THREE WIDOWS
«Dicen acá que
loque se lleva de esta vida
es la vida que se lleva«
(«We say here that when you die
the only thing that you take with you from the life you had,
is the kind of life you had»)
Lutgarde
They couldn’t have been more different: she was blonde, overwhelmingly talkative and expressive, hyperactive and nervous, always a bit angry (or so I thought because her language: Flemish sounds abrupt to Latin ears). He was dark, upright, calm, invariably silent although his curious eyes recorded and collected everything he saw; cautious and shy he replied to his wife’s long speeches with a laconic ‘yes’ or, worse, an ‘uhum’.
It was their first big trip abroad, to Peru from their distant Flanders, and although he seldom smiled -to his hosts’ concern- his agile mind carefully translated all the explanations and he videotaped the images of such an alien, exotic and incomprehensible world.
And so what had to happen happened, in Iquitos riding on a moto-taxi (a trip that probably seemed more surreal to them than the extravagant modern paintings in Belgian museums) the blonde nurse and the dark haired mechanics teacher got separated from the rest of their group. As always happened with this couple of extremes, she wanted to look for her group in Belen market walking towards the river, while he stubbornly tried to take his chances by walking in the opposite direction.
This drama had a happy ending and today we can laugh about it, but I shall never forget the face of their hostess, my 14 year old daughter, who sensibly suggested they take a taxi and go back to the hotel while both characters insisted ongoing their own ways.
At that time I did not know that Herman had cancer, that he had undergone terrible treatment and that his doctors thought he only had five more years to live. Only a challenge as definitive as this could take him away from his safe routine, his narrow limits and well-known territory to go on such a long trip.
Although in public his rigid silence made him look like his talkative wife’s subordinate, he was really a very hard working man, who worked like a devoted ant, quietly organising, planning, regulating and implementing a series of routines and rituals at home that had his house functioning perfectly. But in that efficient network of solutions, that seemed to appear effortlessly and unprompted, was his wife, taking it all for granted and enjoying life and love with him.
I was near them when cancer struck again, its predictable pain was so great that his doctor, with brutal frankness, told him his real chances: they could process him again, isolate him and bomb him with chemotherapy or leave him alone. With great strength she uttered the only sentence capable of shaking him out of giving up: he had to fight for his family. And that is what he did.
In the subsequent months we saw him bloat and lose weight, lose his hair and suffer greatly, but he took some breaks during the non-treatment periods and enjoying a Pisco Sour he remembered Machu Picchu while his wife talked to him. We went out together, for dinner and for walks, he never left his job, his routine, his jogging or his students. As his brother rightly said, Herman fought death in the same way he always lived, with an agenda in his hand.
I could not possibly identify the voice that phoned one night. The husky whisper of an exhausted animal could not have seemed more alien, and yet it was Lutgarde. There had been some very severe unforeseen complications in the treatment, and her husband would die at any moment.
It is not easy to describe how couples in Flanders live, I have lived here for 12 years and am still surprised by it. It is charming to see couples, of all ages, always hand in hand, white-haired accomplices, absolutely egalitarian in their relationships, sharing their money -so hard earned- on small luxuries and pleasant outings together, on carefully planned trips, on bike tours, in theatres and parks, giving themselves completely in this exclusive type of love; always together.
There is no place for widows in Flanders, their solitude knows no bounds, and they do not have the extended family network that we Latin-Americans do. They bring up their children to be strong and self-sufficient and when they fly the nest their independence is total, with their parents and their parent’s parents before them.
The funeral proceedings really surprised me. All the detailed decisions of the ceremony were made serenely, in front of an undertaker armed with a modern laptop and an elegant catalogue. The widow and her daughters carefully and imperturbably chose the type of coffin, the text that would be on the cards and letters, the flowers, the crematorium, the location and date the funeral would be held.
I remembered a warm afternoon many months earlier when my cheerful husband had explained to me that because of the busy lives led by people in Flanders, funerals usually take place long after a person has passed. When I asked him what happened then, if the widow or the children wanted to accompany the dearly departed, he raised his enquiring eyebrow in astonishment and asked me: «why?! Why would they do that?!” – “To be with him!”–“… … well” (not very convinced that such a thing should happen) “then I guess they would go to the mortuary, take him out of the freezer, look at him and put him back in the freezer.” I mentally compared this with the Latin-American wake where the whole family accompanies the dearly departed, we touch him, we caress him, we pray for him, we look at him while in the background the gathering gets underway and becomes worldlier as the night draws on.
Until the day of the funeral Lutgarde went by train every day to the mortuary of the hospital to be with her husband, to ask him why he had gone like that, why he had left her so alone, why hadn’t he told her how much he loved her before he died, why had he not left her instructions to follow for this eventuality, why, why, why, why? ………
In the mass my husband paid his brother of 55 years old a precious, just and sincere homage. She was there, shrunken in her tragedy, with her blonde hair shining over the sorrow of black, she stood there, straight and solemn, emitting few but precise words of greeting and thanks, ethereally calm and wrapped up in that veil of the brewing storm that you perceive around a woman being strong in the face of fatality. Because Flemish women pride themselves on their strength, they despise the shame of crying in public, they appreciate the moral value of hiding their sorrow, and they scorn self-pitying tears. They are brought up to be stoic; they withstand great blows with the strength of a man.
After the funeral, sorrow was unleashed at home and she became ever more shrunken, while the husky whisper settled in her throat. She dragged her feet around her empty house, trying to find Herman’s voice, his footsteps, smelling his clothes, invading his side of their bed with relentless hope during the sleepless nights. At night her ice-cold house remained dark, during the day the curtains remained drawn and the living room was black, her plants wilted, dust began to settle and the kitchen was almost never lit.
Soon enough problems started arriving and he was not there. Then she understood the depth of her solitude. She could not regulate the heating while the temperature reached 10 degrees below zero; she had no idea where the bills were, where the cheque book was, how much she should pay for the funeral nor where that money would come from. She could not even change the recorded message on the answer phone where Herman’s voice astonished the callers with his short, precise message. The refrigerator began to stop working, bills kept coming, she began to panic.
Until the day she decided to light the fire in the fireplace. A titanic task that she had seen the efficient Herman undertake each winter. Xmas was getting closer and, almost lost behind the wheel of his car (a car she never drove before because Herman was her driver); she went to search for firewood.
We went to see her at Xmas. Her house was shining, so clean and cosy, with cushions decorated with Xmas drawings, the phone message had been changed, all the bills had been paid. She had beautiful Xmas decorations and she proudly invited us to sit near her fire where huge blocks of wood were burning.
All evening she combined nice, friendly chat with spirited trips for more firewood and she tended to the fire with professional style and a huge asbestos glove. Her golden hair fell over a fuller face, back was her assertive and lively voice, and she calmly showed us her duly paid and filed bills. Whenever she asked for an opinion it was always to confirm her own judgment over possible savings and bank transactions.
Sometimes sadness returns in all her strength and I know it from her exhausted whisper which conveys her sorrow to me. In the intermediate language in which we communicate she encourages me to travel more with my husband: dear friend, life is too short, I know -she says and her voice breaks down. But Lutgarde is a wonderful Flemish woman, she is a fighter and has taken the reins of her own life in her hands; besides, she now has a grandchild.
IONARA
When we travelled to Rio we were asked to visit my sister’s brother in law who was about to marry a Brazilian girl, and it was a pleasure to see them together. She was lively, talkative, with an internal beauty that escapes through her eyes and greets life with a big smile. He looked at her adoringly and, although smiling and calm, sometimes he said something ironic about her or women in general. She was always the engine that moved him to study; she set him goals and encouraged him to meet them, always with a cheeky smile and always offering him the shelter of her great love.
When they visited Lima together with their little children the looks they gave each other were magnetic, the slightest touch of their hands when near each other sent vibrations that everybody could feel. In front of others she adopted a secondary place, saying ‘yes’ to everything he said, proposing topics that showed him in a good light. Very rarely did she crack a joke but when she did it was in a spirit of tenderness and love. When she chatted with other women his eyes followed her with passion and with the shining love that in more than 20 years together never lost its lustre.
We admired her so much! A full time gymnastics teacher, she also travelled to buy handicrafts in Peru and always found admiring buyers for them in Rio de Janeiro; she bought a little wagon to take tourists to the main sites in Rio too. She was always active with at least two jobs but she never left her children unattended and she was always there for her husband. She was ever happy and unaffected.
“Carlos has cancer and we have come to look for any medicine”, she told us. Having exhausted chemotherapy, the expert doctors, the hospital corridors of formal nightmare, they were searching for anything that could give them hope. In Peru they found Cat’s Claw and others suggested homeopathy, Carlos took everything and did everything he was told to do; thus he lived for many years.
Last year at a luncheon in Lima he looked so well! He was even a touch overweight and he spoke to us of their plans: their children were grown up and had their futures clearly mapped out. He and Ionara were building their house and they wanted many guests, that was their life dream. In the midst of her ever-active life she was planning the decoration of their nest with things bought on all her trips, while he did the drawings for the layout of the house, decided on the spaces he needed to do his hobbies late in life.
Some months later my niece phoned me to say that she was travelling to Rio, her uncle Carlos was dying in hospital. Thanks to her I learnt the details. I wrote to Ionara, I phoned her, but nothing could replace the sisterly hug that I needed to give her.
I learnt that when Carlos was in the hospice/hospital for the terminally ill, Ionara had enrolled as a volunteer to be closer to him and take as much care of him as possible. In spite of her active and restless personality, she managed to organize her jobs of director, instructor and trainer very well in order to be able to devote all her time to him. She put herself in the hands of her faith and felt peace because Carlos never complained of pain.
Carlos’s whole Peruvian family was there. With their strong northern male voices and their eternal jokes they all tried to alleviate his departure, as men do, as should be done. Carlos was 55 years old. When he passed away, back came his childish features and they all had photos taken with him. They tried to help with the paper work while Ionara decided where the immediate funeral should take place and took care of her many guests, stealing a few minutes, here and there, to be alone with her husband, hold his hand, touch his hair, and bathe him in the tenderness of a happy life together.
Worried for her children and her guests and praying to San Expedito to give her resignation she stumbled through those hours, somehow through the mist of all the tiny tasks that had to be done. Ionara answered my letter with a beautiful letter in Portuñol (half Portuguese, half Spanish) and I share it here with you: «We say here that the only thing you have from life when you die is the kind of life you had» ……… «Carlos is no longer with us and this is something that you feel all the time. I think of him many times a day, things remind me of him, of all the things we did together and now things are different, it is no longer the way it was before. I still cry a lot, at home, at work, when am driving or walking in the street, it is not easy, it is not easy. Now I take care of the paper work at home and am taking over the construction of our house. I have to do what Carlos used to do: buy the building materials, talk with the construction workers, study what is best to do at home, that is, everything that is needed to complete our house … … … I think … … … I am going to work a lot, I am going to finish our house, I am going to do this, I am going to do that and everybody thinks I am very strong, that I am a strong woman that can bear it all. But it is not so, my friend, inside my body I am broken up into tiny pieces. Some days I wake up and wonder, why? What is the reason? Why can’t I enjoy the grace of life anymore? Why don’t I have the will to do anything? Why? Why? Why? And why?
If I did not have the company of my family, the family of Carlos and my friends, all of them so marvellous, I would be like an idiot right now, because it is a feeling that is stronger than me. I could not control myself ……………… I was lucky to have so many members of our families near me, they gave me strength, and I hope that all the Peruvians that were here also felt that we wanted to take care of them with love, friendship and hospitality. We had dreamt so often of the inauguration of our home with all our family and friends and see! See! How it was that we could get them all here together!
Thus, my friend -she said to me- enjoy yourself as much as you can with your husband. Don’t waste time on silly fights, a minute lost in life is a minute lost forever. Life is too short, now I know it well.
Ionara’s children left to start their adult lives and I know that Ionara has visited my country looking for formal trade contacts to export handicrafts. I long to see this strong woman, who is so tender, who is so vital, that can cry in public because she knows that tears help wash sorrow from your heart.
CRISTINA
I grew to know her year by year and each time I admired her more. Full of dreams and armed with the strong will to reach them, she spent her days painting life and drawing passions. She seemed so unreachable; when boys flirted with her she baffled them with her replies, in a language so personal that nobody could understand her. Her body was so fragile but her spirit was so strong and we all knew that she was destined to have a future that would break all moulds. If anyone could make her dreams come true, it certainly was Cristina.
When she introduced me to her husband I felt a dense cloud around him, he was not a good man, and I could feel it. But he was a very bright man who understood her language and guided her through dark mazes in life.
It was painful to see this evolve, my friend was vanishing, losing her light, her mediaeval armour of fairy and knight became rotten and sour, she lost confidence in herself, she rejected her old dreams.
From his almighty height he started to build fences all around her and at the beginning she fought them back but at some point in time during their life together she stopped fighting. I don’t know how he did it but our plastic Cristina started to abandon herself, like a beautifully decorated purple candle with golden angels and curls that burns and gets gradually flat, melting in wrinkled grotesque mouths, that expand until they are plain and dead, it was so sad.
She gave in to all his whims, he alone was always right, she avoided accepting the truth, she isolated herself. She put metal plates on the fences that he built around her. She lived only for him and she discarded her inner self.
She would follow no advice, she would accept no encouragement to leave him, and her sense of duty was as hard as oak, That man was her husband and she would never leave him. She would not understand that love is about making each other happy, nothing more, and nothing less.
Maybe our culture celebrates uncritical and blind obedience, and we are unaware that it can castrate; a machista upbringing that emphasises sacrifice -almost always in only one direction- and promotes serfdom; a sadistic education that blackmails a child ‘who probably does not eat because he does not love his mother’ or feeds children in excess because ‘there are so many children who suffer hunger’ and in that way we bring them up among the slimy sense of guilt, red shame caused by others and grey endeavours to be punished. But forever, depending on our supreme maternal power to solve their problems, curtailing their free choice day after day and we continue this chain with our daughters, generation after generation, one after the other and the next, until the infinite shout of anger.
And then we wonder awake: why are we like sheep? Why don’t we rebel? Why do we take all this humiliation? Why? Why? Why? Why?
The roles of Cristina and her husband followed a well trodden path. He ruled, she pleased him; he shouted, she begged; he ordered, she prayed. When, on very few occasions she seemed to wake up, their personalities crashed with the same intensity but it was always she who gave up.
When I urged her to leave him, to fight for her own happiness she repeated, with a monotone voice, the wise sentence of a general: We are trained for everything in life, my friend, except for the most important things: to be happy, to be parents, to get old, to become pensioners, and to die.
One day, as had happened so often before, her husband did not come home, but this time the voice of a woman called her from a hospital to announce that after a serious accident he was in the emergency ward.
Tormented by doubt and sorrow she arrived just in time to see him die and then she locked herself up in silence and blackness. She refuses to see any friend, she does not answer the phone, she does not reply to any letter. It has been more than a year now and nobody has seen her, not even once.
I was not close to her then and am sorry for that, a woman with such sensitivity needed her real friends around her at that time. I wonder if at 55 she still has the time and strength to break down the metal fences around her and to recover her mediaeval dreams and I hope she does ………… because life is very short as Ionara knows; as Lutgarde knows.
I hope that she will embrace what Marti once said: «we are all born to be happy».
Being happy is not a sin.
Friend
La Narradora 