Liliana Heker
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Liliana Heker nació en Buenos Aires, en 1943. Es Cuentista, novelista y ensayista. Fundó y fue responsable, con Abelardo Castillo, de dos de las revistas de literatura de mayor repercusión en la letras argentinas y latinoamericanas: El Escarabajo de Oro (1961-1974), y El Ornitorrinco (1977-1986), donde publicó ensayos y sostuvo polémicas que trascendieron la circunstancia que las motivó. Sus cuatro primeros libros de cuentos se reúnen en el volumen Cuentos (editorial Punto de lectura). Publicó las novelas Zona de clivaje y El fin de la historia, y los libros de no ficción Las hermanas de Shakespeare y Diálogos sobre la vida y la muerte. Su último libro de cuentos es La muerte de Dios.
Obtuvo, entre otras distinciones, la Mención Única del Concurso de Casa de las Américas, el Primer Premio Municipal de Novela, el Premio Konex de Platino, el Premio a la Trayectoria Letras de Oro de la Fundación Honorarte, el Premio Esteban Echeverría a la trayectoria, otorgado por Gente de Letras. Entre 2005 y 2011 se desempeñó como directora del Fondo Nacional de las Artes. Desde 1978 coordina talleres de narrativa en los que se han formado varios de los mejores nuevos narradores de la literatura argentina.
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Liliana Heker was born in Buenos Aires in 1943, he is a short story writer, novelist, and essayist. He founded and edited, with Abelardo Castillo, two of the most influential literary magazines in Argentine and Latin American literature: El Escarabajo de Oro (1961–1974) and El Ornitorrinco (1977–1986), where he published essays and engaged in controversies that transcended the circumstances that motivated them. His first four collections of short stories are collected in the volume Cuentos (Punto de lectura). She published the novels Zona de Clivaje and El fin de la historia (The End of History), and the nonfiction books Las hermana de Shakespeare (Shakespeare’s Sisters) and Diálogos sobre la vida y la muerte (Dialogues on Life and Death). Her latest collection of short stories is La muerte de Dios (The Death of God).Among other awards, she has received the Sole Mention in the Casa de las Américas Competition, the First Municipal Novel Prize, the Platinum Konex Award, the Letras de Oro Lifetime Achievement Award from the Honorarte Foundation, and the Esteban Echeverría Lifetime Achievement Award from Gente de Letras. From 2005 to 2011, she served as director of the National Arts Fund. Since 1978, she has coordinated narrative workshops that have trained several of the best new storytellers in Argentine literature.
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“UNA MUCHACHA Y SU DIOS”
Ser judía —irá aprendiendo— es muchas cosas a la vez, todas ilógicas. La prohibición de usar la medalla del hombrecito es sólo una. Poco después de ese episodio se entera de que tampoco podrá ir al colegio al que una vez se escapó sólo por averiguar a dónde iban las niñas del sombrerito azul que tanto anhelaba, y en el que vio unas maestras como novias negras que la estremecieron de pavor y de deseo. Otra catástrofe ocurre en su quinto día de clase. Marianita entró directo a primero superior porque sabe todo, le cuenta su mamá a cualquiera que se le cruza. Pero es mentira, no sabe todo: ignora las claves de un mundo en que los demás parecen manejarse como peces en el agua. Sólo ella boquea. Literalmente boquea: ha vomitado todas las mañanas en el momento de salir para el colegio. En su quinto día de clase, la maestra formula una orden que la deja helada: Pónganse de pie los niños que no son católicos.
¿Hay un aura de desconcierto a su alrededor? ¿O es sólo ella la que siente que, por primera vez, va a tener que hacer pública una situación que no termina de entender? A su derecha, se ha puesto de pie una chica muy gorda y de apellido impronunciable a quien ella considera una perfecta tarada. Eso empeora las cosas: no quiere ser parte de un clan despreciable. Con disimulo echa una mirada hacia atrás. Ve de pie junto a su banco a la chica que más le gusta: es flaca, tiene pecas en la nariz y conoce los doce trabajos de Hércules. También ve de pie a un chico que se llama Fernández. ¿Puede un judío llamarse Fernández? Empieza a sospechar que ser judío debe ser aun más complicado de lo que ella creía. Va a tener que pensar en eso. Ahora no tiene tiempo: la maestra está terminando de hacer un anuncio importante: los martes y viernes en la tercera hora los niños católicos se quedarán en el aula para la clase de Religión. Los niños no católicos se trasladarán al aula de primero inferior B para la clase de Moral.
El martes siguiente, a la tercera hora, empieza para ella un nuevo calvario.
Lo que más la inquieta es la indefinición, esa zona amorfa y gelatinosa a la que son arrojados los niños que no estudian Religión. La religión es algo. Mariana no conoce del todo sus reglas pero confía en su perfecta definición. En ella entran Dios, los santos, la Virgen María y el Niño Jesús. No está segura de si Dios y el Niño Jesús son la misma persona y tampoco puede establecer una relación muy clara entre el Niño Jesús (también llamado Niño Dios para complicar las cosas), que suele estar en un pesebre, sobre un jergón —cómo le gusta la palabra “jergón”; Heidi también, en la cabaña de su abuelo, duerme en un jergón—, rodeado de cabritas y de burros, y el hombre de pelo largo, siempre muy serio y a veces en la cruz de recuerdo tan doloroso para ella. Los niños que van a Religión deben aprender todas esas cosas y también la vida de los santos —nada le resulta tan tentador como las historias y la expresión “vida de santos” promete historias innumerables— y el misterioso catecismo, que estudian (fuera del colegio) los niños de siete años que van a tomar la comunión. ¡La comunión! ¡He aquí un escamoteo realmente cruel! ¿Puede existir algo más encantador que ese traje de novia con el que las niñas católicas se pasean por las calles el 8 de diciembre? Y acá se presenta otro de los enigmas que Mariana no está en condiciones de resolver: ¿es lo mismo ser católico que ser cristiano? ¿Y es lo mismo “Padre” que “Dios”? Es un hecho que el Padre Nuestro que estás en los cielos es Dios pero ¿qué tiene en común con el cura de la parroquia que, cada tanto, viene al aula a hablarles? Los niños católicos lo llaman “Padre”, ella no. ¿Y cómo debería llamarlo?: ¿Señor? De cualquier manera, el cura de la parroquia parece ignorarla. Da por hecho que en el mundo no hay otra cosa que niños católicos y los invita a la fiesta de la parroquia y les dice cómo deben comportarse para ser buenos cristianos y ganarse el cielo. Eso no la tienta de ninguna manera, le parece que el cura está diciendo una perfecta mentira: nadie es bueno del modo en que él dice que hay que serlo, ni siquiera él mismo. No le gustan los curas, parecen fallutos. A su mamá sí le gustan: dice que hablan lindo y que saben muchas cosas. Su mamá es bastante difícil de entender. Por una parte dice que es judía y por otra parte dice que le gusta cómo hablan los curas y que, cuando era soltera, para Semana Santa, se iba a escondidas al cine a ver la Pasión y muerte de Nuestro Señor Jesucristo. Es una historia tan terrible, le dice. A su mamá le gustan todas las historias terribles, por eso canta las cosas que canta. Pero a mis hermanas no les contaba que iba a ver la Pasión y muerte (le dice): iban a pensar que soy una renegada. Aunque también le dice que ser un renegado es lo peor que una persona puede ser. No es fácil, con una persona como su mamá, saber qué es ser judío. Y con su papá menos. Nunca le explican nada. Dicen que son judíos, y que ella tiene que ir a Moral, y listo. Y ése es su calvario: la moral no es nada. Al menos, nadie sabe qué es; ni siquiera la maestra de Moral que les tocó, que en realidad no esmaestra de Moral sino de primero inferior B. Desde el primer día Mariana pensó que a esa maestra la habían puesto ahí porque a alguien tenían que poner, si no, ¿qué iban a hacer con los niños judíos y con el niño que no tiene apellido judío pero igual va a Moral? —un chico le dijo en secreto que los padres son comunistas, ella no sabe si ser comunista es bueno o malo, lo que le gusta es que el chico sea tan dulce y que conozca el cuento del Príncipe Feliz—. A las clases de Moral van niños de todos los grados y se ve bien claro que la maestra no sabe qué hacer con esa mezcolanza. A veces les lee cuentos, que son lo mejor de la moral. El sastrecillo valiente, les lee un día, y a ella le da en el centro mismo del corazón el modo en que el sastrecillo, que es pequeño y debilucho, pudo vencer al gigante nada más que con inteligencia y picardía. Pero no siempre pasan cosas tan agradables en las clases de Moral. Una vez les hacen hacer una composición sobre el ahorro. Y ella, que ama hacer composiciones casi más que cualquier otra cosa en el mundo, acerca del ahorro sólo puede mentir, de la primera a la última palabra. Y mentir de manera fea, diciendo cosas en las que otros creen pero ella no, que es la peor manera de mentir. Sobre todo cuando se hacen composiciones. No sabe por qué, pero le parece que en una composición una tiene que descubrir la verdad. Si le piden que escriba sobre la primavera, ella se pone a pensar y pensar qué es eso de la primavera, no pura florcita y puro trino, como dicen los libros de lectura: tiene que descubrir la primavera, para eso están las cosas escritas. Pero ¿qué descubrimiento se puede hacer sobre el ahorro? Por cuestiones como ésa siente que mandarla a Moral es lo mismo que tirarla a la basura. La religión es algo, pero la moral no es nada. Y a ella, las cosas que no son nada le dan asco.
Con el tiempo aprenderá a reírse. Sentada en el banco junto a la pecosa que le gusta tanto —las dos son buenas en matemáticas, las dos hacen composiciones hermosas, las dos leen a Salgari— aprenderá que la moral es buena para reírse de los otros y no hacer nada. Nadie la calificará, nadie le exigirá ninguna cosa. Llegará a entender sin dramatismo que las clases de Moral son un mero pretexto para mantener alejados a los niños judíos de las clases de Religión. ¿Es que los judíos carecen de religión? Sus conocimientos al respecto son un poco confusos. Algunos de sus compañeros de Moral parecen saber mucho sobre el tema y es como si formaran parte de una secta, pero a ella no le gustan las sectas así que no habla con ellos del tema, y la pecosa sabe tan poco como ella acerca de la cuestión judía. ¿Qué sabe ella? Que una vez al año toda la familia se reúne a cenar en la casa de sus abuelos y festejan el Pesaj. Eso es divertido y la comida es riquísima; el único inconveniente es que, para empezar a comer, tienen que esperar a que su abuelo y el más chico de sus primos varones digan un montón de cosas que nadie entiende. Pero después comen y se ríen mucho y eso le encanta. Otra fiesta que le gusta es el Iom Kipur. Ese día, todas las hermanas de su mamá ayunan para que les perdonen sus pecados y se pasan el día entero sentadas en el shil, pero su mamá no ayuna: dice que, a ella, estar todo el día con el estómago vacío le da languidez y que si no toma unos mates a la mañana se siente mal. Lo que sí, almuerzo liviano, dice su mamá. Y en lugar de pasarse todo el día en el shil, a la tarde se pone lindísima y a ella también la pone lindísima, y entonces sí se van al shil para que todos las vean. Lucía no quiere ir así que siempre, antes de salir, se descompone y vomita. Su papá, en el Iom Kipur, come y vive como si tal cosa.
Del Dios de los judíos nadie le habló nunca así que ella da por hecho que es un tema de la religión, y la religión es para los católicos. En un tiempo, cuando se enteró de que la tierra era redonda e imaginó al cielo como la parte superior de la esfera (que ella sólo podía ver desde abajo) veía a Dios vestido de amarillo y con un poncho de gaucho, sentado con las piernas cruzadas sobre la superficie de la esfera, pero no pensó demasiado en él ni le atribuyó más poder que el de mantenerse sentado sin caerse en un lugar tan incómodo. Su mamá siempre dice que hay un Dios, y ahí se le termina el comentario. Su papá, de Dios no habla nunca. Lucía le leyó unos poemas muy hermosos de un poeta que se llama León Felipe. A ella le gustaron mucho, sobre todo uno que dice ¡Qué lástima que yo no pueda cantar a la usanza de este tiempo lo mismo que los poetas de hoy cantan! Lucía le dijo que León Felipe es panteísta. Qué es ser panteísta, le preguntó ella. Es creer que Dios es todas las cosas, le dijo Lucía. Ella desde entonces trata de imaginar que Dios es las plantas, y los gatos, y las nubes en el cielo. Es lindo eso, le da como alegría, pero no lo entiende del todo. ¡Dios está azul!, dice otro poema lindísimo. Le encanta decir “Dios está azul”, pero nada más que eso. Ahora ya no vomita cuando va al colegio, y aprendió cómo ser buena alumna sin tomarse demasiado trabajo. No piensa en Dios. Si lo encuentra en los libros acepta con naturalidad que sus personajes amados crean en él, del mismo modo que acepta que viajen en diligencia o se lancen al abordaje con el kriss entre los dientes. Nada más que eso. Un ser impreciso y ajeno.
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“A GIRL AND HER GOD”
Being Jewish—she will gradually learn—is many things at once, all illogical. The prohibition against wearing the little man medal is just one. Shortly after that episode, she learns that she will no longer be able to go to the school. She once ran away from just to find out where the little girls with the little blue hats she so longed for went, and where she saw teachers who were like black brides who thrilled her with fear and desire. Another catastrophe occurs on her fifth day of school. Marianita went straight to the first grade because she knows everything, her mother tells anyone she meets. But it’s a lie; she doesn’t know everything: she ignores the keys to a world in which others seem to navigate like fish in water. Only she gasps. Literally gasps. She has vomited every morning before leaving for school. On her fifth day of school, the teacher gives her an order that leaves her frozen: Children who aren’t Catholic, stand up.
Is there an aura of bewilderment around her? Or is it just her who feels that, for the first time, she’s going to have to go public with a situation she doesn’t fully understand? To her right, a very fat girl with an unpronounceable last name, whom she considers a complete idiot, has stood up. That makes things worse: she doesn’t want to be part of a despicable clan. She surreptitiously glances behind her. She sees the girl she likes most standing next to her desk: she’s skinny, has freckles on her nose, and knows the twelve labors of Hercules. She also sees a boy named Fernández standing there. Can a Jew be named Fernández? She’s beginning to suspect that being Jewish must be even more complicated than she thought. She’s going to have to think about that. She doesn’t have time now: the teacher is finishing up an important announcement: on Tuesdays and Fridays, during third period, the Catholic children will stay in their classroom for Religion class. The non-Catholic children will be moved to the lower B classroom for Morals class. The following Tuesday, at the third hour, a new ordeal begins for her.
What worries her most is the lack of definition, that amorphous, gelatinous zone into which students who don’t study religion are thrown. Religion is something. Mariana doesn’t fully understand its rules, but she trusts its perfect definition. It includes God, the saints, the Virgin Mary, and the Baby Jesus. She’s not sure if God and the Baby Jesus are the same person, and she can’t establish a very clear relationship between the Baby Jesus (also called the Baby Jesus to complicate things), who is usually in a manger, on a mattress—how she loves the word “mattress”; Heidi, too, in her grandfather’s cabin, sleeps on a mattress—surrounded by goats and donkeys, and the long-haired man, always very serious and sometimes on the cross, a memory so painful for her. Children who go to Religion must learn all these things, as well as the lives of the saints—nothing is as tempting to her as stories, and the expression “lives of saints” promises countless stories—and the mysterious catechism, which seven-year-olds who are about to take Communion study (outside of school). Communion! Here’s a truly cruel trick! Could anything be more charming than that wedding dress Catholic girls wear when parading through the streets on December 8th? And here arises another of the enigmas Mariana is in no position to solve: is being Catholic the same as being Christian? And is “Father” the same as “God”? It’s a fact that Our Father who art in heaven is God, but what does he have in common with the parish priest who, from time to time, comes to the classroom to speak to them? The Catholic children call him “Father,” she doesn’t. And what should she call him? Lord? In any case, the parish priest seems to ignore her. He assumes there is nothing in the world but Catholic children and invites them to the parish festival and tells them how they should behave to be good Christians and earn heaven. This doesn’t tempt her in the least; it seems to her that the priest is telling a perfect lie: no one is good the way he says they should be, not even himself. She doesn’t like priests; they seem like fools. Her mother does like them: she says they speak beautifully and know a lot of things. Her mother is quite difficult to understand. On the one hand, she says she is Jewish, and on the other hand, she says she likes the way priests talk and that, when she was single, during Holy Week, she would secretly go to the movies to see The Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ. It’s such a terrible story, she tells him. Her mom likes all terrible stories, that’s why she sings the things she sings. But I didn’t tell my sisters I was going to see The Passion and Death (she tells her): they would think I was a renegade. Her mother he also tells him that being a renegade is the worst thing a person can be. It’s not easy, with a person like her mom, to know what it means to be Jewish. And even less so with her dad. They never explain anything to her. They say they’re Jewish, and that she has to go to Moral, and that’s it. And that’s her ordeal: Moral is nothing. At least, nobody knows what it is; Not even the Moral Studies teacher they were assigned, who in fact isn’t a Moral Studies teacher but rather a Lower B teacher. From the first day, Mariana thought that that teacher had been put there because they had to put someone there; otherwise, what would they do with the Jewish children and with the boy who doesn’t have a Jewish last name but still goes to Moral Studies? A boy secretly told her that his parents are communists; she doesn’t know if being a communist is good or bad; what she likes is that the boy is so sweet and that he knows the story of the Happy Prince. Children from all grades attend Moral Studies classes, and it’s clear to see that the teacher doesn’t know what to do with that mishmash. Sometimes she reads them stories, which are the best of Moral Studies. She reads “The Brave Little Tailor” to them one day, and it hits her right in the center of her heart how the little tailor, who is small and weak, was able to defeat the giant with nothing more than intelligence and cunning. But such pleasant things don’t always happen in Moral Studies classes. Once they were asked to write a composition about thrift. And she, who loves writing compositions almost more than anything else in the world, can only lie about thrift, from the first word to the last. And she can lie badly, saying things that others believe but she doesn’t, which is the worst kind of lying. Especially when writing compositions. She doesn’t know why, but it seems to her that in a composition one has to discover the truth. If they ask her to write about spring, she starts to think and think about what spring is, not just a little flower and a little song, as the reading books say: she has to discover spring, that’s what written things are for. But what discovery can be made about thrift? For reasons like that, she feels that sending it to Moral is the same as throwing it away. Religion is something, but morality is nothing. And things that are nothing disgust her.
In time, she’ll learn to laugh. Sitting on the bench next to the freckled girl she likes so much—they’re both good at math, they both write beautiful compositions, they both read Salgari—she’ll learn that morality is good for laughing at others and doing nothing. No one will grade her, no one will demand anything of her. She’ll come to understand, without any drama, that Moral Studies classes are a mere pretext to keep Jewish children away from Religion classes. Do Jews lack religion? Her knowledge on the subject is a bit confusing. Some of her classmates in Moral Studies seem to know a lot about the subject, and it’s as if they were part of a cult, but she doesn’t like cults, so she doesn’t talk to them about it, and the freckled girl knows as little as she does about the Jewish question. What does she know? That once a year the whole family gets together for dinner at her grandparents’ house and celebrates Passover. It’s fun, and the food is delicious. The only drawback is that, to start eating, they have to wait for their grandfather and the youngest of their male cousins to say a bunch of things that no one understands. But afterward, they eat and laugh a lot, and she loves it. Another holiday she likes is Yom Kippur. On that day, all of her mother’s sisters fast to be forgiven for their sins and spend the entire day sitting in the shil, but her mother doesn’t fast: she says that being on an empty stomach all day makes her feel languid, and if she doesn’t have some mate in the morning, she feels sick. What she does have is a light lunch, says her mother. And instead of spending the entire day in the shil, in the afternoon she looks gorgeous, and he makes her gorgeous too, and then they go to the shil so everyone can see them. Lucía doesn’t want to go, so she always gets sick and vomits before leaving. Her father, on Yom Kippur, eats and lives as if nothing had happened.
No one ever spoke to her about the God of the Jews, so she assumes it’s a religious topic, and religion is for Catholics. Once upon a time, when she learned the Earth was round and imagined the sky as the top of the sphere (which she could only see from below), she saw God dressed in yellow and wearing a gaucho poncho, sitting cross-legged on the surface of the sphere, but she didn’t think much about him or attribute to him any power other than that of staying seated without falling over in such an uncomfortable spot. Her mother always says there is a God, and that’s the end of her commentary. Her father never speaks about God. Lucía read her some very beautiful poems by a poet named León Felipe. She liked them a lot, especially one that says, “What a pity I can’t sing in the style of our time, the same things that today’s poets sing!” Lucía told her that León Felipe is a pantheist. “What does it mean to be a pantheist?” she asked. It’s believing that God is all things, Lucía told her. Since then, she’s tried to imagine that God is the plants, the cats, and the clouds in the sky. That’s beautiful, it gives her a kind of joy, but she doesn’t fully understand it. “God is blue!” says another beautiful poem. She loves to say, “God is blue,” but nothing more than that. Now she doesn’t vomit when she goes to school, and she’s learned how to be a good student without going to too much trouble. She doesn’t think about God. If she finds him in books, she naturally accepts that her beloved characters believe in him, just as she accepts that they travel by stagecoach or jump into the sea with the Kriss between their teeth. Nothing more than that. An imprecise and alien being.
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Being Jewish—she will gradually learn—is many things at once, all illogical. The prohibition against wearing the little man medal is just one. Shortly after that episode, she learns that she will no longer be able to go to the school she once ran away from just to find out where the little girls with the little blue hats she so longed for went, and where she saw teachers who were like black brides who thrilled her with fear and desire. Another catastrophe occurs on her fifth day of school. Marianita goes straight to the first grade because she knows everything, her mother tells anyone she meets. But it’s a lie; she doesn’t know everything: she ignores the keys to a world in which others seem to navigate like fish in water. Only she gasps. Literally gasps. She has vomited every morning before leaving for school. On her fifth day of school, the teacher gives her an order that leaves her frozen: Children who aren’t Catholic, stand up.
Is there an aura of bewilderment around her? Or is it just her who feels that, for the first time, she’s going to have to go public with a situation she doesn’t fully understand? To her right, a very fat girl with an unpronounceable last name, whom she considers a complete idiot, has stood up. That makes things worse: she doesn’t want to be part of a despicable clan. She surreptitiously glances behind her. She sees the girl she likes most standing next to her desk: she’s skinny, has freckles on her nose, and knows the twelve labors of Hercules. She also sees a boy named Fernandez standing there. Can a Jew be named Fernandez? She’s beginning to suspect that being Jewish must be even more complicated than she thought. She’s going to have to think about that. She doesn’t have time now: the teacher is finishing up an important announcement: on Tuesdays and Fridays, during third period, the Catholic children will stay in their classroom for Religion class. The non-Catholic children will be moved to the lower B classroom for Morals class. The following Tuesday, at the third hour, a new ordeal begins for her.
What worries her most is the lack of definition, that amorphous, gelatinous zone into
which children who don’t study religion are thrown. Religion is something. Mariana doesn’t fully understand its rules, but she trusts its perfect definition. It includes God, the saints, the Virgin Mary, and the Baby Jesus. She’s not sure if God and the Baby Jesus are the same person, and she can’t establish a very clear relationship between the Baby Jesus (also called the Baby Jesus to complicate things), who is usually in a manger, on a mattress—how she loves the word “mattress”; Heidi, too, in her grandfather’s cabin, sleeps on a mattress—surrounded by goats and donkeys, and the long-haired man, always very serious and sometimes on the cross, a memory so painful for her. Children who go to Religion must learn all these things, as well as the lives of the saints—nothing is as tempting to her as stories, and the expression “lives of saints” promises countless stories—and the mysterious catechism, which seven-year-olds who are about to take Communion study (outside of school). Communion! Here’s a truly cruel trick! Could anything be more charming than that wedding dress Catholic girls wear when parading through the streets on December 8th? And here arises another of the enigmas Mariana is in no position to solve: is being Catholic the same as being Christian? And is “Father” the same as “God”? It’s a fact that Our Father who art in heaven is God, but what does he have in common with the parish priest who, from time to time, comes to the classroom to speak to them? The Catholic children call him “Father,” she doesn’t. And what should she call him? Lord? In any case, the parish priest seems to ignore her. She assumes there is nothing in the world but Catholic children and invites them to the parish festival and tells them how they should behave to be good Christians and earn heaven. This doesn’t tempt her in the least; it seems to her that the priest is telling a perfect lie: no one is good the way he says they should be, not even himself. She doesn’t like priests; they seem like fools. Her mother does like them: she says they speak beautifully and know a lot of things. Her mother is quite difficult to understand. On the one hand, she says she is Jewish, and on the other hand, she says she likes the way priests talk and that, when she was single, during Holy Week, she would secretly go to the movies to see The Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ. It’s such a terrible story, she tells him. Her mom likes all terrible stories, that’s why she sings the things she sings. But I didn’t tell my sisters I was going to see The Passion and Death (she tells him): they would think I was a renegade. Although she also tells him that being a renegade is the worst thing a person can be. It’s not easy, with a person like her mom, to know what it means to be Jewish. And even less so with her dad. They never explain anything to her. They say they’re Jewish, and that she has to go to Moral, and that’s it. And that’s her ordeal: Moral is nothing. At least, nobody knows what it is; Not even the Moral Studies teacher they were assigned, who in fact isn’t a Moral Studies teacher but rather a Lower B teacher. From the first day, Mariana thought that that teacher had been put there because they had to put someone there; otherwise, what would they do with the Jewish children and with the boy who doesn’t have a Jewish last name but still goes to Moral Studies? A boy secretly told her that his parents are communists; she doesn’t know if being a communist is good or bad; what she likes is that the boy is so sweet and that he knows the story of the Happy Prince. Children from all grades attend Moral Studies classes, and it’s clear to see that the teacher doesn’t know what to do with that mishmash. Sometimes she reads them stories, which are the best of Moral Studies. The Brave Little Tailor reads to them one day, and it hits her right in the center of her heart how the little tailor, who is small and weak, was able to defeat the giant with nothing more than intelligence and cunning. But such pleasant things don’t always happen in Moral Studies classes. Once they were asked to write a composition about thrift. And she, who loves writing compositions almost more than anything else in the world, can only lie about thrift, from the first word to the last. And she can lie badly, saying things that others believe but she doesn’t, which is the worst kind of lying. Especially when writing compositions. She doesn’t know why, but it seems to her that in a composition one has to discover the truth. If they ask her to write about spring, she starts to think and think about what spring is, not just a little flower and a little song, as the reading books say: she has to discover spring, that’s what written things are for. But what discovery can be made about thrift? For reasons like that, she feels that sending it to Moral is the same as throwing it away. Religion is something, but morality is nothing. And things that are nothing disgust her.
In time, she’ll learn to laugh. Sitting on the bench next to the freckled girl she likes so much—they’re both good at math, they both write beautiful compositions, they both read Salgari—she’ll learn that morality is good for laughing at others and doing nothing. No one will grade her, no one will demand anything of her. She’ll come to understand, without any drama, that Moral Studies classes are a mere pretext to keep Jewish children away from Religion classes. Do Jews lack religion? Her knowledge on the subject is a bit confusing. Some of her classmates in Moral Studies seem to know a lot about the subject, and it’s as if they were part of a cult, but she doesn’t like cults, so she doesn’t talk to them about it, and the freckled girl knows as little as she does about the Jewish question. What does she know? That once a year the whole family gets together for dinner at her grandparents’ house and celebrates Passover. It’s fun, and the food is delicious. The only drawback is that, to start eating, they have to wait for their grandfather and the youngest of their male cousins to say a bunch of things that no one understands. But afterward, they eat and laugh a lot, and she loves it. Another holiday she likes is Yom Kippur. On that day, all of her mother’s sisters fast to be forgiven for their sins and spend the entire day sitting in the shil, but her mother doesn’t fast: she says that being on an empty stomach all day makes her feel languid, and if she doesn’t have some mate in the morning, she feels sick. What she does have is a light lunch, says her mother. And instead of spending the entire day in the shil, in the afternoon she looks gorgeous, and he makes her gorgeous too, and then they go to the shil so everyone can see them. Lucía doesn’t want to go, so she always gets sick and vomits before leaving. Her father, on Yom Kippur, eats and lives as if nothing had happened.
No one ever spoke to her about the God of the Jews, so she assumes it’s a religious topic, and religion is for Catholics. Once upon a time, when she learned the Earth was round and imagined the sky as the top of the sphere (which she could only see from below), she saw God dressed in yellow and wearing a gaucho poncho, sitting cross-legged on the surface of the sphere, but she didn’t think much about him or attribute to him any power other than that of staying seated without falling over in such an uncomfortable spot. Her mother always says there is a God, and that’s the end of her commentary. Her father never speaks about God. Lucía read her some very beautiful poems by a poet named León Felipe. She liked them a lot, especially one that says, “What a pity I can’t sing in the style of our time, the same things that today’s poets sing!” Lucía told her that León Felipe is a pantheist. “What does it mean to be a pantheist?” she asked. It’s believing that God is all things, Lucía told her. Since then, she’s tried to imagine that God is the plants, the cats, and the clouds in the sky. That’s beautiful, it gives her a kind of joy, but she doesn’t fully understand it. “God is blue!” says another beautiful poem. She loves to say, “God is blue,” but nothing more than that. Now she doesn’t vomit when she goes to school, and she’s learned how to be a good student without going to too much trouble. She doesn’t think about God. If she finds him in books, she naturally accepts that her beloved characters believe in him, just as she accepts that they travel by stagecoach or jump into the sea with the Kriss between their teeth. Nothing more than that. An imprecise and alien being.
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LIBROS DE LILIANA HEKER/BOOKS BY LILIANA HEKER
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