more, a kind of revelation that never comes. When I finish a book, I feel a kind of unease, that there was something important there I missed, but not knowing quite what. It must be very difficult to finish a novel. I wonder how you will end mine, and I hope it’s nothing tragic. In any case, I’d rather it be a weak ending than a tragic one; I should just tell you once and for all.
One day you made me laugh in class and I always laugh again when I remember the episode. We had gone through several classes working on a story you had assigned and I just wanted to finish it, no matter what. But my story had too many characters and each of them had too many things happening to them, so there was no way.
“Read it, Mr. Rose,” I asked you, “and advise me on how to finish it.”
“I don’t know, María Paz, I really don’t know,” you said after you had read it. “This thing you’ve written is too tangled up.”
“Just dictate an ending to me,” I insisted, “because I can’t take it anymore.”
“Alright, I’m going to give the advice that my friend Xavier Velasco offers for such cases. You have a pencil? Then write: ‘And everyone died.’”
So I was telling you about how I wanted to complain to Jordan Hess. But how would I get in touch with him if I didn’t know him and didn’t have his phone number or e-mail address? When it came down to it, all I had were the words that he had written. No matter how many questions I asked him he was never going to respond, and that was as disappointing as praying to God. The real miracle was you, Mr. Rose. A women’s state prison is the last place in the world you’d expect to find a writer. That’s why I’m giving you this story that I wrote for you. So you revise it if you like it, and publish it under your name if you think it’s good enough. Or at least that you read it, just that you have read it will make me happy. Pretend that it is one of the exercises that you assigned for class, just somewhat longer than usual.
And now, let me tell you a little bit about my sister, Violeta. Pretty and strange, given her appearance. Different. Sometimes unbearable and sometimes likeable, shy at times and at times wild. I was almost a teenager and she was a little girl when we were finally able to meet, or I should say meet again, on the plane to America. Five years before, my mother, Bolivia, had left for America to fulfill her dream and to make some money, because there wasn’t enough to support us. She wanted us to have a good life, that’s what she said, and the good life was only over there, in America. Or I should say here , but, back then, for us America was very distant and unreachable. Violeta was my only sister, she with one last name and me with another, but both of us with map names, like all the females in our family. It was on that plane that I began to know my sister. I had met her just a few hours before, at the airport, and she clutched her stuffed giraffe as if her life depended on it. But she didn’t want to hug me, not even to turn around and look at me, although her godmother told her, “Go on, say hi; it’s your sister, María Paz.” But she seemed to need nothing but that giraffe and wasn’t paying attention when I showed her the chain around my neck.
“Look, Violeta,” I said, gesturing for her to look at it, “you’re wearing the same one.” I reached out my hand to grab her chain, that was all I did, tried to touch the chain to show her it was like mine, and that’s when she, who up to that moment had seemed angelical and lost in thought, turned into a lightning bolt and scratched my cheek. You should have seen it; she drew blood with her nails, like a cat with rabies. I found out then, that’s what my little sister was, a pretty cat who was almost always indifferent, but could turn fierce in a flash.
That was our first encounter after waiting five years for a reunion. Bolivia had not been able to take us with her to the United
One day you made me laugh in class and I always laugh again when I remember the episode. We had gone through several classes working on a story you had assigned and I just wanted to finish it, no matter what. But my story had too many characters and each of them had too many things happening to them, so there was no way.
“Read it, Mr. Rose,” I asked you, “and advise me on how to finish it.”
“I don’t know, María Paz, I really don’t know,” you said after you had read it. “This thing you’ve written is too tangled up.”
“Just dictate an ending to me,” I insisted, “because I can’t take it anymore.”
“Alright, I’m going to give the advice that my friend Xavier Velasco offers for such cases. You have a pencil? Then write: ‘And everyone died.’”
So I was telling you about how I wanted to complain to Jordan Hess. But how would I get in touch with him if I didn’t know him and didn’t have his phone number or e-mail address? When it came down to it, all I had were the words that he had written. No matter how many questions I asked him he was never going to respond, and that was as disappointing as praying to God. The real miracle was you, Mr. Rose. A women’s state prison is the last place in the world you’d expect to find a writer. That’s why I’m giving you this story that I wrote for you. So you revise it if you like it, and publish it under your name if you think it’s good enough. Or at least that you read it, just that you have read it will make me happy. Pretend that it is one of the exercises that you assigned for class, just somewhat longer than usual.
And now, let me tell you a little bit about my sister, Violeta. Pretty and strange, given her appearance. Different. Sometimes unbearable and sometimes likeable, shy at times and at times wild. I was almost a teenager and she was a little girl when we were finally able to meet, or I should say meet again, on the plane to America. Five years before, my mother, Bolivia, had left for America to fulfill her dream and to make some money, because there wasn’t enough to support us. She wanted us to have a good life, that’s what she said, and the good life was only over there, in America. Or I should say here , but, back then, for us America was very distant and unreachable. Violeta was my only sister, she with one last name and me with another, but both of us with map names, like all the females in our family. It was on that plane that I began to know my sister. I had met her just a few hours before, at the airport, and she clutched her stuffed giraffe as if her life depended on it. But she didn’t want to hug me, not even to turn around and look at me, although her godmother told her, “Go on, say hi; it’s your sister, María Paz.” But she seemed to need nothing but that giraffe and wasn’t paying attention when I showed her the chain around my neck.
“Look, Violeta,” I said, gesturing for her to look at it, “you’re wearing the same one.” I reached out my hand to grab her chain, that was all I did, tried to touch the chain to show her it was like mine, and that’s when she, who up to that moment had seemed angelical and lost in thought, turned into a lightning bolt and scratched my cheek. You should have seen it; she drew blood with her nails, like a cat with rabies. I found out then, that’s what my little sister was, a pretty cat who was almost always indifferent, but could turn fierce in a flash.
That was our first encounter after waiting five years for a reunion. Bolivia had not been able to take us with her to the United
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