FROM THe DesK OF: Patsy Lally
La Golondrina
Chapter 1
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When Emperor Maximillian of Mexico was brought to a high hill above Querataro to be executed, his last request was to hear La Golondrina played. It’s a song about a swallow with nowhere to hide, lost, unable to fly, who cannot return home. It is a song that causes people away from home to weep. Maximillan wept. I too am unable to fly or to return home. As a consequence of my circumstances, I have not wept in seven years.
Today, as I sit on the hill where I come to reflect, Victor brings me the news that in the United States I have been declared legally dead. Seven years ago, Victor Aguilar brought me to his village in Mexico to hide and heal. Victor is the doctor who glued me back together after he and his manservant, Jacques, picked me up out of the gutter in Old Town Portland Oregon where my husband had thrown me. They brought me here where I have been for seven years. Victor is big in his heart and soul, but small in stature. He is a dwarf. Victor used all his medical skills to piece me back together. Though I have lost most of the sight in one eye, my face has healed. The nose is now thin, aqueline. I have high cheekbones and a pointed chin. My blue eyes are now slanted. I need contact lenses to see well, which gives me the chance to change the color of my eyes if I choose. My skin has darkened in Mexico. My hair is long and midnight brown. Victor looks at me with love as he brushes it every evening. When we arrived at his Village he introduced me as his wife. Victor is, at any height, the man every women could love. He is the man I could love if my heart had not been blackened by betrayal and despair. I thought to be called Carlotta after Maximillian’s insane wife. Victor would not allow it. Even in his devotion, Victor knows I have gone a little insane. But he loves me. His love makes me wish I could feel that too; perhaps some day I can. Victor chose the name Golondrina. I am called Drina. Over the past seven years I have thought of swallowing my secret stash of barbiturates many times, but now that I have been declared dead anyway, I can go back to Oregon to destroy the man who murdered me.
Chapter 2
It hasn’t been easy for me, these years in Mexico. In the beginning my face was horribly swollen and I walked with a limp. Victor insisted that I go out for a walk with him to strengthen my legs, but I said we must go out at night to avoid people. We would go slowly. I always leaned my arm on his shoulder as I leaned myself on him for everything. Then we would sit in the Plaza where I would breathe deeply, inhaling the aromas of flowers, the spicy scent of the trees, and life. Part of me was still lying in the gutter in Old Town, and Victor was trying to bring it back even though he must have worried that bringing it back could take me from him.
Victor’s mother, Carmen, did not like me. She was proud of Victor. He was a doctor who worked for the people. He was kind and she saw him as too soft. He was not soft; he was brave for those things he felt deeply about. He felt deeply about me. She thought I was taking advantage of him. Perhaps I was.
My room was behind the dining room. I had a soft bed so I could sleep comfortably. The room was painted white, the bedspread and curtains were white. I knew it had been Victor’s room because the windowsill was lowered so he could see out easily. A red bouganvillea climbed up the wall and formed a heart shaped embrace around the window. It was the only embrace I allowed. Like the swallow, I had no place to go, so I have put my nest here until somehow the reason to fly again returns.
Carmen resented my resting in Victor’s little white room. Victor had moved to his deceased father’s old room which was full of heavy, large mahogany furniture. He must have hated that room. Victor talked to me of how his father resented his small stature, and being amongst that large furniture must have made him feel small and in his father’s disapproving presence again. But he wanted me near. I knew that and I allowed that.
Carmen was up early every morning. As soon as Victor would leave for his clinic she began banging pots, slamming crockery and shouting at her chickens. It was the only weapon she had to strike back at this strange woman from the north who had so captivated her son.
One morning as I was in that state between sleeping and waking when you feel you are floating in a peaceful place, a place you would like to stay for a while. the banging started. Carmen had gone out to the yard where she was chasing the chicken she had chosen to sacrifice for dinner that night. The chicken ran around in circles, Carmen in quick pursuit. I went into the yard, grabbed the poor feathered creature and wrung its neck the way I used to do on my father’s farm. Then I picked up a knive and slit its neck. I held that chicken over my head and let the blood run down my arm as I held Carmen’s gaze. I watched her gaze go from confused to fightened. I put the dead chicken in her hands and went back to my little white room. There was no more banging of pots in the mornings after that.
Chapter 3
I came down from the hill slowly, Victor’s news of my death weighing me down, and went into the little white room. I took a dusty, old cardboard suitcase from under the bed to began packing my few possessions. Carmen came once to peer into the room, then retreated to her kitchen. Victor came in and they began shouting. My Spanish had gotten somewhat better during the years, but their shouts were quick and loud. I didn’t understand the words, but the tone was angry. I gathered that Carmen felt it was time to chuck me out. Victor didn’t agree.
I kept putting things into the suitcase. Victor came into my room.
“What are you doing, Drina?” he said.
“It’s time for me to go home.”
“Go home for what?”
“Go home to do what I have to in order to come back to life.”
“Stay here with me. You are comfortable; you are safe. You know I will take care of you.”
I sat on the bed and looked at this man. I was so used to him that I didn’t see him as physically different from any other man. His large brown eyes and long black lashes were as beautiful to me as a red and gold sunset over the sea. He could speak volumes to me by just running his thumb along my hand or lifting my dark hair from my shoulder to sweep it back.When I can love again, Victor will be the first person I give my love to. But a part of me was dead, as dead as I was on an official document.
“I have to go. You must know why,” I said.
“How will you go? How can you get back into the country?”
I hadn’t thought. I was consumed with the need to go back to the day I had been thrown into the gutter and avenge the terrible wrong that had been done to me. It was only thoughts of vengeance that made me feel I was still alive.
“We will go with you,” Victor said. “Jacques and I. We will help you do what you feel you must.” When he said it, he looked sad. I knew him so well now that I could read his thoughts. Once she is free of this, will she still stay near me? It was a question he couldn’t bring himself to ask and it was a question I couldn’t have answered. I didn’t know.
Chapter 4
We are back in Old Town Portland now. Victor is working at a free clinic here for the homeless and helpless. Jacques works in a local bar. I work in a clothing exchange where rich people drop off donated clothing. They always ask for a receipt, those rich people, so they can get a tax deduction for their charity. We three live in a tiny brick building which dates back to Portland’s sordid past. Under the building are tunnels which had been used for brothels, opium dens, and hiding kidnapped and drugged sailors for sale to the highest bidding captain for the big masted ships.
Victor, Jacques and I each have a small room. I like that it is small and that the building is difficult to locate. It gives the illusion of safety. I walk up two flights of stairs and unlock a door with peeling green paint. Jacques is directly across the hallway. Victor is next door. There are no apartment numbers or letters in the building. You know where you are going or you don’t belong. The owner of the building, Thelma, is a gruff old woman whose face is crisscrossed with lines of laughter and sorrow. Sometimes late at night someone will bring a woman or a woman with a small child or two to stay until they can be moved again safely along an invisible highway to safety.
Inside my room I had painted the walls coffee brown with red trim. I suspect part of my feeling of safety in this room is that I felt as if I had returned to the womb. A return to the womb might be a welcome thing. That is, if I could be sure It would be a different womb this time. A return to my own past, a mother who never wanted me, who died young by her own hand, and a father who sought to make me a complete replacement for her, is anathema to me even in memories. A marriage to someone who took advantage of my great need to love, a need that didn’t take into account that I should want someone who would love me back, but who bullied and abused me until I ended up in the gutter, was the result of my lack of courage.
Now I lived in my little room. Once someone or something wrote the name Lila in the steam on my bathroom mirror. That when I knew I shared the room with the trapped soul of a dear who could not yet depart this place. Perhaps she had a sad story too. Perhaps all sad stories are the same; a woman loves a man, too late finds out the evil beneath the handsome surface, too late to avoid the debt she must pay for her innocence, naivete, or the path down which her longing has led her. Lila does not frighten me. We are somewhat sisters.
The contents of my closet would confound even Sherlock Holmes. Working at the clothing exchange I have first pick of things donated. I have a black Armani dress carefully protected under a soft, felt wrap. There were khaki slacks and white t-shirts. Adding a blue blazer to those I could be a census taker, a delivery person, a college student or anything else. Replacing the blazer with a ratty, old sweater, I could be homeless. In any event, I could roam around Portland like the invisible woman I had become.
Chapter 5
My husband, the same one who had pushed me out of a moving car seven years ago, was a creature of habit. He had the arrogance of the rich and powerful. He had the best looks money could buy, perfect white teeth, blonde hair that curled softly around his strong features, expertly shaped eyebrows, and a healthy glowing complexion. He also had the expectations of the scions of wealthy families. Kenneth Lee Davies was the third generation of the Davies lumbering dynasty. The first generation, his grandfather, worked tirelessly to set up the business. His father carried on expanding the business. Now it was Kenneth’s job to hang on and milk it for all it was worth to maintain the lifestyle to which he had become accustomed. It is well known that third generation managers have been known to screw up even the strongest businesses. The girlfriends were well paid to put up with his peccadillos. The wife was in the precarious position. Wife number one had escaped somehow with little to show for the four years she was with him. I was wife number two. Now that I was declared legally dead, there was wife number three according to the newspapers.
Kenneth had favorite places where he could be catered to and admired by the managers, headwaiters and anyone else in his vicinity. In my understated little black Armani, I sit in the oak-paneled London Grill at the Benson Hotel. In the same consignment shop where I found the Armani, I bought a lavender amethyst necklace. It matches the lavender contacts in my eyes. Kenneth and wife number three sit in a booth across from me. He hadn’t even looked at my booth or noted how closely I was watching him. Funny how someone whose features are perfectly aligned and can check all the boxes for extraordinary looking can, when one has seen beyond the façade, become ugly and revolting.
He looked across and glanced at me once. He saw a well dressed woman with her dark hair pulled back into a chignon, a face not quite properly aligned. In his world, nothing special. He glanced away quickly.
Forcing myself to concentrate on my food, I began cutting my petit filet mignon into small ladylike bites, keeping my fork in my left hand, tines down, I eat British style. I look down at the petit pois on my plate. The little green peas mock me, knowing full well I cannot eat them like a proper English lady. The best way to eat peas is to smash them into mashed potatoes and then shovel the mixture into your outh. This is neither ladylike nor English. The little peas are safe from me. I can’t afford steak very often. The aroma of my filet is tantalizing, the little mushrooms and bloody red juice on the plate make me want nothing so much as to grab a piece of the crusty French bread from the basket on the table and sop it all up, stuffing it into my mouth in a most unladylike style. Gloria Vanderbilt said you can never be too rich or too thin. I will probably never be either. I take a sip of the deep red Burgundy at my right hand.
Now that Kenneth had no interest in looking at me, I turned my attention to the woman. She wore an Ann Klein white linen suit. Her long, blonde hair was cut perfectly. But she pinned one side back with a cheap plastic barrette. Once again Kenneth has preselected a vulnerable woman. Because I watched them so closely, I was probably the only one in the room who saw what really happened next. As she reached across the table for salt or butter or something, the golden god took his steak knife and deftly sliced the inside of her arm, the part where blue veins pulse, where blood is close to the surface. She was as surprised as I. Her cry was muffled and piteous. It was the anguished, silent cry that expected no response. I knew that cry.
She drew her arm inward toward herself, staring down at the cut. Bright red blood began dripping onto the white linen. As the waiter ran over with several napkins to wrap her arm, I saw Kenneth quickly take her steak knife and replace it with his own.
“Darling, why did you do that?” he asked. “We’ve talked about this.”
Restaurant patrons broke off their boring conversations to look up. The woman remained silent, her face as white as the linen suit. I saw it then, the fright as her eyes swept the room looking for any hope of rescue, or salvation, or just validation that she should not be subjected to this. Her eyes met mine just as the man helped her to her feet. I gripped my table tightly to restrain myself, to keep myself from jumping up to use his steak knife on him.
“Come darling,” he said, “let’s get you some help.”
“Is there anything I can do?” asked the waiter, handing Kenneth more clean white napkins.
“No,” was the answer, but there was a shrug of his shoulders and a sad look with downcast eyes. It was his act; it was his way of saying look what I have to put up with. The waiter’s name was Willie. Kenneth noticed it and I noticed it. Kenneth might need it some day to corroborate a story about his unstable wife. Wife three was already in danger.
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Living in Mexico for seven years using the name Golondrina Aguilar, Susan Davies' crushed face has been reconstructed. Susan has been pushed into the gutter from her husband's moving car in Old Town Portland. Her rescuer, Dr. Victor Aguilar, brings her the news she had been declared legally dead in the United States. His hope is that they can be married and stay in Mexico. Golondrina's response to the news, however, shocks Victor. She says that she is now free to go back to Portland to avenge her murder. What Golondrina finds in Portland is that her husband has remarried, and his new wife is already in danger. What will she do to avenge herself and help this new victim?
Patsy Lally was born in Brooklyn, New York. She now lives in Portland, Oregon. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Eastern Oregon University. Her short story, The Day I Met My Mother, Tulip Tree Review, Summer 2019, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her writing focuses on the impact of child abuse, not only on the child but on the adult survivors and how they handle the life situations handed t them. Patsy is an international tour guide leading tours around the globe and in the United States.