contemplated us for a few satisfied moments, came toward us. Thirty years have passed since that morning, but I can still see clearly the curious way she moved then, throwing her torso forward and her buttocks slightly back, arms folded with elbows out and hands crossing each other rhythmically at her navel, a slight swing in her hips, adopting with her expression and agility, despite the apparent delicacy of her form, the masculine air of a young boy. Impudently, she planted herself a meter distant and wagged her left index finger, crooking it in to signal me to come closer; trying, amiable and firm, in the patient tone one might use with a disobedient child, she said: Come here, and Iâll suck it . With a cry both overwhelmed and appalled, the Mother Superior hurled herself from the room, although she must have witnessed similar scenes many times. But among the mad I had seen far worse, and I have to say, there had been something amusing in the contrast between the little nunâs crudeness and the excessive modesty of the Mother Superior, who was unable to see things from a medical angle, and soâwithout becoming the slightest bit upset, and trying not to appear shocked by anythingâIapproached the little nun with my best smile, explaining that I had not come for that, but rather to look after her as a doctor, and that as we were going to be living together from now on it was best that we maintained a good relationship. She burst out laughing and stuck out her tongue again, and tapped at it lightly with her finger, taking it into her mouth and asking: So not like this . . . ? I promised I would come by to see her that week and left the room. While the Mother Superior was locking up, Sister Teresita stood in the window behind the grille, and, in a cheery and playful tone, as if telling a secret the three of us would share, began to softly recite a list of horrifying obscenities, describing voluptuous acts that the Mother Superior and I were supposedly about to commit and from which she was unfairly excluded.
When we arrived at her chamber, I saw that the Mother Superiorâs eyes were full of tears and, taking pity, I tried to console her, explaining that madness ought not be judged by moral standards nor addressed within our usual categories of thought. After a time, the Mother Superior seemed to quiet and, as I bid her goodbye, I noticed her attitude toward me had changed; she appeared to have set aside her mistrust. However, when we parted, the unpleasant sensation remained that the Mother Superior had not told me the whole truth about the little nun.
A surprise witness would confirm this for me a few days later. Notified of my presence in the city, Dr. López, a local physician and friend to the Parra family, invited me to visit himâout of politeness to be sure, but also to discuss several matters important to the due practice of our profession, and to consult upon a few difficult cases he had been treating in the hospital. That hospital was once Jesuit and has since been restored to them on their return to America; if my information is correct, it was in those years under the charge of the Franciscans, who had, to put it one way, âannexedâ the neighboring monastery. If anything cansuggest the general poverty that reigned in that city, and how only a few families were spared, it is the fact that the chapter-house, the hospital, and the jail operated out of the same building, a long chorizo , as the cheeky local idiom had come to name all constructions with a plan that, vertical or parallel to the street, extended in a single long line of rooms, or in two, separating at a courtyard and meeting at the front to form the buildingâs main body. In this building, shaped then like a squared-off U , the façade, where the government, the administration, and a small police station were located, occupied an entire block on the main plaza, and of the two wings extending from the façade to
When we arrived at her chamber, I saw that the Mother Superiorâs eyes were full of tears and, taking pity, I tried to console her, explaining that madness ought not be judged by moral standards nor addressed within our usual categories of thought. After a time, the Mother Superior seemed to quiet and, as I bid her goodbye, I noticed her attitude toward me had changed; she appeared to have set aside her mistrust. However, when we parted, the unpleasant sensation remained that the Mother Superior had not told me the whole truth about the little nun.
A surprise witness would confirm this for me a few days later. Notified of my presence in the city, Dr. López, a local physician and friend to the Parra family, invited me to visit himâout of politeness to be sure, but also to discuss several matters important to the due practice of our profession, and to consult upon a few difficult cases he had been treating in the hospital. That hospital was once Jesuit and has since been restored to them on their return to America; if my information is correct, it was in those years under the charge of the Franciscans, who had, to put it one way, âannexedâ the neighboring monastery. If anything cansuggest the general poverty that reigned in that city, and how only a few families were spared, it is the fact that the chapter-house, the hospital, and the jail operated out of the same building, a long chorizo , as the cheeky local idiom had come to name all constructions with a plan that, vertical or parallel to the street, extended in a single long line of rooms, or in two, separating at a courtyard and meeting at the front to form the buildingâs main body. In this building, shaped then like a squared-off U , the façade, where the government, the administration, and a small police station were located, occupied an entire block on the main plaza, and of the two wings extending from the façade to
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