The Happy City by Elvira Navarro

Author:Elvira Navarro [Navarro, Elvira]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9788494174407
Publisher: Hispabooks
Published: 2013-10-11T23:00:00+00:00

THE EDGE

In the face of oblivion, memory is all we have.

GEORGES PEREC

1

One day I’m walking along, clutching the money my mother has given me to buy a little Hello Kitty purse from the shop on the corner. I can’t remember if this day is in autumn or winter, or my exact age. What I do recall is the color of the streets—bright gray—and that of the sky, so often ominous and cloudy, as if about to release some far-off mystery over the city. The area I live in has an old, ordered appearance, with blocks of not-too-tall buildings whose heavy iron doorways are too much for my limited little girl’s strength and heighten the sensation of cold in winter, heat in summer, and the slight anxiety that takes over my body at dusk, when everything grows deserted and something strange makes its appearance, in the night. The world then is vast and dark.

But on that day I’m walking down the street, these memories are perhaps false, or at least they aren’t yet in my head; I’m just walking along taking care not to lose my precious money, unaware of the eerie veil the city drapes itself in at sunset, the strange density that pierces my childhood when I recall it. I am me, before I am me.

I am slender and a little bow-legged. Let’s say that on that day, just like so many other days, I am wearing a pair of novelty tights, a denim skirt, and a pink T-shirt. My mother doesn’t let me grow my hair down to my chest, and I wear it pulled back in a half ponytail with two curly strands that fall to either side of my pale-skinned, large-eyed face. I walk with my feet pointing slightly outwards, and now and then I look at myself in the shop windows and imagine myself older, walking quickly just like this, and obviously pretty and confident, like the women you see in films. The shop isn’t far away, a mere seven doors down from my own, but for me, this is the limit of the world. I am not allowed to play beyond this limit, and the most I do is to look over from the other side without stepping over the imaginary line my father drew one day with the tip of his shoe, a line I accept, although with a few small exceptions. I take the liberty of viewing it as a very stretchy elastic band so that each time I cross it by mistake, I can feel how it pulls me back at the waist. This way I can cross it a little every now and then without feeling guilty.

And so I walk up to the limit of my world. This time, I’m only thinking about the little purse; getting it is a great chance to show it off at school on Monday, not to mention all the hours I still have left to walk around wearing it in my room on my own in front of the mirror.

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