a desaparición de esme lennox

Let us begin with two girls at a dance.

They are at the adge of the room. One sits on a chair, opening and shutting a dance-card with gloves fingers. The other stands beside her, watching the dance unfold: the circling couples, the clasped hands, the drumming shoes, the whirling skirts, the bounce of the floor. It is the last hour of the year and the windows behind them are blank with night. The seated girl is dressed in something pale, Esme forgets what, the other in a dark red frock that doesn´t suit her. She has lost her gloves. It begins here.

Or perhaps not. Perhaps it beginf earlier, before the party, before they dressed in their new finery, before the candles were lit, before de sand was sprinkles on the boards, before the year whose end they are celebrating began. Who knows? Either way ir ends at a grille covering a window with each square exactly two thumb-nails wide.

If Esme cares to gaze into the distance -that is to say, at what lies beyond the metal grille- she finds that, after a while, something happend to the focusing mechanism of her eyes. The squares of the  grille will blir and, if she concentrates long enough, vanish. There is always a moment before her body reasserts itself, readjusting her eyes to the proper reality of the world, when it is just her and the trees, the road, the beyond. Nothing is between. 

The squares at the bottom are worn free of paint and you can see the different layers of colour inside each other, like rings in a tree. Esme is taller than most so can reach the part where the paint is new and think as tar. 

Behind her, a woman makes tea for her dead husband. Is he dead? Or just run off? Esme doesn´t recall. Another woman is searching for water to pour on flowers that perished long ago in a seaside town noi far from here. It is always the meaningless tasks that endure: the washing, the cooking, the clearing, the cleaning. Never anything majestic or significant, just the tiny rituals that hold together the seams of human life. The girl obsessed with cigarettes has had two warnings already and everyone is thinking she is about to get a third. And Esme is thinking, where does it begin -is it there, is it here, at the dance, in India, before?

She speaks to no one, these days. She want to concentrate, she doesn´t like to muddy things with the distraction of speech. There is a zoetrope inside her head and she doesn´t like to be caught out when it stops.

Whir, whir. Stop.

In India, then. The garden. Herself aged about four, standing on the back step.

Above her, mimosa trees are shaking their heads at her, powdering the lawn with yellow drust. If she walked across it, she´d leave a trail behind. She wants something. She wants something but she doesn´t know what. it´s like an itch she can´t reach to scratch. A drink? Her ayah? A silver of mando? She rubs at an insect bite on her arm and pokes at the yellow drust with her bare toe. In the distance somewhere she can hear her sister´s skipping-rope hitting the grounf and the short shuffle of feet in between. Slap shunt slap shunt slap shunt

 .

The vanishing act of Esme Lennox

Maggie O´Farrell

(2006)

traducido por Manuel Xestoso

A desaparición de Esme Lennox   

    Editorial Galaxia (2006)

Comeza con dúas mozas nun baile.

Están nun recanto da sala. Unha senta nunha cadeira, abrindo e pechando un carné de baile coas mand enluvadas. A outra permanece de pé á súa beira, vendo como se desenvolve o baile: os xiros das parellas, as mans a estreitarse, os zapator repenicados, o remuíño de saias, os choutos na pista. É a última hora do ano e a noite cega as fiestras detrás delas. A moza sentada viste algo pálido, Esme non lembra o que; a outra leva un vestido vermello escuro que non lle acae. Perdeu as luvas. Comeza aquí.

Ou talvez non. Talvez comeza antes, antes da festa, antes de que vestisen as súas novas galas, antes de que prendesen as candeas, antes de que esparexesen area no chan, antes de que comezase o ano cuxa fin están a celebrar. Quen sabe? En todo caso remata nunha reixa que cobre nunha ventá, formando cadrados de exactamente dous polgares de largura.

Se Esme se esforza por ver ao lonxe -é dicir, ao que se estende máis alá da grella metálica-, atopa que, ao pouco tempo, algo lle ocorre ao mecanismo de enfoque dos seus ollos. Os cadrados da reixa desdebúxanse e, se se concentra o suficiente, desaparecen. Sempre hai un momento, antes de que o seu corpo se reafirme en si mesmo, axustando a mirada á realidado do mundo , en que só existen ela e as árbores, a estrada, o alén. Nada que os separe. 

A pintura da parte inferior da reixa está erosionada e pódense ver diferentes capas de cor, coma os aneis dunha árbore. Esme é máis alta cá maioría, de xeiro que pode ver a parte onde a pintura é nova e mesta coma o chapapote. 

Atrás dela, unha muller fai o té para o seu marido morto. Está morto? Ou só a abandonou? Esme non o lembra. Outra muller está a buscar a auga para regar as flores que murcharon hai tempo nunha cidade da costa non moi afastada. Son as tarefas sen sentido as que sempre perduran: lavar, cociñar, arrombar, limpar. Nuna nada solmne ou significante, só os rituais ínfimos que manteñen unida a trama da vida. A moza obsesionada co tabaco xa recibiu dous avisos, e todos pensan que está a piques de recibir o terceiro. E Esme pensa, onde comeza todo? Alí, aquí, no baile, na India, antes? 

Non fala con ninguén estes días. Quere concentrarse, non lle gusta entoldar as cousas con lerias confusas. No interior da súa cabeza xira unha lanterna máxica e non lle gusta que a sorprendan cando para. 

Vira, vira. Para. 

Na India, daquela. O xardín. Ela propia, de catro anos, parada no chanzo de arriba. 

As mimosas inclínanse ante ela, cubrindo o céspede cunha fina capa de po amarelo. Se a cruzase, deixaría un ronsel. Quere algo. Quere algo, mais non sabe o que. É coma ter un proído e non poder rañar nel. Unha bebida? A aia? Unha laña de mango? Refrega unha picada de insecto no  brazo e escaravella no po amarelo coa deda núa. En algures, ao lonxe, escoita a súa irmá a saltar a corda, os golpes no chan e o breve roce dos pés entremedias. Un golpe, un roce, un golpe, un roce, un golpe, un roce.