Yo había llegado hace tres años a Melbourne, seguía escribiendo en español pero se había convocado este concurso literario de cuentos, en inglés obviamente y... why not? En esta primera edición del concurso decidí participar traduciendo un cuento mío que se llamaba El trofeo. Coni, mi hija que en ese entonces tenía 8 años me ayudó a pulirlo! Ella definitivamente tenía más oido para aquello que sonaba "muy traducido" y me ayudó a darle esa cadencia nativa al relato, llamado ahora "The trophy". Recibí con mucha alegría una mención de honor. La ceremonia de entrega de premios fue en la Municipalidad, la misma a la cual que unos años más tarde asistiría para asumir la nacionalidad australiana. Aquí, el cuento premiado:
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The trohpy
Her teeth were the most prominent feature of her face as there were only three left: two of them hanging loosely from the only remaining strong roots that dared to defy the passing of her ninety years. And one more down there, deep in her mouth, only visible when she laughed openly. Soundly. Loud. I wouldn’t say they were white, but would be lying if I said they were the teeth of an old woman. Those three ivory surfaces which looked a bit worn-out were her war trophy, her winning ticket. They represented better than any other piece of her little body a glorious and victorious flag of triumph.
I must admit that I didn’t recognize her immediately. From within the curling smoke of cigarettes and the odour of dozens of flowers arranged around the coffin, she was just one more among those who came to say a last goodbye to my father.
Within thirty minutes of being there I had learnt the ritual very quickly: they come in, hug me, make the effort to shed a tear, to assume a sad expression, to say I’m very sorry or He was a great guy your father. They feel uncomfortable until I release them from their discomfort with either of the two mechanized expressions: “What is meant to be is meant to be”, or “that’s life”. During the four and a half hours I had already spent there, no one had deviated from the sacre script, as if this was a holy rite learned inadvertently within seconds. Not original at all, certainly, but very effective in order to avoid analysing in depth the notion of death. Just to say what you have to say and that’s that.
Everyone was following more or less the standard format of the ritual, so much so that I secretly begun amusing myself by betting which of the two phrases would the next relative, friend or occasional visitor, say to me. And that’s when she came in and caught my attention.
I saw her coming, heavily wrapped despite the high temperatures of January, and without recognising her I bet on I’m very sorry (or its variant, “I feel sorry for you”.) She started to approach me, dragging her feet as if she was walking on a recently-waxed floor. It seemed to me she was laughing. Impossible -I thought- simply impossible: this ancient lady must have caught her jaw, poor thing; she cannot even hide a silly smiling expression in a funeral. One of my father’s aunties, probably.
She was half a step away from me when, instead of coming towards my seat, she continued walking straight to the coffin. I focussed my eyes on her grey, unkempt hair and on her mouth that was…laughing! Her mouth was indeed laughing, loudly and deafeningly. The expression I had just seen was thus not an ailment; it wasn’t an ongoing ache or pain: the three-toothed old woman was roaring, arching her back with every guffaw, as loud as anybody could have ever heard in a funeral parlour.
Astonished, those present did not know wether to shake her softly to calm her down or just to leaver her alone – because such outrageous mirth in front of the deceased couldn’t have been anything other than an inappropriate and hysterical unpleasant reaction. No one, including those next to her, dared to do anything but leave her alone.
As for me, I was tempted to follow them, but those three stubborn teeth in her mouth told me there was something else in such laughter. After all, no one can be so wild as to defy the time-honoured ritual of the last good bye.
I rose from the armchair in which I seemed to have been sitting for ages, accommodated my bones and walked towards her. I evidently took more time than I should have taken because when I brought myself closer to the coffin, the old woman was no longer there.
A vision? Could my fatigue have played a bad trick on me so as to make me see ghosts? I made sure that everything around was in order and in its place just to confirm that I was not becoming crazy. There they brought more wreaths. More people arrived. Some went away. Another wreath was brought, this one from the Australian Dental Association. Oh, my father would have been so particularly proud of this one: “To the honourable President”, it said in golden letters.
Having ensured that everything was running smoothly and as expected, I was about to return to my seat when an envelope on the left side of the polished coffin caught my attention. White, medium in size, regular. I opened it.
With spidery handwriting – the handwriting of an old person- it said:
“Dear Doctor, I told you my teeth would last longer than you”
Then I laughed, suddenly recognising her. I laughed out loud, openly out loud. I defied all the codes, all the rituals, the holy rites, the protocols. I defied those present, those alive, those dead. Like Flora, his very first patient, I laughed, and in that laughter my father was more alive than ever before.♦
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