Mothers and Shadows

By Marta Traba and Gustavo Zalamea

Acclaim for Mothers and Shadows:

"In the silence after her death, her novel, full of voices as passionate as her own, is particularly precious ... The end of the story is wrenching; it invades the reader's space as the confrontational Dolores has invaded the falsely secure space of Irene, making it unsafe and real

• Language: English
• Publisher: Readers International
• Release date: May 26, 2017
• ISBN: 9781887378093

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Acclaim for Mothers and Shadows

In the silence after her death, her novel, full of voices as passionate as her own, is particularly precious . . . The end of the story is wrenching; it invades the reader’s space as the confrontational Dolores has invaded the falsely secure space of Irene, making it unsafe and real. — The Village Voice

A high pitch of emotional intensity is sustained throughout. — Christian Science Monitor

A well-paced and tense story, building up to the final climactic moment. The translation is superb. Choice

Poignant and powerful. — Texas Observer

It was all so recent, it all seems so close, so recognisable, even familiar . . . Yet they vanished into a hell beyond the scope of normal imagination. This impressive and very readable book understates all this, making its point artistically much better than if it had been more explicit. — Financial Times

Once read, it cannot be forgotten. — Everywoman

"Mothers and Shadows reflects the political awareness of women in Latin America and the emergence of women into the political sphere." — Sojourner

Revealing and heartbreaking. — National Catholic Reporter

What sets this novel apart from the familiar coterie of leftist/revolutionary tracts is the sensitivity and intellectual flexibility of its central characters. — Review: Latin American Literature & Arts

A brilliant writer, gifted with a deft sense of understatement and a luminous intellect, Traba animates her characters with compassion and dignity. She is also adept at creating details that evoke an atmosphere of psychological intensity and suspense. — San Francisco Chronicle

title page

The title of this book in Spanish is Conversación al sur, first published in 1981 by Siglo XXI Editores, SA, Mexico City.

Copyright © Siglo XXI Editores, SA 1981

Copyright © Fernando and Gustavo Zalamea (estate of the late Marta Traba) 1985

English translation copyright © Readers International Inc. 1986 All rights reserved

Revised edition 1989, reprinted 1993. Published by Readers International Inc., USA and Readers International, London. Editorial inquiries to London office at 8 Strathray Gardens, London NW3 4NY England. US/Canadian inquiries to RI Book Service, P.O.Box 959, Columbia LA 71418-0959 USA Readers International gratefully acknowledges the help of the Google Books Project in producing this digital edition.

Cover illustration: Fruta Carne by Colombian artist Gustavo Zalamea, son of the author.

Cover design by Jan Brychta.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 85-71907

A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.

Readers International gratefully acknowledges the support of the National Endowment for the Arts, Washington DC. RI also acknowledges with thanks the co-operation of the Google Books Project in the production of this digital edition.

ISBN 9780930523169

E-BOOK ISBN 9781887378093

Contents

Acclaim for Mothers and Shadows

I

II

About the Translator

About Readers International

Landmarks

Cover

Title Page

Table of Contents

Frontmatter

Start of Content

List of Pages

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FOR GUSTAVO AND ELBA, LEST WE FORGET

I

The doorbell made her jump. She wasn’t expecting anyone and her initial impulse was not to move till the person at the door went away. It might easily be a salesman, or someone who had got the wrong address. But supposing it was someone with news for her? She appealed to the familiar objects around her for reassurance. The bell rang again, less insistently this time, and she felt that if she didn’t get up and go to the door straightaway her nerves would get the better of her. All those years of acting had taught her the art of self-control. She moved slowly and deliberately, trying to recall in what play she’d gone through the same motions and pretended to answer a doorbell, but she couldn’t sort out the images that flooded into her head. She found herself facing the door and opened it gingerly. Outside the girl looked up, flinching slightly and tossing her hair back over her shoulder. The two of them stood staring at each other, diametrically opposed, one of them in the full sun and the other in the shade of the hallway. She felt relieved at the thought that the girl’s position was more exposed than hers and that she might suddenly melt in all that sunlight. And all that would be left would be the tall, spreading trees, with their unkempt branches swaying over the rooftop. She would have liked to efface the girl’s image before she’d had time to recognise her, but she found herself switching on the usual ravishing smile, like a rivermouth inviting people to fling themselves into it. She realised her artful guiles were functioning of their own accord and would produce an automatic response to the sight of the girl dissolving in the light; the thought brought her back to reality and made her focus on the figure standing in front of her. She was surprised to see that, despite the heat, she was wearing an open blazer, with her hands sunk in its pockets. But what was surprising about that? Wasn’t that her habitual posture? She had a sudden flash of recognition, and guessed she was probably wiping her sweaty hands against the threadbare flannel. Her eyes moved from the girl’s hands to her young, drawn face. If anything she looked younger than before, with her long, lank hair draped over her shoulders. The next step was to give her a kiss, trying to avoid touching those stiff and no doubt greasy strands of hair. It’s as if time had stood still, she thought as their cheeks brushed and she sniffed that acrid, long-forgotten odour.

But nothing was forgotten. The girl stammered a few incoherent words as she pushed her inside the hall and steered her to an armchair, as if trying to make everything return to its rightful place. If she turned around, the girl would be able to see she’d put on weight and that her body was no longer as lithe as it had been five years before. It was a petty thought, but she couldn’t suppress it. The mechanisms of seduction were taking over again. She backed into the armchair facing the girl and arranged her legs on the green velvet cushions. She was wearing a mauve blouse, delicately offsetting the dark green of the chair; she began to feel better. But then she realised the girl had not the faintest idea what was going through her head; her face, out of the sunlight, was no longer stony-white but was flushed an almost unhealthy shade of pink.

Her silence forces the older woman to take the initiative for the second time, and she extricates herself from the armchair, invites her to take off her blazer (which the girl does in the most clumsy fashion imaginable), goes to hang it on the coat stand in the hall, and from the recess lined with bookcases asks if she’d like a coffee. Without waiting for a reply, she goes straight to the kitchen in the hope of getting the conversation going — it always works in the theatre — by tossing out a few casual questions from the distance of the other room, leaving her free to answer or not, as she pleases. She knows her well enough to be sure she’ll be too inhibited to get up and follow her into the kitchen. The ploy of going to the kitchen to make some coffee has the added advantage of giving her time to work out how much the girl is likely to know. She remembers getting a letter — or was it several? — at some point since their meeting. She’s bound to have heard about her divorce, her all-too-public appearances, the odd scandal and more than one stage triumph. And some one must have told her about the present situation, or why else would she have come to see her out of the blue? On the other hand, what does she know about the girl’s life? Dolores, that’s her name. Thank God it suddenly came back to her. And with the name come back the stories of the terrible things she had done to her, which she must avoid at all cost. She vaguely remembers that she brought out a book, quite recently, but the truth is she never bothered to look at it properly when she received it, it’s always the same with poetry. And why the hell write poetry anyway? She feels a prick of indignation, which serves to clear her head while she assembles the percolator. She must be careful not to mention children or anything to do with pregnancy; and especially not the fact that her son’s wife is pregnant, almost four months pregnant, what’s worse. Her head reels at the thought that somewhere in Chile they may be kicking her and stamping on her. Wasn’t that how . . . ? The conversation is clearly fraught with danger. To her alarm she can feel the ground slipping from under her feet, her poise and self-assurance draining away. Whatever made her come into the kitchen? The coffee starts to percolate, spluttering loudly. Why on earth did she have to turn up right now, just when she was trying to fend off memories of the past? But she has no right to feel angry with the girl sitting meekly in the lounge. She puts the coffee-pot and two cups on the tray. No, two mugs would be better. Dolores must be studying the room and is probably thinking all her clutter is disgusting and the colonial angels on the wall are grotesque. She must go to the defence of the world of objects she transports around with her like a shell, rescuing it from the girl’s scornful gaze. Anyway, aren’t those delicate wooden carvings easier to justify than the limitless cruelty of human beings? Her wobbly hands, which she hasn’t been able to steady for the last few days, make her spill a few drops of coffee; she can feel her cheeks burning as she searches for a cloth to wipe the tray clean. All of a sudden she’s plunged back into despair and, as she re-enters the sitting-room with the tray, she feels utterly desolate. Her knuckles are white from gripping the silver handles. She can’t bear to look at her spotted hands, ridged with thick blue veins: the hands of an old woman.

And yet, as she puts the tray down, her ravishing smile lights up again. But to no avail, for the girl, hearing her come back into the room, has got up and is looking out of the window; her hands sunk in her trouser pockets, she makes some remark about how magnificent the trees are: the monkeypuzzle, the ceiba, the two eucalyptuses. Then when she turns around she ignores her and surveys the walls, the pictures, the carvings, with her usual mobile, absent-minded gaze, looking through the objects as though they were of no importance to her. Finally she sinks into the armchair facing the steaming mugs, her hands still in her pockets, and half-closing her eyes murmurs over and over again how good it feels to be here, how good it feels to be here.

The conversation began to flow. Once she’d got over her shyness, the girl could be a wonderful person to talk to, mainly because she was a responsive, intense listener. The older woman, for her part, was a professional conversationalist. As she juggled with the phrases, strategically positioning the pauses to create the maximum suspense, it occurred to her that during the past two weeks she’d spoken to no one except over the phone, endlessly rehearsing the same topics; how I said goodbye to them at Santiago airport, what would they have done when they heard the news, would they have made for the industrial belts? Or the shanty-towns where they had friends? Would they have gone back to the south of the country? Would they have had time to hide? A single theme with an infinite number of variations that drove her to distraction, particularly when the concerned calls from her family betrayed a note of disapproval. Her husband was also in the habit of ringing her from Atlanta every day, on the dot of eight, the first call of the day. She could no longer be bothered to make the effort to ask him how his business trip was going. She couldn’t keep up the pretence that she cared about Antonio’s affairs, too bad if he noticed. Her nerves frayed by so many pointless phone calls, she was mentally exhausted and on the verge of hysteria. Her one source of relief was the thought that she was all alone in the house by the sea and that the family could hound her only from a distance.

So far the girl had not said a word about it. In fact she’d said very little about anything, preferring to listen as usual. The older woman lit up a cigarette. Was she so quiet because she couldn’t compete with her conversation or because she felt embarrassed to say she knew and that she’d come to offer moral support? Whatever the reason, she felt satisfied with her side of the conversation; she’d told her a series of anecdotes about things that had happened on her last tour, plus a few that had not happened. Her life sounded full and action-packed.

The girl smiled at her from deep in the armchair. She looked satisfied too.

‘I’ve always wondered,’ she suddenly asked, ‘what on earth you’d do if you failed at something. Would you know how to cope with failure? I don’t mean a stage hit or flop. I mean something else; I’m probably not putting it very well.’

The woman tried to help her find the words, but dried up in mid-sentence. The subject galled her.

‘I mean,’ Dolores started, and fell silent again. ‘I mean, you plan something, you spend years and years of your life trying to bring it to fruition, and then it falls to pieces around you.’

‘One always anticipates the possibility of things going wrong, no matter how optimistic one is. So you just swallow your disappointment, it’s not the end of the world.’

‘But do you think things could ever go wrong for you? I get the impression you always play to win.’

She decided to hit back. She wasn’t having the conversation taking that kind of turn.

‘We all play to win,’ she snapped. ‘Do you mean to tell me you don’t? It’d be crazy to play to lose. I’m convinced that winning or losing has a lot to do with whether or not you really want things to turn out well. It’s my firm belief that if you want something, if you throw the whole of yourself into it, if you keep on at it, you’ll get it. It’s as simple as that.’

She felt like adding ‘And if things went wrong for you, you’ve only yourself to blame; you were heading for disaster before they got their hands on you’, but she checked herself in time.

‘Give yourself body and soul,’ the girl muttered, looking away. ‘What a load of shit.’

‘What was that you said?’ She was annoyed at the quiver in her voice.

‘Nothing, I’m sorry,’ she hastened to reply, her lean cheeks blushing violently. ‘I’m talking to myself, I just can’t take that kind of optimism. It sounds hollow to me. Maybe it’s not, but that’s how it sounds to me. For me, reality is all that counts.’

‘But reality is what you make of it, that’s the whole point. Or is it something people thrust on you?’

She hesitated before answering.

‘Yes, it was thrust on me.’

‘But you can’t fall for that one. How can you talk like that? It’s not a question of being naively starry-eyed, obviously not, but you have to accept that you’re responsible for what happens to you, or at least that you play a big part in shaping your life. You can use your energy to get things done. If you don’t think like that, you’ll sink into the most dreadful apathy.’

In her agitation she’d got up and was striding round the sitting-room. The French windows at the far end of the room looked out onto a terrace, the window opposite gave a view of the ceiba, that improbable-looking, ungainly tree, with its bottle-shaped trunk and clusters of pink flowers.

‘OK,’ the girl came back at her, ‘So what are you doing right now about your son?’

She stopped dead in her tracks, and stared at her blankly. So that was what she’d been getting at. She hadn’t expected that blow beneath the belt. Hadn’t the conversation kept to the decorous exchange of pleasantries? Obviously not. Young people nowadays weren’t interested in making conversation for the sake of it, she should have known that from the start. They were always on the alert, ready to pounce. She had a disheartening vision of a relentless, unpitying world. What had made them so remorseless?

She stood blinking, helpless, in the middle of the room.

‘There’s nothing I can do. But I promise you he’ll get out.’ She heard her mutter under her breath: ‘It’s completely irrational.’

‘Yes, of course it’s irrational, thank God. Thank God for that, damn you.’

She was suddenly choked by emotion. But she wasn’t going to let herself burst into tears, despite the fact that for the past few days her reflexes had been getting the better of her and acting independently of her will. She quickly reflected that the best way to change the subject was to turn it against Dolores. She’d been unkind and deserved to be punished. No matter how hard she might try to avoid it, she’d force her to talk about herself. Maybe that was what she needed? She began to calm down. Perhaps the poor girl had come because she wanted to confide in her, because she needed to talk to someone; it was getting harder and harder to talk to people in Montevideo. And all she’d done was prattle on and on with her string of silly anecdotes. She decided she’d have to start the conversation again from scratch; the prospect of taking back the reins assured her. She almost managed a smile as she asked her how old she was now.

The question took her aback. It was amazing, almost alarming how easily she could be made to blush.

‘Twenty-eight. And don’t tell me I ought to be optimistic at that age, please. Maybe other young people can. But not us, can’t you see that? We’re finished and done for.’

She tensed up again. But she was determined to stay in control.

‘I don’t know who you mean by we.’

At that Dolores swung round in her chair and looked her straight in the eye for the first time, without smiling or blushing.

‘Of course you do. You know perfectly well. By we I mean the people you met that fateful day, don’t try to tell me you don’t remember when you kept on referring to it in all your letters.’

‘Two or three letters,’ she reflected, struck by a malicious thought. ‘She must still be in love with me to have such a clear memory of what were

Reviews for Mothers and Shadows

[janeajones · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Marta Traba's Conversacion al sur was first published in 1981, with an English translation by Jo Labanyi in 1986 as Mothers and Shadows. Traba was a prominent SA art critic, novelist, and political reformer. Re the cover bio: " Born in Buenos Aires in 1930, Marta Traba lived in Bogota, Montevideo and the USA. She and her husband, Angel Rama, died in the 1983 Madrid plane crash with other prominent Latin American writers. Marta Traba won the 1966 Casa de las Americas Prize. She authored 33 published volumes of fiction, poetry, essays and art criticism...."The novel, set during the reign of terror of the Generals in Argentina, the military torture in Uruguay and the overthrow of the Allende government in Chile is a dialogue between two women. Irene is an aging actress, who has led a privileged and bohemian life in South America, and is confounded by the repressive governmental tactics, the possible capture of her son in the Chilean overthrow, and the disappearance of her aristocratic friend's daughter in Argentina. Dolores, a daughter of the fearful Uruguayan working class, has gone to university, married a revolutionary and lost him and their unborn child to the torture inflicted by the military.The terror is inescapable. The governments' major tactic is that of denial and disappearance. When Irene joins her friend on the weekly vigil of the mothers at the Plaza de Mayo -- what is most apparent is the absence of any sort of recognition."So these were the Madwomen of the Plaza de Mayo...The number of women was incredible and so was the silence: apart from the rapid footsteps and muffled greetings, there was not a sound, not a single army jeep was in sight. The Casa Rosada looked like a stage set, with thick curtains drawn across its windows. There were no grenadier guards on sentry duty at the gates either. It was the realization that the grenadier guards were not there that gave her a sudden, terrifying insight into the enemys's machinations: every Thursday, for the two to three hours during which the the demonstration took place, the Plaza de Mayo was wiped off the map. They couldn't fire on the women or lock them all up. It would have undermined the concerted effort they'd made to project a carefree image of the 'the Argentina I love'. Their ploy was simply to ignore them: to ignore the existence of the square and of the madwomen stamping their feet. Had they arrived at that degree of sophistication? And why not, if the same sophistication operated at the level of tortures and abductions. A developed nation does things properly."Chilling. But it was finally those those madwomen, those mothers, who brought down the regime of horror in Argentina.

[akeela_8 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was my first foray into South America and it was an eye-opener. This is the story of two women, Dolores and Irene, activists during the Dirty War in South America (1976-1983).These Argentinians, one young and one older, meet five years afterwards and their conversation and interior monologues disclose the terror and untold suffering they – and thousands of others – endured during that time. The tale encompasses their personal lives, and tells of the widespread participation in demonstrations that led to arrests, senseless beatings and torture, as well as the loss of loved ones to death. The psychological trauma of the women is evident. As they talk, they form a bond and begin the process of healing.One memorable scene in the book portrays a scene in which Irene participates in a demonstration known as the 'Madwomen of the Plaza De Mayo'. This was a weekly demonstration by thousands of women carrying photographs and lists of names of loved ones who had disappeared. Each woman would don a small white scarf as a sign of hope, so the demonstrators would appear like a sea of white scarves waving in the air on the plaza. Apparently some 30,000 people went missing during this time.Incidentally, The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo is an activist organisation that still exists today. Their objective is to fight for the right to find and reunite families.