Living to Tell the Tale by Gabriel García Márquez, Edith Grossman Page B
Authors: Gabriel García Márquez, Edith Grossman
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me in the cornerand dragged me from the room.
“You’re in mortal sin,” she said. And ordered with a menacing finger: “Don’t think again about what you saw.”
On the other hand, the woman who in reality took away my innocence did not intend to and never knew she had. Her name was Trinidad, she was the daughter of someone who worked in the house, and one fatal spring she began to blossom. She was thirteen but stillused the dresses she had worn when shewas nine, and they were so tight to her body that she seemed more naked than if she had been undressed. One night we were alone in the courtyard, band music erupted without warning from the house next door, and Trinidad began to dance with me, and she held me so tight she took my breath away. I do not know what became of her, but even today I still wake upin the middle of the night agitated by the upheaval, and I know I could recognize her in the dark by the touch of every inch of her skin and her animal odor. In an instant I became conscious of my body with a clarity of instincts that I have never felt again, and that I dare to recall as an exquisite death. After that I knew in a confused and illusory fashion that there was an unfathomable mysteryI did not know but that agitated me as if I did. The women of the family, however, always led me along the arid path of chastity.
The loss of innocence taught me at the same time that it was not Baby Jesus who brought us toys at Christmas, but I was careful not to say so. When I was ten, my father revealed this to me as a secret for adults because he assumed I already knew it, and he took meto the stores on Christmas Eve to select toys for my brothers and sisters. The same thing had happened with the mystery of childbirth even before I witnessed Matilde Armenta: I choked with laughter when people said that a stork brought babies from Paris. But I should confess that neither then nor now have I succeeded in connecting childbirth with sex. In any case, I think my intimacy with the maidscould be the origin of a thread of secret communication that I believe I have with women and that throughout my life has allowed me to feel more comfortable and sure with them than with men. It may also be the source of my conviction that they are the ones who maintain the world while we men throw it into disarray with our historic brutality.
Sara Emilia Márquez, without knowing it, had somethingto do with my destiny. Pursued from the time she was very young by suitors she did not even deign to notice, she decided, and for the rest of her life, on the first one who looked all right to her. The chosen one had something in common with my father, for he was a stranger who arrived, no one knew how or from where,with a good background but no known resources. His name was José del Carmen UribeVergel, but at times he signed only J. del C. Some time passed before anyone knew who he was in reality and where he came from, until it was learned from the speeches he was hired to write for public functionaries, and from the love poems he published in his own cultural magazine whose frequency depended on the will of God. From the time he appeared in the house, I felt a great admiration forhis fame as a writer, the first I had met in my life. On the spot I wanted to be like him and was not content until Aunt Mama learned to comb my hair like his.
I was the first one in the family who learned of their secret love, one night when he came into the house across the way where I was playing with friends. He called me aside, in a state of evident tension, and gave me a letter for SaraEmilia. I knew she was sitting in the door of our house waiting for one of her friends to visit. I crossed the street, hid behind one of the almond trees, and threw the letter with so much precision that it fell into her lap. Frightened, she raised her hands, but the scream remained in her throat when she recognized the handwriting on the envelope. Sara Emilia and J. del C. were my
“You’re in mortal sin,” she said. And ordered with a menacing finger: “Don’t think again about what you saw.”
On the other hand, the woman who in reality took away my innocence did not intend to and never knew she had. Her name was Trinidad, she was the daughter of someone who worked in the house, and one fatal spring she began to blossom. She was thirteen but stillused the dresses she had worn when shewas nine, and they were so tight to her body that she seemed more naked than if she had been undressed. One night we were alone in the courtyard, band music erupted without warning from the house next door, and Trinidad began to dance with me, and she held me so tight she took my breath away. I do not know what became of her, but even today I still wake upin the middle of the night agitated by the upheaval, and I know I could recognize her in the dark by the touch of every inch of her skin and her animal odor. In an instant I became conscious of my body with a clarity of instincts that I have never felt again, and that I dare to recall as an exquisite death. After that I knew in a confused and illusory fashion that there was an unfathomable mysteryI did not know but that agitated me as if I did. The women of the family, however, always led me along the arid path of chastity.
The loss of innocence taught me at the same time that it was not Baby Jesus who brought us toys at Christmas, but I was careful not to say so. When I was ten, my father revealed this to me as a secret for adults because he assumed I already knew it, and he took meto the stores on Christmas Eve to select toys for my brothers and sisters. The same thing had happened with the mystery of childbirth even before I witnessed Matilde Armenta: I choked with laughter when people said that a stork brought babies from Paris. But I should confess that neither then nor now have I succeeded in connecting childbirth with sex. In any case, I think my intimacy with the maidscould be the origin of a thread of secret communication that I believe I have with women and that throughout my life has allowed me to feel more comfortable and sure with them than with men. It may also be the source of my conviction that they are the ones who maintain the world while we men throw it into disarray with our historic brutality.
Sara Emilia Márquez, without knowing it, had somethingto do with my destiny. Pursued from the time she was very young by suitors she did not even deign to notice, she decided, and for the rest of her life, on the first one who looked all right to her. The chosen one had something in common with my father, for he was a stranger who arrived, no one knew how or from where,with a good background but no known resources. His name was José del Carmen UribeVergel, but at times he signed only J. del C. Some time passed before anyone knew who he was in reality and where he came from, until it was learned from the speeches he was hired to write for public functionaries, and from the love poems he published in his own cultural magazine whose frequency depended on the will of God. From the time he appeared in the house, I felt a great admiration forhis fame as a writer, the first I had met in my life. On the spot I wanted to be like him and was not content until Aunt Mama learned to comb my hair like his.
I was the first one in the family who learned of their secret love, one night when he came into the house across the way where I was playing with friends. He called me aside, in a state of evident tension, and gave me a letter for SaraEmilia. I knew she was sitting in the door of our house waiting for one of her friends to visit. I crossed the street, hid behind one of the almond trees, and threw the letter with so much precision that it fell into her lap. Frightened, she raised her hands, but the scream remained in her throat when she recognized the handwriting on the envelope. Sara Emilia and J. del C. were my
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