una hazaña, algo que podría contarse después como un acto heroico. Cada instante podria modificar toda la mañana. Cada uno parece capaz de bifurcarse en dos direcciones muy claras, que se dividirán a su vez en otras dos, que se convertirían en dos más y así al infinito. Todo transparente, Nada semejante a un laberinto. Dibujaría el esqueleto de un árbol y cada rayita negra seria el incentivo de lo desconocido. Hay dos posibilidades: levantarse y abrir la mampara o quedarse sentada en el sillón. Si se levanta y abre la mampara, podrá 37

entrar al otro cuarto y revisarlo o mirarlo desde la mampara y cerrarla y volver a sentarse. Si entra, podrá llamarla en alto voz o no llamarla. Si la llama, su madre podrá oírla o no oírla y si la oye podrá venir o no venir. Y si se queda sentada donde esta podrá mecerse o dejar de mecerse y quedarse quieta y dedicar toda la voluntad (si fuera necesario) a no hacer el menor movimiento. Pero están, además, las otras posibilidades: levantarse y no caminar hacia la mampara que da al otro cuarto sino dirigirse a la mampara que da a la sala. Abrirla y quedarse allí de pie mirando la sala o no abrirla y volver a sentarse. Y si la abre, podrá atravesar la sala y llegar al balcón y entornar una de las persianas para mirar un poco la calle o acercarse solamente a la ventana y darse la vuelta y volver por donde vino sin haber intentado mirar hacia afuera. O, si se decidera a entornarla, podrá limitarse a espiar, como si dijéramos, o abrir de par en par la ventana y salir al balcón. Pasar el quicio inclinado, resbaladizo y estar afuera. Si no lloviera en ese momento, ni empezara a llover después, podrá quedarse allí mucho rato, un buen rato, indefinidamente. Hasta pasarse la mañana en el balcón. No hay duda. Las tablas de las puertas, los balancines, el interior de los muebles, todo está hueco, trabajado, recorrido por caravanas de pequeños insectos ávidos de devorar, de socavar subrepticiamente el orden de su mundo, de enseñorearse de la casa, de irla desmoronando, vaciando, reduciendo a su propio esqueleto, al cascaron de la corteza de las paredes, de los marcos de las puertas. El presentimiento latente se ha convertido en miedo. Miedo a otra vida animal que adivina más allá de las plantas y los muebles y las paredes. Que prueban los 38

agujeritos redondos, mínimos, en los brazos del sillón, donde trata de introducir el borde de la uña sin conseguir más que dispersar una minúscula película de madera hecho polvo, un polvillo que solo se descubre con el tacto y que, en un gesto inexplicable, vuelve a reunir en torno del comején. Juega con esos proyectos como si se quitara un anillo y lo hiciera girar cada vez más de prisa en la punta del dedo, a ver hasta dónde. A ver cuando se cae y se va rodando debajo de un mueble y no hay duda que ahí está pero no aparece por ninguna parte. Sin dar un paso. Como si tantas posibilidades mataran una sola posibilidad. Como si saber que tiene tanto de donde escoger no le dejara escoger siquiera entre levantarse o quedarse sentada en el sillón. Ademas, aunque quisiera. No depende de ella. No esta sola. No se habia engañado. Allí esta esa sensación. Eso que puede abrirse y desencadenarse en cualquier momento. Esa especie de agujero desmesurado, en alguna parte, o en todas partes, obra de ratones gigantescos, algo que no se puede tapiar, ni cancelar, por que se disimula, se disfraza, se cubre de inocencia con la opacidad, la densidad simuladora de los muebles, pero que está a la expectativa, para abrirse y volver a cerrarse y tragárselo todo como un embudo. Un agujero como un mundo, poblado de innumerables criaturas que no dejan nunca de estar ahí para dar el salto, para apoderarse del terreno cuando uno esté más desprevenido.

Y entonces se da cuenta. Los barrotes de la reja se retuercen y se abren para dar paso a la avalancha. Las plantas, las hojas, los tallos crecen, se deforman, se 39

convierten en caricaturas agigantadas de si mismos, fuerzan la reja, reptan por el suelo, se trepan por las paredes, por el techo, por los muebles, convertidos en enredaderas hinchadas, en lianas elásticas, en una vegetación parasitaria, húmeda, que penetra en todos los resquicios, que no perdona un rincón, ni los claros que dejan los muebles, ni el interior de los muebles mismos, que se adueña del cuarto y parece absorber todo el aire porque la deja sofocada, respirando difícilmente, ávida de llenarse los pulmones, presintiendo la asfixia. Esta en medio de un vivero en multiplicación constante, que invade todo el espacio encerrado entre las paredes, se abre paso y las horada, lo mismo que el techo, invade todo el espacio encerrado entre las paredes, se abre paso y las horada, lo mismo que el techo, invade otro cuarto y el otro y las demás piezas y las escaleras y sale a la calle y se vierte sobre la ciudad con su proliferación desproporcionada, con la amenaza de una vida incontenible, que derriba puertas y ventanas y se abraza a las columnas y llena los portales y atrapa a la gente con sus tentáculos y se los traga como una sola, inmensa, monstruosa planta carnívora. Como ahora. Ahora que todo conspira para no dejarla incorporarse de una vez, dar unos cuantos pasos y empujar la mampara. Ahora que casi podria palpar esa densidad a su alrededor, esa invasión de humedad y calor al mismo tiempo que otra cosa (¿Cómo llamarla si nunca lo aprendió?), un peso aplastante del techo que hubiera descendido de repente y se recargara sobre un solo punto de su cabeza o del aire materializado, como una barrera impenetrable a su alrededor.

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No sabe que la ha preservado. ¿Qué le permite seguir sentada en el sillón, delante de la ventana, rodeada por esa ebullición arrasadora, intacta? ¿Qué le hace respirar todavía y jadear y sentir que mueve sin coherencia los brazos y la cabeza y que tiene miedo? Ya no hay misterio. Ni la vida secreta. Ni amenaza oculta, impreciso, indefinible. Solo esa certidumbre de que tenia razón y, de un momento a otro, aquello podía volverse compacto y llenar el vacía aparente, todo el espacio donde habría podido moverse. Es tan fácil verlo. Verlo como el espectro de uno mismo en una radiografía, retratado con esa penetración suspicaz que tiene ahora su retina. Contemplar la mampara convertida en un afinado encaje de cristales de vidrio, la tela de araña de las paredes corroídas por termitas (nunca las ha visto, no está segura, pero casi) El milagro de una construcción sostenida sobre el vacio, minada por esa inundación solapada de otra vida que podria llegar a alimentarse de la suya, que lo está hacienda ya en ese instante, sorbiendo ávidamente la medula o el tuétano o como se llame de sus huesos Respira pesadamente, con la boca abierta, sintiendo el ruido del aire que entra y sale como si necesitara de esa prueba para saberse viva, para convencerse de que no se ha consumado nada, y con el deseo violento de llenarse la boca de agua helada. Quizás después de todo, podria levantarse par air a tomar un vaso de agua.

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En el pie derecho, como alfilerazos, empieza el hormigueo que precede al calambre. Sube, se apodera de la pantorrilla, que a la vez empieza a pesarle enormemente y a carecer de peso, como toda la pierna que parece anestesiada y no deja de transmitirle sensaciones intensas, que acaba por sentir como ajena, de tal manera que podria levantarse y abandonarla en el sillón sin que le hiciera ninguna falta para caminar y alejarse, salir del cuarto y del pasillo y bajar las escaleras y salir a la calle. Ya no oye ruidos en el otro cuarto. Han retrocedido como la marea vegetal que ha vuelto a su nivel y los minúsculos monstruos invisibles que se han replegado. Todo desinflado, como un globo que se pincha con un alfiler. Ella también. Clavada en el sillón y al garete. Pero atenta. Vigilante, Cuidando no dejar pasar ninguna imagen, ni una sola palabras. Deteniendo con las dos manos el alud que puede desprenderse, porque apenas lo está conteniendo ahí en alguna parte, que debe ser lo que se llama el umbral de la conciencia. Porque si no va a ver algo así como campos florecidos y mancillados, pájaros fulminados en pleno vuelo, reflejos del sol borrados de pronto en las olas, mañanas y mediodías que podrías ser aplastados despiadadamente. Va a ver muchas ruinas, todas dispersas. Pero de repente todo es inútil. Tiene la intuición muy clara de que ya no necesita defenderse, rechazar nada, que ha dejado de estar expuesta y no hay nada que temer. Puede deslizarse a esa indolencia vaga, blanda como no sabe que, como una ensenada y esperar. Es como tocar la lama resbalosa de unos escalones

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mojados cuando se mete uno a una poceta de rocas o acariciar la superficie arrugada de un árbol que hubiera crecido debajo del agua. Esta protegida. Por la ventana entra la luz incierta, el cono de sol que empieza a crecer débilmente, contagiado por la humedad, ablandando todas las cosas macizas y transformándolas en una materia musgosa, aparejando los colores en un Matiza verdusco y carmelitoso. Laura está de pie en esa luz como intimidadada, que se pliega al tono de la atmosfera, a su intensidad disminuida. Y entonces, lentamente, se insinúa de nuevo el pulgar de las cosas, la presencia reptante de gusanillos resbalosos, y sabe que tendrá que dejarse llevar, que formar parte de esa extraña animalidad vegetal que se aproxima. No ha estado sola ni un instante. Siempre ha estado ahí ese bullir viviente. Pero ya no quiere aislarse. No tiene miedo. Esta dispuesta. Lista para dejarse abrazar por la reja y alargarse, crecer, multiplicarse en las hojas carnosas de un tallo grueso y trémulo que no terminara nunca, cargarse de bayas, sentir cada vez más su propio peso hasta dejar de sentirlo, subir, enredarse, crecer y luego tapar todo el suelo y treparse suavemente a la cama y quedarse allí, como si hubiera encontrado su residencia definitiva.

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