PearlsEbookBook-English-Final

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pearls around the neck catherine beeckman photos tim gallo

pearls around the neck Text and illustrations copyright Š 2012 by Catherine Beeckman Published by Books 2 Live 4 Winston-Salem, North Carolina www.books2live4.com All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

This publication may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the permission in writing of the publishers.

ISBN 978-1-62314-376-3

This book is dedicated to the men that gave birth to me, my two Grand Fathers, my Father, my first Husband, my half-Brother, my everlasting Friends, my Husband, my Companion and my Lover my two Sons

Table of Contents Foreword Introduction Illustrator Acknowledgments 1. The Pearl of Awakening The Genesis of a Woman, the Jacaranda blossoming Catherine Beeckman, Argentina Painting a Picture of me Marijke Delen B., Canada Learning to Swim Haim Park, South Korea I laid my Body Maria Antequera, Argentina Twelve Moons Marie JJMG, Switzerland 2. The Pearl of a Child My Hindi Lullaby, my Baby Aditi, India Two Mothers, two Loves Cristina Roche, Colombia Kinderwens. Child Desire Huguette Cornillie, Belgium I do not want it Catherine Beeckman, USA I want the wrong Thing Ana Jespersen, Denmark

3. The Pearl of Mother Life Cycle Denita, USA Kneeling in the Hallway Catherine Beeckman, USA Self Portrait of a Confession R.V.I., Belgium For Mom Paula Saporiti, Uruguay The Reason Why Anonymous, Chile 4. The Pearl of Love The Amorous Battle Marisa Estelrich, USA Look at Me Maria Antequera, Argentina Die Zoen. The Kiss, from a Woman to a Woman Karin Hougaard, South Africa Falling Rose Petals Ohnmar Win, Myanmar 5. The Pearl of Disillusion The final Period Cynthia Jaramillo, Ecuador Bob by the Pond Catherine Beeckman, USA Logorrhea or Silence. A hybrid Dialogue Juana Lende, Argentina 6. The Pearl of Sexuality Sex in the City Catherine Beeckman, USA

A Nightingale on your Stem Marisa Estelrich, USA “Harpy” of the cell phone: Sexting.

Anonymous, USA Sex in Tokyo: Sex…?

Catherine Beeckman, Japan 7. The Pearl of Political Conflict The first Day in the Life of a Cuban-American Sylvia Amarilis, Cuba I great You, Maria full of Grace Catherine Beeckman, USA/Congo Crossing Borders, crossing Limits María de Jesús García Sánchez, Mexico A mixed Couple: the Politics of Love Tina, Angel and Lauren, USA I am an African. If I am white?

Karin Hougaard, South Africa Dearest Amalia Lucia Marroquin, Argentina Perspectives Deboleena Mazumbar, India 8. The Pearl of Social Commitment 10,000 Girls in Kaolak Catherine Beeckman and Viola Vaughn, Senegal Innocent and fragile Victims of a Cataclysm Olivia Owen, Haiti Tohoku Earthquake Catherine Beeckman, Japan A fantastic anti-plastic Mother Valérie Lecoeur, USA

9. The Pearl of Culinary Gems Irreverent Recipe!

Jean Stevens, USA A blog: gleaned and picked in Nature CĂŠcile Conti, France A heroic Fair Catherine Beeckman, USA 10. The Pearl of Illness An ordinary Day Adrienne@gmail.com Udderly ridiculous. The X-ray of a Nipple Anonymous, Germany A Message to my Enemy Eurydice L. White, USA An endless Appetite for Desires Catherine Beeckman, Belgium 11. The Pearl of Time that ages us A Castaway of Time Catherine Beeckman, USA Ruin of a Woman Amalia Saporiti Amorim, Spain Horse Lucia Arroquin, Argentina 12. The Pearl of Death The Loss of a Child C.d.W., Switzerland Our Northern Star Marijke Delen B., Canada In Black Amailia Saporiti Amorim, Spain

Elephants by a babbling Brook Kelly dal Pozzo, USA 13. The spiritual Pearl Zen Meditation in Kamakura Catherine Beeckman, Japan Karen’s Morning Prayer to the Lord Karen Fischler, USA Redemption Tina Haynie, Kenya 14. The Pearl of Poetry and Essays I want to return NenÊ Lucero, Argentina A very committed Biker Catherine Beeckman, USA Waiting Paula Saporiti, Argentina The Knitter Susana Maria Bavio, Argentina PAD Laurabeth Gill, South Africa El Curro, nothing more Marisa Estelrich, Spain 15. Chapter 15

Foreword A hospital in Bangui, Central African Republic.

She places a thin strip of red fabric around her newborn daughter’s neck; it will protect her.

Well, maybe it will. Who knows?

Where does this tradition come from? That’s not what matters…

Kirra Beach, Australia.

Necklaces made of natural fibers, wooden beads and various seeds are displayed on the sand. She chooses the simplest one and ties it around her already encumbered neck, thus completing her collection of autochthon jewels.

Galliera Museum, Paris, France.

She absentmindedly runs her fingers over the pearls of her necklace. The nacreous, opaline presence of the fine pearls soothes her, bringing her the bit of serenity that evades her at these society events. « Los 36 Billares », Buenos Aires, Argentina.

A ribbon of black silk, a cameo engraved on red coralline, gold gilding… She closes the velvety case, her emotions stirred. She takes another sip of coffee and decides to call him, at last.

A bedroom, Seattle, United States.

Where did I put it? Where could it possibly be?

I’ve been misplacing everything lately! What?

No, the necklace Granny gave me as a present, you know, the Art Deco one with the geometric design,

by Harry Winston?

Where is it?

She has, you have, I have, we all have a necklace around our neck, whichever it may be.

Introduction “Pearls” is an anthology, which comprises tales, poems, essays, stories, testimonials, and quotes…words pronounced by women around the world and entrusted to me to publish today.

These words, and their different tonalities, mirror in many delicate touches the various facets of the world of women.

I threaded together the texts that were submitted to me as though they were gems, each representing the specific spark, dark area, opacity or transparency of womanhood. The pearls presented here aren’t exhaustive, for there are as many expressions of womanhood as there are women. This book is therefore, by definition, unfinished; this book is open, whereas a necklace has a clasp.

Other pearls will be threaded onto the necklace over time.

A storyteller is only a dead voice when there is no active audience, and his or her words will go unheeded if they are not followed by action. Likewise, this book will not truly exist without a gesture on the readers’ part.

“Pearls” is at everyone’s disposal and is generously offered to all those who, their curiosity aroused, wish to run their eyes over a few lines. After reading, I invite the readers to dedicate some time to Chapter 15, a section in which they will discover how to add value to the reading. This gesture will be personal, and will only engage his/her own sense of judgment and altruism. We are, obviously, solicited on a daily basis by the requirements entailed in our social commitments: donations, foundations, calls for solidarity, a helping hand, a bank wire transfer, a pittance in a begging hand…

I am proposing a new equation: you receive these pearls, you wear them, you place them in a velvet case, give them as a present and give something back in return…that is, only if reading this book entices you to do so.

Share the “Pearls, pass them down.

Thank you.

From the bottom of my heart, for an ecology of the heart. cathdb@gmail.com

Illustrator: Tim Gallo Tim was born in Russia in 1984. He studied in Russia, England and Japan. He is a photographer and obtained his film director diploma from the Toho Cinematographic School in Tokyo. He composes his pictures such as a screenwriter would tell a story.

I like his work: varying, sometimes disturbing, also cruel, intelligent, young and contemporary.

The photographed models are Japanese, since Tim works in Tokyo. They are all above 21 years old.

http://www.modelmayhem.com/1153515 http://tim.asianphotoarts.com http://www.asianphotoarts.com

Acknowledgements When from a cloud a drop of rain fell, she saw the sea and felt ashamed.

She questioned: “Who am I, facing this immensity?”

And while she saw herself with humble eyes a clam protected her within her shells.

Saadi de Shiraz, Sufi poet And the drop of rain turned into a fine pearl…

That is how it has been with the friends that helped me.

Eyes glued to their computer screen, they have translated, corrected, revised, perfected, filed and polished the pearls that were bestowed upon me.

Thank You. Thank you, Brigitte de le Court.

After having shared the same benches at the university, we lost contact. Twenty-six years later, “the Pearls” have reunited us, and it was established, beginning with words, a collaboration at a distance of 4,000 miles… Among linguists, this means so much!

Brigitte is endowed with precise intelligence, just and concise. Her attention is constant, alert. Adding to her work a dosage of humor, honesty and the luster of her feminine qualities, together, we have been able to create an anthology that maintains an appropriate tone and a particular style. When friendship rests…

Thank you, Carrie Leigh Dickey.

Carrie is responsible for the anthology’s design.

We had previously collaborated with a book and the professional assistance turned into friendship.

Carrie is irreproachable: young, meticulous, astute, as well as creative, and innovative and cutting edge technology! Carrie offered her services from the heart and without retribution. This is generous.

Thank you: Manuela Díaz De Lope who helped Brigitte Sylvie Froschl, translator and advisor Joan Lagache who lend a hand to Sylvie Cynthia Jaramilo for her tender friendship and translations Susan Surrat for her quiet, serene presence and her help through the editing process Monica Justice, a sunshine from Kathmandu My mother for her critical look Nathalie for her reading

Amel Bouhired for her patience Roxane for the faith she sets forth with my projects Marijke who lives so far away but lives within me, constantly Maya who prolongs each one of my gazes

1.

The Pearl of Awakening

The Genesis of a Woman, the Jacaranda blossoming Catherine Beeckman

Today, perhaps At this very moment‌ A young girl awakens to her dawning femininity At the beginning of a new day A young woman is awakening to her senses.

Her alabaster white skin grows finer, her pores breathe, Her slender hands open up Her fingers reach out and Caress her rounded hips.

Traveling up the curve of her arched back, They discover the fullness of her haunches Feeling her plump backside Closing Her eyes She perceives the curve of the small of her back.

Her slender thighs imperceptibly part Her fingertips brush timidly against the blond bouquet, The soft down nestled between her legs.

Suddenly moist, warm, throbbing with blood Flushed with unexplored desire, she blooms at this candid invitation to touch, Swelling and blossoming Her groin is seized by light undulations.

Her breasts harden Responding to the flow of desire set off by this Awakening body Offering full, generous curves, Deliciously hardened nipples.

Her face is a request Her eyes mist over.

Her moistened and slightly parted lips Her cheeks, nose, hair Her golden hair.

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She is fertile Impregnated, filled, saturated with her femininity.

But How can words evoke such wealth?

The promise Residing in the abundance of being a woman.

So womanly in the morning dew Her groin’s voluptuous pleasure, her warm womb Her generous breasts?

What lines could portray The fragility Of becoming a woman At the dawn of a new day?

What colors?

Could be blended to paint The pigments of her gifts?

Every attempt is meaningless.

Poets, writers, artists, sculptors Painters, singers, lovers and musicians All have tried, losing their minds and always trying In vain. Every morning, A young woman is destined to become a woman.

Always through time, the expression of Femininity Is empty: exhausted, barren.

And so To preserve forever The essence of being Woman, Thousands of centuries ago Was born On a small island with waves at sea From her hair The Jacaranda tree Flamboyant Tropical with clusters of brightly colored flowers Fragrant Under the sun, Its fruity cloves, its velvety leaves All encompassing.

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The Jacaranda Signifies and reminds us since its birth And the birth of time Woman - in the dazzling brilliance of her grace But also The fleeting nature of her youth Of her life Of her breath.

Author: Catherine Beeckman, 2010, Cordoba, Argentina English translators: Sylvie Froshl and Joan Lagache Illustration: Tim Gallo 18 • pearls around the neck

Painting a Picture of Me Marijke Delen B.

You look at me and see, A mix of citrus splash and mango madness Cheerful and lively, Not caring what others think about me Looking high spirited and fearless But deep inside under the layers of skin and flesh I feel as small as a glacier lake under the torment of global warming Shy and self-conscious, Mousy and awkward I feel as if the vibrant colors have been washed out blue And here I stand Both of them real Both of them me.

The Wakening to Adolescence.

Author: Marijke Delen B., 14 years old, Canada, 2011 Illustration: Tim Gallo 20 • pearls around the neck

Learning to Swim Haim Park

Perhaps I am drowning like a bird, in the midst of a frigid river.

They want me to swim with the current but I don’t want to reach the ocean.

All I want to do is break free of the current and feel the air.

But the great waves of expectations keep pulling me back, binding me, exhausting me.

Why can’t they understand?

A creature destined to fly can never live under water.

Author: Haim Park, 18 years old, South Corea, 2012 High School student at LSNEPAL. Illustration: Tim Gallo 22 • pearls around the neck

I laid my Body Maria Antequera

I laid my body on your bed Not uttering a word.

I laid my body on your bed Holding your boundless gaze.

I laid my body on your bed With an intentional serenity.

I laid my body on your bed A languid scarified prey.

I laid my body on your bed I engraved my print on your soul

Awaken to the other.

Author: Maria Antequera, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2009 English translator: Catherine Beeckman Illustration: Tim Gallo 24 • pearls around the neck

Twelve Moons Marie JJMG

Twelve moons She’s thirteen, soon Then once a month Her flesh, her blood Scattered drops A puddle She cuddles Five days In full daylight Five nights In her bed tight A fire is her belly A prison is her body She is in pain Sometimes she cries But it’s in vain Always this pain That condemns her To be her And carry the flame To be a Woman

Author: Marie JJMG, Geneva, Switzerland, 2011 Inspired by Jeanne Cherhal’song “Douze fois par An” English translation: Catherine Beeckman Illustration: Tim Gallo 26 • pearls around the neck

2.

The Pearl of a Child

My Hindi Lullaby, My Baby Aditi

Nini baba nini Mackhan roti cheene, Mackhan roti hoa gia, Soja Baba Soja, Mera baba soja, Ninnie Nina baba so gaya, gaya.

Rest baby rest, Butter, bread and sugar, Butter and bread are finished Sleep baby sleep, My baby sleep Little baby has gone to sleep.

Singing this song: Aditi (Bondless) to her son Isha (Lord) In Hindi, Patna, Bihar, India, 2012 English translation: Jaya Soma Illustration: Catherine Beeckman pearls around the neck • 29

Two Mothers, two Loves.

Cristina Roche

Being pregnant must be something very beautiful and unique.

The mother is in symbiosis with her baby; she can feel it grow inside of her, day after day, and the baby too perceives his mother in all the parts of its small being. A very special love that is born before birth.

I was never able to become pregnant.

And yet.

I lived through the hopes and agonies of an expecting mother. I prayed, like any other woman who prays to God to give her a healthy baby, with five little fingers on each hand and five little toes on each foot.

I adopted two children. I lived alongside the two young mothers who gave me their child for adoption.

We lived the pregnancies together, we gave birth.

These children, granted to me by God, grew in the body of another woman and have one thing that only adopted children have: the double love of a mother.

These babies were profoundly loved by their biological mothers who, knowing that they wouldn’t be able to bring them up, renounced them and entrusted their mother’s role to a woman who was able to take over the relay of love, for life.

My son and my daughter remind me that it is their mothers’ gift of love that was bestowed upon me, and my heart aches for them.

For I know what it is to love a child.

This is, what the double love of a mother is!

The story of an Adoption.

Author: Cristina Roche, Colombia, 2012 English translation: Sylvie Froschl Illustration: Catherine Beeckman pearls around the neck • 31

Kinderwens Child-Desire Huguette Cornillie

When you asked me to write something about “the desire to have a child”, my mouth went dry. It is still a painful subject to me. During this Christmas celebration season, I have firmly committed myself to putting my ideas together and I will share the main points of my thoughts hereafter. This is the first time that I have the confidence to put pen to paper.

Christmas. The birth of baby Jesus.

A special birth? Yes! But isn’t every birth special in it’s own way?

Some births are desired, others are not.

I wasn’t able to understand that before. How could it be possible for a young couple that loved each other not to consolidate their love through the birth of a child? That could not be right.

And I, who desperately wished for a child.

During the course of life, one marries, creates a family, has children, later becomes a grandparent, and on and on.

We all believe that this is the normal path of life. Not for everybody.

It is not normal for all of us.

After being wed for more than three years, my first husband and I decided to start our family. It seemed to have been all perfectly planned, but time went by and nothing, and every month, the cruel waiting.

Not yet?

And years drifted away: one year, two years, three years, the years passed by. Meanwhile there are the visits to the doctors. Till the verdict comes down: no child for this reason.

The world falls apart. It can’t be possible! Why? Why us? Did we/I do something bad?

Will I never wear that cute pregnancy dress? Will I never hold that tiny hand in my hand while going for a walk? Will I never pass on the values I received from my family? Will I never see that young man or young maiden grow and think to myself how much he takes after his father or how much she just looks like me? Will I never see them study, fall in love, get married and have children? Will I never walk around –proud as a peacock- with my dearest daughter or my beloved son? Never, ever!

After 30 years, I still have no children of my own.

Fortunately for my second marriage, I have 4 stepdaughters and 8 grand children. Is it the same?

No. Still, I can have a glimpse of what it could have been. My stepdaughters are nice and so are my grandchildren. I do have the feeling, somehow, of being a grandmother.

But then, it hurts again because they are neither my blood nor my flesh.

I am a happy woman nevertheless and I am grateful to God for giving me a good husband and those children, who are indeed a blessing.

And yes, it might be how things had to unfold. Who knows?

I may one day discover the secret reason for this destiny.

A letter at Christmas Author: Huguette Cornillie, Knockke, Belgium, 2011 English translation from Flemish: Catherine Beeckman Illustration: Catherine Beeckman pearls around the neck • 33

I do not want it Catherine Beeckman

Spleen I have more memories than if I’d lived a thousand years.

A heavy chest of drawers cluttered with balance sheets, Processes, love-letters, verses, ballads, And heavy locks of hair enveloped in receipts, Hides fewer secrets than my gloomy brain.

It is a pyramid, a vast burial vault Which contains more corpses than potter’s field. — I am a cemetery abhorred by the moon, In which long worms crawl like remorse And constantly harass my dearest dead.

Ch. Baudelaire, “Les Fleurs du Mal”, Exert of Spleen, 1857 William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

Shalisha’s Spleen is a Sentence Shalisha was 15.

I took care of her for two years – as a volunteer worker in a psychiatric institution for severely abused children, who have been beaten or raped.

Shalisha was committed when she was 7 years old. A social worker placed her in the care of this hospital. He had found her curled up in a ball under her grandmother’s bed; her stepfather had murdered the poor woman a few hours earlier. A story that the local police solved in the time it takes to fasten handcuffs around someone’s wrists.

Shalisha would not let anyone come near her from behind: if one did, it provoked convulsions of fear and rage, and then the nurses would have to restrain her in a white straightjacket, gag her, and isolate her in a padded room.

It took me 18 months to be able to wash her hair standing behind her. Shalisha wet her bed like all the little girls who have been regularly raped do. She would wake up, screaming, from her nightmares.

Suicidal, she had to be watched day and night: her suicide attempts only kept coming more often. She exposed herself and made lewd remarks. For medical insurance reasons, Shalisha only stayed at the institution for two years. She was “released” into the jungle of this absurd world.

A young African-American adolescent, coming from a broken home, successively expelled from various schools, temporarily sheltered in a psychiatric hospital and forever ostracized from foster families – a drug addict, a prostitute, and pregnant by age 15.

Her scrawny body, her arms and legs covered with track marks, was found wrapped up in a blanket stained with blood and sperm on the south bank of the Ohio River.

She died of an overdose in the ER of a hospital in Kentucky one winter morning of 2002.

She didn’t want it. The child. pearls around the neck • 35

My Spleen is a sentence I have more memories than if I’d lived a thousand years.

An enormous black plastic dumpster, overflowing With vomit, condoms, cans and syringes, Torn out strands of hair, clothes soiled with blood, Hides fewer secrets than my blown out brain.

An abandoned car in an immense parking lot, I am a womb; I am genitals exposed in the moonless night, Filled with more drugs than my soul’s veins.

I am rotting, I am dead, and I am leaving without a stir.

Inspired by Shalisha, 15 years old, Kentucky, 2002 Author: Catherine Beeckman English translator: Sylvie Froschl Illustration: Tim Gallo 36 • pearls around the neck

I Want the Wrong Things Ana Jespersen

You scare me The others dream of exotic adventure The thrill of danger, feeling the red-hot rush of life They are immortal, nothing is impossible They are young and they will bend the world to their will Everything has been handed to me on a magnificent Golden platter, Expectations and responsibilities an inevitable and Unwanted bonus Now I should want what the others want, That wild youth followed by a prestigious job and A position An apartment in the city simplistically decorated with Contemporary art And streamlined furniture So you scare me You dark image of serenity, you dream of warm comfort When the others hope for wild experiences Why is all I want‌ an autumn forest A hand to hold A tiny new life to take care of?

Author: Ana Jespersen, 18 year old, Denmark LSNEPAL http://lsnepal.com/our-school/intro/ Illustration: Catherine Beeckman 38 • pearls around the neck

3.

The Pearl of Mother

LIFE CYCLE Denita

Taking care of her family with the speed of lightening Running after the children, cleaning, tidying and Meeting her husband’s needs Her moves are graceful yet fast.

Working eight hours, still The children are grown with children of their own Dedicating time for tasty generous family dinners She enjoys her grandchildren Yet still she meets her husbands needs Now her moves are graceful with a steady beat The grandchildren are grown with children of their own Although she doesn’t prepare meals any more She now sits and enjoys Her great grandchildren running through her home She still meets her husband’s needs Yet her moves are still graceful but slower She has transformed Like the butterfly she always loves My mother’s spirit is bright Colorful, full of life, care, affection and laughter Although her moves are still graceful Yet shorter and slower Shorter and slower

Slower Graceful1

By a thankful African American daughter, whom regained her life through the love and care of her mother. Denita is 42 years old today. This poem celebrates the anniversary of her rehabilitation and the radical breakthrough she faced 15 years ago.

Author: Danita, USA, 2012 Illustration: a picture of Danita’s mother 1 Danita’s mother is a very respected Gospel Singer: at 86, she still signs every Sunday at Church.

pearls around the neck • 41

Kneeling in the Hallway Catherine Beeckman

She is kneeling in the hallway of the local Montessori school nursery. Her body is tense; face closed, the muscles under the perfect control of her nervous system, with eyes fixed on the green irises of a frightened redheaded boy who is screaming with all his might.

“You’re sad because your mother will leave you this morning. I understand your feeling of deep frustration and I comprehend your desire to stay at my side, but Mom has things to do. Mom knows that you understand and she can guess how you feel. So I will give you a big hug - she opens her arms and I will convey my love to you, because you need the love of your Mom.” The kid screams even louder, and rolls on the floor like a jumbled ball of yarn.

“Mom realizes that Emery is sad. She is also sad because the separation is difficult for her too. Mom will transmit even more love. “ The by now snotty-nosed kid calms down a bit and sits on a bench, where he takes off his shoes while sniffling. Green strings are hanging from his freckled little nose.

“Thank you Emery for sharing the bench with your girlfriend Sarah.” But Emery has not shared the bench with Sarah. It is she who has made a place beside her little schoolmate, on whom she’s had a crush since Halloween, when Emery came dressed as Nemo, the clownfish.

“Sarah says thank you for making space for her, now she can also take off her shoes. You are a generous little boy. “ Emery throws his boots at Sarah’s head and it’s her turn to break into sobs. Was it done on purpose?

He jumps up, ready to fly into a rage, but his mom is still kneeling beside him. Staring at the green eyes of the dwarf in front of her, she hypnotizes him just in time.

“Emery, you are going to remove your jacket. Mom trusts you, and knows you can do it. Mom is convinced that you can unbutton your coat. You are going to undo the buttons one by one and you will do it under the supervision of your Mother. I have the hope that you will achieve this new challenge and I’ll be here with you. “ The little urchin observes his mother as if he had just discovered her presence on the planet earth. He tilts his little red head, breaking away from the stern look his mother has been giving him for centuries, diverts his gaze and discovers…

Maya.

Maya is two years old, like him. She’s dropped her muddy boots and taken off her bubblegum pink raincoat. She’s wearing beautiful rainbow sunglasses and is swinging a small bell-shaped umbrella.

Maya sits in the hallway, on the carpet, and quietly draws a mustache with her mother’s (that’s me) eyeliner. Maya’s mom is chatting in French on her cell phone, not giving a damn as to what her little daughter is up to.

Emery approaches Maya. He enters Maya’s world and smiles. He knows he will not cry any more and he knows he’ll draw a mustache like Maya’s. He also knows that his mother can henceforth “be convinced that this path won’t be one full of frustrations”. He has the hope of conquering a totally different challenge: a bigger and darker mustache than Maya’s.

Maya refuses to share the eyeliner she has stolen from her distracted mother’s purse. How lucky Maya is!

“No Emery, this is Maya’s,” she says to her buddy. The little fellow understands this very well.

Obviously, two year old kids don’t share things, lest be labeled a loser for life. But Emery also knows that he can try and rip the valuable jet- black pencil from Maya’s little hands. Maya, who has already anticipated Emery’s gesture, opens her mouth wide and yells “NOOOO, MIIINE, THIS IS

pearls around the neck • 43

MIIIIIINE! &% $ # @ @! “ Then, calmly, she approaches Emery and draws a huge mustache that stretches across his face. Maya, the kitten, and Emery the tomcat, disappear together, holding hands. Emery is full of glory!

But not his mother.

She turns to me very curtly: “This is a Montessori school. Have you read the list of educational materials we were given at the start of the school year? You’re not applying any of the principles? How can I now explain this episode to Emery? “ I move the phone away from my ear and look at her with the utmost worldly tenderness: “I understand your frustration and the anger you must have buried and submerged in the depths of your guts, and I feel sorry for you. I pity you. You see, Maya is my fifth child, so ... pfff...”

And I add in French: “Mal Baisée, perhaps” I give Maya a kiss on the mouth and leave.

PS: My husband explained that “Mal Baisée” is translated as “sexually unfulfilled”… a touch uptight, no?

Humor Column Author: Catherine Beeckman, USA, 2009 English translator: Catherine Beeckman Illustration: Catherine Beeckman 44 • pearls around the neck

Self Portrait of a Confession R. V. I.

She passed away more than twenty years ago.

But it doesn’t matter. What truly matters is the time I spent with her.

We were close, like a mother and daughter, but I was more than a daughter to her, I was her confidant.

Her dream was to write a book, and all the elements were there, carved in her soul, in her body even, since it was her own story she wanted to tell. But the hardest part was yet to be accomplished: finding the courage to tear them from herself and offer them to the public’s merciless judgment. And how she had tried, many times! She would dictate a few bits and pieces while she was drawing; it was her way of removing herself from her character.

“My parents lived in a large house on Rue du Roitelet. We were what you may call today a family of good bourgeois, liberal yet traditional and well established in well-to-do society. My father had a wholesale business selling colonial commodities, and my mother held the purse strings. Deliverymen leading carts pulled by enormous Percheron draft horses would come and go through the large carriage entrance.

My father supervised the unloading while my mother, seated at her desk, meticulously entered the number of bags of coffee, sugar or lentils in an enormous register. The aroma of the food, mingling with the smell of the horses’ dung and the men’s sweat would fill the entire house, as would the men’s cursing, mingled with the horses’ whinnying, and my father’s overbearing, curt and precise orders, conferring upon our abode an atmosphere somewhat recalling that of a slave market.

This is how I remember it.

My parents, entirely absorbed every day in their business venture, worried little about me. My little brother, however, monopolized my mother’s affection. They had hired two young country girls to serve them, cater to the household’s needs and provide for my education. Ever since early childhood, I was their scapegoat.

It would start in the morning with a hair brushing session, which consistently turned into genuine torture. I had long ringlet curls. Whether out of jealousy or pure meanness, they would draw great pleasure from pulling my hair and burning me with the curling iron. If I dared cry or threaten to tell my mother, they promised the worst retaliations.

I therefore learned to endure physical suffering at an early age – just as I learned to hide the various physical signs such as the actual burns – but they didn’t stop at that! Clarisse, the youngest, and the more vicious of the two, was the one in charge of taking me to school. In order to rid herself of me as fast as possible, she took a shortcut through small, dark and disreputable back streets lined with cafés and dives that were rallying places into which all kinds of drunks poured in from the slums. It was the time of day when the fat landladies would be cleaning vomit, urine and other traces of the night’s depravity off the sidewalks. It wasn’t rare to stumble upon a drunkard, passed out by the curb for the nearest shrew to throw a bucket of cold water at. Tipsy prostitutes, sitting between piles of trash recounted the previous night’s “clients” while hurling a few incomprehensible bawdy jokes at me.

The sight of all these horrors made my blood curdle and I held on to Clarisse’s hand with all of my strength. To reassure me, she always told me the same story.

“Come, now, this street is no danger at all to nice children. For little liars, little tattletales and little heathens, however, it’s quite different. Do you see how uneven the cobblestones are? Do you see all these empty, dark creases between them? Would you like to know what they are? Well, when one has

46 • pearls around the neck

done wrong and walks on certain cobblestones, the ground opens up and swallows you whole, sending you straight to hell and the Devil. Isn’t this just terrible?”

I was scared to death, terrified. Although my conscience was quite clear, I wasn’t entirely convinced that one stupid thing or another that I may have done wouldn’t be misinterpreted by the Devil.

It was therefore an immense relief for me to enter each morning the fourth grade class at the ‘Ladies for Christian Education’ primary school. The Mother Superior was far less cruel than Clarisse!

But as I grew up, I became less gullible and did, little by little, venture to experiment with wrongdoings. A small lie here, an innocent pilfer there and yet the cobblestones still didn’t open under my steps. Quite encouraged by this discovery, my sins went crescendo at the same tempo as my fear of the Devil was fading away.

When I was a teenager, I discovered that I was pretty. I understood that by the way people looked at me. Clarisse no longer took me to school. Our lifestyle had changed. Having speculated on the price of colonial commodities during the Great Depression, my father had been forced to sell his business and our large house. Father had invested the rest of his fortune in life annuities. Since then, he had been spending his time parading in town, his good looks earning him a modest success with women. Idle, submissive and sullen, my mother spent her days brooding dejectedly in the new house, which was located somewhat far from the town center. The atmosphere there was dark and gloomy.

To entertain and amuse me, my parents had bought a piano; however I was far less enthusiastic about the instrument than I was about the teacher who came to give me lessons twice a week.”

Reaching that point in her story, she paused. The pastel she had been holding fell out of her hand.

“I can’t go on” “Why not?” I insisted. It was the fifth time, the fifth time she had dictated the same story. “This time you have to go on, otherwise I’m giving up. Is it the piano teacher who is causing you such anguish, paralyzing you so?”

I took her in my arms, trying to soothe her. She had started shaking and broke into tears, but what I saw in her eyes was an expression of hatred, which suddenly frightened me. An expression I had never seen before. Her face had lost its usual features; her muscles seemed distorted.

“You are right,” she said, having regained some composure. “Let’s stop this silliness, I will never write this book. Anyhow, it would devastate the family and my husband would never forgive me. He has been good to me and I don’t want to put his reputation at stake. You know how attached he is to his reputation.”

“But you could keep it anonymous, turn your story into a novel somewhat remote from your own life; an author can take any sort of liberty with her characters. The piano teacher could become a painter, your father could be the headmaster of a school, I don’t know, there are thousands of ways to hide behind a character.”

“I know. I’ve thought about it,” she answered with a weary sigh, “but I don’t seem to be able to do so. Plus, those who know me will still recognize me. Let’s not talk about it anymore and let’s drop my writer’s ambitions right here. All things considered, I am more gifted with drawing, which is another way of expressing oneself, less openly maybe, and more secretly than with words. And there are no words for what comes afterwards in my story.”

So, we left things there.

Afterwards, she spent most of her time drawing, mainly copying works of art. When she became ill, she

pearls around the neck • 47

started depicting herself in her paintings, much like Frida Kahlo. She poured all her energy into it. It was a terrible thing to witness, something impossible to understand. Her paintings piled up in a corner of her parlor, one more grotesque than the other – nightmarish visions of herself.

A few months after her mother died, she took a turn for the worse and had me called in to her.

As I sat by her side, she took my hand in hers and with a sad, but hard smile, she said: “At last, my mother is no longer here, roaming in the halls of my house… Her presence has always been unbearable to me! Well, do you remember the book that I never managed to dictate to you? I am going to tell you the rest of the story.”

Let’s go back to the piano teacher.

I loved him the way one falls in love when one is sixteen. I don’t even remember whether he was handsome, whether his hair was curly, or whether his eyes were green or blue but I know that he was the very first man who made me aware of my femininity. His fingers brushed against the piano keys softly and nimbly to produce a piece by Chopin that I would probably find soppy today but which in the blossoming spring of my youth seemed the pinnacle of sensuality. In my dreams, I was the piano whose chords were quivering under his touch. My amorous fantasies had no limits and my curiosity was quite unsatisfied.

Once, my parents were called away for the entire day.

As usual, my teacher came to give his piano lesson.

I was quite out of sorts. I believe my eyes must have thrown flames of passion and that every single movement I made betrayed me, because when he looked at me, he suddenly took me in his arms and kissed me.

I was a gift of prey.

He didn’t play any Chopin that day, but a few weeks later, I realized that I was pregnant. I didn’t tell anyone. Silence had always been my best ally and our family’s best advisor. I resolved to fully conquer him. As far as I was concerned, things couldn’t have been clearer. Things were going well between us: he was madly in love with me. Soon, I would tell him that I was expecting and he would marry me. I had never felt so happy in my whole life. In spite of my condition, I was glowing, and happy as a lark.

This was short-lived.

One day, as I arrived home from school, my mother dressed in a large white apron greeted me. She slowly directed me to my room, where a doctor was waiting. I didn’t even have the time to understand; he immediately placed a chloroform pad against my mouth. When I came to, all my dreams were flowing away in a large puddle of blood. I never found it in me to forgive her. Never.

Since that day, I have beheld the world through different eyes.

Yet I did get married years later; and I had children. But the wound never healed.”

After this painful confession, she visibly felt better. I was trying to hide my distress and my pity.

“Thank you,” was all I was able to say.

She died tragically.

When her husband passed away, five years later, I helped their daughter and their son empty the house.

We found her self-portraits meticulously put away in the attic.

While looking at them, her daughter broke into tears.

“Since you were her confidant, do you happen to know why my mother hated my grandmother so?

48 • pearls around the neck

Grandma was so sweet; she practically raised us, my brother and I. She was always there to help us, comfort us, dress us, feed us. I never heard her complain even once. Yet, she would have had many reasons to do so because Mom was far from being pleasant with her. Their relationship was such a strain for all of us. And these horrible self-portraits? What are these all about?” She asked, wiping her tears away.

I knew that she loved her mother and her grandmother and that their death had deeply upset her. The moment was ill chosen to tell her the story of this other woman her mother had been.

I bailed out; I am ashamed to admit, by unveiling another facet of her mother.

“Your mother was a ravishing woman, stunningly beautiful. But she was also very much afraid of getting old. It was a visceral fear in her. Your grandmother, who lived with you and raised you and your brother, was a very dignified and distinguished woman; but for your mother she was only the depiction of old age, of this decrepitude she wanted to avoid at all cost. She confessed so many times that every time she saw your grandmother, she only saw her as the reflection of her own degeneration.”

“But what you are saying is horrible. I can’t believe it!”

“Your mother suffered a lot. You have to forgive her. You will understand, one day.”

Much later, she learned the whole truth and it only made her harbor even more love for these two women, who were so different but who had each in her own way, both lived with a terrible wound buried deep inside them.

Author: R.V.I., Brussels, Belgium, 2011 English translator: Sylvie Froschl Illustration: oil on canvas by Suzanne Van Damme, 1938, private collection. pearls around the neck • 49

For Mom Paula Saporiti

With you, mom, one never knows.

Where would you have hidden the engravings of Goya you didn’t like?

Now it’s up to me to find them, in chests and boxes, thinking of where you would have chosen to hide them.

Now that you’re gone, now that I can’t ask.

I know that I’ll have the answer, because, unexpectedly, now that you’re not here, I feel closer to you than ever.

Like this, everything with you was different, until you left.

You know what’s happening to me?

I have a thousand images, like sparkles from the past, which burst in my mind day after day.

They are like winks of your humorous whit, which tell me that you are with me always.

They are flashes of you, which run through me, when I look in the mirror. In a gesture of mine, I see you again.

They are your after-glow, when I am barefoot, and discover the same bunion you had, on my feet.

They are the bells in my voice, which remind me of your greeting when entering the house, and saying “hello!”

They are happy images of summer at the beach, which come to mind when I see guava jam (remember how much you liked it).

You had to offer it until we all were stuffed with it.

If you didn’t share it, you didn’t enjoy it.

It’s thus, when one shares, one enjoys more. You taught me that.

You gave me the primordial: life and so much more.

You gave me your image, waiting for me on the balcony.

Your look, thankful for everything, always.

Your smile, and your joy.

Happily, in my sadness, your presence surprises in infinite ways. Like how one day, the engravings you hid away, will surprise me.

And I know, I’ll remember you, when the sadness has diminished, with a smile.

A letter Author: Paula Saporiti, Uruguay, 2010 English translators: Catherine Beeckman, Susan Surrat Illustration: a picture of Lilly Amorim, mother of Paula and daughter of the famous Uruguayan writer, Enrique Amorim, poet, screenwriter, novelist and friend of Federico Garcia Lorca. pearls around the neck • 51

The Reason Why Anonymous

I inhaled in and out, watching my breath collect like frost on the living room window. I slowly rested my head on the frozen glass: chills up my spine. Looking out the window, I searched through the evening for him...but all I could see was a snowy night. I sighed. My father was supposed to be back four hours ago. The dining room table was set up with my father’s favorite meal in the center, but of course it was untouched and cold. I could hear my mother’s whimpers through the thin walls. I felt my own tears well up in the corners of my eyes then a single but deadly tear caressed my cheek. I wiped it quickly away, as if I were embarrassed that someone might see my weakness, but, of course, no one was really there. I heard a distant screech of tires across the icy road, and saw the light beam. Finally, my dad came home.

I tiptoed up to my room, as no confirmation of his arrival was needed. Pressing my whole body against the door, I listened and all I could hear was the click-clack of my father’s shoes on the hard wood floors. I embraced the first few seconds of silence and prepared myself for the disaster to come. I was astonished by how loud that one single scream was. The fight had erupted and I knew this one was worse than the others. I covered my ears, trying to block out my mother’s cries. I ran over to my stereo and fiddled with it, turning it to maximum volume. I had found something to mask out this tortured life. I lay in bed hoping this night would soon be over, knowing that in the morning everyone would plaster that fake smile on his or her face. The same fake smile I have put on for to many years. I closed my eyes and tried to forget the pain. All of a sudden my bedroom door swung open and there he stood.

I couldn’t remember the last time my Dad had been in my room. Was it when he bought me that glass jewelry box, when he placed a picture of our family inside? Still that was ages ago. But, of course he wasn’t here to praise me, he was here to insult me, again. I could tell he was angry by the way he glared at me: like I was nothing, rotting away like a piece of meat on the carcass of an animal. “ Turn off that goddamn music!” he yelled in disgust. I raised my face to look up at him. Fearlessly, I spoke “Maybe you should stop hurting Mom or better yet come home on time.” He just stood there, almost speechless but then it happened so fast, his hand came across my face. Actually, it was not his hand, but that is how it always felt to me: his glance. A slap. His severe hard-as-stone look all across my face filled with disdain and disgust. Worth than a physical slap on my face. I whimpered and held back my tears. I felt like crying. I also felt like hugging him and asking him what had happened to our family, why didn’t we talk, or why, just why, was he hurting me and my Mom. But, of course that was not realistic and life was not perfect.

Waking up the next morning was horrible. School was the last place I wanted to spend my day.

Pretending that my life was as colorful as the lives of the cheerleaders who ran my school. Instead I crawled under my sheets and curled into a small ball. I replayed the night, a night just as many other nights but this one had left a mark, not only in my heart, but also on my face: my swollen eyes. Finally, I got out of bed and saw a note hanging on my door. I walked to the door and pulled the crumpled piece of paper and read:

I’m sorry.

I had to take a break from all this.

pearls around the neck • 53

I promise it’s not you; it’s your father.

Take care -Mom I stood there in silence, I couldn’t breathe, and I felt a fire in my chest, flames licking the inside of my ribs trying to burn out my whole body. My mom was my life; she was the only one that kept me going.

I could relate to her, we were in this together, as corny as that sounds. I ran to the bathroom, I grabbed on to the porcelain toilet and held myself there. With all my strength I held on, and then the memories came. The bad memories I had of this family, they streamed through my head like a black and white old horror movie. I stood up and went over to the medicine counter fishing for all the tablets I could find.

All I wanted was to end the rambling of those thoughts, but as I swallowed each pill the memories got more vivid, they came faster. I took more, more trying to make them disappear and waited, panting.

Time. Time.

The agony came at an extreme rate, the pain spread from my head and across my body like a Californian forest fire.

A fire that would never be put out. I cried out in anguish.

I slowly crawled out of my bathroom and over to my dresser. I opened the drawer and pulled out the old jewelry box that my dad had given me, but before I could open it, I could feel my limbs getting weak and the pain was disappearing. It felt as if my body was drifting away. I dropped the box: it fell and cracked open in little pieces and all that was left was that picture, not a memory but a distant, hopeless dream. Looking at the box shattered I finally realized that we were never really a family, just three people living together. We were all caught up, tangled in our problems, becoming so irrational, we blamed it on each other but we never really understood the pain we were inflicting to each other, annihilating each other. That same pain I finally thought how to end.

An Essay Author: anonymous teenager, 14 years old, Chile, 2012 Illustration: Tim Gallo 54 • pearls around the neck

4.

The Pearl of Love

The Amorous Battle Marisa Estelrich

He was lying asleep, naked I contemplated his breathing, his involuntary jerks, his moans, I wondered if he was dreaming, was I part of it, was he cold?

I was lying awake, naked he did not notice me gliding silently from behind to steal the breathing solemnity of this god of flesh soul divine.

But my lips, oh they betrayed me butterflying down his spine my hands followed suit in anger protesting he was not mine and my hips shrieked in rage and hunger he was theirs by design.

He seemed suddenly perturbed by the battle being waged relentlessly on his back till he turned around and faced me blinking at my butterflies blew them softly winged whisper in the stillness of the night.

A poem Author: Marisa Estelrich, USA, 2009 Illustration: Tim Gallo http://www.hipernatural.com/es/libro049009047.html http://fis.ucalgary.ca/ACH/Registro/Marisa_Estelrich/Publicaciones.html http://www.press53.com/nakedsouls.html http://www.mediterranean.nu/?p=737

pearls around the neck • 57

Look at Me Maria Antequera

Look at me, look at me…

Can’t you see I’m waiting for you?

I’ve put on my mouth the color of blood That catches looks in silence…

(My mouth: Flower of flesh, carnivorous and palpitating, It shuts at a word, It opens in a kiss, In the flash of an instant…)

Look at me, look at me…

See how I wait for you?

My skin perfumed and soft Between veil and velvet.

And gathered on my neck, the cascade of my hair…

Flows, slowly, the jewels around my collar, The delicate lace, the engraved belt, The intense color that sculpts my body…

Your eyes are this deep mirror In which finding myself, I lose myself.

Author: Maria Antequera, Argentina, 2010 English translators: Catherine Beeckman, Susan Surrat Illustration: Tim Gallo pearls around the neck • 59

Die Soen. The Kiss

Written from a Woman to a Woman Karin Hougaard

Come Press your mouth against mine So that I can taste The softness of your lips The bashfulness of your mouth The echo of your words Taste So that I can taste How you Taste

Author: Karin Hougaard, Pretoria, South Africa, 2008 From: « Woorde Sonder Wysies » Karin is a famous singer, writer and “Klein Kunst” artist in South Africa and in Europe.

English translation from Afrikaans : Catherine Beeckman Illustration: Tim Gallo http://www.musicians.co.za/Musicians/Female_Vocal/Karin_Hougaard/Default.htm www.karinhougaard.co.za/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FElYYs9ufg

pearls around the neck • 61

Falling Rose Petals A Love Story or a Story of failing Sex Education?

Ohnmar Win

Note from the author: Myanmar, with its natural beauty, rich culture and traditions, and its crushing poverty, is entering a new phase in its history and development. With so many priorities, sex education does not rate high on the list of issues that need to be addressed. Yet so many young women in Myanmar today end up having unprotected sex that leads, all too often, to pregnancy, shotgun marriages, and divorce. Going forward, civil society needs to at least talk about these issues so that the lives of young women in Myanmar do not become impossibly overburdened, especially now that the country is on the cusp of a new dawn.

This story illustrates the problem through the eyes of a young Myanmar woman. The pain and burden is real. Hopefully it will engender some empathy; ideally it will spur the reader to action.

Mya Mya wakes up.

Once again the crowing “ao eee oh” sound of the pet rooster has interrupted her dreams. She was just about to kiss him, Htay Khin, for the first time, down at Ayarwaddy riverbank. The sun was setting and she had shivers going down her spine and goose bumps on her arms. Her heart was pounding fast and loud. She could feel that magical unity of excitement and loss of time, when he touched her face and her lips with his young and strong hands, slowly approaching her...

But now he is dead.

It is around 5am. Next to her, Aung Aung, her older son, and Win Win, her little daughter, are still asleep. The peaceful innocent looks on their faces make her smile…. Innocent and vulnerable, totally dependent on her. She herself is not sure what the future has in store as she lives day by day. What if she becomes sick or if one of her children becomes sick? She manages, but there is not much extra for savings in case of emergency needs.

She wants her children to go to school and enjoy an easier life; she wants them to have the freedom of choosing the life they want. But how this could ever happen, nobody knows. The only thing she can manage today is to give them an education. Not many of her friends send their kids to school for more than 3 years, only enough time for them to learn the very basics of reading and writing and counting.

Most families need their children to work in the fields or to help with the household chores, and many just cannot afford the school fees. But Mya Mya has been lucky so far: her business with PaeByote (steamed beans for breakfast) and Longyi sewing (the traditional sarong worn by men and women) in the afternoon are doing well. Many people in the village love her PaeByote recipe and buy from her every morning.

The fields casted with mist are so quiet she feels somehow embraced and protected.

She goes to her garden, collects some blooming Jasmine branches and takes a bowl of water. At the shrine in her house, she empties the five small water bowls, refills them with fresh water, and after cleaning the flower vases, places the newly picked Jasmine in the vases. Kneeling down in front of the tall ceramic Buddha, she repeats her daily prayers. Inner peace and calmness slowly settle in her soul

pearls around the neck • 63

as she is reminded that true richness is not in possessions but in reaching mental freedom. Letting go of the fear, forgetting herself and her ego, she relies on Him, He who will take care of her and her children.

Back in the front yard, she has to prepare for the day. The beans she has soaked overnight in the water with the secrets ingredients have to be steamed. She lights the wooden fire. The kids will wake up soon and she wants to be ready before they come. She arranges some Htamin Gyan (leftover rice) and Nga Pi Bote (toasted fish paste) for breakfast and pours a spoon of peanut oil on top. It is a healthy and affordable breakfast dish, and she knows her kids love it.

Aung Aung comes out of the hut; she sees the tired look on her 7-year-old son’s face. He looks like his father, a strong build and those same charming eyes. He calls his 6 year-old sister, Win Win, waking her up. “Go wash your face, brush your teeth and get ready for breakfast! ” Mya Mya says in a strong voice.

Aung Aung goes to the front yard and washes by the big ceramic water pot using the soap and the mixture of salt and pounded charcoal as toothpaste. After breakfast, Aung Aung carries two buckets balanced on a bamboo stick placed over his shoulders to the Ayarwaddy river, half a mile west, to get the water for the day, and Win Win helps her mother with the cleaning and the streaming of the beans.

The kids, thankfully, help her every morning.

It is the end of the rainy season and the river is still high; in a few months’ time it will become more difficult, although she lives so close to the river she does not have to worry about water. She wants her children to be independent. Aung Aung knows he is responsible for the water and the firewood and little daughter Win Win is improving with the cooking and the sewing every week. Soon they could take over the daily duties and her jobs, if something were to happen to her.

“Mum, is it true that daddy is not dead?”

Mya Mya didn’t hear Aung Aung coming back. She turns around and stares at her son. “Why do you say so?” She stutters. “Yesterday I heard our neighbor U Maung talking about him. He said he saw him at the market in Pyi Town” She knew this day would come; she had hoped it would come later. One day they would find out. Too many people knew the story and they all liked to talk. She feared that they might tease her kids. Luckily nobody had ever done so. So far.

As a teenager, Mya Mya was a fan of Burmese movies. All her friends watched them together during the weekends at some neighbor’s house, and talked about the plots during the days on the paddy fields. The stories were very similar. A fresh young couple meets regularly during their free time in a park under an umbrella. They talk, hold hands, and kiss. One day, while the girl is alone at home as her parents are absent, her boyfriend visits her when he is drunk or intoxicated. He grabs her rather aggressively. The next scene is a wilting red rose and the petals are falling, and the following scene shows the girl vomiting. Ignorant about sex, she mysteriously understands that they had sex and that she is pregnant. When her parents find out, the young couple has to marry immediately. Sex scenes were not presented as romantic love: abuse, forced sex and rape were prevalent.

64 • pearls around the neck

Mya Mya and her first boy friend Htay Khin lived the same love story. When she met him at the age of sixteen, he was two years older and they fell in love right away. They often sat together at the riverbank in a small corner, under a tree or an umbrella, so that no one could see them. He was good looking, with a good sense of humor and he was kind. She was in love with him and she felt the urge to be closer to him. But what kissing and sex was all about, nobody had ever told her. She only knew that it was what married couples did and they made babies, and it was not something nice. When they kissed for the first time, it felt absolutely amazing.

A few months later, when they were kissing intensely at the river bank again, Htay Khin touched her body feverishly all over. It was such a wonderful feeling that she was ready to give in, forgetting all the consequences that would inevitably follow. So they had sex together, although she knew it was wrong, and she was not allowed to tell anybody, especially not her parents. Life went on. They met each other more often than usual, but they didn’t talk about it.

A few weeks later she realized that her body was different: she was pregnant.

When she told Htay Khin, he seemed surprised and shocked and he asked her to give him time to think.

Weeks passed. She was feeling anxious and lonely and, although scared, she had no choice but to tell her mother. Her mother was upset, yet they arranged the marriage with Htay Khin.

Everything went fast; their first son was born just a few months after the small wedding they held at home and 12 months later, their younger child was born. They lived together with her parents in the one-room hut and hardly ever had time together at home or at the riverbank. Htay Khin’s behaviors towards her changed rapidly; he became severe. He had to work harder to support his new family and his parents. Sometimes he left for days, and then for weeks, to Pyi Town to buy commodities to re-sell back in the village. She was busy taking care of the kids, doing the household chores and earning some extra money with sewing.

Life inspired by her favorite movies was different from reality.

He became more and more distant until he was just like a stranger. One day, when Aung Aung was two and Win Win was nearly one year old, Htay Khin packed up his luggage for his usual trip to Pyi Town, left, and never came back.

No support fees, no divorce, and no chance to convince him. Only the tears, helplessly. A month later, she heard from someone in the village that Htay Khin had remarried and that he was living in Pyi Town.

There she was, alone with two kids relying on her. She was only 19 years old, herself still depending on her own parents. She was facing the responsibilities of a woman much older than she actually was.

She felt so much sorrow and so much anger about the scene of the fallen rose petals in the love movies.

Therefore, that day, she had decided that he was dead.

Author: Ohnmar Win, Myanmar, Rangoon, 2012 Edited by Susan Surrat Illustration: Ohnmar Win. pearls around the neck • 65

5.

The Pearl of Disillusion

The Final Period Cynthia Jaramillo

When we met, she said to me: I give you the final period.

It is a very valuable period. Do not lose it. Keep it to be used at the right moment. It is the best thing that I can give you, and I am doing it because I trust you. I hope you will not disappoint me.”

I had the final period in my pocket for a long time. Mixed with coins, keys and matches. At times, it would get a bit dirty; besides, we were so happy, that I thought I was never going to use it. Then I bought a secure box and placed it inside.

Happy days wore by sheltered from disappointment and boredom.

In the morning we waked up happily, delighted to be together.

Each day would start in a vast, unknown world, full of surprises to be discovered. Things lost their familiar nature; recovering their lost freshness; trees and rivers became more inviting, almost maternal.

We would scour the streets observing things no one else would see, and aromas, colors, lights and space were more intense.

As if we were under the effects of a powerful drug, our perception became heightened. But we were not intoxicated; instead we were serene and sharp, blessed with a rare capacity to harmonize with the world.

Our senses had a particular melody that respected the outside order, but with no particular attachments.

In this state of happiness, I forgot about the box, or I lost it without noticing. I do not know which.

Now that the happiness has ended, I cannot find the period anywhere. This is creating additional conflicts and grudges.

“Where did you put it? – she asks me, incensed – “Why don’t you use it, do not wait any longer, otherwise everything will lose its sense and beauty.”

I look inside the closets, the coats, the furniture covers, the drawers, under the table and the bed. But the period is nowhere to be found. Neither is the box. My search has become tense, almost obsessive.

It is possible that I lost it during one of our happy moments. It is neither in the living room nor the bedroom, on the chimney. Perhaps the dog ate it?

Its absence painfully increases our despair.

As long as the period is lost, we are chained to each other, and those links are made of hard feelings, apathy, disgrace and hate. We have to resign ourselves to continue this way, discarding the possibility of a new life.

Our nights are painful, sharing the same room, where the feeling of suspicion grows to the size of an asphyxiating wall like an unhealthy vapor. It settles on the wardrobes, on the furniture, on the books dispersed on the floor.

We argue about anything, even though we both know that, deep inside, it is about the period’s disappearance, of which she blames me. I believe that sometimes she suspects that, in reality, I keep it hidden to avenge her.

“I should not have trusted you – she reproaches herself - I should have known you would betray me.”

It was a wooden and leather box, long, like the ones used in the old times to keep reading glasses. I bought it at an antique shop.

I believed it was the most adequate place to save guard it. The period was there; round, miniscule, well placed. But so much time went by! It is possible it got lost during one of the moves, or maybe someone took it thinking it was valuable.

68 • pearls around the neck

After looking for it all day in vain, I leave the house, to avoid encountering her reproachful look, her hateful voice.

All of our previous happiness has vanished and it is useless to think it will return. But we cannot be separated either. This evasive period is binding us, filling us with bitterness and annoyances, devouring the beautiful earlier moments one by one.

I only hope that sometime, by chance, it will appear, lost in a pocket, among other objects. Then it will be a fat, mourning, dirty and dusty period, placed at the wrong moment, as we novice writers do‌

Author: Cynthia Jaramillo, Ecuador, 2007 English translator: Jorge L. Lucero Illustration: Tim Gallo pearls around the neck • 69

Bob By the Pond Catherine Beeckman

His birthday was coming up, as it did every year… But what present could I possibly get him: my husband had everything. Well, almost.

Suddenly, while I was taking a stroll in our garden, an idea sprang into my head: I was going to give him a pond, a small aquatic estate with a stream and waterfalls, goldfish and the faint trickling sound of water peacefully flowing into a small greenish blue, liquid expanse…

Yes… Right before me, where there only was a random accumulation of boulders and shrubs, I could see a crystal clear water spring coming to life between gray rocks covered with soft emerald green moss, and stones scattered as though some mad Japanese Kami had thrown them. I could see water trickling down gently, into a first, deep pool in which Japanese Kois swam lazily. Giant rhubarb lined the banks and a variety of sweet flags composed a green carpet of short iris-like leaves with white trimmings. The stream flowed further down, following a bed of smooth pebbles bordered with cardamoms crowned by their pink and white blossoms. A waterfall, a pond…surrounded by marsh sedge, fern trees, water wisterias, and reeds reaching extravagantly for the sky. The pond simply imposed itself to my astounded eyes; the vision of an aquatic Eden, wet, fertile, and rather…irrevocable: it had to be a pond!

But who could possibly build a pond for me in three weeks?

“No problem,” my neighbor, Maudy, instantly claimed. “Piece of cake,” she added with great confidence. “I know a guy that can do this: Bob By the Pond”.

Back to reality.

Somehow, although I didn’t know why, I had a gut feeling about this.

However, having no other references, I dialed the number she’d given me. I didn’t understand a single word of what the person at the other end of the line was saying to me. Bob and his southern drawl unsettled me, by the trickle of purrs and whirs he was speaking into the line.

But in the end, he understood what I was telling him and repeated my address – which I no longer recognized – arranging an appointment for the afternoon of the same day, at 5 pm: “At fiiiive. Ah’ll bee the’e.”

5pm.

A jade green, 1976 Cadillac Eldorado convertible pulled in and parked at the end of the driveway. The two somewhat indefinable characters in it remained inside leisurely, smoking and listening to the radio, which was blaring what I thought I recognized as “Suspicious Minds,” by our beloved Elvis…

I watched from the kitchen window, as discreetly as possible.

The unknown pair was smoking, impassibly. The man was nodding his head slowly to the rhythm of the music while the woman was just smiling and regularly letting out puffs of smoke.

I watched.

Bob? Was I supposed to go and see them?

Was it Bob? “I’ve never lied to you, mmm, yeah, yeah…”

Elvis languorously finished his song and the couple decided to leave their coach.

I then saw them come up the steps, open the garden’s gate, and settle down on my terrace. The woman

pearls around the neck • 71

sat comfortably under the large green umbrella and placed a stack of papers on my Singapore teak table before lighting another cigarette. The man took a stroll through the garden, going to the exact spot where I’d imagined, this morning, a wet and fertile aquatic Eden: irremediably, this man was having the very same vision I’d had… It was Bob. As for his feminine sidekick, she was his wife, his companion, and his muse. I came out through the back door, walked across the porch and down a few steps. My arrival didn’t seem to particularly disturb the two bizarre eccentrics. I came closer. I drew nearer to the man and blurted, quite loudly, the American way, all in one breath: “Hey! Are you Bob? I’m Catherine, we talked on the phone this morning, pleased to meet you!”

He turned around.

He must have been very handsome in his youth, really quite handsome.

Something like Terence Hill, with big blue eyes. As a matter of fact he was wearing the same hat as Terence Hill. Indeed, he was. His raggedy jeans were falling below his hips in spite of the imitation leather belt meant to prevent their inexorable fall, and a faded shirt hung on his body, which looked too scrawny today but must surely have been, in the past, muscular and magnificent.

“Yep. I can see it right he’e. Comin’ from the top o’ the hill and runnin’ smoothly through these bushes over the’e. I’m gonna chop that tree daawn and look at ’em beautiful rocks ya got, hey, Barbra, did ya see those heavenly rocks, Baaaby?”

He then turned towards Barbra, who smiled at him tenderly, with the only two teeth she had left. She took a drag from her cigarette and, without getting up, held her hand out to me: “I’m Barbra, I’m the manager of the company, Bob’s the creative gu-y,” she said, dragging out each vowel to the limits of its elasticity.

I sat down, facing her, with the strange impression of having been invited to her table. Barbra seemed to have said it all for the day. She kept her eyes half-closed and smoked. Bob, still exploring my garden, had disappeared into the bushes.

I observed my “host”. Barbra was ugly, and had never been anything but ugly. Her greasy hair was neither short nor long, neither blond nor brunette but an undefined color. Her nose was large, her chin double, her cheeks flaccid and her shiny skin grainy.

She was wearing a not-so-clean-gray-meant-to-be-white T-shirt, a shapeless thing whose sleeves and neck gaped. Under the T-shirt, I could make out a pair of sagging breasts, which were no longer breasts but udders.

Bob interrupted these lugubrious considerations, planting himself in front of me, holding his firm hand out to me: “Catherine, ah luuuv yer place, ma’am I do. I’ll get ya some draaawings for t’morrow but lemme show ya maaa previous creations.”

Barbra, without opening her eyes, and all the while puffing on her fag, ran her hand absentmindedly through the stack of paper, extracting a few half-torn, grease-stained and yellowed sketches.

Bob then started an enthusiastic monologue whose only goal was to convince me what a good choice I’d made when calling him. I dared interrupt him to share my views, which he instantly corrected, nearly screaming that I didn’t seem to see the wider picture, that I lacked ambition. I was stunned into silence.

“Ya see,” he explained, “evurythin’s gotta be e-cologic these days. And ya’ll see, I only use stuff available on site to do maaa job; ‘xcept for the tarp at the bottom o’ the pond. Evurythin’ll come from yer gard’n.”

Bob then picked a new piece of paper –which I thought I recognized as a speeding ticket– and

72 • pearls around the neck

presently started drawing water mills, streams, lakes and torrents… He stuck a cigarette between his teeth, lit it feverishly and kept drawing, correcting, crossing out here, re-sketching there. I couldn’t follow him anymore. A tsunami had just swept over my small expanse of water. He presented his project.

In Shakespeare’s tongue, which isn’t my native language, there was only one way for me to express my feelings: “I see…”

“I’ll give ya a deal on this and believe ya me, Bob is pretty damn good at building ponds,” said Barbra, suddenly emerging from her cloud of smoke. She then proceeded to explain that they’d been married 25 years, had set up 9 companies, gone bankrupt 8 times but that this time they had struggled with the mortgages and taxes and finally struck luck: for the past 5 years, she’d been selling aquatic plants on the net and he’d been building ponds… they were afloat, at last! She took the pencil from Bob’s hand and scribbled a figure at the bottom of the ‘sketch’.

I personally had no idea what this kind of work was actually worth.

It could have been the Three Gorges Dam, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, or the Ginkaku-ji Zen Gardens…

How much was the eighth wonder of the world, Bob by the Pond’s creation, worth -in dollars?

“We’ll need half of the dough in cash now, Bob can feel this, he’s gonna start tomorrow. That pond of yers, he’s got it nailed down!” Barbra spurted in one go.

Bob leaned toward his muse, landed his lips on her toothless mouth and French-kissed her generously…

Obviously, women like Barbra made the proverb “woman is the future of man” an actual truth.

The two lovers got up: it seemed they suddenly had something better to do.

Bob and Barbra headed for their car. I accompanied them without saying a word.

I needed to find a way to prevent this duo from settling down in my garden.

I reached the Cadillac and saw, on the back seat, a young woman sleeping, her long dark hair disheveled.

“She’s sooo tired,” Barbra said, following my stare. “That’s Chelsea, our oldest one… She just spent the day in court tryin’ to get her kids back, custody, ya know. Her ex’s got the kids, that bastard!!” Barbra looked at her daughter and I saw her eyes for the first time: they were the translucent blue of a Scottish lake, and in the depth of her gaze was a love that had no banks, a tenderness without conditions.

I scrutinized the back of the Cadillac, trying to see Chelsea, but Chelsea was rolled into a ball. I could only make out tattoos, seemingly covering every inch of visible skin; piercings in places where one would think it impossible to stick a hook into the flesh, and sensual rolls of fat in places where a young woman’s body may develop an erotic personality. On the back seat, I also discovered a heap of liquor bottles and a dozen or so crushed cans of beer.

Why had she lost the custody of her children? I didn’t ask.

Not that I wasn’t interested. I was afraid of Chelsea, that was all.

I just wanted the jade green Cadillac to clear out of fast as possible, taking along its cargo of human waste, misery and failure. I wanted them to clear off with their Budweiser breath and cold-tobacco smell, the lingering whiff of their unhealthy sleepless nights, the rings under their eyes, their slaps and their scars.

I wanted the Cadillac to take these characters away from my own shortcomings because I could sense that it was transporting on board the grime and scum of the unlucky, the poor, the rejected and the outcast. I could sense that this jade-colored Cadillac was ferrying misfortune and delivering the tribulations of those that they called, here, with much disdain: “White Trash”; the whites who didn’t

pearls around the neck • 73

have and never will have access to the great American dream but who picked up the fragment of this dream turned nightmare in spite of the misfortunes hitting them, in spite of the various ordeals that they resignedly drowned in alcohol, or escaped in drugs, crystals and fornication; the kids that they spawned and neglected.

This Cadillac was spreading the nauseating smell of American dumps and ditches.

And yet. I called Bob back the very same evening to ask him to start his great works the next day.

Why? Was it a charitable gesture? An impulse of altruism.

No, it wasn’t.

It was because I was the one who had come to a standstill.

There had been, in Barbra’s eyes and Bob’s gestures, more humanity than I had seen in the past ten years in all the well-oiled charity work organized in my frigging well-groomed neighborhood and wellordered life.

I waited all morning long. But no Cadillac.

Around noon, Bob showed up.

He was alone, in a good mood, freshly shaven. Almost clean.

“Brought all maaa tools,” he sang out joyfully.

All I could see was a shovel, an old wheelbarrow and black vinyl tarp.

Bob started working, a wide smile splitting his sun-tanned face. I left, because it felt like the proper thing to do, I guess. I had some errands to run. “The garden is all yours. I trust you,” I said as I left. I was lying a little.

When I came back, two hours later, Bob had uprooted 3 shrubs and an azalea, he had felled two small trees and moved a pile of river stones (rather rare in the county). “Found ‘em rocks all over yer backyard!” He had worked hard and decided to “crack a beer open”. Which he did right away, right there, sitting in his wheelbarrow, perched on his stack of stones.

A lump in my throat and what seemed like a pound of cement on my tongue, I watched the slaughter of my garden. How was I going to tell my husband that I had the splendid idea – not to get him a pond for his birthday, this was still a splendid idea – to hire Bob By the Pond to carry out the idea…which was stupid? And yet, I felt that I would like to sit next to him to sip a beer with him, without a word.

Why was this impossible?

The next day, here we went again!

Bob showed up around noon.

He was alone, in a good mood, freshly shaven and almost clean.

His equipment was right in the middle of the lawn, and he brought a twelve pack that he proceeded to place in a cooler.

Out of embarrassment, but even more out of hypocrisy, I left. I had more errands to run.

I came back at around five and Bob was still there, or at least his car was, as well as his shovel, planted in a mound of dirt, his wheelbarrow, turned over on the lawn and a few beer cans in the bushes.

But no Bob in sight.

Ah, but yes, Bob was there, perched at the top of a maple tree, on the other side of the garden…

“Hey, Catherine, come on up he’e, ya’ll get a better idea, a better perspective of yer pond!”

Oh, no, he was going to fall down, tumble down from his perch, break his back: the man was stinking

74 • pearls around the neck

drunk! But Bob, with the agility of a primate, came down from branch to branch and landed at my feet.

“Luuuv it he’e!” He screamed in my face, with his beer-laden breath. “Ah’ll be back t’morrow, early.

Got a lot on maaa plate.”

And he kissed me.

The day after, no Bob. The following day: a depressed Bob. His eyes were red, and swollen, his unkempt, greasy hair was sticking out of his hat, his body was slumped, yet he smiled and set to work. What tragedy had hit him in the past 48 hours?

I stayed home. I made him coffee and went to sit on the terrace. He joined me there.

Bob said nothing. He sipped his black coffee and lit a cigarette.

Time went by.

More time went by.

Time slowly healed him and he knew it; he had to let time pass. I watched him from the corner of my eye. He was handsome. He had several scars on his face and a new cut in his neck. Time was going by and then he got up and handed me his empty coffee cup. “Thanks. Ya make good coffee.” And he went back to work.

I went back to my kitchen. Through the window, I could see the jade green Cadillac. There was a mass laying down on the back seat, under a khaki green blanket. A human body, a man.

Holy shit…this was like something straight out of Steinbeck, Faulkner or Saint Clair, right in my backyard!

I stormed out, determined to ask Bob for some kind of explanation but he was peacefully moving rocks to outline the banks of the pond.

He threw me a look filled with tenderness: “Ah know, the one in the car’s my son. He’s on probation this week. He’ll be helpin’ me when he’s gonna wake up. Ya’ll like the guy, he’s a cool kid.”

Bob was a great master in the art of disconcerting me. I was stunned and once again, I just took it in.

“Of course!” I heard myself reply, embarrassed.

Probation = suspended sentence, parole.

What crime could Bob By the Pond’s son have committed?

Who could he have bumped off, and for what rotten reason?

What girl could he have raped? What drug could he have consumed, what quantity sold, to what kid junkies? Could he have robbed Walgreens, gagging what number of innocent Korean cashiers who came to the U.S. to make a decent living?

No, I was reassured, Bob had said he was a “cool kid”.

It seemed I was going delirious in my kitchen. I figured I would probably be well-advised to go run errands.

Out of cowardice, I beat a retreat and relinquished my property, my garden and my possessions. I left it all to Bob and his son-on-probation: I surrendered.

Three hours later, the father and the son had actually finished the pond.

The tree he had felled had been cut into logs that now formed several levels under the vinyl tarp. The rocks and stones stolen in the garden traced the outline of the pond. The bushes uprooted here and there had been cleverly replanted around a charming little stream connected to a small pool into which water flowed from the main pond.

Bob and his son were laying in the grass, spread-eagle, their faces offered to the sun.

pearls around the neck • 75

“It’s wonderful!” I said enthusiastically. I did feel enthusiastic.

“I know!” Bob replied. “That’s maaa job, Catherine.”

He didn’t move, and his son didn’t bat an eyelash. They both gently fell asleep.

When nightfall came, they woke up and went home, I supposed.

I had been mistaken.

Three days later, Bob knocked on my door at 7:30 am.

He visibly hadn’t slept since his last nap on my lawn. He was shaking and asked me for a down payment on the work – in cash.

I didn’t ask any questions. I gave him the money, asking only for one favor in return: that he finishes the pond before the weekend. My husband was coming back from a long business trip and I wanted to surprise him. Above all, I wanted him to never discover, much less imagine, the very presence of Bob and his son, his daughter or his muse Barbra, here, on his property. You see, my husband was seriously territorial, somewhat like a male stickleback during the mating season.

“W’ll do…” He let out, exhausted, spent, at the end of his rope.

And then I heard myself offer him some coffee: “I know you like my coffee, Bob. Have a seat.” He complied and, once again, a regenerating silence swallowed us, the type of silence that would be found around a convalescing person and, unbeknownst to me, I too was healing along with him.

Bob came back that evening, all perked up. The man simply knew how to recover… and surprise me.

To thank me, he had brought Japanese koi carps, aquatic plants and papyrus – he knew they were my favorite – and placed all the makeshift aquariums on the terrace. He was going to finish the pond the next morning, and bring the final touches to the banks: “T’morrow, ya’ll see what a stone really is. I’ll teach ya, Catherine.”

He kept his promise.

This phase could be named: Bob the physicist, specialized in hydraulic pressure, in potential differences and in the connected vessels principle. Everything seemed to work, more or less. Water was circulating from one pool to the other and the waterfall was an absolute delight.

The next phase could be named: Bob the poet. It lasted 48 hours and knew neither night nor day, nor mealtime, nor time to wash up or time to show others some respect.

Bob took root for 48 hours. With seemingly endless supplies of cigarettes and beer cans, Bob the haunted artist scrutinized each stone he had placed, absorbed in reflection. I saw him sit for one hour and thirty-seven minutes in front of the same rock, tilting his head, thinking with great intensity until he sprung up and headed towards the rock in question to move it a few eighth of an inch to the left or to the right!

One morning, while I was enjoying my coffee, I saw a shadow in the ferns.

It was Bob. He was squatting in a position that would be a challenge for Iyengar or any other renowned yogi. He saw me and called me softly.

“Catherine, do ya see that stone the’e? Not that one. Kneel under theses bushes, twist yer neck, the’e ya go, ya see na-ow?” I pretended I did because I found this annoying. I felt it was a bit early in the day for Bob’s ranting.

“Yes, I see.” I said sullenly.

76 • pearls around the neck

“Looks liiika toad.”

“Yep, maybe.”

“And look the’e, on yer left: ain’t it the face of a wise man?”

“Yep, maybe too.”

“Look at that one, the rock with the green moss: I placed it close to the waterfall. Now, ya see, t’looks liiika woman with green hair shedding her tears in the pond.”

Bob was right: it was truly beautiful.

So I stayed with him under the ferns, listening to what the stones had to tell us. Suddenly it was like a great cacophony of rocks all telling their story at once. The toad came to life, the wise man soothed the green-haired woman and we closed our eyes to better hear the water follow its course.

The third phase could be named: the great escape.

To cut our eccentricities short, I suggested to Bob to shorten this session since my husband was due to arrive 12 hours later. I knew that I could not put a big red bow on his present but I could at least make the premises as neat and tidy as possible. I went back inside, got dressed and started going through the tasks of my routine, daily “to-do” list. Absorbed in my own activities, I somewhat forgot about the garden. By the end of the afternoon, however, I realized that the Cadillac was not longer part of the décor, and that Bob had vanished. I took a tour of the property: a few scattered beer cans, cigarette butts everywhere, his wheelbarrow, my shovel and my pickax. Oh, well. I just picked it all up.

Everything had to be perfect for the upcoming evening.

“What a lovely surprise, honey, what a great idea! Who made this gardening masterpiece?” Instead of a true answer, I just cooed, at once strutting with pride and squirming timidly.

We had a late dinner, with a lot of good wine.

We let the evening drag on as we settled down comfortably in the living room: one last glass of Malbec, and a Camel.

The water noises in the background, the gentle trickle of the waterfall made the evening even more pleasant.

But this nice atmosphere was soon disturbed by a somewhat wilder sound: was it splashing? Could it be?

A terrible shiver ran right up and down my spine: I got up mechanically while my husband kept sipping his Argentinean wine.

I turned on the garden lights.

Something was definitely off.

The pond.

Or, rather, in the pond.

Something was happening in the pond.

There was a man in the pond.

Floating on his back, his face upward, gazing dreamily at the stars.

The haggard look on my face must have alerted my husband: he got up and came to my side.

“Baby, there is someone in the garden!”

“No, baby. There is a man in the pond.” I was more specific and I knew why I was able to specify this detail…

There was a hesitant look first, then enormous question marks in his eyes. “Who are you?” my

pearls around the neck • 77

husband, now standing on the porch, yelled out. He didn’t go any closer, however, for he knew how dangerous it might be: everyone here was armed, except for us.

“You! Answer! Who are you?” He yelled again, one notch louder.

“His name is Bob,” I said, a tint of weariness in my voice, then repeating: “It’s Bob, you don’t have to shout, baby.”

“And may I know who Bob is?” My husband asked, stunned.

“It’s Bob By the Pond,” I said, lowering my head with resignation.

I walked down to the pond, leaving my astonished husband on the porch.

It was Bob, indeed, floating peacefully on his back. Fully dressed, smiling, happy.

“Hey, Catherine. Did yer husband like his birthday present? Ya oughtta come lie down he’e, ya know, and just BE ONE WITH THE POND!” Epilogue.

That was how my husband came to meet Bob, the great earthworks engineer, the troubadour of all human miseries, the enchanter of all ponds, the prophet of rocks and stones.

We never saw him again.

Bob simply disappeared.

As though he’d never truly existed, or as though he had blended into this great indefinable “White Trash” mass, with his beautiful smile, his muse, his beer and his cigarettes, with his rotten luck, his disasters, his relapses and all the poetry of this lowly world, so void of humanity yet so engaging.

I, for one, enjoy thinking that he has remained with me, that he has taken on a mineral form, that of a lichen-covered rock, and that he has been watching over me, drawing me back to the beauty of everlasting things: of stones, and rocks, and inorganic things.

Author: Catherine Beeckman, USA, 2007 English translator: Sylvie Froschl Illustration: Catherine Beeckman 78 • pearls around the neck

Logorrhea or Silence A hybrid Dialogue Juana Lende

- I’m leaving.

- (…Akjsfi 87bgh &qopie sjdfeytye mxnv^$./,pue kfuy ksjdfoi89375 k^% )(kd kejutj et29874,d _(%#$@ NBHOIYT ndfioiuy!)

- No. This time I will not come back.

- (…poi %$ kljsdf><? Qwemnbc oier 65nvbmxc []p \][ >?< 2jkwd reyut nb3 657 !%*NB !!) oioufu, oietuy^%!)

- Yes, you are right. I lost all credibility.

- (…HG!! Kalhr$%#@ mdnfot es()*^ ,mnbv>?< !! oiiyr nsfoiuri ^&%$@#$ skdjgirut?>< opeiut8976 !!!! ^&$$#b %% sklfhie!! Dkgjporut /.,][p +_) kljiouer??? Apowrubb opwir9786234b lkn qpie982764n $@ljHG epiu?>< owei-09 JKHFGGFD lkjshfhf ??!! oiuqw^%$ lsdjmn, 98?> mnqpioe !!??? ) - Do not raise your voice. No more scenes, be kind. I’m leaving.

- (…klasjd876? Oierot 8974mkbfop *(& ?)

- It is no longer of my concern. I’m sorry.

- (…KHJS uyr%# 876da pi[]p klmc cb,motn rwe?)

- Oh, it is easer than it seems to be. You will figure it out.

You have always been able to manage.

- (… AJhp[oiwe ./,23 oupt *& roeumnv[iper ,sfiuet?)

- No. I don’t expect anything from you. You don’t owe me a thing.

There are no accounts to settle.

- (…POI %$ kalsf)( kejfpoeut zxnmb {MB#&^ ljsdu KHu?) - I trust you. You have always been an honest man.

- (…kljsdk? Opwr? Powurnciueg564?)

- To separate, to start fresh, to divorce; you name it. I am leaving you.

- (…Ajfoeur ?)

- They are grown-ups now; they don’t need us any longer. Soon they will build their own lives and we will not be a part of it.

80 • pearls around the neck

- (…908ksljuye2654 owi9078 *8 iou%$ kjhqewwe$# opeur! Iwurn>?<!irur 9$#JHGDF !! mnvc;’l ^% poiwurm,bnzxv ! oqwmnxv=-9 +_)#!klsjhfnli!)

- I beg you. Not one more single word.

- (…;’luy786 123 LKJEWOUV KSJhdkfh owurjhm $#oer !!)

- Try to understand. I don’t want anything from you. Nothing.

- (…lkj iuatdnbrm$5 ?)

- Call me a taxi, the one you always call.

- (…klj_)( qwiu kghawpiru aspo riydfn!kwjroi mxbv.)

- Give me a hand with those suitcases: they are heavy. Would you, please?

- (…lkj poi(8klsfu! Sfjslv? (*^%? Wopriua9s7f Hrqe uiyz …ouw nad[ 32? Opu&^nmvm! Soiuie xnvbp*^> soeityn(0 +mnvcqkjye) - Don’t hold me back.

- (…lkshjf *&% slk013 mzxnbv?., pieresl;qwaaahsdn.)

- Actually, you can still give me something; you have always been so generous.

Give me the silence.

The silence of solitude, not the silence of loneliness.

I don’t love you any more.

- (…silence…)

Author: Juana Lende, Argentina, 2011 English translator: Catherine Beeckman Illustration: Tim Gallo pearls around the neck • 81

6.

The Pearl of Sexuality

Sex in the city Catherine Beeckman

After three months in Louisville, Kentucky, I didn’t have a whole lot of friends.

That’s not quite it, actually. To be more specific, I had a lot of “What’s ups?!”, “Hi theres!” and quite a few “Let’s get together one days.” I therefore was quite delighted when Penny officially invited me to a “girls’ night out.”

Standing in front of my closet, I didn’t really know what I was supposed to wear. What could my points of reference have been since I had only seen women wearing running gear when dropping the kids off at school in the morning, and yoga pants when picking them up around 4 pm?

I also had a slight biblical gut feeling, for I knew that Penny was a devoted churchgoer who spent six hours every Sunday with her family – and 22,000 other faithful believers – at the Southern Baptist Church, and every Wednesday evening at round tables reading the Gospel.

Yet there was a “modern” side to Penny, cheeky Penny! A slender, 5-foot-4 woman with a doll face, always decked out in Banana Republic or Ann Taylor to go to work, Penny was a model employee in an investment bank. She always smiled with her pearly white teeth and her pretty, perfectly red lips, courtesy of Lancôme lipstick, her own and only small folly!

So, at 7 pm, I made my way to Hurstbourne, a residential neighborhood with a private golf and country club.

It was already dark when I arrived at Krivia’s, the evening’s hostess.

Krivia was an ob-gyn. She was beautiful, smart, independent and divorced. Penny had recommended her enthusiastically: Krivia was the doctor for all the girls in the group. It was nicer that way, and it “all” stayed between us! Krivia and Penny had known each other since kindergarten; that is since their respective sons had entered kindergarten. It had probably been so for all the guests invited tonight.

The door was open and there was already a nice little crowd, with jazz music providing a nicely hushed atmosphere. Small groups of women were chatting and laughing, a glass of Chardonnay in hand. I put my handbag down on a chair next to the sideboard in the dining room.

A quick glance at the beautifully, and generously, set table told me that Krivia was an impeccable hostess.

Yet, something caught my eye… Something was terribly off. Right there, among the beautiful crystal, silverware and British china was a cake in the shape of a penis.

You heard it right, a large cake in the shape of a penis covered with chocolate. Only conclusion possible: a black man’s cock.

I was certainly mistaken. Surely the cook meant to represent some exotic fruit and failed somewhere along the way. Yet… what were those breast-shaped puddings doing here? And why were there pink lace bras wrapped around the candlesticks? Were these blown-up condoms floating lazily above the Baccarat chandelier?

I must have come to the wrong address.

Reaching towards the chair to grab my purse and leave discreetly before getting caught up in some Kentuckian orgy whose rules I wouldn’t know, I suddenly heard the lovely Penny calling out to me: “Hi there, have a drink!”

Actually, I was quite ready for double Bourbon, on ice, straight up: what on earth was this all about?

A little further away, I could see a woman dressed as a nurse with hat and all (was this supposed to be a costume party?). She was standing behind a table covered with sexual objects. Well, there was no longer any room for doubt: plastic dicks, hairy vaginas, vibrators, in short an exhaustive assortment of pussy and wily toys.

Holy shit!

Or was it ‘Hurrah!’ this was going to be fun after all?

At that particular moment, I wasn’t exactly sure yet.

I was introduced to the guests, all “nice” women: Shirley, from Mc Harvey, the insurance company; Marcy, plastic surgeon; Nancy, private banker; and so on.

84 • pearls around the neck

I sipped my perfectly chilled Chardonnay, wondering when we were going to have a bite of the chocolate cake.

It seemed, however, that the evening was following a well-rehearsed protocol. “You’ll see, this is a lot of fun.”

Since here, in the US, everyone used “fun” for each and every purpose; I felt I was still entitled to some caution… We then went to sit in the living room, in a circle around the “table” by which the nurse was standing (with a masochistic gleam in her eye, putting a new twist on the announced “fun”).

“Ladies, friends, let me introduce you to Gwenn,” Krivia, as charming as ever, began. She was wearing a sari that was dark orange, a color that did wonders for her, and ethnic jewelry, which gorgeously enhanced her exotic features. I’d learned that Krivia had Indian origins, with Penny specifying: “Turban Indian, not carpet Indian, you know what I mean.”

Applause and yelps of encouragement. “Gwenn works in my practice as a nurse, but she also has a small private business on the side.”

Some of the guests obviously knew her already – a few squeals of acknowledgement from Shirley and Nancy who visibly were already adepts.

“Tonight, Gwenn will be presenting the latest novelties in the Please Yourself, Fantasy Inc. collections. Now, Gwenn, over to you.”

Nancy, the private banker, was wiggling in her own fat. She was tall, big and fat. Her chubby smile matched her chubby baby face, with her fat lips pursed and seemingly ready, at any time, to execute a blow job; but I must apologize, it was the context that brought on such thoughts and who knew what I’d have thought of these lips, had we met for the first time in a patchwork quilting club.

More wine was poured, more appetizers were served.

“Before presenting the latest fashion, I would like to start a game that will last throughout the evening, to make sure I fully get your attention. Here’s how it goes: as soon as I say the words ‘penis’ or ‘vagina’, the first of you to raise her hand will be allowed to hold this large rubber penis. Let’s begin!!!” Gwen hollered, warming up her audience.

The guests laughed groaningly, it was going to be fun, this Gwenn knew how to spice things up! And, goodness, if you’d seen this thing! “I wouldn’t mind holding that in my hand a few seconds!” whispered Nancy in my ear. Her breath was burning hot. I recoiled – she definitely did not belong to any patchworkquilting club.

Gwenn unwrapped a contraption, which looked like a blue and green rubber unicorn the size of a wrist. She pressed a button on the animal’s belly; a soft whirring started and the mythical creature started wriggling.

“This is the Unicorn model. Last year, I presented the Dolphin and Charley the Chimp; this season, I believe that the unicorn will make you discover enchanted lands of pleasure. Its little horn knows where to go and knead erogenous zones mercilessly, just near the opening of the vagina…”

“Aaah”, “Hey”, shrieked the overexcited guests, all raising their hands. “Vagina, vagina, you said it, I get to hold the ginormous dick!!!” “No! I was first,” Penny retorted, fighting back… the rest of them giggling hopelessly.

Gwenn threw the rubber penis in the air and the girls all jumped up for it (much like bridesmaids fighting for the bouquet) while Gwenn, unruffled, went on specifying that Unicorn excitement was available with batteries or with a power cord.

Next to me, Shirley started a veritable debate. Her shortly cropped platinum blond hair, her large earrings, her cleavage of beautiful, silicone-engineered (at least three times) breasts and her hands covered with many carats of gold and diamonds, all wiggled with overwhelming sexual energy: “Girls, I vote in favor of the model with the power cord. I have scathing memories of having been left hanging by battery-operated models that failed when I was about to come… It was awful!” “No way,” Penny responded, “It’s much better pearls around the neck • 85

with batteries. You can take your dildo with you everywhere. You keep it in your handbag, and voilà! You can use it wherever and whenever you want!” all the while holding the huge plastic wiener in her hand.

Well, I had always suspected there was something behind Penny’s cheeky smile. There was obviously no thinking of Susanna and the elders from the book of Daniel right this minute… the lovely, chaste Susanna!

Gwenn continued her presentation: a collection resolutely dedicated to sea creatures and mythical creatures, an entire bestiary in blue, green and pink silicone.

After the Unicorn, that everyone could now picture at the back of their minds crawling in search of a swollen and throbbing clit – whereas in truth this splendid and elegant creature of medieval times was a symbol of purity and the antidote against our lowly world’s poisons – it was the Griffin’s turn to stroke our erogenous zones, with its wings. Poor Griffin, originally a symbol of monogamy!! Did any of you, sinful ladies, know that in ancient Christian times the Griffin was associated with Jesus? Did you know?

And look at that pitiful Phoenix, presently acting as the replacement for a prick, a slave rubbing its little crimson head against a bush of pubic hair. Oh celestial incandescent god, here you are, reborn from your ashes after 500 years, stuck in the mire of female genitals… merely serving the burning desire of a lewd and licentious twat! Dear me, couldn’t Gwenn have at least drawn her inspiration from a Yeti, a Sasquatch or a Big Foot?!

I felt I ought to convince Gwenn to call me for the next season. I would draw up an entire Homo Erectus Robustus collection with nimble Energicus little hands doing the work; I could devise a collection of Gigantopithecus Negrus Bonerus Optimus – the cake was, it seemed, very inspiring.

Gwenn didn’t care much for my cultural recriminations and continued her presentation. Here was a superb 7-inch dick (17cm), in pink acrylic, its base adorned with 12 small Swarovski crystals and a plume of fine powdery pink ostrich feathers.

The Lux Body Duster, ladies, was a marabou feather duster meant to “dust” the lover’s body, exciting the most sensitive parts. It was highly recommended to get it along with the Tasty Tickles, an edible powder that perfumed the body, making it more than appetizing. Yes, ladies! You could have your pick among the three flavors: chocolate, raspberry or strawberry. And one of the must-haves, the Kama Sutra Pleasure Balm a scientifically proven revolution, an edible balm which slightly anesthetized the base of the penis for longer lasting pleasure.

Then came the Teeny Weenie Vitamins, or vitamin C pills. Was that all? No, they were in the shape of a… penis! (I had guessed, and therefore found myself holding the humongous rubber toy with both hands!)

You also had the Shrink Cream, which as its name indicated shrank the vagina; the Sex Rocks, to be placed in the mouth before giving head and then observe his mind-blowing pleasure, and the Don’t Stop Massage Oil, which gave the promise of a cozy scene in luxurious candlelight, whose fragrance awakened the senses.

Once aroused, the tender lover was to blow the light out and pour the oil (What? Burning oil?? That was downright masochistic!) on the excited body of his sweet mate and massage her body. A unique, intimate experience, Gwenn assured us. The oil contained Shea butter, vitamin A and E, jojoba, olive oil and coconut oil…

Then Gwenn moved on to Lingerie, whose names have to be listed, for they were a tribute to poetry: Sugar n’ Spice, Paris Frolic, French Maid, Short and Sassy, Leopard Mesh Teddy AND the essential Mr. Nose

86 • pearls around the neck

Brief… underwear for men sporting two eyes and a moustache, Mr.-the-wearer providing the nose, of course, through the cleverly though-out hole. It was absolutely irresistible. I couldn’t stop laughing, my eyes welled up with tears, and yet – although I didn’t realize it then – a slow melancholy was coming over me.

Then Gwenn presented a whole series of C Rings, Bullets, Cyber Flickers and Anal Beads… did someone change the subject? Had we moved on, without transition, to hardware or firearms supplies? And when Gwenn pulled out a collection of small towels decorated with crude libidinous illustrations: “essential to wipe sperm stains after they come!” I left the room. I had lost my appetite; they could keep their chocolate cake all for themselves.

When I came back, Marcy had taken her pants off. The beautiful Marcy was now flaunting her sculptural legs enhanced by liposuction and laser vein-therapy last winter – the perfect testimonial for her esthetic surgery practice. She slipped on a tiny pair of garter panties whose most intriguing feature was a red switch… the girls were guffawing while cheering her on: “Marcy! Marcy! Marcy! Switch the damn thing on!!” Marcy did as instructed and pressed on the red switch. Since I had stepped out for a breath of fresh air, Gwenn brought me up to speed on what was going on. “You see, these panties are equipped with a vibrator placed inside the seams and right where the vagina is. This way, you can please yourself while doing the housework… while vacuuming or ironing.” And what happens if the mailman rings at the door with certified mail? My mind was clicking.

Why? This toy wasn’t dumb at all. I know hundreds of cranky women desperately in need of a good screw who would become – thanks to Gwenn’s panties – true rays of sunshine, killing people with charm and sweetness: the bitch at the post office, my husband’s secretary, the uptight lady who handled my teenager’s braces… I threw my arms around Gwenn’s neck, promising her she deserved the Nobel Peace Prize, because if every single woman with a frustrated clit could wear this thingamajig well-hidden in their underwear, all the time, we would live in a world with so much compassion the Dalai-Lama would be forced to an early, albeit well-deserved, retirement.

But Gwenn only threw me a dark look, and so did my friends… Further research into vibrator units later explained their lack of enthusiasm responding to my promises of a Swedish prize. But Gwenn was a resourceful woman.

In no time at all, she’d produced another vibrator, that you could plug in your car this time, very practical if you got stuck in traffic (was anyone going to mention there was NEVER any traffic jam in this godforsaken small southern town… Well, they might just have to create one!). Discreet, cleverly named Nano-vibe, terribly posh in its techno-design metal box created by Shiri Zinn (no kiddin’!). Yes, Shiri Zinn, the one and only true guru in the field of Sex Toys & Co, with more dedicated active web pages than the creator of Google himself!

And then, my dear ladies… No, I’m not going to talk about the chocolate cake; it’d been melting on the table like a morning boner in a cold shower, then Gwenn, a smart lady who knew how to pull off a grand finale; yes, Gwenn, a smart lady indeed who knew we had to have had a few drinks and be fully uninhibited to react to this toy (rather than its dear price); well, Gwenn exhibited the “Turn Me On Panties”.

With an air fully suited to the circumstances, Gwenn presented her star product: “These panties are made of the softest lace, the silkiest satin and ribbons, still, inside the panties are 2 vibrating bullets operated by

pearls around the neck • 87

a remote control with 10 different functions. This remote control can be operated 20 feet away from you.”

The noisy audience had become speechless.

And then, quickly recovering from the shock, burst into applause, hurrahs and joyful screeches, the acrylic penis suddenly falling out of favor was trampled underfoot by women hugging in a flurry of checks written right on the spot… Pray God that Gwenn brought enough Turn Me On Panties! “What a night!” Penny called. “Aren’t you getting anything?” Krivia asked. “How long have you been married to the same man?”

Marcy asked. “Seven years? Here, you’d better take my card” Gwenn replied, “you’ll be calling me in about six months.”

I grabbed a box of Turn Me on Panties and started reading the user instructions. Fascinating. Shirley, already addicted to ‘Please Yourself, Fantasy Inc.’ products, tore the box out of my hands, saying that she’d wear them the following day at the cocktail for The Nutcracker’s opening night. I could already picture the scene. She would be wearing the panties. Gary, her husband (as well as former football player and current V.P. of a tobacco company) having placed the remote control in his tuxedo pocket. They would go to the posh, uptight cocktail party and while she’d sip her Margarita surrounded with work relations, he’d throw her lustful looks and slowly increase the intensity. She would squirm slightly, unable to stop relentlessly suckling on her cocktail’s maraschino cherry. Gary, somewhat drooling, would observe her from afar. Act 1, scene 7 of The Nutcracker: the battle. While Clara starts the struggle with the Mouse King, Gary suddenly would push the intensity way up and a shrill cry would arise from the eighth row: Shirley succumbing! The Mouse King would die, and Tchaikovsky’s score would pick up with the overture in the orchestra’s highpitched register.

Or, then again, Gary could be in a bad mood. He could decide NOT to turn on the contraption for the entire evening. She’d be casting begging looks and the guests would wonder at Gary’s cool domination over his wife. But good god! Shirley looking at him imploringly all evening long? That would be downright indecent! And so rare, here in the South, where women clearly have the upper hand. The men would invite Gary out to the patio for a smoke during the intermission and ask him to share his secret. But Gary would never, ever, tell that he had a remote control.

That was when a sentence printed on the Turn Me On Panties’ box suddenly came back to me: “Gentleman, with great power comes great responsibility!”

I went back home that night in a state of utter confusion. Laughing and crying while driving my car, alone in the street of Louisville, deserted after 11pm. When I arrived home, I threw myself into my husband’s arms: “Tell me, hon, are you awfully bored in bed with me?” Answered the taken aback husband: “Where on earth have you been tonight?” I didn’t answer right away; I went to the bathroom and confiscated anything that could emit the slightest vibration: foot massaging device, electric toothbrushes, razors, and trendy nail files. EVERYTHING is hidden away until further notice.

Author: Catherine Beeckman, KY, USA, 2002 English translator: Sylvie Froschl Illustration: Catherine Beeckman 88 • pearls around the neck

A Nightingale on your Stem Marisa Estelrich

Silky, softly sliding, revealing the pinkish roundness of your flesh.

My lips glide around the contours of your nakedness rounded, humid, erected and I feel blessed.

My tongue licks the nectar of your soul transfigured of your manly rigor and it rests on the sleeping embers and perhaps it lingers on the edge of darkness softly licking tigers of a nightingale flicking through the night trembling like a thistle subtly leaning by.

Author: Marisa Estelrich, USA, 2006 An erotic poem from: “Pictures of Words, Words of Pictures” Illustration: Catherine Beeckman 90 • pearls around the neck

« Harpy »of the Cell Phone: sexing Anonyme 15 ans, Mimai

The messenger writes in black characters, the correspondents, XX1, XX2 and XX3 write in blue.

The translations of the textmessages are in grey.

Messages

to XX 1

Edit

21 feb. 2012 1: 06 AM U up You are awake? (…) Silence W@? What are you doing?

Messages

to XX 2

Edit 21 feb. 2012 1:08 AM YT You There? (…)

U up? Are you awake?

Messages

to XX 3

Edit 21 feb. 2012 1:09 AM YT Are you there?

Y? Why? WYD? What are you doing? :-Q

Smoking. @? What?

420 Marijuana KEWL Cool 92 • pearls around the neck

Messages

to XX 2

Edit 21 feb. 2012 1:11 AM WUW What you want?

I’m ZZZ I’m bored.

WYD? What are you doing?

D[--]b Listening to music.

K-Pop Korean Pop musique ???

Sistar A Korean pop group (…) (…)

AYT Are you there?

WUW |~O What you want? Yawning…

C’mon… (…) (…)

Messages

to XX 3

Edit 21 feb. 2012 1: 13 AM UOK? ? up 4 2morw? Are you OK? What’s up for tomorrow? (…)

pearls around the neck • 93

Messages

to XX 2

Edit 21 feb. 2012 1:13 AM

CMON …I’m so ZZZZ Come on, I’m so bored.

OK. Go 2 ur compu, & GNOC OK, go to your computer and get naked behind the camera. @!@ 9 @ home WHAT! Parents at home.

Mmmm X-1-10 Exciting.

GYPO Get your pants of. (…)

XME!

Excuse me!

CMOM! YGG Come on, you go girl! (…) use ur phone STV Use your phone, set on vibe. (…)

PIB Phone in but. @;@ WTF Amazed, shocked feeling.

What the fuck!

RU horny yet? Are you horny yet?

DU masturbate? Do you masturbate?

FIV? Finger in vagina?

YOO! D2 dedos= fingers (…)

94 • pearls around the neck

ENUF Enough!

EZ girl, so no 53X? Easy girl, so no sex?

Do I know Y??

I8Y!!!! Do I know you? I hate you!!!

Y make me sick!!

Messages

to XX 3

Edit 21 feb.2012 1:12AM YT? Are you there? :-) (…)

Y OK? Tu es OK? O.o

I’m confused… ???

Pourquoi?

Don’t wanna talk now.

Do Y know XX2?

C u 2morw.

Noop. 143 Go 2 sleep.

No. I love you. Go to sleep, see you tomorrow. (…)

XX2 is SICK! 142 I love you to.

Author: Anonymous, 15 years old, Miami, USA, 2012 Illustration: Tim Gallo pearls around the neck • 95

Sex in Tokyo : Sexâ&#x20AC;Ś?

Catherine Beeckman

An article about sexuality in Japanese married couples.

Had it not been for Book magazine 1 publishing an article dedicated to sexuality in Japanese couples, I might have folded into origami figures all the pages of notes I had taken about the topic while living in Tokyo.

I am not a sociologist in the making but certain secrets shared by my Japanese friends caught me so off guard, I made entries about them in one of my notebooks. The blatant contrast between the revelations of these intimate secrets of the bedroom and the tangible physical dayto-day reality of Tokyo seemed irreconcilable.

But those who live in Tokyo are quick to unmask topics and understand that the Japan of the Geishas is history.

The extreme feminization of young men, the role playing at the “maid cafés”, the porno “manga” magazine that are openly read on the subway, the adolescents -kyabajo– whom sell themselves sharing only a beer with 50 year old men –mizu shobai–, the young male “prostitution”–gyaruo– (there is no physical contact): none of the above can be a parameter in the equation of the lovemaking in a married couple.

And yet, the explanation of this sexual enigma–or rather its absence – is simple. Fundamental.

Here are some of the confessions I have collected, as they where whispered to me.

“Having a hobby in Japan is very important. I met my husband at the university. We are both architects, but it was our hobby that brought us together: he likes to take black & white photographs of squalid buildings. I thought that was fun and “kawaii” (cute). I too like to spend hours walking the streets of Tokyo or Yokohama, camera ready.

We spent many months like this: dating, taking the train or the metro, and making random stops.

Later, one evening, we were at my place developing film together. We made love. We really did not talk about it; time kept passing just the same, and we got married. A year later, we no longer made love regularly, sometimes months would go by. And yet, I am very happy, my husband and I spend as much time as possible together. I am married, this is important to me”.

32-year-old, architect.

“I married my best friend. We laugh together, go to the park together on weekends, he likes to go shopping with me, especially to fashion stores. We give each other advice: what to wear and the colors that match, the prints on a top, a new haircut. And yet, I do not know that we have a strong physical attraction towards each other, like in the movies…no!”.

29-year-old, stylist.

“Ever since we have two children, we no longer make love more than once or twice a year. I do not know how we reached this extreme... But that’s the way it is. We have quiet lives. Do you have to change a peaceful life for a sexually active life? We work very hard and our professional

pearls around the neck • 97

lives are fulfilled. This is also important. We do not have the same schedule. When he comes home, I am already in bed (giggles)…. So… 36-year-old, secretary.

“My husband does not live here; his office is up North, three hours from Tokyo by Shinkansen2. Many couples live like us. I am very proud of the position my husband holds in the business world and we are able to live without depriving ourselves of anything. I don’t question it”.

32-year-old, Stay at home mother.

“After our engagement trip, we have returned to the pace of our previous lives. Our work schedules do not match. I leave very early in the morning. At five, I am already in the bathroom. My husband works for a multinational bank, he has a 45-minutes train commute, but the offices don’t open until 9:00. Then in the evening, he goes out with his colleagues.

Afterwards we are often... tired. I think we cohabit; we no longer are lovers.

28-years-old, employed at a luxury products store.

Sometimes I ask him if I am no longer pretty to him! If he’s not attracted to me. Sometimes, I feel lonely. No, it’s not exactly like that. I do not feel wanted…I dress well, put on makeup to go out with him, but…we’ve been living as siblings for three years now…”

29-year-old, fashion scriptwriter.

It is not worth reading an article that holds a sociological view if the reading does not come accompanied by a moment of reflection…an instant of introspection.

Don’t you hear the same complaints?

Are your girlfriends truly happy?

Do they have sparks in their eyes?

After 5 years of marriage, is she still enthusiastic and sexually explosive, the friend who joins you for a cup of coffee every once in a while?

No. Let’s be honest.

We don’t do much better standing alone.

There’s something symptomatic here. And although the problem seems more severe in Japan, it rings a bell.

De-structured time schedules that are gaining speed, a spatial universe that is too complex and vast to inhabit, to traverse in our daily lives, a personal hedonism that won’t stop growing and that borders on narcissism, the explosion of recreational virtual media that consumes us, our tendency to hyperactivity (HDHD), our multiple roles, blurry and contradictory…

Where do couples belong in this world?

And that overwhelming loneliness.

98 • pearls around the neck

Never the less, there are subtle differences between our sexuality as married women and that of Japanese women.

The manner in which it is perceived.

The manner in which it is talked about.

Author: Catherine Beeckman, Tokyo, 2007 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; USA, 2011 English translation: Cynthia Jaramillo Illustration: Tim Gallo 1 Book Magazine December, 2011 2 High speed train.

pearls around the neck â&#x20AC;˘ 99

7.

The Pearls of Political Conflict

The first Day in the Life of a Cuban American Silvia Amarilis

April 1, 1968 Morning: I am seven years old and I feel safe and secure. Mom woke me up early today. What a beautiful day! Typical tropical weather ... blue sky, an occasional snow-white cloud, the sea breeze gently swaying the palms, and a very pleasant temperature, as always, on the warm side. I’m a little confused because I am not sure what is actually happening today. Of course, I know we are traveling and I am so excited because I have never traveled by airplane before. Our luggage consisting of only one suitcase for the three of us, is packed, locked and placed near the front door of our apartment. My green dress, elegant and perfectly pressed is lying on the bed, ready to wear. My socks and shoes, shiny and spotless, are at the foot of the bed. My favorite doll, the only toy carefully chosen to travel with me also rests on the bed. We have been visiting all our family and friends since last week and I’m not sure why, but ever since, Mom has been inconsolable. Privately, she cries every day, all day! I just cried when I visited my grandmother and Mom told her the news of our trip. As a result, the two of them began to cry. My grandmother hugged me and I felt extreme sadness when I felt her cry in my arms.

I asked, “Why are you crying grandma?” I could not imagine why she was so sad. She told me she was crying tears of joy. I had never seen her cry... So, I also cried with tears of joy.

Noon We’re done bathing and dressing up as we would when attending an important family event, like a baptism or wedding ceremony. I feel very pretty and sure of myself as if I was already fifteen years old. Mom looks very elegant in her winter outfit and closed pointed high heel shoes... I think the outfit is a bit winter-like for the weather today especially at noon but she said we would be traveling to a place with a cooler climate.

Dad, wearing his business suit and tie, also looks very elegant. I happily, and my parents quietly, proceeded to descend the three flights of stairs of our apartment building, each carrying a coat, Dad carrying his briefcase and suitcase, Mom carrying her black leather purse, and I tightly holding my doll. Sweating, we entered the taxi that was waiting for us in front of the building.

Mid-Afternoon: We arrived at the Havana airport where our entire family was waiting for us; my grandparents and uncles on both my mother’s and father’s side, ten people in total. We have a small family compared to my other friends.

As we exited the taxi, they embraced us, and began to cry... I guess with joy like my grandmother! We entered the airport and when it was time to say goodbye, Dad became very serious and told us we had to get in the international departure inspection line. While waiting in line, my mom and I continuously looked back at our family but Dad sternly told us to stop looking back and to pay attention to what was happening in front of us. Suddenly and for the first time today I started feeling a bit scared and nervous... and less cheerful as if the joy was being sucked out of me. We put all our belongings on the table for inspection and the Cuban government official proceeded to inspect our belongings and us. Suddenly, I saw my mother, once again, crying and vigorously begging the officer for something. I now felt incontrollable fear! What was happening?

Instantaneously, I saw Dad take my mother by the arm and with a stern, decisive but loving look, he said, “Please, stop crying at once, don’t worry, I’ll buy you another when we arrive in the United States and much more beautiful than this one.” I realized at that moment that the officer had taken away her wedding ring.

Mom with pain in her soul stopped crying and moved on. I realized at that moment, at seven years old, that

102 • pearls around the neck

this trip was filled with tears of joy but also tears of sadness. With a heavy pounding heart, I walked with my parents toward the plane that was patiently waiting for us on the runway. From my window seat I looked toward the airport terminal of Havana’s International Airport where our family was standing, gazing at the plane, crying, and waving their hands as if saying farewell forever. At that moment, I cried the first tears of sadness. At that moment, sadness took over the joy and excitement of my first plane ride.

Mexico City, Mexico April 1, 1968 Early Evening: After a long and silent flight, at nightfall, we arrived at the airport in Mexico City. We got off the plane, elegant but still sad and silent. While proceeding outside where the other passengers hugged friends or drivers who were waiting, I asked Dad, “Who is waiting for us at the airport in Mexico City?” He replied, “No one is waiting for us. We do not know anyone in Mexico.” With my heavy heart, sad and with fear, I asked,” Are we taking a taxi?” He replied, “We don’t even have a penny to pay for a taxi ride. The Cuban government official took all the money I had in my pocket.” With my heart now even heavier and pounding stronger and feeling insecure and vulnerable, I asked,” So what are we going to do?” He replied, “I do not know my darling daughter, but this I promise you... your mother and I will protect you even if we have to sleep at the airport tonight. Do not worry. With God’s help everything will work out and we will continue our journey to the United States at some point in the near future.” At that moment, I realized that I had probably said goodbye to my family in Cuba for the last time.

Evening: My father disappeared from my sight while at the airport and I nervously asked Mom where he was. She didn’t know exactly but she assured me he would return soon. Well, that is exactly what happened! Dad came back and as friendly as always, he approached a gentleman who was waiting for other families who traveled on our plane to speak to him about our situation. The man turned out to be a kind and generous person, and our savior that night. As the owner of a boarding house, he offered us a room that night. He required no payment in advance, with only a promise and good faith, he lent my father 25 Mexican pesos so we would not be penniless and transported us in his truck to his boarding house as his guests. Upon arrival at the boarding house, late at night, what impressed me most was the women’s clothing and accessories store for women by the entrance to the house. I asked Mom, “Can anyone buy things in the store? Even us? “My mother replied, “Sure we can! We have arrived in a free country.” Ironically, in a foreign land but free, a foreign gentleman and his wife turned out to be our new family and our bridge to freedom in the United States. At the age of seven, with a heavy and sad heart, but feeling safe and protected, I cried tears of joy once again.

Page of a diary.

Author: Sylvia Amarilis, La Habana, Cuba, 1968 English translator: Silvia Amarilis Illustration: a picture of Sylvia in La Havana the day before her family left Cuba in 1968. pearls around the neck • 103

I great You Maria full of Grace Catherine Beeckman

Inspired by the massacre committed in Mabanga, North East of Congo in 2010.

Rape is a weapon of war.

I great you Mary full of Grace Myriam, Marouchka, and Maya full of yourselves, of your sufferings, your injuries, covered with scares, with wounds.

Scratched, hit, trampled, raped, disemboweled.

Still full of grace.

The Lord is with you Was the Lord with you? Are you certain he was?

Didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t the Lord abandon you slightly? Where was He during that forced abortion?

Where was He when they came, machete in their hands, barbed wire and sharp blades? While you were trying to pull the broken bodies of your newborn children from the rubbles, where was He? You are blessed of all women You are blessed, every woman that gives her son to the blind world of men. You are sacred of all people, you who at the crack of dawn knead the daily bread and fan the flame of the morning fire before assuming your duty of a mother, of a spouse, of a whore or a bitch.

And Jesus, the fruit of your loin is blessed And Joshua, Mohamed, Pedro or Gombe are blessed, fruits of your organs, of your bloodied guts, of your uterus that blooms like a fruit despite itself.

They are blessed or doomed your cherubs or your bastards; you have no choice, those unannounced offspring, and orphans of destiny.

Holy Mary, mother of God Holy are all the women who have spread their legs: holly female Virgins that gave to the world defenseless little beings, the innocence, not the good, not the bad and thus God was reborn. Mothers of God. Pray for us Pray, recite the original psalms, sing praises, murmur the verses, shell the beads of the rosaries, light the candles, torch the churches, burn down the temples, set the mosques on fire, yell your pain, scream out the injustice, denounce the war of men, claim the right to raise your children in the softness and the gentle innocence of the day.

Now and at the hour of death Now, right now, without waiting, no, do not wait for another death, not one more burial. Stand up now.

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And so it is Thus one dayâ&#x20AC;Ś.

The joy to be a woman, to be Mary, mother of God. Amen.

Author: Catherine Beeckman, 2010.

The author lived all her childhood in the Congo.

English translation: Catherine Beeckman, Susan Surrat Illustration: Catherine Beeckman As a sign of gratitude to Kim and her husband who dedicate years of their lives to the victims of rape in the Congo.

In honor of Doctor Denis Mukwege, a humanitarian activist and a gynecologist who stands up against violence directed towards women.

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Crossing Frontiers, crossing Limits…

Maria de Jésus Garcia Sánchez

I come from a village called Santa Teresa… It’s a very, very modest village. All peasants. We were twelve brothers and sisters. My mother worked all the time. We were really very poor but we never went without food. We had beans, and corn. We didn’t have much money for clothes or for things we wished we had. We were poor and ignorant, without education. School never went further than 6th grade. And then, as soon as we reached the age of twelve, we –boys and girls alike– would do what our parents had always done: household chores or work in the fields.

- They didn’t go into town?

No, they never went in town. Never. Everything started and ended there. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to go on this way. I stopped going to school. I had a nice childhood, though, but my mother never taught me about the dangers coming from human beings, about what human beings were capable of. No. There, it was a world where no one would hurt anyone, we all knew one another.

Everything was clean, amicable.

- Did your brothers and sisters leave for town? Did they want to leave too?

We left little by little. No one stayed in the village. At the age of 14, it was actually poverty that forced me to go work near the border, staying with an aunt, along with my 17-year-old sister. We worked from 5am to 5pm in a clothing factory; pure, hard work, without going out or to the movies.

- In which town was this?

Ciudad Juárez. A lot of people coming from faraway villages worked there. There was work for everybody. Hundreds of factories manufacturing things for the United States, right by the border and at very low cost, using the cheap local workforce.

It was in 1986. They didn’t even particularly care whether you were the required age. They took it upon themselves to change my birth certificate and add two years. And all we wanted was to go across the border.

- What about money?

We would send it to our parents, but we would also buy the things we’d never had. We had our hair done, got manicures… That was where I had my first pizza, my first hamburger…

- When did you meet your husband?

I met him in Durango, at a party. He was 10 years older than me and was divorced. He’d already spent five years in the United States, working in restaurants. Legally.

I got married right away, I was sixteen. I became pregnant and we waited for the baby’s birth to go across.

- What about the baby?

He was only seven days old. He still had his umbilical cord. We traveled in an old truck with more than thirty other people. The truck was packed; two days and two nights. I arrived in Tijuana with a terrible hemorrhage. I went directly to the hospital, with my clothes covered in blood. We had to wait a week; I couldn’t cross the border in that state. My husband didn’t want me to. He paid the smuggler; we only had three days. The doctor gave me a shot, I don’t know what it was, and we came.

- And the baby, was he all right?

Yes, but when the smuggler arrived, he told us that the baby couldn’t come along, that he had to 108 • pearls around the neck

go with a legal couple, we didn’t know who, that they got the kids through with false gringo birth certificates and that they would give him back afterwards…

- And they gave the baby back…

Yes, I was lucky. They were nice people. When they handed him over to me, they had bathed and fed him.

- What? There are kids who…?

Who aren’t handed back, yes, and not just babies either, little boys and little girls, 5 or 6 years old.

And how are you ever going to get the kid back if you don’t know how and where to start, if you are ignorant, and so clueless?

Around 7 pm, we were very close to Tijuana, in the suburbs, with a group of people we’d never seen before. These neighborhoods are terrifying.

They gave us instructions and a guide, 22 years old or so, to lead us to San Ysidro. He helped us make it through these gang and drug dealer-ridden neighborhoods. The guide paid the gangs for our safety.

After walking all night, in the dark, we reached a gas station in San Ysidro at 4 am.

There, everything went faster. We hid in the bathroom and quickly, two by two, we were called to go hide in the tool chests that you see behind vans. That’s where they put us. All in a matter of minutes, my husband, myself, and another couple. Crouching, with our head on our knees.

I cried the entire way. There was no air. Four hours later, we were in the United States, near Los Angeles. The driver stopped and dropped us off by some place serving food. And my son was there too.

My baby, safe.

- How much does a smuggler cost?

At the time, it cost 500 dollars. Today it’s something like 5,000, with the risk of losing your life.

But I was glad. I looked at the lights, the city. I was happy. We stayed with an aunt for a week. I would look at the lights every evening. Happy.

From there we went to San Jose, where my husband had a job. We lived in an apartment that we shared with five other men. I was the only woman, with my baby. I stayed locked in, alone. Holy Mary mother of God! I didn’t know where to go in that city. And my husband wouldn’t let me out; he’d bring me food. I only went out to go to the bathroom. Until the day when…

- ‘Till the day when…?

A man who lived there broke the door down. He had seen me, he’d been observing me. He broke the lock, forced the door open and came into my room, completely naked, with scissors. My baby was by my side… We didn’t do anything (she cries)… I didn’t have a single friend, no one.

With my second pregnancy, my second son, I started going out. I went to a clinic for people with very low income for my check-ups, I went there regularly. That’s how I got to know the neighborhood better. But my husband didn’t let me go out. “Going in the streets is out of the question!” he said. He put me under such pressure I started to be afraid. That’s how it started.

When my mother came to Los Angeles to see her grandchildren and the rest of the family, I told my husband I was going there to see my mother, for her to meet my children. I was just going to go.

He came with me. He dropped everything and we went to Los Angeles. He even found a job in a restaurant. But he was the same man: he chose my clothes for me, came with me to the hairdresser’s, bought me shoes… everything… everything. I don’t know how I stood it all those years.

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- Did you work too?

Yes, I started working when the youngest was three. A neighbor took care of the children. I had an income, more independence. I was working in a clothing factory. I liked it. I put some money aside. I worked for a long time. And then I bought two tickets to go visit my mom, my parents, with my kids, in Mexico.

- Leaving the United States is easy enough but how did you enter the territory again?

My sister-in-law, who was a lawyer, got my children across with her own children’s birth certificates.

Not me, I stayed a little longer. I found a smuggler and did the same as the first time except that this time around, I didn’t do the part with the truck, I walked all the way, two days and one night, with a group of people. The smuggler was the husband of a cousin, I trusted him. (Pause) I was living in a really nasty neighborhood in Los Angeles, really ugly and dangerous. You’d hear gun shots. It was the era of heroin, the first Latino gangs. Ugly. I took my kids to school every day; we walked, I was expecting the third.

But one day, a man attacked me right at my apartment door. I had the little one in my arms. The man put the gun up to his forehead. He started crying, he could feel the cold gun against his skin. The man wanted to come in and he hit me. We fell down. A neighbor, a black man, heard the screaming and came. He hit the man and the man ran away. That’s when we decided to move, to leave Los Angeles to go East.

- Yes, a lot of Mexicans left California in the 90s to move to South-Eastern states.

My brothers and some of my cousins who lived there said everything was so beautiful. So we went. We found work and a small apartment. We worked hard. Very hard, really very hard. I don’t remember my kids from that time, I forgot them. I was working in a residential hotel, cleaning after people checked out. I saw everything… The dirt people leave behind after their stay… I did a bit of everything, even wall painting. On Saturdays, I did construction work: laying bricks, selecting metal fittings, transporting concrete, anything as long as it was work, and all this in a world that was exclusively masculine. I could take it, I was young, my body could follow. We were putting money aside.

We went to Mexico, seven years later, for our summer vacation. That was the dream of my life. We went with two legal kids and one illegal, plus me, still illegal. We put everything into a van and drove for three days. We stayed in Mexico for a month. But coming back, we couldn’t go through California. It was difficult, dangerous business, nasty, nasty. We went through Texas.

My sister had warned me that it meant going through the desert, that the desert was what it was and took its share of victims… We had to go through Ciudad Juárez. She suggested that I use her passport to get through like everyone else.

We hired a smuggler who was a corrupt Mexican journalist who had switched to this activity. Thanks to his contacts, he got false papers for my husband. The smuggler said he was going to drive the van with all our things. My husband crossed the border walking in front of it. The smuggler was right behind with the children in the van. I was supposed to go in a taxi. They all got through. Then it was my turn.

The rest of the family couldn’t wait for me, it all was a question of timing. So they went to the airport and took the plane.

I crossed with immigration papers, without problem. We made it through Ciudad Juárez; then I got in a truck with a lot of other people and we started driving across Texas.

After three hours, there was a security check, another super inspection, in Texas, with a highway patrol.

An immigration officer came in. He said: “All those who have passports, get out. We are running an

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investigation on fingerprints.” At the office, they asked: “Is this your photo?” I said it was. “Let me take your fingerprints, then…. But you’re not the one who matches the fingerprints!” They took mug shots and everything, and I was placed under arrest. With five Asian people. It was 5 pm. It wasn’t a jail yet, just cells.

At eight o’clock, they took us to Monahans, Texas, where the prison is, in an isolated village. The doors opened automatically. A woman asked us to take our clothes off, all of them. They took our fingerprints, had us open our legs, gave us a gynecological examination and gave us a uniform. Without having the possibility to communicate with anyone.

The following day, finally, at the end of the afternoon, I was able to make a phone call. But no one, no one could do anything for me. The charges were too serious: false fingerprints and false identity… Well done! That’s a serious offence! So I received my punishment…

They put me in a cell with five other women. We slept there, and shared the toilet in front of everyone.

Each of these women was locked up in her own little world, they were wrapped up inside themselves and nothing seemed to get to them. Three days passed. I was taken to another prison.

- Same welcome ritual?

Same. It was a cell with five women. The first thing I saw was a woman bathing, stark naked, the entire body covered with sores, completely, even her face, covered. What was wrong with her? I asked the others what her problem was. One of them answered: “Are you dumb or something? She’s a junkie, a drug addict, completely gone… and you are really a dope!” So I thought to myself: “These women are sick. How can anyone live here?”

They gave me a uniform and a pair of plastic sandals that I never took off, even to sleep. They stayed with me for four months. I didn’t have a bed because there were too many of us and the jail was full. So I slept on a mattress on the floor for four months.

- What about the other four women?

They were all whores there, or drug mules, or they’d tried to kill someone, except for me and one other woman who didn’t have her papers either. It was horrible. No, no, no… I could never have imagined anything like that, to speak the truth…There was this woman who prepared a penis with her bed sheet and masturbated with it in front of everyone. I would turn the other way. These women were all sick from drugs, from bad lives, they were crazy, hit themselves, cried, pulled their hair out screaming, fucked together, told horrifying stories of their past in gruesome details. What could I do? Even if I didn’t look, I could hear everything. Every night they asked for two Tylenol. The guards gave it to them. They would open the caps as soon as the guard had left, and snort them. And at night, it was such a mess.

I’m telling what I saw. I cried, I prayed. I asked all the dead members of my family to “Please get me out of here!” If there hadn’t been this friend to support me and whom I supported, I would have become a mad woman like the rest of them…

- Were the guards women?

No, they were all men, except for the warden who ran the detention center, who was a woman.

- Were there activities?

No, one hour walking outside in a small courtyard in the sun, one hour once a day. Where we spent the day and ate, there was a TV that they would turn off when there was some ruckus or otherwise at 7pm

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on the dot, everyone back in their cell and the sharp noise of those electric doors. Every one of us in her sordid world.

I spent my four months there for federal offence. When I had paid for my crime, I went to immigration prison and was presented to a judge. That’s when my husband was finally able to get me a lawyer and I got out with a $9,000 immigration bail and another $5,000 in lawyer fees; and all he did was make four phone calls.

During those three days, I also saw the worst side of humanity. Numerous dramas, many women who’d been raped by their own smugglers, women from all over the world: Brazil, Honduras, Poland, Asia. I saw a Dominican whose back was raw – she’d crossed a river and barbed wire had torn her skin off. Everything was abuse and rape. When we started talking, they asked where I had come from and I answered: “From the Texas prison,” and then they told me their sad stories. At some point, one of them asked: “How come you don’t cry when you hear our stories?” I had already cried so much that my eyes seemed to have dried out.

Then they released me. I was free. It was 4 pm and it was bitterly cold. Alone, in the town of El Paso, wearing the same clothes I had been wearing four months ago. In this horrible cold. The bus only came at 9 pm. When I finally made it home, after three days of traveling, it was Thanksgiving. My youngest, who knew nothing of what had happened, thought I was just coming back from Mexico and asked me if I had presents from the market… from my village’s market. But I had nothing, nothing… nothing but the cigarette stench that stuck to me. He looked at me and asked: “Mom, why do you look like such a mess?”

An interview with María de Jesús García Sánchez, Mexico, 2011 English translator: Sylvie Froschl Illustration: Catherine Beeckman 112 • pearls around the neck

A mixed Couple: the Politics of Love.

Tanita, Angel et Lauren

Lauren: « You married an African American? For real!

Is that difficult here in the South? » Angel: « I was surprised. The comments and the looks didn’t come from the whites. If I was walking through the Mall holding hand with my black husband, I got the looks from the African American Women. And they would say: « Girl! What’s wrong with you marrying a black? You’re making it hard on you! Is one of yours not good enough? » Tanita: « Angel, we are a family of African Americans but my Mom, she divorced and married a white. And she said after our father had beaten her like there was no tomorrow and he was crunk1 for YEAAAARS and he had abandoned us all for a Ho2 and found a crib in the hood, she would never be with a black man no more. Now she’s been with that white man and has never been hurt again. » Lauren: « Really? So what’s that all about? I thought marrying a black man would put you out of the white community! » Angel: « Oh yeah! It does! If I were married to an Asian or a Latino, the color would be less visible.

Black is BLACK, that’s the South and even in 2012, it is a DARK color! It’s not the same in New York, I suppose» Tanita: « Angel girl! You can’t manage a black man, no you can’t! Fo shizzle3! You gotta be saucy and hardcore!

We are raised by black women, our grandmothers our mothers, we’ve seen them all dealing with those Niggers, being abandoned, betrayed, so our ancestor women they taught us! We learned it like this: « You girl always have a quarter in your shoe so you have at least the money to call Mama from the phone booth to come and pick you and your children up! » And we are not gonna take the shit! We better be good at school, have a degree, find a job, try to be independent and only rely on our sisters. You know how many single black mothers they are here in America? Plus we ain’t having it from them black men bossing us around acting like pimps, Ugh! We put the rules at home, and they better be following those damned rules. Where goes the dough going? Who pays the bills? Where and why are you partying so late?

That’s why that black man married you: he knew he got an easier ticket with you than with one of us! » Maria: « I can’t believe it. Where does that come from? » Tanita: « Oh, way back when! You see, even on the plantations of cotton or tobacco. The mothers they were all watching their baby girls from the white men in the house and from the black men in the fields. And we could make more money too, if working inside the house. Later we were the “Help”, again inside the House of the White people; raising their children, their babies. We stuck together, a village in a village. But black men have always been less faithful, less committed, and less protective.

Not all of them, but yeah, same in Africa, I hear! » Angel: « I hear you…I know I can’t be strong like you, or fight back like you. And if I have to, I can’t go back home like you black women do. I’ll be in between two cultures and fall between the cracks. »

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Lauren: « I thought there was a prestigious image for a black man to marry a white woman. » Tanita: « Bullshit! He just gets it easier! » Lauren: « And what about a white man and a black woman? » Angle: « Again, historically on the plantation or during slavery white men could have a power-relation with any black woman. There was nothing to do. But today it’s a choice, it’s love. Racism will tell you how a mixed couple of that sort can be seen around. The black woman will win in that union; she’ll have attention and care. » Lauren: « So the loser is… » Tanita: « You got it. Now hold on!

We love our sons, and we love our men!

Amen! »

A spontaneous conversation between Tanita, Angel and Lauren. Jacksonville, USA, 2012, Recorded by Catherine Beeckman Illustration: Tim Gallo 1 “Crunk” is a combination of the words “crazy” and “drunk” 2 A “HO” is a whore.

3 “Fo shizzle” could mean “Damn right”

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I am African

(If I am White, am I an African?)

Karin Hougaard

I am Africaâ&#x20AC;?, he proclaims.

His belonging resounding on his tongue, echoed by his hue.

I absorb the thick air.

The dusty night sticking in my throat, the familiar sky tugging at my eyes.

He surveys me, the pale alien who dares to call his country her home.

What may I claim?

Who am I whom, while so far away, imagines the crunch of thorny thicket underfoot?

Envisions late noon storms, smells the rain and summer soot Who dreams in a language born on African soil?

Who am I

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who involuntarily moves to the beat of the mbaqanga?

Who am I who weeps whenever I hear Nkosi Sikelelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; iAfrika sung?

My Africaness may be obscured but it too rolls thickly off my tongue, moves within my blood, remains on my mind, and irrefutably resides in my heart.

For I am African too.

Author: Karin Hougaard, white South African, 2012 Illustration: Karin Hougaard 118 â&#x20AC;˘ pearls around the neck

Dearest Amalia

(A Letter to my disappeared Sister) Lucia Marroquin

Let us remember those who were detained and disappeared and were pregnant during the dictatorship in Argentina (1976-1983). Were they murdered before or after giving birth? Were their children miscarried? Or did they too disappear in an adoption ring, after having been born? These children are men and women in their thirties, whose family history remains unknown, erased or buried.

Dearest Amalia: I do not know how I did not think of writing to you sooner. During these days I have been resting, my belly larger each day when I awake, and there have been many hours when I feel lonely. Daniel calls me from the office all the time, but I spend most of the days watching TV and knitting. I recently finished something for Juanita, then I zapped through the channels twice and there was nothing worth watching.

It came to my mind how much I enjoyed writing letters to our uncle when he was living in Comodoro.

And lately, I realized that you are the person that I feel most distant from and that I need to bring closer to me. I miss you without having met you, and that is new.

As a young girl, it hurt not to have mother. It upset me that grandmother was the one that had to buy my first tampons, and I thought she would die of shame when asking me if I slept with Daniel. To have lost a sister who was in the womb, whom I barely felt kick, was not what was keeping me awake at that time. In that screwed up time, when I would smell mother’s perfume bottle, simply not to cry alone, you were a the nostalgic wisp of a small hollowness.

When the grandparents sat me at the dinner table, with all the letters, to try to explain to me without crying that they had been taken - we knew by whom but not where- it took me a while to realize they were not coming back. I was not able to imagine the size of the emptiness lying ahead of me. Much later, and over time, I understood this. I always knew it would take me a lifetime to finally realize what absence is, and today I take ownership of yet another little piece. Today the hollowness is a gap, a breach. I have learned how to live without parents, I grew big and strong. But it is still difficult to know what it is like to live without a sister.

I do not want to explain all of this to you. Look, I am bored already. What I want is for you to come, prepare dinner for the two of us and listen to me complaining of back pain. I want to tell you that my hands feel swollen and that I am scared. The fear is greater than any fear I have felt in all my life. I don’t want to move at all so that my Juanita will not get upset. I get frightened if she kicks because I do not understand what she is trying to tell me. But if she does not move I hold my breath until I feel the foot against my belly.

Then, I imagine you take a day off from some job and you come to stay with me. You talk to me about anything to keep me distracted and spoil me a little. Your image combines some of mother’s features and gestures grandmother spoke to me about, that I cannot remember, and pieces of my friends and their sisters. And a little of me (sometimes the nose, or the hands; I do not know what makes us look alike).

You wear your hair very long like the girls your age wear nowadays, you wear long necklaces and large earrings. I make you out to be sweet and a little aloof. And since I am such a bad cook, I imagine you inherited that trait from father. You brought cookies with colored sparkles and you put the water on to boil. I let you borrow some slippers that you wear, dragging them to the kitchen.

As I listen to the first sounds of the teakettle, I tell you that last night I had another nightmare; you already know this one by heart. You play dumb and ask me about Daniel. Has he finally bought the television in installments or is he still unable to make a decision? You say this sort of yelling from the kitchen as you put the cookies on a plate.

I do not want to stop and I tell you that after the nightmare I always wake up yelling out Juana. And then sometimes Daniel says I yell out Amalia. Then you, while I am talking, sit next to me. You caress my forehead, the two of us on the couch. You tell me to be calm, you tell me that Juanita is there and that no one is going to take her away. That you are there. You stretch out your arm and grab the plate

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with cookies. You pick one with green sparkles and give it to me. Here. But I am not hungry. A cup of tea, yes, and you go fire up the kettle.

While you go to bring the two cups, you ask me if I am knitting something. You know that when I am distressed I knit; sisters know these things. Mother taught me when I was young and grandmother made sure I continued knitting. Knitting calms me, it makes me concentrate on something very simple.

Without noticing, I am out of yarn, and time goes by. Yes, I am knitting a pink vest for Juana and a purple scarf for you. The vest is so small that I finished it right away; I just have to put it together.

I look at the scarf: I know I am going to end up keeping it for myself. I feel like a fool that speaks to and knits for a sister that is invisible. Whenever grandmother would lose something, for example her watch, she would say: “And to think it is probably sitting around there just laughing”. I think the same: you are there, somewhere, without knowing where.

Sometimes I feel guilty, because I get tired of searching. Besides having taken my family away from me, they gave me the lifelong task of finding you. Before, in high school or at the faculty, when grandmother was still around, I thought you would show up at any given moment. That someone would call me to tell me that a girl had gone for DNA testing and that it was positive. You had found us. In those days, I recall, I thought of how to wallpaper the city with my face, so that you would be able to see it and you could see yourself in my picture. It did not even occur to me that you could be in another city, another province. That you could have gone to live in another country or even the idea that we did not look alike.

At some point, in some part of your body will you feel a pinch, a poke? Like what they say about twins, if one of them is sad the other can feel the sadness from far away. Does this apply to sisters that are not twins and do not know each other, that never saw each other?

Because if this is true, I think it is time sister, my dearest Amalia, that this should happen. You should be feeling the poke by now, you should be running this way without even knowing why. Like in a video clip, you show up at my front door and walk in with your colorful necklaces.

It is then that I can stop writing you this letter and fill you with kisses.

Ana

Author: Lucia Marroquin, Argentina, 2012 English translation: Cynthia Jaramilo and Susan Surrat Illustration: Tim Gallo pearls around the neck • 121

Perspectives Deboleena Mazumdar

The king awakes, feeling the pleasant coolness of the Sidewalk on his back.

He deploys his henchmen, Howling, sniffing, scavenging, Through the narrow corridors of the palace.

He adjusts his tattered robes, His crown of mottled hair, dust and dirt.

His subjects drop a few coins, averting their eyes.

He watches them as they go about their business: People with a purpose.

His purpose is survival.

He hauls onto his back His belongings, and his ventures Forth into his kingdom.

Men in power today: the perspective of a young woman today.

Author: Deboleena Mazumdar, 16 years, India, 2012 High School student at LSNEPAL Illustration: Catherine Beeckman pearls around the neck â&#x20AC;˘ 123

8.

The Pearl of Social Commitment

10.000 Girls in Kaolak Catherine Beeckman in collaboration with Viola Vaughn

“If Allah kept this baby alive, it’s because Allah, praise his name, has a mission for him!” said Viola in her strong and compelling voice. She looked at me, smiling and evaluating the effects her words had produced on me.

My baby boy was sleeping in his hand woven basket in the cool shadow of a baobab tree. He was six weeks old. At birth, his immature lungs had not unfolded. He had been forced into a coma, an oxygen mask strapped on his face and every vital organ substituted by a machine. It had been four weeks now…

But here he was, healthy, handsome and ready to embrace life.

Viola’s statement was neither a prediction nor a promise of faith: it was an affirmation.

Viola Vaughn had moved with her family from Michigan, in the USA to reside in Dakar, Senegal. Had it something to do with her calling? Did it mean returning to her African roots? Viola and her husband Sam Sanders, a legendary Saxophonist on the Detroit Jazz scene, were African Americans. It was so long ago.

We met in 1991 at the Tamango, a famous Jazz club in Dakar where Tracy Chapman and Bobby Mc Ferry had once performed. Sam and his band became the regular entertainers and we all truly enjoyed listening to them.

Viola was not a “stay home mom”. Rapidly, she became involved with several young women’s educational, health and nutritional programs. I remember her telling me how she was gathering statistics on these subjects. It was fascinating and contagious to listen to her.

Soon our family left Senegal for another destination, yet another continent. Six months after our departure, I had a breakdown… Probably the “baby blues” after the birth of my third child! Did Viola call me? Did I dial her number in Dakar? Yes! There I was sobbing on the phone, confiding in her.

Viola listened and then she pronounced the sentence I would NEVER forget. A phrase that became my slogan… an axiom for the years to come: “Where are your books?”

Indeed, where were my books?

I live with Viola’s postulate, my daily basic premise… and surround myself with books.

It’s Thanksgiving night, 2010 and we are all sitting in our living room in Winston Salem, North Carolina.

The TV is tuned to CNN. Who is on screen? Viola Vaughn! What? I am flabbergasted… actually I am not. Viola belongs on TV, in the press, on the radio and in the media. But what is the show all about and what is Viola doing there, talking to a crowd of distinguished people?

Viola was nominated as one of the ten CNN Heroes of the year 2008. She founded and is the Executive Director of 10,000 Girls, an organization doing exceptional work in Senegal. Anderson Cooper was hosting the event. The show was grand: Illustrious guests and imposing speakers. Viola was superb and outstanding.

Viola and her family had moved for the third time to Kaolak in Senegal, in 2000. Two tragedies had affected her life.

Her twenty-six year old daughter had died leaving five young children behind, and Viola’s husband and companion of twenty years, had passed away, succumbing to black lung disease. Viola searched for peace and found comfort in homeschooling her grandchildren aged four to twelve.

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Soon, a group of failing school children from the neighborhood asked Viola to help them pass their classes and in no time she had a class of 20 children! The bedrooms in her house were turned into classrooms. Viola realized that the failing children were mainly girls. Generally, girls would attend school for a few years, but were then obliged to work at home and perform daily chores. These social and economic norms were forced upon these young women. The graduation rate was significantly lower for girls as they missed more and more classes and eventually dropped out of the educational system. Viola began to teach any of the girls that were keen to study and eager to acquire new skills.

In order to supplement the girls’ education without having to hire teachers (at the beginning of the program), Viola borrowed a premise from the famous Montessori system: let the older girls teach the younger ones! And the results were stunning.

When the number of students under Viola’s tutelage reached eighty, she requested financial support from local and national institutions… but was turned down. Her methods and philosophy did not follow or do things by the book.

In order to stay afloat and to be able to purchase schools supplies and eventually hire teachers, the girls started to bake and sell their goods. And as often happens in Africa, sisters, aunts, cousins and mothers soon pitched in to help!

In Africa, it does not ‘take a village,’ it ‘involves a village’… Shortly after, a pastry shop was opened, a catering business serviced events and a sewing workshop flourished. Gorgeous African dolls and house hold linens are now shipped all around the world.

Private support was forthcoming, as Viola’s 10,000 Girls program garnered local and international attention. The story of perseverance, patience, success and above all the love of education touched many hearts. This is a story of “LOVE” in the purest meaning of the word.

And how large is the program today? More than 3,500 girls are now enrolled and the program has spread to six different locations. Girls are sent to College after graduation, others start their own local businesses.

Hundreds of additional girls are waiting to join.

Is that it? No. Viola Vaughn had more visionary thoughts. The program has turned “Green”. It now offers environmental education and an agricultural entrepreneurial degree.

Viola, you will live in everyone’s good book!

Author: Catherine Beeckman, 2012 In collaboration with Viola Vaughn, founder of 10,000 Girls, Kaolak, Senegal.

Illustration: Viola Vaughn pearls around the neck • 127

Innocent and fragile Victims of a Cataclysm Olivia Owen

My first volunteer trip in Haiti was about to end. It was time to leave the place that had just changed my life over the past six weeks. Due to political upheaval in the capital city, Port-au-Prince, demonstrators blocked the roads and we were to be evacuated from Jacmel, a southern town, by plane.

The rest of the volunteers were already safe in PAP; this left only four of us at the airport of this vibrant coastal town. Sadness and gratitude crept over me. Sadness, because I was leaving the place where I had made so many personal connections. Gratitude for the incredible experience I had lived.

“OLIVIA… OLLLIVVVVIA.” From a distance I could see two bouncing figures jumping up and down, shouting my name. They had now started to run around to the other side trying to get closer to where we were. A young street orphan called Slovakin had been my sidekick for some time now and he must have been excited to see his friend, Olivia, leaving at the airport on a real life airplane. My knowledge of Slovakin’s background was very little but we had spent a lot of time just hanging out, I had dedicated hours to him and his gentle and quiet demeanor intrigued me. Slovakin had the kind of face that one knew was a mask hiding a story, he didn’t say much and at the end of each day, saying goodnight to him in the pitch black while he went off into the night, not knowing where he was going would always leave me thinking about his wellbeing well after our goodbyes.

Earlier in the day I had already said goodbye, maybe he just wanted to say farewell one last time. The pilot was still doing the aircraft checks so I decided to run over and see what all this noise was about.

As I ran over to the fence with a huge smile on my face the bouncing figures got larger but also the noise I thought to be cries of excitement became clearer. By the time I reached the fence, Slovakin was screaming, his body wrenching forward with every deep sob. After the instant shock of seeing him like this my first reaction was the same, as any adult would have when they hear a child cry and scream with that much pain: ”He must be hurt! Someone has hurt him, I need to protect him, he is crying so loud”.

No, I realized Slovakin was not shouting my name in excitement, he was screaming with anguish in desperation for me not to leave him. I held his hand through the wired fence and tried to calm him down in my broken Creole, promising I would be back and not to be upset.

The crying wouldn’t stop and the handgrip only got stronger.

I had spent six weeks with Slovakin almost every day and I had never seen his emotions flicker past calmness. He was never really happy and never really sad. The emotions this innocent child was showing before me moved me to absolute silence, I had spent enough time working around children to understand how serious this out-burst was. It made me feel sick. The reality of what these children must feel living in extreme poverty, abandoned, hungry, orphaned and now victims of a massive earthquake struck me like a bullet. Slovakin thought I was abandoning him. How was he supposed to understand the concept that this wasn’t my permanent home?

Education provides us with the knowledge of a wider world and we are aware that poverty exists, but it is difficult for us to really understand its impact on those who experience it, day-in, and day-out. I wonder how many times this has happened to him in his short existence? I was angry with myself: I had created a dependency for this poor child without even realizing it. At nineteen years old, I was barely out of childhood myself but I was old enough to grasp the extent of how this moment had changed my life and would definitely change Slovakin’s in the future.

“Dependency” was not what I was to create ever again; I wanted to create “Independence”. I wanted to give something to Slovakin and many others like him, something that would last a lifetime. That

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something was a Chance. That chance was an education. I made a promise to myself there and then: I would spend the rest of my life giving children like Slovakin a voice and a chance in this hard world and the even harsher surroundings they live in. I saw the unfairness of the situation, Slovakin saw me as a “Chance” to help him, when he thought he was loosing that chance he reacted the same way any of us would out of desperation. I had realized what had happened. This was only the beginning…for me.

Some people may ask me: “Why?” The answer is simple: “Because I can.” The interactions I have with these resilient, young and innocent children inspire me to always carry on. I come from a place where you can be what ever you want to be if you’re willing to push yourself there. Society is on our side; education is a right not a privilege. Haiti, like many other countries around the world is unfortunate enough to fall under the ‘developing’ country category, the Third World. Whether it is a natural disaster, foreign intervention or corruption, there are many reasons why Haitians suffer far more than most of us. I am aware that I cannot change the world as a whole but to improve the life of even one individual is, in my eyes, a success.

Author: Olivia Owen, Haiti, 2010/2012 Olivia is 21, she is British and owns a Diploma in Childcare& Education.

Illustration: Catherine Beeckman Olivia has been to Haiti 6 times since the earthquake. This magnitude 7.0 earthquake killed 300,000 people and left 1,5 million homeless. Before the quake, Haiti counted 380,000 orphans. That number more than doubled on January 12th, 2010. Please follow Olivia, founder of EduHaitian, an organization that sponsors the education of orphan children through several selected schools in Port au Prince. Olivia represents a generation of compassionate young adults that travels the globe, following an unconventional path, taking risks, connecting on the web, uniting, creating and committing to a cause.

Olivia started a degree in International Studies at Goldsmiths University of London in September 2012.

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Tohoku Earthquake Catherine Beeckman

Tokyo "ă &#x2022;" Tokyo "sa" ! Japan As it Is.

The Namazu (鯰) is a giant catfish that lives in the mud under the islands of Japan. His movements cause earthquakes. Only the god Kashima can restrain the catfish by placing a stone on his head. When Kashima lets his guard fall, Namazu thrashes about, causing violent earthquakes and tsunamis. The actions of Namazu are considered punishment for human greed; by causing havoc, he forces the equal redistribution of wealth. Namazu is considered to be the “God of World Rectification”.

Japan, April the 11th, 2011, 14.46 JST. An exchange of e-mails between friends 20 hours after an earthquake of magnitude 10 hit the island of Honshu, the main island of Japan.

A devastating Tsunami immersed the Sendai area with waves as high as 128 feet, flowing 6 miles inland. The destructiveness of what became known as the “Tohoku Earthquake” was fully revealed when the Fukushima nuclear plant announced the meltdown of 3 reactors, forcing the evacuation of 100,000 locals. The population of Eastern Honshu experienced more than a thousand aftershocks, eighty of them reaching 6.0 on the Richter scale.

In between the emails, I have inserted the words of Japanese poets and writers. I invite you to research and discover their works.

(Note: The English used in the following mails has not been modified nor corrected.)

Correspondents that were part of the following exchange of e-mails are: . Tomoko, a 40-years-old executive secretary and a mother of two boys. . Akiko, a 27-years-old plastic artist. . Sachiko, an 81-year-old grandmother, involved in several national and international non-profit organizations. . Aline, a 42-year-old French mother of 4, expatriate in Tokyo. . Kumiko, a 79-year-old art curator and grandmother. . Yumi, a 76-year-old famous artist and grandmother.

“At the time of the earthquake I was sitting at my desk, writing a novel. I remained for a while, measuring and evaluating the tremor. The impression was very much the same as when I was trying to estimate the distance at which a bomb would fall and explode. Eventually, I would be bypassed by my own capacity of perception (…). My perception of time has been scattered. Expressions like “once upon a time”, “one day”, “three months ago” lose their meaning if time can tilt over in an instant” Yoshikishi Furui, born in 1937, Excerpt of an article published in Shincho, October 2011.

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On Thu, April 12, 2011 at 7:15 am Cathdb@gmail.com to Tomoko, Akiko, Sachiko, Aline, Kumiko, and Yumi Dearest Friends, We woke up this morning, overwhelmed by the news.

How can I even write the words that formulate the question: “How are you?”

I sincerely hope that your relatives, your friends and your work companions have not been hurt and that this e-mail finds you safe.

Our deepest thoughts go out to you and to Japan, a country that lives in our heart.

Kindness always, Cath Strong in the rain Strong in the wind Strong against the summer heat and snow He is healthy and robust Unselfish He never loses his temper Nor the quiet smile on his lips.

Kenji Miyazawe, (1896/1933) the “Tsunami poet”.

Tomoko@gmail.com

to me

Fri, April 13 2011 at 2:23 AM

Dear Cath, Thank you for your e-mail.

We are all ok... I believe we are. I walked home two hours from work on Friday night as all the trains were stopped. I once lost contact with my younger son but later found out that he was safe at school. He spent the night there, according to the emergency plans we are trained for, here in Japan. He returned home tired but safe on Saturday morning. The damage of the tsunami in the Tohoku area is unbelievable. Tokyo was not directly destroyed and life at first glance seems back to normal but due to the lack of electricity, a planned power outage will be implemented which will affect our lives in various ways: transportation, food supply… I hope people will manage this in good order…

It was really nice to hear from you and thank you...

Tomoko An old man sits on a floating tatami. The fire brigade desperately tries to rescue him and throws him a rope. Sadly, the water eventually overcomes his strength… ‘Make from Iwaki a magical place…’ he cries out, as he lets go of the rope and sinks into the sea… The fire brigade sobbed uncontrollably from regret…

Ryoichi Wago, born in Fukushima, 1968. “The Gravels of Poetry” tweeted during the Earthquake.

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Akiko@gmail.com

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Fri, 13 April 2011 at 4:24 AM

Dear Cath, We are fine. I didn’t sleep since yesterday; we are all wound up here.

It feels like it hits us every hour… non-stop aftershocks. But we’re fine. The whole city is in a panic though…

Couldn’t go home, stayed at friends...

Scary stuff. Good time to face nature and God. Akiko Being alive, being alive now That is a bird fluttering its wings That is the waves drifting in and out That is the snail crawling on the ground That is people loving one another The warmth of your hand Giving me love.

Giving me your hand Giving me your warmth.

Shuntaro Tanikawa, “Being alive” was written in March 2011, Beholders.com Sachiko@gmail.com

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Sat, 14 April 2011 at 3:02 AM

Dear Cath, It’s 3pm, Saturday.

Almost 24 hours have passed since yesterday’s first shake. We’ve had a series of nasty after-tremors all through the night, each shake constantly reminding us of ‘Its’ presence.

Then, the daybreak. How long has it been since we’ve humbly welcomed the first rays of the sun, and be truly grateful for them?

We are also happy and feel lucky to inform you that we are all fine...

Thank you for thinking of us.

Sachiko Whether the gas will run out, a life will run out, a heart will run out, the time will run out, a road will run out. Will I, also, become a wrath and frenzy of passion and head toward the ocean?

Kuyashii, kuyashii, kuyashii, to the ocean, kuyashii, to the ocean, to the ocean.”

“Kuyashii” means frustrated, deeply regretful

By Ryoichi Wago, March 2011, Fukushima.

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Aline@gmail.com

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Fri, 13 April 2011 at 10:23 AM

Loving Cath, Luckily, I could be reunited with all my children around 2:30 in the morning. I first picked up the 3 smallest ones at school right after the quake but it took me a dreadful ten-hour trip, to find Henry, our oldest son at his school. Henry was coming back from a skiing trip in Nagoya. Of course, my cell phone was out of battery and Pierre, my husband was in Shanghai on a business trip…

Imagine the panic in which I found Henry, poor child!

I love you my friend!

Aline I suppose that from now on, readers will expect literature to draft out something. What remains to be known is in which direction the elaboration should go? In the direction of communication, meaning the relation towards one another or in the direction of a prayer, meaning, towards isolation?”

Keiishiro Hirano, born in 1975. Excerpt from the magazine Shincho, October 2011.

Kumiko@gmail.com

to me Sat, 14 April 2011 at 9:37 AM

Dear Cath and dear friends, Thank you everyone for your concern.

Please forgive me for sending you all the same response at once. Indeed, this was a HUGE earthquake. It was felt strongly even here in Tokyo! I was at the Takashimaya department store in Shinjuku.

It happened just as I got OUT of the elevator from the 8th floor… Am I not lucky? Shinjuku is about an hour by foot, so I began walking but strangely enough, as in a surrealistic nightmare, a bus was still running and I managed to have a ride.

My husband was already home and we made the summary of the situation: where was everybody?

It took us 28 hours to regroup the family. The railroad system was shut. The cell phones and regular phone lines were so congested that they were of NO USE; e-mails via the computer have been our ‘life line’.

Our house has not been damaged. When I returned home though, all the sliding doors were open, but that was it!

In Tokyo we are still feeling after shocks and they predict more for the next few days and even weeks to come. So we follow the emergency plan as stated. I see that CNN is reporting the devastation the TSUNAMI has caused along (and inland) the seashore from North to South of Japan!

These pictures we see over and over on our TV screens are horrendous! We have never seen this!

How can nature be so cruel!

There will probably be further distressing news as the hours and days progress. There was another strong quake near Nagano this morning and we are worried.

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Thanks again for thinking of us. I’ll be in touch later.

Kumiko Necessities like rice and water and bread have disappeared from supermarkets. Gas stations are out of fuel. There is panic buying and hoarding. Loyalty to the group is being tested. At present, though, our greatest concern is the crisis at the nuclear reactors in Fukushima. There is a mass of confused and conflicting information. Some say the situation is worse than Three Mile Island, but not as bad as Chernobyl; others say that winds carrying radioactive iodine are headed for Tokyo, and that everyone should remain indoors and eat lots of kelp, which contains plenty of safe iodine, which helps prevent the absorption of the radioactive element. Some people are leaving Tokyo, but most remain. “I have to work,” some say. “I have my friends here, and my pets.” (…)

I want to continue the stance I took in my hotel room: I will trust the words of better-informed people and organizations, especially scientists, doctors and engineers whom I read online (…). (…) For all we’ve lost, hope is in fact one thing we Japanese have regained. The great earthquake and tsunami have robbed us of many lives and resources. But we who were so intoxicated with our own prosperity have once again planted the seed of hope. So I choose to believe.

Ryu Murakami, the New York Times Opinion Page, 03/16/2011, translation Ralph F. McCarthy.

On Mon, April 15 2011 at 11:21 PM Cathdb@gmail.com to Sachiko, Tomoko, Akiko, Aline, Kumiko, and Yumi Dearest friends, We hear and see all kind of stories and it is hard to make sense of it...

It is appalling: thousands of deaths, thousands unaccounted for and thousands evacuated. Food shortages, millions of people without power and water, and entire cities destroyed, wiped off the map, nuclear treats casting dark shadows and the possibility of another quake...

News agencies over-dramatize, or do they?

It is heart breaking...

We certainly give all our love to you and your relatives and hope that your daily activities and normal life will soon resume.

Kindness always, Cath “The multitude of human beings living in the real world are actually dead, as long as you ignore their names or their faces. And I, who do not know them, I’m even more dead. On the other hand, the presence of the dead can be even more powerful than the presence of the living and even the presence of oneself.”

Yoshikishi Furui.

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Kumiko@gmail.com

to me

Tue, 16 April 2011 at 6:06 AM

Dear Cath, The tragedy for the people north in the Tohoku area is tremendous and it is hard to explain!

Help from abroad is coming which is so greatly appreciated and our national guard soldiers are also doing a marvelous job in trying to rescue and search for victims. This will be a huge task and who knows how long this will take, how many years and when… When will these villages and towns be rebuilt: everything is flat… debris, all is debris! Here in Tokyo, we now begin to feel some of the quake’s consequences: black outs in the Yokohama area this morning for 3 hours. These blackouts are proposed by the Tokyo Electric Company in order to provide much needed electric power to the north. We are all trying to save energy as we have been told that the situation might last for the months to come.

It is affecting Tokyo’s traffic system and the local water distribution system. Yesterday, I went to the Peacock supermarket nearby but all the shelves normally filled with toilet paper, tissue and most of all bottled water were empty.

Stay well and take care of yours.

Kumiko The dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki came at the end of a war and was carried out as national policy. Last year, the accident at the Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant came at the end of a period where promoting nuclear energy was also considered a national policy.

One part of the ethics taught in Buddhism is to learn about the pain and the suffering of others and accept them as one’s own. In that sense, people should not pursue their own happiness by having others make sacrifices.

Tetsuen Nakajima, Buddhist priest. Works with the Japanese atomic bomb survivors and is an antinuclear activist. Excerpt from the Asashi Shimbun, 6/15/12.

Mardi 16 avril 2011, 9:55 am Aine@gmail.com to me

Tue, April 16 2011 at 9:55 AM

Dear Cath, We have decided to leave Tokyo on Sunday evening. We received an email from the French Embassy advising us to leave: another massive earthquake is forecasted. There is also a remote possibility of a nuclear disaster. Pierre suggested strongly that we follow the instructions. We have abandoned our house, this morning, furnished and all, a suitcase in hand. I left a piece of myself behind.

But more than anything, I left this country that sheltered me and gave me so much love. I’m leaving at the worst moment and I feel like a coward. Still, can I expose my 4 young children?

But what if I lose one of them or I can’t find one of them the next time around? I don’t have the strength. What a jumble of feelings: I have been here 6 years now…I can’t watch CNN any more.

The only reality I like to remember is the one I know from Japan, the iron dignity that the people have facing adversity without hesitation and without winking. I have so much to thank them for and so much to learn.

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All the foreigners are leaving.

Kisses to you, Aline.

“Fukushima is Us. We are Fukushima. Those who have evacuated, who are about to leave our hometown with agonizing pain, please make sure to come back. We must not lose Fukushima. We must not lose Tohoku. Enduring the depth of the nights, the wideness of the darkness, and the coldness of the predawn hours. I will never forget them for the rest of my life. No night will last forever.

Ryoichi Wago Tomoko@gmail.com

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Tue, April 16 2011 at 3:04 AM

Dear Cath, Each time I receive your e-mail I feel your true care and love for Japan. I really want to thank you for your friendship. It really means a lot. We are in the midst of instability, monitoring each single piece of news. I managed to get to the office as some of the trains are operating despite the planned power outage. Keep in touch.

Tomoko In Japanese, the expression “in case”, “if it happens”…is translated as “one in ten thousand” = “man ga ichi”. What if the probability is higher? Should we then take it less seriously, because a linguistic trick softens the impact? The probabilities of earthquakes, tsunamis and nuclear plant meltdowns remain higher than “man ga ichi”!

Yumi@gmail.com

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Wed, April 17 2011 at 6:09 AM

Dear Cath, We’re safe, thank you.

We ourselves are quite unable to figure out HOW so many terrible things can happen simultaneously. After 4 days, the tremors are gradually subsiding, but we can still feel the shaking.

It is cruel, as we know we will also be hit eventually (so we’ve been reminded for over 20 years). The Tokyo-Yokohama area will be erased from the map sooner or later!

Well, in that case, let me have a word with “Who” or “Whatever” is scheming to give us another strike: “If you have no intention of changing your mind, be at least a little more merciful and make it less devastating, please...”

We will recover; we will overcome the difficulties with patience and diligence.

Love, Yumi

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Catastrophes and reconstruction have been the axis around which our history has unfolded. On this land, the strength of nature has always been such that we have learned not to fight it but to accept it and to rebuild. The principles of “mutability” and “vanity of the world” taught in Buddhism have been recognized in Japan better than in India or China. We often use the verb “akirameru”, “surrender”. The etymology of this word is “reveal”. When we realize that there is nothing we can do about it, we surrender and call it fate.

Natsuki Ikezawa, “L’Archipel des Seismes.” Translated by C. Quentin, Ed. Pp. Picquier.

Akiko@gmail.com

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Wed, April 17 2011 at 9:29 AM

Yes Cath, I am in Tokyo. I have no plans to run! Ok, I know, many foreigners are leaving. The truth: Tokyo is absolutely fine. We are using less electricity to save it, but just a good eco life and everyone is well.

No problem with food, water or anything. Nobody is scared of radiation here, now everyone is worried about their jobs and Japan’s economy, Japan’s recovery. The foreign companies here in Tokyo: run away if you can!! Some even took off without telling their local Japanese co-workers.

Abandoning rented houses and apartments, moving arrangements etc to be taken care of by their firm…

Of course there is a risk of contamination of water near Fukushima. Everybody within 15 miles of the site has been evacuated and now there is a talk of expanding the zone. I heard there are bodies floating in the sea, but nobody can collect them until everything is settled. Even the Japanese army can’t move in. They are gathered close by, in ships… waiting.

But we are strong. All our heart is with Tohoku now and we are doing everything to make their life better, stable, calmer and safer. Nobody panics, there are no angry people around, and we are united as never before...

Akiko The information given to us by the government is full of lies and omissions, just like the announcements made by the Imperial Headquarters during WWII. We have no idea what to believe. Harmful rumors create discrimination. Refugee children are bullied at their new schools, are they contaminated? Rice produced in Fukushima will never see the shelves of stores because no one will buy it. Some of this rice was harvested last year before the nuclear accident, but the stigma remains. Farmers can do nothing but stand idle before their fields that they are prohibited to plow.

Those of us born in Fukushima are deeply troubled by this new reality.

Now we must face not only the Fukushima nuclear plant, but also ourselves. Fukushima has ignited a perplexing civil war among the people of Japan and, at the same time, it has sparked an intense internal struggle within us all. A complicated reality has emerged, one that a simple antinuclear slogan like “No More Nukes!” cannot solve.

Michiro Endo, born in 1950, punk musician, poet, socialist activist, partner of Project Fukushima.

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Kumiko@gmail.com

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Sat, April 20 2011 at 9:12 PM

Dear Cath, I see that in the South of the US, tornados have caused devastation and loss of lives! My heart goes out to the people there!

What is happening to our ‘beautiful nature’, what’s the cause of these disasters, one after another all over the planet!

The latest news: TEPCO and the Nuclear Agency had NO idea that such a huge Tsunami could even occur! However, historians do mention the fact that in the Meiji era, there was one big Tsunami in the Tohoku area and now many blame TEPCO and the Government for not having paid better attention when constructing the nuclear plant. This is a ‘fait accompli’ and putting the blame on one another doesn’t fix the problem.

So, they are doing their utmost (they really are!) to get rid of the thousands of gallons of contaminated water inside the plants.

The USA has lent us special robots and those are of great help. I believe that the 1,500 workers who are actually inside the nuclear plant dressed in special uniforms to protect themselves from radioactive contamination are the heroic men we must all give credit to. They are indeed sacrificing their lives and their families in order to give the world and Japan more safety!

The Chernobyl and the Three Mile disasters of the past have left their toll. Japan, a country, which the world has trusted, and a country known to be so stringent on its quality standards, is facing a huge responsibility to the entire planet because of having built nuclear facilities to respond to its exceeding energy demand. Today, Japan is in need of help and advice, from scientists and technicians. We are grateful that this assistance is coming, although some wish our government had been more humble and asked for that help sooner…before the ‘fait accompli’. See how cultural differences and habits can affect even the actions of a government and those of big companies… even in times of extraordinary need!

The living conditions of the people of Tohoku who have been asked to evacuate not once but twice and even three times, are dreadful and we must sympathize.

How can we understand their agony? Depending on the TV channel here in Tokyo, we can hear their sincere opinions: great thankful words or complaints. They all have lost family members, homes, farms and livestock; they have actually lost their means of living!

There are many orphaned children too. Schools should begin in April but the school buildings accommodate the evacuees. In the remote areas, there are no nurseries or kindergarten schools. The average age of the population in Tohoku is old, actually. Imagine these elderly people already in hospitals or senior homes! There are not enough doctors or nurses to take care of them.

Since last week, some partial cash payments issued from organizations such as the Red Cross has been distributed.

Once again, it depends where the victims are and how they can process their documents in order to receive this cash. The local relief agencies have their hands full!

The central government must think of better ways to cope with the local ones… that is what we feel… there is a divorce between the two realities.

Politics! Politicians! So many rules and regulations! Too many ‘unprecedented’ matters have hit this country: it is time for more flexibility! Still they are doing their utmost best!

As for us living outside the Tohoku area, here in Tokyo and further south, ever since April, life

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has gradually come back to normal. We are not concerned about the fresh vegetables or the fish being contaminated by radioactive doses. Only goods that have been tested and approved are on the market. People should learn about the matter rather than succumb to panic! I’m sorry to say that all the foreigners left Japan in a mass exodus; they fled Tokyo (the majority have not returned yet). I blame the foreign Embassies for giving incorrect information. Here comes a pathetic fact: the French Ambassador and his wife were the first to flee! This fact spread so fast through the grapevine in the Hiro district of Tokyo, a major French residential area where the French Embassy is located! It amazed us all! We wondered if they had come back yet, when President Sarkozy came to express his grief to our people soon after the event! Can you even fathom a Japanese Ambassador abandoning his post!

Our Emperor and Empress have been the most comforting and caring figures to the Tohoku people and to all those working trying to bring ‘safety’ in the area. At their age, it is wonderful and commendable that they have actually travelled there. The Imperial couple has expressed their desire to pursue more visits. We all pray for their health.

As for me, the entire month of March has been so sad and I felt so helpless! However, now, I’ve come out of my ‘cocoon’ and have begun to do research, contact friends and gotten information as HOW and WHERE, and WHOM I could assist.

At our age, we cannot go to the area as volunteers but we can certainly think of doing something.

I help an NPO, which will start a “mobile nursery” called “Aozora Hoiku”. They contact teachers who take care of young children left without school buildings. The NPO requests teaching material and school supplies. I have started to collect money after having sent plea letters to all the people I know.

Thank you again for your concern.

Kumiko “We must not be afraid to dream. Do not be caught up by the evil dogs that carry the names of ‘efficiency’ and ‘convenience’. Instead, we must be ‘unrealistic dreamers’ who charge forward taking bold steps.”

Haruki Murakami, is a translator and a prolific multi award winning novelist. Those words are taken from his Acceptance Speech at the 2011 International Cataluña prize.

Kumiko@gmail.com

to me

Sun, March the 11th 2012 at 2:AM

Dear Cath, I hope you will forgive me for being late in replying to your thoughtful mail. As you may have read or seen on TV, we commemorated the first anniversary of the big Tohoku earthquake. It was so hard to watch the scars the tsunami has left behind. There are still tons of rubbles and debris, which have not been cleared yet; some places are flat without any homes or buildings, only empty land. In some villages however, people have begun to slowly rebuild their lives.

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March in Japan is graduation month for students. Many had to be separated from their classmates as they had been relocated last year to different schools. Some institutions arranged to have graduation set up in tents so the entire class could be reunited and graduate together. For all of us here in Tokyo, watching this through the media made us realize how resilient these young people are, how grown up these junior and senior high school students are, compared to those here in Tokyo.

It is indeed a strong new generation.

Kumiko.

Since WWII, the Tohoku Earthquake and the tsunami followed by the Fukushima nuclear drama, have been the most devastating events in Japan’s 19th and 20th century history. 3 generations are witnesses.

For a fraction of the population, these events have no precedents.

I invite you to discover a new generation of Japanese writers, songwriters, poets and manga writers. You will discern a fascinating world: a fresh wind breezes through the lines of Japanese literature.

Dive into the latest work of Inio Asano, born in 1980, “Good night Pung Pung” as soon as it will be available in English!

The main idea of Pung Pung is that whatever might happen in our lives:

“We are driven to care for someone…”

Illustration: Tim Gallo 142 • pearls around the neck

Be a Fantastic Anti-Plastic Mom ValĂŠrie Lecoeur

My three children have always enjoyed the “Trash and Treasure Hunts” I’ve organized for them since they were little. We started this family tradition in Amagansett, Long Island, and have continued it on every beach we’ve visited since, on both the east and west coasts of the U.S. But as our kids have grown older, our little beach adventures have lost their magic: Trash has prevailed.

I’m no eco-evangelist. I’m not part of the radical fringe.

I’m just an everyday mom who’s concerned about the health of her children and the beautiful world they live in. I believe we should actively commit to keeping our world clean.

A “Treasure Hunt” is a thrilling experience that lingers in the imagination of a child. A “Trash Hunt”, on the other hand, is a disheartening encounter with litter and mostly plastic debris. It lingers as well, but not in our imagination: inevitably, it remains in nature if we don’t recycle it.

There’s a smarter and a safer alternative to plastic: organic, biodegradable, and chemical-free products.

Yes, I know plastic is a useful material. I’m a “plastic addict” myself! But I’m going through “detox” right now—and if I can do it, we can all do it!

Plastic creates toxins at every stage: when it’s manufactured, when it’s used, and when it’s disposed of.

It’s made from petroleum, a non-renewable resource we have a nasty habit of fighting wars over. Most plastic leaches toxic chemicals like BPA and phthalates into our bodies—those chemicals are now present in the blood and tissue of almost every person on earth, including newborns. And plastic never really goes away: Even after hundreds of years, it will only break down into smaller particles that continue to kill marine birds, turtles, and fish—and poison our environment.

A few years ago, I started researching the topic of bioplastics and became very excited about their potential. Then it hit me: Why not make biodegradable beach toys—toys that break down and disappear if they’re left behind and wash out to sea? I started dreaming of little, patch-eyed pirates picking up dried kelp and seashells and carrying their bounty in eco-friendly pails! I put this idea into practice and created “Fantastic Anti-Plastic Beach Toys”. I also produced a line of biodegradable, “Fantastic Anti-Plastic” dishes for kids, and more products are in the works!

Soon I wanted to go further and see the plastic pollution in our oceans with my own two eyes. That meant traveling by boat to the middle of the Pacific—a place so remote, that few human beings have actually seen it. I should mention that I’ve never been comfortable on the water: I’m prone to motion sickness. I also knew it would be tough to be away from our three children—ages 4, 8, and 9. But if I wanted to change the world even a little bit, I first had to leave my own comfort zone.

So on May 3, 2012, the research boat Sea Dragon set sail from Majuro in the Marshall Islands with a crew of 14, including me. We embarked on a 19-day, 2,600-mile research expedition organized by Algalita Marine Research Institute and 5 Gyres to study plastic pollution in the North Pacific Gyre—or “Western Pacific Garbage Patch”—on our way to Tokyo.

What I learned: • •

It was not fun or easy, but I can overcome seasickness!

Out of sight, out of mind. People can’t see the effects of trash on marine life and the ecosystems that are affected. 70% of the trash we found was plastic.

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• • • • • •

Plastic breaks down into smaller bits. Every year we produce 60 billion tons of plastic, most of it for single-use packaging.

Plastic kills. To a sea turtle, a floating plastic bag looks like a jellyfish. To marine birds, the pellets used to make plastic products resemble fish eggs.

There is no giant “island” of plastic. There are, however, greater concentrations of plastic in certain areas. Our oceans are becoming one giant soup of floating, man-made debris. There is no feasible way to clean it up. The problem is pervasive and insidious.

Plastic is everywhere. We did 21 trawls on our trip, and every one of them contained plastic debris, even when we were over a thousand miles from land. 5 Gyres has done over 400 of trawls all over the world. Only 2 trawls were plastic-free.

80% of all marine debris comes from land. Plastic bags, bottles, and other trash find their way into our watersheds and make their way to the ocean.

If we start acting soon, “beachcombing piracy” can remain a magical experience for generations to come!

After this voyage, I did some vigorous brainstorming. “Start small, do it local” is what came to mind. I am currently launching a “Ban the Bag” campaign in my hometown to ban single-use plastic bags in grocery stores, pharmacies, and other retailers. That means organizing debates in colleges and secondary schools, participating in radio talk shows, meeting with our City Council, and creating events with 5 Gyres in North Carolina. I believe that education is the key. I believe action is the answer.

Are you planning a trip to the beach soon? Will your kids unearth Banded Tulip Shells from the sand, find skate egg cases, or maybe even a White Baby’s Ear? Will they become rich in Sand Dollars?

Just remember: • • •

Carry reusable water bottles.

Don’t bring juice boxes - the straws and their wrappers blow away too easily.

Every time you go to the beach, make a point of picking up at least 5 pieces of trash. And bring them home for recycling.

No, it’s not easy to change a bad habit, but it’s beautiful to maintain a family tradition! I’m just an average mom, with a passion to protect our beaches and oceans. I want many more treasure hunts in my kids’ future, and I went on a 2600-mile trash hunt to help make that possible.

Author: Valérie Lecoeur, USA, 2012 Illustration: Catherine Beeckman Find more about Valerie at: http://wfdd.org/wfddnews/wfddnews.php/Winston-Salem-Environmentalist-Proposes-Ban-On-Pl/story4107/start1/cal1343797200/viewdate http://winston-salem.skirt.com/shes_so_skirt/valerie-lecoeur-inventor www.zoeborganic.com http://www.algalita.org/blog/?p=3147

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9.

The Pearl of Culinary Gems

Irreverent Recipe!

Jean Stevens

This is a recipe found in Jean Stevens’ cookbook. Jean Stevens is from Texas and declared: “A Gourmet is an intelligent glutton.”

This recipe is the last one of her book.

Recipe for HOLY WATER Fill a large saucepan with tap or rain water.

Place on a burner, high, till it comes to a boil.

Let boil until the devil has evaporated.

Author: Jean Stevens, Texas, USA, 1990 Illustration: Catherine Beeckman 148 • pearls around the neck

A blog: gleaned and picked in Nature CĂŠcile Conti

BLOG Gleaned and picked in the Fields Picking and gleaning.

Cécile Conti Profile Location: Dourdan, France Introduction: Loves flowers, trees, birds, and the nucleus of the atom all the way to the Milky Way. Interests: Taking strolls in the country, picking mushrooms in the forest, picking flowers and berries in the fields.

Favorite music: Classical guitar Favorite book: The Little Prince by Antoine de St Exupery (Editor’s note: Cécile Conti is a classical guitar concert artist and a mathematician. She is passionate about exact sciences. She is a poet, the mother of four, and the grandmother of three little babies).

Dandelion flower honey Scout for a field in full bloom.

Pick the most blossoming flowers: it has to be as though you were picking the brightest stars in the sky!

Don’t be surprised if your hands become yellow and sticky. It’s only the beginning, for you must only keep the yellow petals and meticulously take off the green stems and sepals. This luminous result will then be covered with water and left to seep for a whole night before filtering and weighing. Then, for one liter of liquid, add one and a half kilos of sugar, the juice of two squeezed lemons, the grated zest from one lemon and one packet of vanilla sugar.

Simmer for a good hour.

Add a packet of pectin. Put into jars.

Note: let yourself be tempted by milk flavored with acacia honey or, why not, with thyme syrup!!

Author: Cécile Conti, France, 2011 English translator: Sylvie Froschl Picture from the blog 150 • pearls around the neck

A heroic Fair Catherine Beeckman

The Flemish people are the undisputed masters when it comes to fairs. The entire blue planet couldn’t possibly dream of rivaling the Flemish profusion of debauchery deliberately organized between Candle Mass and Mardi Gras.

Even Jérôme Bosch, Pieter Breughel and James Ensor joining their talents with the utmost drunken energy wouldn’t be able to create a painting faithfully depicting such a scene. For in the country of Flanders, in this very flat country, when there is a fair, there are excesses of various natures, indecency, depravity, and disorderliness and extreme drunkenness. Needless to add, then, that beer mugs overflow generously, that beignets ooze with oil, that sauerkraut takes over the sidewalks and that the pungent smell of cod is found all the way to the steamy, mushy heart of French fries, as so famously evoked by Jacques Brel in his ‘Amsterdam’ song.

Hordes of pimply adolescents invade the shooting galleries. They drink and flirt, French-kissing their latest girlfriends, who, half-drunken, flaunt their legs, their throats and their boobs despite the still freezing temperatures of the season. Blaring pop hits are punctuated with “Frida Oum Papa” airs; accordions whine, the roller coaster’s sirens screech and the brass band explodes in a boisterous harmony of brass and drums.

At nightfall, the old guard storms over to the fair. Sixtyish dance, rubbing their lower bellies against the potty bellies of women; plunging their lewd eyes in cleavages revealing bosoms glistening with sweat; drooling with desire and sporting enormous erections.

At dawn, generations mingle; they drink together, make toasts promising sincere and eternal friendships; people screw in dim corners swearing they’ll be forever faithful; they tell lies and laugh about it afterwards.

Then the fair goes to sleep in a resounding animal snore, punctuated by belches and farts… a few notes faintly escaping from a forgotten Jukebox.

Thus it has been for centuries, since the darkest times of the Middle Ages: authentic drinking feasts and profound carnal pleasures.

A fair was announced in Winston Salem, a small town in the South West of the United States.

What a joy it was for me, an expatriate Flemish, uprooted two years ago to live the real American adventure! Everywhere large posters, huge roadside ads on highways and TV commercials announced the opening of the “Dixie Fair”. Eight whole days of good, old-fashioned happy intemperance, like in the olden days of the Count of Flanders: solid drinking and bacchanalia!

I had, however, neglected one detail: the Puritans created The Dixie 125 years ago. They had all fled the Old Continent’s “great” debauchery, anxious to place once again the Church at the center of village life, across the Atlantic!

A cereals and grains fair at first, then a tobacco fair, the Dixie Fair has become, today, a mix of an agricultural trade fair and regular fair with the most innovative and the most traditional attractions.

Historical stalls, concerts, patchwork or pumpkin contests and large cattle fair. Something not to be missed, and I mean it.

So what is there not to be overjoyed about? A pig’s race, with each competitor wearing a requisite number on his or her haunches? Dancing to the rhythm of a Banjo or a fiddle? Destroying a real tractor with some kind of humongous engine called the “Demolition Monster”, straight out of a Hollywood

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action film? A flurry of fireworks illuminating the night skies? And… the delicacies of the local gastronomy!

There you have it! I insist, what is there not to be overjoyed about…? But wait, there is a hitch: “No alcohol, not a single tiny pint, not the smallest ounce of hooch, not even the shadow of a beer mug.”

And yet, since everything may be substituted, alcohol has been replaced... with FAT. Yes, fat, OH YEAH, fat. Everywhere. For here, in the South, going to a fair equals PILING ON FAT. On the menu, all that is familiar to our taste buds: from Frankfurters to candied apples and cotton candy.

Ha! And let us not forget the menus offered by the churches that, irrespective of denomination, have opened canteens to sell their evangelic convictions coated with caramel or dunked in watery coffee.

Moreover, you innocent tourists from the old continent who have been going to fairs since a tender age, you will also find on the menu a list of delicacies that would be inconceivable anywhere else but here.

Come and have a look at the indigestible world of fried food.

Fried Snickers is a chocolate mousse bar, coated with chocolate and then deep-fried.

Fried Sauerkraut is, as the name indicates, sauerkraut fried in sizzling lard.

Fried Coca Cola remains a complete mystery to me!

Fried Corn Dog is a sausage dunked in thick batter, then deep-fried twice (twice!). The exact term for that is ‘refried’.

Fried Bacon was a huge hit at the Los Angeles fair last year: Bacon going for a dip in a bath of 180°C dirty grease? We will skip the Funnel Cakes, which are a safe bet but let’s discover the latest culinary find of these ‘cordons bleus’, which is bound to make any honest nutritionist turn a sickly green: Fried Butter.

It took many hours of tenacious negotiation but I managed to squeeze the recipe out of one of the assassins who concoct this poison! When you have the list of ingredients for such a weapon of mass destruction, you don’t just give it away, especially to a Jane Doe whose English is more than tainted by a Paul Bocuse-like French accent!

A thick slice of butter, approximately 4 spoons, is rolled into puff pastry and… deep-fried. As soon as the dough turns golden, the Fried Butter is taken out of its ablutions. The murderer is dressed in a white chef’s coat and disguises this lethal venom with impalpable sugar and serves it to an unfortunate sweettoothed passer-by.

The poor victim of this feast will die instantly after enduring headaches, incontrollable vomiting, painful liver failure, dyspepsia, a cholesterol explosion and – not so surprisingly – a sudden heart attack.

The cause of death will, however, never be clearly established since the autopsy will be seriously hindered by the overabundance of adipose tissues in the corpse, requiring a specific freezing process before any organ can be analyzed.

Some, here, claim that the victim dies of pleasure and that I simply don’t get it.

Author: Catherine Beeckman, USA, 2012 English translator: Sylvie Froschl Illustration: Catherine Beeckman pearls around the neck • 153

10.

The Pearl of Illness

An ordinary Day Adriene@gmail.com

It was the day after I tried to fall asleep. Forever. Obviously I hadn’t succeeded. Damn it. Yesterday it was “do or die”. Today I was just left with “do”.

For all intents and purposes, it was an ordinary day. No holidays in sight. When the sun came up, I asked my husband to take me to the hospital. After all, that was my backup plan if I didn’t fall asleep.

Forever. On this particular morning, for the first time, it seemed possible to stick with the plan. Usually I don’t. Usually I make new plans. Or are they scams? A scam for tomorrow because tomorrow will be different. I just know, tomorrow will be different. But this day actually is different. This day I am going to the hospital and my husband will take me. I know he will because he is a good man. A kind man.

I can’t stand him. But I can’t stand myself either. I’m so sick. I’m so tired. And I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. Won’t you please take me to the hospital, honey? I am so sick. So tired.

The doctor says I should be dead. I ask him what I did wrong: how could I still be alive! I don’t remember his response. It’s hard to remember details when you’re so drunk. It’s even more difficult to remember fourteen years later but I’ve been taught I must remember my last drunk like it was yesterday. I do not want to go back to that time in my life, so I try to remember the best I can.

All those years “partying,” they were such a waste, really. Of course, in the beginning it was wonderfully fun; exciting, pleasurable and soooooooo soothing. That first glass of wine after a long day was always the best glass. It was life! It was wisdom. I could feel it trickle down my emptiness cascading like a slow moving river. And the effect it had on my overly active mind was a godsend! That never ending chattering in between my two ears would slow down to join the ever-flowing river and bathe me in my sorrow. By the second or third glass the tears, if they came, would cleanse me, release me from my self-imprisonment. Poor me. Poor, poor me. Pour me another drink!

Usually my drinking was fairly uneventful. At least in the beginning...

But it wasn’t the beginning anymore. It was the end. I never really wanted it to end. I wanted to drink like a lady. I tried every method known to woman to control my drinking. Sometimes I was actually successful. For a day or two or a week or so. Usually I wasn’t.

Little did I understand on that fateful afternoon while making phone calls to rehab centers that in reality it was the beginning. Not the end. I could not have possibly understood on that day that my life was just starting. For an alcoholic, it’s impossible to understand there is life after drinking, yet alone a full life! One bursting with love, mystery, joy and pain. It’s not perfect. But it is perfectly possible-to get sober on an ordinary day.

Author: Adriene@gmail.com California, USA, 2006 Illustration: Ogino Shouta 156 • pearls around the neck

Udder-ly ridiculousâ&#x20AC;Ś The X-ray of a Nipple Anonyme

A mammogram… …implies the presence of mammary glands, wouldn’t you think?

Well, what happens when you don’t have any?

Nothing, zilch, flat as a board, flat as the Great Plains.

No breasts, no tits, no boobs, nothing.

An udder, pardon-me, utter absence of boobies.

So, why on earth did this sadistic gynecologist of mine stubbornly keep on prescribing mammograms? He’d been insisting for four years now! The maniac knew my chest, my anything-but-busty, smooth chest, whose lack of protuberances would beat any man landing on this deserted beach, ready to launch their distress rockets!

Could this be a form of perversion?

But there was no escaping anymore: I was warned. If I didn’t subject myself – or rather what I didn’t have – to the scrutiny of X-ray beams, “I’ll scratch you off my list of patients!” he’d said, throwing me a stern look.

I made my way to the third floor.

I was welcomed by the receptionist’s wide smile… and her deep, generous cleavage. Bitch! I guess I’d have a wide smile and a perky face too if there was anything jiggling under my shirt.

Was I jealous? That’s a gross understatement. I coveted any other female’s bosom with morbid avidity. My libido skyrocketed at the sight of a well-endowed and prettily garnished blouse.

A clipboard in hand, looking efficient and still sporting her wide smile, the receptionist signaled me to follow her. We arrived in a corridor lined with changing stalls. She tilted her head and explained: “In the dressing room, you will find a blue hospital gown. Please take off your top and put it on. With the opening ON THE FRONT. ON THE FRONT. Do you understand?”

Why didn’t she calm down? I was the one who was a bundle of nerves, not her!

“The lab technician will come and get you in 5 minutes.” Here again, the wide – professional – smile, a pleasant, heartless grimace more than a smile, really. I did as I was told. The mirror sent me back the bitter truth, the reflection of my androgynous pubescent body. I slipped on the blue gown. I heard steps coming: the lab technician.

Her too?! No way! This was some nasty prank! And I knew who the guilty party was: my gynecologist! The bastard, the crook, the dirty sneak! He’d surrounded himself with Lollobrigida look-alikes!

The lab technician, however, played in a whole different league. Something cow-like, raised on a farm?

Specialized in milk and cream, perhaps? There was this sweetly sour scent about her… That was it, she must have been a nice, reputable wet nurse, whose beneficent boobs dispensed rich, smooth milk…

Under her uniform, her two udders swayed and swung to the rhythm of her steps. “Let’s see if we can detect the presence of an opacity or a micro-calcification in your breasts.” Right there, I was utterly unable to imagine anything! I couldn’t imagine that any opacity could possibly conceal itself in the microscopic space provided by my breasts, nor that the slightest calcification would be brave enough to squeeze itself into the tiny interstices of my miniature boobs. But she could carry out her investigation!

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The technician came over to me, opened the gown, and checked my position in front of the nasty robot that was going to torture me within the next thirty seconds – although I didn’t know it yet. “Place your right breast between the two Plexiglas plates.” She wasn’t even kidding! She actually meant it!

I tried to find my right breast and resolved to tug at my nipple given the lack thereof… The technician came to my rescue: “I see,” she said kindly. She was quite considerate but no amount of kindness would ever increase the scale or size of the small outstretched bud. “We’ll just make do!” she said to help me relax. And then, suddenly, before I had any time to react, she pulled with all of her strength on my poor tiny titty and with one sharp movement spun a handle. SNAP. The two plates closed hermetically: my poor mammary gland was compressed, flattened, prisoner, white, all blood and life drawn out of it… Have mercy!

Faced with this pitiful display under the Plexiglas, I was quite shaken. Wasn’t there anyone in all of mankind to take pity on this squashed excrescence? Whatever happened to Christian charity?

The lab technician abandoned me, a hostage sequestered in a mammogram machine. From the other side of the control panel behind which she had now posted herself, she shouted: “Breathe in, hold it, don’t move! It’s in the box!” It all went so quickly that I had stopped breathing long before she said so: I had opted for suicide by apnea. A consenting asphyxiated captive. The lab technician had, however, decided otherwise. She freed me from the diabolical machine’s mighty jaws. Although the decompression was instant, my poor nipple refused to come back to life. “Let’s do the profile X-ray now!” Since there was nothing up front, how could there be a profile? But I submitted to the next ordeal; did I have a choice anyway? No alternative. The evil machine obediently pressing under the technician’s control, the process followed its course…

After this taxing test, I escaped from this damned Golgotha where innocent women had to suffer the agony of their condition. I wrapped my chest in whatever dignity I had left and went blindly back to the dressing room when suddenly lightning struck! Of course!

I grabbed my purse, slammed the dressing room’s door and walked out with a determined step. “Your results will be sent to your gynecologist. He’ll contact you,” I heard the receptionist call on my way out.

I ignored her, and her very existence.

I had an appointment with the devil.

The plastic surgeon’s practice was on the fourth floor. The appointment was made for the end of the month. I would not go back on my decision; I chose the most discreet model: the vulgarity of big boobs made me sick. I chose saline implants size double A. My life could have afresh start!

A year later, my gynecologist prescribed a mammogram: a “normal” yearly check-up. What??! What about my double-A saline babies? My two beauties crushed, exploded? Back to the drawing board?

Oh, well.

After all…

“You are closer to her heart when her chest is flat.” (Louis Bouilhet).

Author: Anonymous, Germany, 2012 English translator: Sylvie Froschl Illustration: Catherine Beeckman pearls around the neck • 159

Butterfly Drugs Sarea

“ There are two meanings to the word Metamorphosis. One is the process of transformation from an immature form to an adult form in different stages. The second one is a change of the form or nature of a thing or a person into a complete different one, by natural or supernatural means.”

We are sitting, Sarea and I, on the front porch of a simple country bungalow in a middle class neighborhood on a crisp early morning spring day. She is relaxing in a rocking chair, sipping a coffee and puffing on her cigarette; it is only 8:30 but the ashtray is almost full. She stares at the flowers in the garden: camellias, dogwoods, marigolds… we start our interview. Actually, Sarea initiates a monologue.

Sarea: “The only way to start this story is by saying: Hey, my name is Sarea and I am a grateful recovering addict. *1 Alcoholism and addiction were prominent in both sides of my family. You know what they say: “You are a byproduct of your environment.” As a child, I did not receive the love or the nurturing I needed and longed for.

I was born in 1971 in Helfin, Alabama. My mother left me when I was 4. She walked out of the house the day she stabbed my father: the blade slashed his flesh an inch under his heart. She knew she had to leave “cause she knew she was gonna kill him”. He was abusive when he was drunk; she was “not gonna take it no more”.

So I lived with my father. He did his very best to take care of me. But he was an alcoholic.

I was the only one there. Now I was taking care of him most of the time: stubbing out the lit cigarettes he would leave around, switching off the stove after he had cooked something, answering the phone…

When is was too much, I would cross over and alert my grand parents who lived near by.

On the weekends, I would stay with my great grand mother Mandy who was also raising my half brother. As we were a bunch in there, I had to sleep with him in the same bed. Soon he molested me. *2 I often felt neglected and extremely lonely. When I became a blossoming teenager, I felt more ashamed of my body than excited. At 17, I became pregnant. Both my parents pressed me into having an abortion. It was my father who brought me to the abortion clinic: that was awkward for me.

Somehow, I managed to finish my high school by the skin of my teeth. I got a job in a medical institution and found myself an apartment, moving out on my own when I was 19.

At 20, I met the man of my dreams… he actually turned to be my absolute worst nightmare. He moved in with me. He had no stable job. But I had this fantasy: if I were to give all the love I had in me, all that big love I wanted to share for so long, wouldn’t he love me back, a little?

His nickname was Puff. He had been to a “Strayer University”*3 but he never found a steady job. He was an alcoholic and smoked pot all day. I began to smoke marijuana. WOW, I really loved the way it made me feel. All of a sudden, I didn’t have a care in the world even if it was only for a little while. My mother got to know him and said: “Sarea, this man is just like your father!” But my father had now been sober for years.

My days looked like this: waking up around 6:30 am and starting work at 9 am, as morning commutes were hard. Got off at 5:30 pm and home at 7 pm. When I arrived home, Puff was already high and

pearls around the neck • 161

slightly drunk. That’s when he was fun to be around. I did the groceries and the cooking. When he had too much to drink, that’s when he was violent.

The relationship was not good. But I could not leave him. I could not “abandon” him. My mother had abandoned me, I was not going to abandon anyone or be part of an “abandoning” situation. So we thought that building a family would be a solution. I became pregnant. I never got high and he was supportive. Puff got a job.

In 1994, Auriel was born. I had a post partum depression.

Me and her didn’t click. She was colicky and cried all the time. I had nursing problems with her. Puff saw me as a bad mother… but he was good to her. I was so depressed and frustrated, one day I called the nurse and said: “I see why people kill their babies, she’s going to be one of them!”

Now we were both working trying to make ends meet. And I’m pregnant again. Puff brings me to the same abortion clinic my father had brought me to years ago. I relived the same nightmare.

Later, when Auriel is a year old, I’m pregnant again of Tiana. Now Puff is into heavy drinking again and we are both high on pot. One evening, I come back from the movies and he has that bad alcohol.

So he picks a fight and starts beating me, kicking my belly- “I don’t want that child”- and choking me…I run away to be safe. When I come back: Puff is gone with my baby! I press charges, I’m frantic…

Still I miss Puff. So I go where he is. He cried and promised me to never do it again. So we get married and spend some time in Birmingham, all the expenses are on me.

Now here is what my Mother said when she heard about my marriage:” If you are going to live with him, you better start acting LIKE him, act crazy like him. You better fight harder if you want to survive!”

Those were her words. And that is what I became….

We settle in a house. I have the same job so I get credit for my professional stability. Tiana is born. Puff works or not, it is irregular. From there on, it’s all down hill! The girls are 1 and 3 years old and we are serious about smoking pot. It is on the budget: rent, groceries, electricity and pot. The kids live in the fumes of it! I remember Tiana laughing on her high chair watching Barney on TV and she was acting out so much. We’d say, it’s because of the marijuana smoke and start laughing too!

Now, he was a nasty drunk. If he had been a nice drunk, I wouldn’t care. I was not comfortable with our mortgage and the spendings, plus I started to be really hooked on pot. I would bring the kids to the nursery smoking pot in the car, the window open, early in the morning. It was my way of getting away from the arguing.

Now Puff has a job as a newspaper delivery guy and he meets this white man, Jim, and he spends evenings in the basement of that man’s house… late. I could not have been happier. He is out of my house. I can lie in bed, the kids sleeping, me watching TV, with a little pot, alone, quiet.

After months, Puff tells me he is in Jim’s basement smoking Crack. How could I have found out: ‘cause

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Puff knows not to crash down with Crack by combining it with alcohol and falling asleep early in the morning at my side. I do not see it coming.

Now he is inviting me to try it. The first two times I am not high, I just can’t fall asleep.

I try again and…it is of to the races! Once you have that first high, oh yeah! I feel invincible. Almost immortal!

When I started Crack, I would only do it when I got my paycheck. That soon changed. Nobody saw the change. It was a very well hidden secret for a very long time. Puff became a real addict, a non-functioning addict. He was smoking up all the bills that had to be paid. I stopped paying the mortgage… Oh, it all went down hill.

Then came that fight. Who cares about the reason? The words, the yelling, the screaming and the hitting… me carrying my little Tiana. He kicked me and I kicked back. I then put my baby safe on the front porch. She was so cute with her little pansies all buttoned up sitting all alone on the porch in the middle of the night. I followed Puff in down the staircase to the basement. I pushed him, we fell together, and he fell on me. The fight was brutal. My teenage cousin who lived with me on and off, she threw me a knife and I stabbed him. I stabbed him in the back. Is it my Mom’s prediction coming true?

He ran, he was so drunk and high, he did not even feel the pain I guess. The police came as neighbors saw my little baby on the porch all alone and heard that entire racket going on. It was the same policeman that had come the first time. He says: “You actually married him?” We don’t talk about the stabbing. Nobody will know. A week later, Puff is back!

Same routine. Now we are heavy on Crack. One morning, I want to wash and brush my teeth: the water had been cut of. So I pick up the kids, drop them at the sitter and go to my Mom. I call everybody and every social help organization. I want to save myself and save the kids. No bill has been paid in months; I can’t live in my home no more.

I end up at the domestic violence shelter. And out of hundreds of women on the waiting list, they give me an apartment. I have a roof over my head and I can live through the social aid system.

Puff is in Georgia. One of those weekends, I feel bored; I take the kids and drive to Georgia. We see each other, we get high, I forget my apartment, my new work, my duties and I stay with him -high- for two weeks. Oh yeah, the kids were there…

I drive back home after this episode: my Mom has packed all my belongings and tells me to leave.

Forever. I lost my job, of course, for not showing up in 14 days…

In 1998, I move to Georgia. No job but I do get a check for $300/$400 a week from the unemployment benefits. And I’m pregnant of number 3. Puff works a stable job by then. He pressures me for an abortion but I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t do it.

I’m in my addiction. It became a social skill. When all the bills were paid, I would drop the kids with some of Puff’s family. We would all smoke crack, in a group. Bouncing of the walls, our hearts racing,

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our eyes wide open, real wide. It’s called gigging. You would get super paranoid, like the ultimate rush of adrenaline. All your endorphins are released, your dopamine and it tells you “feed me more, and feed me more” ‘cause the brain can’t follow up. The after crash is hard so I softened it by smoking weed.

Puff is gaining control over the crack but I’m loosing it. I’m not working any more. I’m high the night I’m going into labor! And that’s how I go into the delivery room…the third one is a boy: “little Puff”.

And the following years are all the same. He gets a job… I get a job… we lose our jobs for not showing up. We have a place to stay, we are kicked out for not paying the rent as we are smoking it up; we live from food stamps, we go to Motels, we get high with the other crowd in those crack motels, we live with Puff’s family, we are kicked out. It’s just a cycle. The kids follow us.

Puff gets more control over the crack. He works. I have more free time and I’m really into the drug: the disease kicks in.

I’m not stopping until all the money is gone. And I’m binging: I’ll go out for 6 days or more, in houses or places where they are all like me and do it for days and nights till I’m almost dead. And then I go to a detox centre, ‘cause I’m so tired, I’m exhausted.

Puff and the kids don’t know where I am: I could have been dead. When I’m back home, he’s mad and punishes me. I don’t care any more; I don’t even fight back. But social services call on me.

Now I’m going from home to home, where the drugs are. I sell the food stamps. I am into prostitution; I have my regulars. I keep myself afloat. I start “turning tricks”, like sexual tricks, sucking dicks for my next fix. Two or three years of this.

The family pushes me into rehab, a treatment house, severe and strictly controlled. It is a program called a therapeutic community: you have to work to pay for your treatment.

Puff is in charge of the kids. He has a stable job as a painter. From there on, he will raise the kids ‘cause my story is not finished! I’ll be forbidden to see them. Puff is actually happy that I’m OUT of his life.

When I’m clean, I get a job as an addiction counselor, and I live outside but I still have to go the meetings. Then I meet this man, Brandy. He’s just out of prison after 6 months, he was charged for two years (drug dealing) but ‘cause of good work he got out earlier.

It’s the love of my life. I leave it all, my job, my place and the treatment program. We are living in a trailer, with another woman, Corry to share the bills.

Brandy relapses and it creates a domino effect. When Brandy is high he is very sexual… and things become wild… the three of us. It’s dirty, and I’m jealous, I’m gonna kill that Corry girl! We are kicked out of the trailer.

And then come the years of addiction again, falling down into drugs, into the misery of human destruction. The decline… and the self-abasement…

Brandy is a barber. When he pays for his chair 4, he can make good money, sometimes even $400 on a Saturday. Addiction makes him lose it all, his license, and his dignity.

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We go for small jobs… both of us… lower jobs, shorter terms, feeding our addiction: crack and cocaine.

Motels, ugly places, street corners, begging for help from family members, stealing from them! Begging for a sandwich, for a bus ticket… always together.

It was the love for each other that feeds our addiction.

All hell breaks lose. We steal from the dealers, I am into prostitution: I’m a “Ho-stro” 5. At night, I stay in women shelters, Brandy stays at the Salvation Army, and during the day we stay at the library or on the streets.

We try to be clean. Cause of love, we try. But there is no real recovery program that works for people like us. And then, one day, we are so broke, so “done”; we are bundled up together in front of the door of a church…and we decide to change this. I’m here now.”

Note: It is important to notice that prevention programs in the USA are rather poor. Recovery programs often include time in prison… A woman like Sarea would readily go into recovery voluntarily when her body, her health, her mind and her soul are absolutely exhausted. I have seen young women entering the YWCA H. House and relapse. Women above 40 years of age do however have an 80% probability of staying clean forever.

Author: Sarea, Alabama, USA, 2012 Interview at the H. House: a rehabilitation home run by the YWCA for recovering addicts and ex-convicts.

Illustration: Tim Gallo 1 This is the classic personal introduction every recovering alcoholic or drug addict makes at all DAA or AAA meetings anywhere in the world.

2 “Molested” in the USA can refer to a variety of realities. In Sarea’s case, the expression refers to sexual abuse.

3 Strayer University is a for profit institution where short-term studies can be done. A 6 months course can earn you a diploma in a certain field.

4 Barber parlors rent “chairs” to barbers with licenses.

5 From the expression: whore that strolls on the road.

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A Message to my Enemy Eurydice L. White

You punk motherfucker!

I hate you!

Even as I utter your name, I’m reminded of Port-a-Caths, Catheters, and chemo Radiation.

The humiliation of having one breast At your best You destroy lives old and young Hell is where you come from Death is the only real freedom From you.

I asked God’s permission for you To enter into remission And you did for a while Then re-emerged with a smile All the while, I was just a child.

Ten months old when you stole My mother But I was too young to be bothered But 6 years later You stole my father?

Nigga WHAT!!!

Ok You don’t play fair Bodies that are filled with dyes And MRI’s CAT Scans Chemicals Lost hair Fuck you cancer!

You may be the baddest, But I’m the maddest And if you were a person, I would kick your monkey ass For all the babies Children Uncles, aunts Grandmothers Grandfathers Stepmothers Brothers Sisters Husbands Cousins Wives

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Everybody whose Lives been Affected by your Nasty ass First class To dead broke You Boast of millions of deaths.

Take all till nothing’s left.

I saw my aunt Exhale her last breath All because of you.

And she was only 52 And he was only 29 And she was just 5 And he was 12 And she was 16 And he was 60 And she was 7 And he has 11 And she was 49 And he was feeling fine until his wife’s fingers felt that lump.

Lungs, ovaries, bones, prostate, cervix Larynx, stomach just to name a few I mean, who created you?

A thing so foul and vile To claim the life of an innocent child?

You have no mercy That’s why I curse thee Loudly.

I saw you up close and personal Families, you be hurting them Relatives that give all they have Driving to and from doctor’s appointments Looking into the eyes of Disappointed loved ones as They fight for their lives And Friends that give gifts Of laughter and wigs, and comfort Those who console souls That you stole Late night sickness False hopes and wishes

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Shattered dreams You never seem content.

Lost appetites Shivers in the night Headaches Body aches Fatigue You don’t compensate You just Take and take and take That’s why I say I Hate you!

Jesus said love thine enemies But I can’t No I refuse to love you. But I will Give my love to All the doctors Nurses, volunteers, Organizations And associations Who are committed to Putting an end to your reign And changing things I love all the relatives that give Gifts of cards and flowers Showers of positivity Eurydice Loves all y’all that are standing Tall Fearless in the Face of opposition Whose Position is at an advantage But Cancer survivors and patients Don’t forsake your faith But keep your stance Strong and Hold on Don’t give up the Fight But with all Your might Live your life

pearls around the neck • 169

And be Happy Cause we Do it all to prove to you My dearest cancer, That you Ainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t shit!

Author: Eurydice L. White, an African American SLAM poet and writer, winner of various state SLAM contest around the USA. Eurydice remains close to her poems while delivering the vocals and as many Slammers, her style reminds us of hip-hop music and dub poetry. SLAM stands for Spoken Literary Art Media. 2011 Illustration: Tom Fahrmann 170 â&#x20AC;˘ pearls around the neck

An endless Appetite for Desires Catherine Beeckman

Some words scribbled on a piece of paper, stuck on the refrigerator: “I bought you Roquefort cheese and quince, I know you love it. Serve yourself well. Mom.” On a piece of cardboard, advice hastily written in pencil: “Eat at noon, I know you didn’t eat at all this morning… Mom.” One last thing before hanging up the phone: “You lied to me - you haven’t eaten anything. You told me you would finish the veal filet and I found it in the trash can!”

A whisper passing by: “Just look at your arms! You have no shape!”

Or the girlfriend, laughing: “You do not belong in the 3-D world, not even in the flat world… you are truly one-dimensional…that’s it - the universe of lines and vectors!”

Or the nickname the boys at school gave me at age 13: “The ironing board”.

At twelve, I was small, thin, emaciated, famished and not understood, totally not understood. And rightfully so! Who knew the term anorexia nervosa in 1974?

Multiple and diverse reasons push thousands of girls into fasting, to sink themselves into the world of anorexia nervosa. There are different forms of anorexia, often poorly defined and, consequently, misdiagnosed and improperly treated. But one fact remains: anorexia kills.

Anorexia is the deadliest mental illness. In the United States, 0.5% of the female population suffers from it; in France, 1.5% is victims. 10% of these will die. Anorexia nervosa mainly affects women between 12 and 22 years old. How cruel!

But what in fact is anorexia?

An illness of little-known etiology.

The origin of this mental disease is as blurry as the imprecise accounts of the patients who suffer from it. Conventional wisdom holds that this eating disorder has some genetic origin. On the other hand, about 95% of the victims are women, so a hormonal component seems evident.

Defined as a psycho-behavioral illness with neuro-hormonal components, anorexia nervosa entails a predisposition, based on social and family factors, a catalyst psychoanalytical element in the patient’s personal history, and a psycho-sensory capital that favors a myriad of behaviors. This whole amalgam promotes the surfacing of the illness and all too often prevents the definitive cure, or treatment, as I am convinced that no one ever fully recovers from it.

A number can also define anorexia: BMI (Body Mass Index), which is derived by dividing the weight of a person in kilos by height in square meters. A BMI lower than 17.5 kg per meter squared is a warning signal.

Anorexia can be described by its symptomatology: refusal to eat, hyperactivity, insomnia, the presence of obsessive and compulsive disorders (OCD), anxiety, social phobia, depression and/or suicidal tendencies.

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Etymologically speaking, “anorexia” means the absence of appetite, or lack of appetite or no appetite.

Error.

The anorexic may reach permanent loss of appetite and not feel hunger at all. After months of fasting, an internal modification of the neurotransmitters will effectively trigger the feeling of satiation. But reality is very different. At first, the anorexic fights her appetite, all her appetites. Her appetite towards food is no more than a synecdoche of a broader set of desires and these desires must be annihilated at all cost.

Every anorexic should write her story because each case of anorexia is unique and has its own idiosyncrasies.

I was 12 when I decided to stop eating.

I had no need to lose weight and, living in a traditional Catholic boarding school for girls, the need to be liked was not a priority for me! In all honesty and keeping things in perspective, I did not like the food served at the boarding school. Little by little, I became content with just breakfast: two slices of white bread with butter, dipped in a cup of coffee with milk and between the two, like a sandwich, some “speculoos” cookies… then nothing, or nearly nothing, for the rest of the day. My appetite diminished, my taste faded, my taste buds atrophied; food became the least of my priorities. I forgot about eating. This happened to me several times, though I wouldn’t forget to breathe, or sleep, or bathe, or communicate with others…

That attitude of relegating eating to an unimportant activity took root within me precisely at the age of 12. By then, food no longer existed: out of sight, out of smell, far from the realm of my senses and taste…. out of my life. I don’t recall feeling unfortunate - very much the opposite. I was a very good student, I had many friends and I was on the competition swim team.

But my body grew thin. My breasts did not develop when my flamenco friends were getting full, beautiful, blossoming. In that group of developing adolescents, I looked like a weakling, a beggar. And I promptly became aware of it.

Then, why not start eating? I did the opposite. Why? And how would I get nourishment when I burned calories? If food was not important to me, what was it that gave me pleasure? If food were not appetizing, what would nourish me? What was I “hungry” for?

I eventually stepped out of this behavior and regained a normal life.

At 16, I was a young woman, truly.

By 20, however, I barely weighed 108 lb to my 5.7 ft stature. It wasn’t dramatic, but it wasn’t “feminine” to look at. Flat, no curves, pointy and bony shoulders, skinny legs, my face already wrinkled, with sunken cheeks. I was married and we lived in Africa. Surrounded by friends, our lives were filled with adventure and excitement that everyone envied, and I was not hungry. Once again: the loss of appetite. Sitting at the table was not something that excited me; going to a restaurant bored me; however, cooking for others I found fascinating. To ensure that those coming through our door would be fed and satisfied was essential to me. But what would I eat to remain alive? A sliver of papaya, a slice of mango, some roasted peanuts, a piece of bread with butter dipped in coffee with milk… a list of four or five foods that I liked a little. While many anorexics torture themselves by eating tasteless and colorless foods - a few biscotti that taste like cardboard, fat free and bland yogurt - I always ate what I

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liked, at least back then.

My body dried up. I was just a bag of bones and soon I suffered from amenorrhea. It lasted six years.

In both cases, I was happy, overflowing with activity, intellectually stimulated (during the latter, writing my thesis for the university), sleeping little yet physically tireless, and without a doubt, unfortunate to the core!

In both cases, something severe had taken over me, and my body had transformed into a theatre featuring the play I had, until then, denied myself to attend. And the second act was put on stage in diverse ways.

After a few years, I was able to identify the painful traumas and difficult crises that made me swing into the universe of anorexics. Two very precise incidents, similar and tragic, occurred on two occasions and unleashed the same exact comedy, the same farce. The defense mechanism that set in at age 12, during the first crisis, had shown its effectiveness and insidiously reappeared at age 20. All was going well, Ladies and Gentlemen, suffering again, but all was going well!

Because anorexia underestimates. Anorexia lies to itself. It is comforted in the ecstasy of fasting, consoles itself in the somberness of hunger. To admit its sadness is almost impossible.

Anorexia’s perversity resides in its power of projection and replacement of real life problems with a world of false substitutions. Instead of treating the obstacles inherent in love and marriage, of loneliness, fear of the future or abandonment, the anorexic will create a parody of the difficulty of choosing in a world of food. An unwitting transposition, a surrogate commitment.

If life is overwhelming, let me focus on this 175-calorie vanilla pudding. I’ll thoroughly analyze the menu, I’ll measure, count, weigh, study the increasing space between my thighs, scrutinize my image in every mirror and live with that visual distortion between the pachyderm image that frightens me and the haggard reality that I have become.

In any case, I have no power over my destiny. I could not win. Let me start this fight, with my body; the war against feminine curves, chubby buttocks, muffin top, voluptuous breasts and the ability to procreate. I can no longer bare children at the age of 20, I am destroyed and yet, it is I who has dried up the fertile womb, the bloody and promising secretions, and the rosy and fertile ovaries.

And the body withers. It produces nothing but pity. It no longer uses space… it is barely visible in the assembly. The body would rather not exist: its desires have ceased and its fluids have dried up.

Then, a real dance of disguised meals began. Six years of lies, of ill will and cunning ways to deceive adversaries: hunger and the others, those that worried, that loved me and saw me so emaciated.

A chunk of an apple for breakfast, a yogurt eaten with a tiny spoon in order to make this miserable banquet last, half a bran cookie as dry as a bone, juices of rare algae, three grapefruits a day to burn fat and, if by some oversight I had a more hearty dinner, the shame, the feeling of abusing my body and an unbearable physical weight. Losing one kilo on the scale was the reward, the lightness of the soul associated with the loss of volume, a small gift, a gratification such as if a lesion would have suddenly healed, as if a small blood stain had been erased, a crime solved.

Anorexia opens a door, it is a key. But, what door does it open? Hunger, rejection, deprivation mysteriously compensate for something: anorexia solves an equation hidden in the deepest parts of one’s being which parameters can only be lack of confidence, shame, sadness or fear of emptiness. Can

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the denial of the most basic need truly eradicate suffering, old, present, real or imaginary?

This equation is obsolete. But the anorexic comes out victorious and then, after a few years of malnutrition, the makeup of the brain is no longer the same!

I overcame the difficulty once again. I had three children.

But the specter of this infallible and cruel friend resurfaced, of course, at first failure of the psyche.

We lived in Singapore. Mother of three small children, a symbol of the nurturing mom, yet skinny, dissatisfied and famished, I decided to consult a specialist.

Why bother this dear doctor? I had no desire to gain another kilo anyway. The recipes he prescribed in order to gain weight served as a warning sign: Careful! DO NOT touch!

He explained however, that the families of anorexics are generally composed of frustrated members, with ambiguous and enigmatic stories. A dark veil denied me access to life’s pleasures; a nauseating stench and stink would kill my appetite. “How was your relationship with your mother?”

I was referred to a psychoanalyst… A Chinese! Who spoke bad English? To begin psychoanalysis in a foreign language is stupidity! However, his Chinese focus and anti-Judeo Christian approach intrigued me.

“Let’s talk about your first memory of your mother, a memory from when you were two or three years old”. Response: “We are in Nigeria, it’s fantastic, yes, and it is all fantastic”. He looks at me with his slanting and smiling eyes: “You have a black and white picture in front of you, right?” He caught me off guard: “Yes…”. “I ask for a memory, a real one”. Nothing, nothing. “I am sorry… But who remembers their first two or three years of childhood?” “Very well ma’am, your first memory, not a picture, a memory ma’am”. “I must have been five years old…”. “And before that, were you happy?”. “Oh yes!

But no memory that is not related to a photo album…” “Well then ma’am, I would say that everything was going wrong. When memories create a void, it is not good news”.

I consulted with Mr. Cheng only once, because no one was going to declare that my first years deserved to be forgotten, nobody!

Anyway, we moved every two or three years.

I have tried psychoanalysis at every port, in all cities, in all languages, and rooted in all schools of thought (Gestalt, Lacanism, Freud revised), based on psychotrops, and silly fleeting trends...

Fortunately, my intellectual curiosity has been contented and satisfied -- the only hunger fulfilled!

It is not up to me to write a treaty about this topic.

I remarried and we had two beautiful daughters. Having two boys and three girls for a total of five children: a hymn to procreation, a prayer to life. I ate, I made love. And yet again…

I have been hospitalized only once and surely for reasons associated with chronic anorexia and its origins. But I have been lucky and had much love. I have also learned how to give hugs and receive this love opening….another door.

Still, my entire life has been shaken by times of crisis, phases of anorexia. Each “difficult” season weakens me, and my body calls out for this mechanism that awakened at age 12. (Later, I discovered that age 12 was only a mark on a calendar as the true reasons could have been buried in early childhood.) When I am thinner, I feel immediately, and miraculously, better. Depriving myself gives me that stamina, iron will. There it is: I am in control of something, even though it may be what I have

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(or have not) on my plate!

Everything slips out of my grasp; I cannot depend even on myself. Is there not someone here? By the way, will I at least know for myself what I need? Maybe not. Very well, then I do not need anything.

Yes, I suppose I do not need anything, and I do not need this food that gets cold on the table! You see, this hunger becomes a language in itself that manifests itself and often transcends the linguistic capacity of communicating. It is the body that communicates with its urgencies because there are no words, there never have been.

I seriously took to psychoanalysis and the words spoken, heard, reformulated and structured have nourished me. To identify the areas of shadows and to dare lift the veil with language has opened my stomach. Verbs unleash the tongue, liquefy saliva, wet and moisten the mouth. But I am not safe and I know it: this is a victory in itself.

If appetite is a desire, letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s keep in mind that desire itself manifests the lack of something.

Author: Catherine Beeckman English translation: Cynthia Jaramilo and Susan Surrat Illustration: Tim Gallo 176 â&#x20AC;˘ pearls around the neck

11.

The Pearl of the Time that Ages us

A Castaway of Time Catherine Beeckman

A 1963 Buick Rivera is parked in front of the 7/11, also a pharmacy, a drugstore, and a post office: the engine is running.

On the trunk, a worn out sticker claims: “God  Christian Working Moms”.

Au volant de la voiture, une vieille toquée de 80 ans, de 120 ans, de mille ans, maquillée comme un carré An 80 year old, a 120 year old, a thousand year old wacky cookie sits behind the steering wheel of her car. She is smeared with make up as if attending an opening night premiere in Las Vegas. She is coiffed with a pastel green hat; a faded velvet rose hangs miserably between her eyes; her eyes are hidden behind the curtain of her heavy, purplish eyelids.

A few boucles of white hair dangle from beneath the hat. On the tip of her nose, a pair of golden tortoise shell glasses.

With an enormous seamstress’ scissor, the quivering wrinkled hands carve out coupons. The coupons will save her some cents of her weekly frugal spending.

On the passenger seat, an old metal Earl Grey tea box stuffed with expired coupons: crumpled and yellowish.

Once in awhile, the old lady plunges her trembling hand in the tea box and pulls out a coupon; she reads the special offer, probably obsolete since 1989, she shakes her head slowly and resumes her conscientious cutting.

Aging… but under what circumstances?

Author: Catherine Beeckman, Baltimore, USA, 2009 Illustration: Catherine Beeckman pearls around the neck • 179

Ruin of a Woman Amalia Saporiti Amorim

She walked through the streets of the village, swinging her hips to the rhythm of drums that only she could hear.

Every day, she would ruin ten families on average because her butt was like a magnet that all men felt compelled to follow.

Coming home, she would close the door, leaving behind many curious men clinging to the bars of her windows.

After a long time, she would lean out, pen and paper in hand, assessing how many had surrendered to her renowned charms. But she knew not everyone succumbed.

One of the many interested parties had decided to break the spell and had sworn never to follow this butt again. This butt that had once caused an immediate split in his family.

As for her, she held the hope of seeing him, still dangling from her windows, or from any part of her house.

She had grown used to his presence and not having him created in her emptiness difficult to bear.

The man had abandoned everything for her.

Never had they spoken, but once a day she leaned out and saw him, a look to reassure that here they were, one for each other.

The others were just fillers; she couldn’t care less about the others. Only he mattered: “Destroyed Jones”.

One day she thought she should let him in, after several years of repudiation. This was the day he had decided never to come back.

As years drifted by, the drums of Ruin slowly softened and faded away, and when passing through town only very few would pay attention to her.

Sobbing, she walked through the streets, and for that reason, the magnet she carried faded and lost its power.

During one of her strolls, Ruin crossed the one that would soon become her successor. The girl had no understanding of drums or rhythms, but she knew how to place some flowers in her cleavage. All wanted to water the flowers. And here they were, running with small watering cans, determined not to let the flowers wither.

That is how the maiden with the flowers took over; every man in town ran after her like a fool.

The body of Ruin had to pay the bills of all these years and “Destroyed Jones” himself revealed it to her.

He knocked at her door when there was not one single contender left and he rested when finally he saw she was almost as ruined as he was.

Author: Amalia Saporiti Amorim, Spain, 2010.

English translators: Catherine Beeckman and Susan Surrat Illustration: Catherine Beeckman pearls around the neck • 181

Horse Lucia Arroquin

Mirta was sitting in the green armchair – an armchair so old it was imbued with a person-like scent.

She, too, had acquired the same kind of smell, of the kind that nothing, even perfume, can change, for it is made up of something older; a mix of soup, aniseed drops, nail polish, hair spray and egg liqueur had ended up forming the thick, pervading odor that wrapped her like an eternal veil.

Mirta and her armchair were a large immobile animal. Breathing together, they had merged into something quite identical, even when they parted for a short while. Mirta had at first started sleeping in it. She said she breathed better that way. She would take off her hairpins – the only thing that made a difference between her day and night self – and tilt her head to the side. She woke up in the same position in which she’d slept all night, her dry red curlers stuck to the green velvet.

Ana looked at herself in the mirror. They both had the same face, the same horse-like features.

A deep groove that ran from the nose to the upper lip, splitting it like a furrow. The same knitted brows over small droopy eyes. Ana observed, in the mirror, the fashion in which her mother adjusted a hairpin in her chignon and discovered she had the same mechanic gesture. They were an echo of one another, like a nervous tic or an assertion. She looked at her as she grabbed the pin, opened it, and held it between her pinched lips. When she pinned it into her chignon, she looked down and pursed her lower jaw forward in concentration.

In the mirror, she could observe without being seen. She would bring her hand up to her hair or smooth her clothes and stand, immobile, looking for the differences as if it were a puzzle in a summer magazine. The blue eyes. Nothing else. Nothing but the eyes and the years distinguished mother from daughter. Ana had discovered it, resigned, time and time again, always as if it were the first time.

Most of the time, she didn’t think about it. She had gotten used to blending in with her air, her clothing. She hadn’t gone anywhere without her since she’d started having trouble with her legs.

Hardly a few steps and she would start staggering; she had to make sure she didn’t fall, had to monitor her comings and goings. It was so complicated that there was always something in the way of any outing. Ana had given up her job as secondary school tutor because, according to Mirta, it took too much of her time and made no significant economic difference. They therefore both lived on her pension and the rent from a small unit located in the center of town. It wasn’t much, but Ana made sure she administered it.

The question of clothing was elementary. Everything was so expensive, Mirta had decreed. “If we don’t go out much and take proper care of what we wear, good clothing can last for years.” So, Ana washed by hand the blouses, skirts and underskirts that they both wore. It hadn’t been that easy at first, for Ana hadn’t finished growing up. She’d had to adjust some of the skirts with safety pins to make sure they wouldn’t fall from her narrow hips. However, once she had fully grown into her curves, their bodies had had the same measurements. A generous bust and wide hips. Long arms ending with bony hands never adorned with rings. Mirta because her fingers swelled in the summer; Ana because she damaged jewelry when she did the washing.

That was the reason why Ana was smoothing, as she stood before the mirror, a dark brown dress that Mirta had bought twenty years earlier for a baptism. When, a few months before, her cousin Clara had sent them and invitation for her wedding, Ana had substituted an envelope addressed to her only for the envelope addressed to “Mirta and Ana”. It cost her a few sleepless nights, with her mother sniveling herself to sleep. Ana almost cried too, out of guilt, but her decision was final. She called Clara and told her that her mother didn’t feel she had the strength to come, that she’d been too wrecked with pain. It had been hard to stand by her lie because Clara was the only one in the family who still visited them and Mirta had now stopped greeting her. Ana’s hand was shaking as she tied the string on her mother’s dress: her mother knew her so well that each and every move seemed to betray her. She

pearls around the neck • 183

finished making her bun in a nervous gesture; it was crooked but she knew it was the best she could do.

At first, Mirta didn’t want her to go. She was terrified of staying alone and was also afraid of what might happen to Ana in the streets. “For a young, pretty lady like you, it’s dangerous in the streets.”

Ana had the hardest time convincing her that she would come home early and that everything would be fine. They had the telephone number of a neighbor who sometimes helped them with their papers.

She meticulously explained to her how to use the cell phone and left it on her armchair’s armrest for her to practice. The weeks passed and Mirta seemed to have resigned to silence.

Ana was often on the brink of uninviting herself as well, but the image of the bride in her pretty white satin dress walking down the aisle helped her stick to her decision. Every night, she imagined a profusion of colorful fabrics, and elegant dresses and suits moving in waves towards the portico. She could feel the rice fall on her face and hear the cries of joy uttered by Clara’s friends. She invented, and reinvented the evening’s conversations: she spoke with heavily made-up ladies and with men who glanced at her décolletage.

“I’m going now, mother. If you need anything, you call Susana, all right?” Mirta didn’t take her eyes off the television screen, where a girl looking at an old photograph was crying. Ana grabbed her handbag that matched her shoes. She checked that everything was all there: her lipstick, her handkerchief, and her perfume spray but also her key, her papers, a few breath mints, hand cream, a few toothpicks, thread and a needle, and a plasticized visiting card with the name and telephone number of a few acquaintances, just in case. She drew the rusted bolt and adjusted the strap of her handbag on her shoulder.

She had already walked across the dining room and was heading for the front door when she heard Mirta’s feeble voice. “Wait a moment, Anita. Bring me some water before you leave.” Ana took a deep breath and came back. She brought a glass of water from the kitchen, gave it to her and stood waiting by the armchair, but Mirta was concentrating on her film and wasn’t moving.

- Mother, take the water, I have to go now.

- Since you’re there, give me the pill for my legs.

Ana brought her one of her aniseed drops, for she wouldn’t take it any other way. She pushed hard to embed the pill in the soft candy and then put it in her mouth. Mirta tipped up the glass to drink some water but her lips were much too far and the water ran slowly down on her night gown. Ana knew she couldn’t leave until she had changed her; she might catch pneumonia.

Her bag still on her shoulder, she brought her a clean night gown while Mirta watched her in silence, impassive. She let herself be undressed docilely, unlike the times when it hurt to lift her arms to take her clothes off. With her handbag in the way, Ana took more time than she usually did and Mirta shivered when she left her for a few minutes in her underwear to fold her night gown. When she was finished dressing her again, she covered her with a blanket and put another one on her legs so that she would warm up faster. She gave her a kiss on her forehead and smoothed her dress. Her mother looked at her from where she was sitting, her chin pursed forward. She looked her up and down, scrutinizing her slowly and stopped at the brown hem, hand seamed. “A loose thread,” Mirta sighed, her eyes sharply focused. She drew her trembling hand and pulled. In an almost imperceptible swoosh, Ana’s hem fell like a curtain. Mirta, who now had a long brown thread hanging from her finger all the way to the floor, bit her lips.

Ana, a lump in her throat, took the deepest possible breath she could muster. She turned on her heels, her back to her mother, who immediately turned back to her film to try and understand what was happening to the girl who was so miserable on the television screen. Her dress unstitched, Ana went to her room, opened her purse and took out the thread and needle. There was a full sewing set

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right in front of her but she preferred using her emergency kit, as if she’d already left the house. In a hurry, she seamed the hem around her dress skillfully without even taking her shoes off. She wriggled about a little to reach the part at the back, mumbling, her chin pursed forward.

“Anita, let me help you with the hem.” Mirta’s voice drew nearer with each syllable. Ana jumped from the bed and stormed down the hall, her heels clapping loudly. She remained stone cold when she entered the dining room, her alarmed reaction confirmed: her mother was trying to walk. She had grabbed on to a chair and her right slipper was sliding further and further from the other one. Ana looked at her, stifling a cry for fear of startling her. Mirta’s eyebrows lifted into arches as she attempted to bring her right slipper back in place. But in one single move, her legs collapsed apart and the chair she’d been using as support gave. Although the scene seemed to take place in slow motion, it left no room for thinking what to do. Ana threw herself on the floor, just in time to cushion Mirta’s head with her arm.

Lying on the cold tiles, she heard an Ave Maria as if it were an old dream. She saw the bride’s parents’ tears. She even saw her own sad brown dress between the colorful ruffles and the flowers on the benches. She slowly stood up and looked at her mother from above. She looked like a motionless heap of rags. On her side, slowly spreading, bigger and bigger, a puddle of pee. The bride was walking down the aisle, sighs could almost be heard.

Mirta shook her out of her reverie as she explained, from below: “I got scared.” Ana did not move.

Her eyes riveted to her mother’s, who was pleading: “Forgive me.” Nothing. She was paralyzed. The plea became a lamentation and Mirta whined like a baby left on the ground until Ana pulled her up, without a word, to sit her back in her armchair. She bore in silence the acrid, warm smell of the soiled piece of clothing, as the priest’s first few words at the altar rang in her hears, soon distorting and fading away.

Since Mirta needed air, Ana sat on the armrest and undid one button. She took the cream from her purse and placed a little on the wrinkled chest, rubbing in circles until her mother’s breathing eased.

She accompanied her mother’s sobs with a rhythmical whine attempting to calm her down. The two hoarse voices mingled and merged, and Ana let herself slide down into the armchair.

They both stared emptily, through their horse-like eyes, into the space before them. On the TV set, the film was finished. The music playing along the end credits lulled them. The tilted their heads, one leaning against the other, and fell asleep.

Author: Lucia Arroquin, Argentina, 2012 English translator: Sylvie Froschl Illustration: Catherine Beeckman pearls around the neck • 185

12.

The Pearl of Death

The Loss of a Child C.d.W.

Sadness that is bare and raw, and terribly transparent; A sadness that is honest and knows its roots and faces its origins: this child.

Sadness that is bare, and vulnerable, for it doesn’t disguise itself as meanness, hatred or vengeance: it is a child.

Sadness that is raw and harsh, making the blood run cold and the heart stop.

Sadness that is silent as a tomb, cold as marble: this child’s flesh.

Sadness that is real and profoundly felt, willingly or forcibly. Willingly, for each step, each gesture brings us inexorably closer. A sadness that is conceived, that was built, just as the child was conceived.

Forcibly, for it imposes itself forcefully, establishes itself with force and then it crushes, and it would require too much strength, the very strength that sadness has crushed. A child’s life, crushed.

And you find yourself excluded from the world. Excluded, for – in all honesty – this sadness cannot be shared, told, disclosed or even understood. Except by the child.

Excluded, out of necessity, out of duty, for in remoteness resides the illusion of consolation, for in solitude sadness finds nourishment.

Overwhelming serenity when, spent, all tears cried and gone, the memory of sadness itself has gone too, only that of the child remaining.

Quietness without a wave, a ripple, a breath, a whisper. Silence. Freedom anew? A child anew?

Have I finally found a door to pass through that endless wall?

What a lie it would be to believe this.

Sadness that is bare.

Sadness that is raw.

Permanent.

Immutable.

You have cheated me.

Author: C.d.W. Lausanne, Switzerland, 1991 English translator: Sylvie Froschl Illustration: Tim Gallo 188 • pearls around the neck

Our Northern Star Marijke Delen

Dad won’t budge from the green chair.

It’s been six weeks since Sis passed away.

The chair is starting to smell like a mixture of mold and wet dog. Every time someone mentions her name, I can see a part of his heart fracture. Eventually, nothing will be left.

She was dying like an eggshell cracking slowly and painfully till the point of no return. She had been strong as an owl but we knew that something in her tough wings was broken.

Although we tried to ignore it like a scrap of paper crumpled up in the corner of a room, cancer was upon us. No one wanted to believe it.

I see my father cling to the green chair remembering all the times she would cry over a boy making little lakes in the cushion of that same chair or when she took a nap in that faded thing.

Now she is like the Northern Star to us, she will always be there, watching over us.

My father has not spoken but when he does, he will say something great. Maybe he will speak of the time she was little and saw a big Scooby Doo at the store and laughed for the first time, or when she broke her ankle and still went cave diving with him.

Or maybe it will be something like a little prayer for her.

Or maybe it will be the three most important words: I love you.

Author: Marijke Delen, 14 years, Vancouver Island, 2011 Illustration: Catherine Beeckman 190 • pearls around the neck

In Black Amalia Saporiti Amorim

She chose the color black to attend borrowed funerals.

She was truly moved by those deaths that were entirely alien to her. She wanted to feel the pain; she wanted to be united in body and soul. Thus the mission she imposed on herself daily was to absorb all the feelings of being alive.

She was dressed in black and the color black moved her.

At home, she kept a precise account of all the names of those who had eventually passed away to the other world. She could run the statistics of the names with the highest mortality rates.

For this reason, future parents eager to avoid the names linked to death consulted her. And before she knew it, she was known as Lady Death. She started to sign with this name and when people greeted her on the streets, a new savor would slide through her brains at the sound of the word Death.

As years passed, it became obvious to her that she would not attend the most important funeral of her life: her own.

Those that knew her said they had never seen her more alive than before her departure, as she had been able to possess all the feelings a person can possibly have.

She had the premonition of her final moment and she hung a white paper on the wall with her nameâ&#x20AC;Ś And so Death had the opportunity to recognize her own death.

Author: Amalia Saporiti Amorim, Spain, 2010 English translators: Catherine Beeckman and Susan Surrat Illustration: Catherine Beeckman 192 â&#x20AC;˘ pearls around the neck

Elephants by a Babbling Brook Kelly Dal Pozzo

All the flowers Would have very Extra special powers They would sit And talk to me for hours When I’m lonely In a world of my own I could listen to a babbling brook And hear a song that I could understand I keep wishing it could be that way Because my world would be a wonderland I breathe in and then out. I perform the ritual I know far too well. I open my mouth and gulp down the colorful solidified delirium, which reminds me of the Flintstones Vitamins I faithfully took every day as a child. This is my round-trip ticket from the grey, melancholy environment that I find myself trapped in.

The only world I enjoy exploring is the one I have created through synthetic endorphins. I don’t want to wait until the E takes full effect, so I impulsively decide to treat myself to a quadruple dose of extra-strength Tylenol. After a stage of calm anticipation, my brain gradually makes a messy haze of my fading vision and mind as I slip farther and farther into disorientation and euphoria.

My name is Ali and I am 15 years old. My primary choice of drug is ecstasy, but I also enjoy the occasional mushroom trip. The psychedelic effects take me to mesmerizing places I never knew existed.

However, this enchanting journey is only temporary. I am ashamed to admit that when I am sober, I feel as if I am sitting in a waiting room, letting time pass by until I am able to escape to my personal utopia.

I think something is wrong with me. My brain is throbbing…some water should soothe the pounding pain in my head. When I sit up in my bed, I get a massive head rush, which is pretty unusual for me. My legs, limp and jelly like, dangle off the side of the mattress. Below my involuntary beaming smile, I am petrified to death. I try to think of a logical reason for why I’m acting so strange. My first steps are like a newborn foal’s: shaky and uneasy. I pace back and forth, letting the carpet lick at my toes. I’m so distracted that I almost don’t notice the talking elephant at my feet. He tells me to listen, as he is running out of time to guide me through the troubles that lie ahead. His swaying dance and charming whispers send me into complete hypnosis. His piercing amber eyes seem to peer into my soul, picking at my brain and perusing me with extreme ease. His sweet seductive voice is above anything achievable by human beings. It’s pure, as if gifted from the gods themselves.

He draws me tauntingly down to my knees and I stoop so low my cheek brushes against the stained shag carpet, which I only now notice feels like the feathery wisps of a lion’s mane. Although I lay there in literal silence, I can almost hear my pounding heart: comforting, calming, tranquil. I suddenly snap back into reality and remember the elephant, which has now vanished. I search in panic for the omniscient beast, as I’m afraid he is the only one who can explain my current state of being.

My childhood was pretty standard. I did my homework most days, listened attentively in classes, asked the occasional question or two, but surprisingly still managed to achieve fairly high marks throughout

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school. Despite being the loudest person in my grade, I was pretty shy around my peers. I’ve always been afraid of saying the wrong thing and being judged or labeled as “annoying” or “weird”. No matter how hard I tried, I was never popular or had loads of friends like other girls, who seemed to do it without lifting a bony finger. Around middle school was when I accepted the fact that I didn’t like the person I was. I soon fell into the wrong crowd of kids. And as cliché as it sounds, I lost myself. I hate what I’ve become—a weak burnout who can’t handle the simple challenges of the real world. Sometime in the process, my misguided virtue wandered out of sight and out of mind.

Nausea floods my body and I stumble towards my bedroom door. Faded whispers roll around through my head: a lost conscience. It’s as if multiple conversations are taking place within myself and I can’t silence the loud echoing buzz of discussion. I come to a halt in the middle of the endless corridor and cup my pulsing forehead. Pressure builds in my ears and behind my eyes to the point that I fear my skull will burst. When I look up, my vision unexpectedly doubles and my hallucinations accompany waves of colored patterns that trail everywhere I look. I can’t seem to elude these indefinable illusions. Pink powdery elephants twirl and pirouette before me, but slip just short of my grasp every time I reach out to them.

They harmoniously serenade me, but I can’t seem to make out the lyrics they repeatedly chime at me. The lively performance abruptly ends, and the infinitude of elephant heads falls woefully. Waves of sobs and hysterics break out through the crowd. I fearfully sprint across the treadmill floors, fighting the lingering sense of suspended motion. Laughter erupts from behind me and as I whip my head around, I forcefully smack into the wall like a head on collision on the freeway—helplessly pivoting between the borders of consciousness.

“Wake up, Ali. “ I let out a short choking gasp as I take in my new surroundings and jump to my feet faster than humanely possible. My ears seem to perk up as I search for the source of the wakening whispers. I pull the sweat soaked curtain of hair off my face and let my eyes scan the room. My stomach twists, and I silently twitch and contort my body in pain. My joints lock up and I am suddenly immobile. My heart is pounding, and I can’t help but cry. All it took was one small muscle spasm to send me into an episode of wildly buckling knees and hyperventilation. It’s not long until I lose all composure and kneel down in physical exhaust.

After some time, my eyes flutter open and I can sense that something has changed. The dust had seemingly settled and my atmosphere was noticeably mellower. Strange, I thought, I could’ve sworn I was in the hallway. I hadn’t gotten far past the bathroom door before my incident, but now I find myself in the living room, sprawled out contently across the floor. Angelic grace lifts me gently up from my presently stable knees. I have never felt this light on my feet before. My trip must be over, because my head is clear and I am calm as can be. Although I hate being sober, I feel different: happier, rested, and extremely at ease, skating and gliding about effortlessly. It doesn’t even faze me when my gaze sets on a seemingly empty body lying blank face down in a sinisterly toxic crimson pond. The ragged battered corpse lies completely still; drained of any and all life it had once held. You mustn’t sympathize; she brought it upon herself. This is what she wanted.

Author: Kelly Dal Pozzo, 15 years old, California, US, 2012 Illustration: Tim Gallo pearls around the neck • 195

13.

The spiritual Pearl

Zen Meditation in Kamakura Catherine Beeckman

“Master, this is where I am,” she murmurs in a whisper.

A strand of hair hangs across her face, wet with tears.

She doesn’t sob; not even a slight start. She is still, statuesque.

Her head directed slightly downwards, she stares at the ground, three feet away from her. Only the movements of the lips allow a semblance of life to emanate from her.

“First the noise, interior conversations, the hubbub of thoughts, the back and forth of things that have to be done, or forgotten or postponed.

Then the “me”, the ugliness of my nature, lust, selfishness, vanity, false modesty, lies, wasted love, regrets, children not loved enough, or too much, or loved badly, or too exclusively.

The descent, the inner glance; eyes, toward the ground, toward the stomach, in the stomach. From the groin, from the navel, eyes coming out. They look up and observe my body, in lotus position, arms straight, resting on my knees. They don’t judge me; the eyes look and see an aging woman with long hair. The eyes look up and into the distance, observing from above. I am the body of a woman.

An enormous void in this woman’s carcass rises, first secretly, surreptitiously, from my shoulders.

Then suddenly I recognize it: The Emptiness, the vacuum, the desert, the absolute pointlessness, plain and unsuspecting nakedness, nothingness and…

Why this sadness, this infinite sadness facing such interior vacuum…

At this instant, the tears start to flow.

A sadness that is so vast, so overwhelming it can’t belong to me.

It can’t be mine only: isn’t this everybody’s sadness? This pain is ancestral, archaic, age-old, petrified.

Isn’t it so?

“That is all, Master. That is all Sensei. This is where I am, now, in this place.”

The Master answers: “Soo desu, soo desu.” (“It is so, it is so.”)

The Master adds nothing else. He presently becomes silent and prays.

Author: Catherine Beeckman, Kamakura, Japan, 2007 English translator : Joan Lagache Illustration : Catherine Beeckman 198 • pearls around the neck

Karenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Morning Prayer to the Lord Karen Fischler

Dear Lord, I am so grateful for the Bible You gave us, that tells the Love Story of You, our Maker for us, your people. I pray that my girls will always love Your Word and remember what your Bible teaches us, that they will stay close to You, live for You, love You with all their hearts, so they can have the amazing life that You planned ages before each of them was born. I pray they will have a love for your Commandments, and such a love for You that they remember Your way brings happiness, that they’ll have no other gods before You. I pray that their hearts will stay right with You, soft toward You and others, that they will say, as King David prayed centuries ago, “Search me O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.” Please let them know that following You will lead to fulfillment that only comes from knowing their Creator. Never let them think You don’t care about everything that affects them. Remind them that You are interested in every detail of their lives and want to hear from them about everything they are excited or anxious about. Help them to realize every single person in our world is created by You. Let them know from the core of their beings that You love them so much You died for them; that if they had been the only person in the world, You would have still made a way, through Christ’s death, to bring them back to You. Also, please help them to know and agree with these things I pray for them: I praise You for being Sovereign, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Thank you for making the entire, amazing universe in its infinity while also creating a glorious world where humans, made in Your image, could exist. Thank You for giving us free will, a choice in whether or not we follow You and trust in You. And the following thought, so unfathomable and most amazing: we cut ourselves off from You by going our own way, not acknowledging You at all, doing and saying wrong things; yet, in your loving-kindness, You put Someone in our place, to take the punishment for our bad words and actions. You loved us so much that You sent Your only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life. I thank You Lord, for dying on the cross for us, rising again, and going to prepare a place for us in eternity.

Finally, on a more specific level: Thank you for the girls’ health, dear Lord. Thank You for giving them to us. We appreciate your giving us a nice home in a lovely town, a good church and many wonderful friends and family to help raise our girls. Thank You for bestowing on them so many gifts and talents, athletic abilities, and for making them very beautiful (of course their parents thinks that!). Thank You for giving them good friends, sending them to wonderful schools, letting them travel and also to be content at home. Help them never to forget Whose they are (yours) and ours, too, and all who love them on earth.

Give them the highest integrity and the biggest hearts and winsome personalities. Please give them long, full lives, stable, happy marriages, good relations with their cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents, each other through the years.

Please have them marry emotionally- healthy Christian men who love You first and them second! Let them have joy that they spread to others.

Please bring them and any grandchildren and all our descendants to heaven where we’ll be

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together in eternity. I pray that their heart’s desire will be to invite many people to heaven with them, by pointing friends and family to You. Please keep them safe from evil.

Thank You for hearing my prayers and answering them in Your way, in Your time.

In Your precious Son’s, Jesus Christ’s, Name I pray, Amen.

Author: Karen Fischler, Morehead, NC, 2011 Karen is Christian Protestant and attends the First Baptist Church Illustration: Catherine Beeckman pearls around the neck • 201

Redemption Tina Haynie

Redemption.

Truly, it constitutes the very nature of our human experience. Of course, one has to live long enough to understand that God either blesses or He redeems. They are the same thing, really, blessing and redemption. One just takes the long road to reach the other.

Discovered by a group of school children, only one day old, buried to his neck under a pile of shale and exposed to the Kenyan sun, Kasisi knows about redemption. Or, he will. Prisca is teaching him. The “mama” at New Life Home in Kisumu, Kenya, Prisca knows much about the subject of redemption.

Near the banks of Lake Victoria, one of God’s most spectacular creative endeavors, where at sunset local children gather water, ever watchful for the hippopotamus in the tall grasses, Prisca knows. She chose Kasisi’s name and claims its promises for him every evening as she rocks the slumbering infant.

“You are God’s child. Precious one, you are unique and you are wonderfully made. As a beloved child of God, you will not be without “kasisi” again.”

Kasisi means shade, protection. The circumstances of this baby’s tragic introduction into the world are being redeemed by the power of a name given by a compassionate mother.

When a tragedy is understood as a starting place for redemption, healing begins. I learned this truth in Kenya, from Prisca and Kasisi. I did not have to be defined by my desperately sad and lonely childhood.

The rocks that buried me to my neck were different than those that buried Kasisi: less visible but no less damaging. An instilled lack of worth, an absence of protection. A childhood lacking nurture weighs heavily on one’s soul, like rocks. And, like rocks, they can be removed. One at a time and one at a time and one at a time until finally it is a whole mountain that has been displaced. Love moves mountains, and compassion exposes hidden treasures. The word “mother” becomes infinitely more powerful as a verb than as a noun.

And then: redemption. Many times, I wonder what name Prisca would have given me had I been in her arms. Certainly, God has a redemptive name for me and one day, I will be blessed by hearing His voice speaking the name he has chosen.

Author: Tina Haynie, Kenya, 2011 Illustration: Catherine Beeckman pearls around the neck • 203

14.

The Pearls of Poetry and Essays

I want to return NenĂŠ Lucero

I want to return home I want to return to my land.

I want to feel again The crystal clear creek tickling under my feet…

It’s twisting dancing minnows.

I want to hear again The chirr of cicadas On sleepy summer afternoons.

I want to watch again Under black mantles Enhanced by voiceless stars.

I want to sit again Under the carob tree Listening to the eloquent silence of the mountains Fading on the horizon.

I want to share again The warm milk of the goats With hungry, orphan puppies And bite the ripen figs that fall on my hand.

I want to smell the fragrance of Piquillín and Aromo1 And hear the ill-omened owls during dark nights.

And sitting by the fire to the sound of strumming guitars Loose myself in the stories of the Evil Light.

I want to return home I want to return to my land…

I want to return.

Author: Nené Lucero, Cordoba, Argentina, 2009 English translator: Graciela Hammer Illustration: Catherine Beeckman 1 Mountain plants also used in herbal medecine.

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A very committed Biker Catherine Beeckman

On the parking lot of the little Montessori School where my last snotty nosed learns good manners, I notice a car covered in stickers. It is almost impossible to distinguish the color of the car any more.

Intrigued, I decide to take various pictures of this amazing collection of Bumper Stickers as to immortalize some jewels of this peculiar genre of literature.

I wasn’t disappointed.

No one is free when others are oppressed.

Keep your theology off my biology!

Friends don’t let friends vote Republican.

Don’t assume I share your prejudices.

Exercise the right to think for yourself.

Well-behaved women rarely make history.

Slower Minds Keep Right.

Say « I do » to equal marriage rights.

Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.

Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.

I think, so I am liberal.

Tree Hugging, Dirt Worshipper.

As I am raveling while taking pictures of the hood, trying to shoot photos between the license plate, a bike holder, and the headlights, a heavy paw lays unexpectedly on my left shoulder.

“All OK? Having some fun? Is that MY car y’re targeting?”

I have my eye into the visor and my index finger is on the trigger. No denial, I am a blatant offender.

The paw on my shoulder becomes heavier; the voice admonishing me is brusque and manly.

With a fake relaxed attitude, I turn towards the unhappy car owner.

It is a woman (?): the enormous breasts in a skintight nylon T-Shirt are indeed an indication of her gender.

The “Amazon” of the bicycle looks me up and down. An also-covered-in-stickers bike helmet is screwed on her head and the features of her masculine face are less than friendly.

“This car is my private property. You should not infract what belongs to me! Do I come in your house to take picture? DO I?”

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I remain speechless, intimidated.

Or at least, that is what this biker in her elastic shorts imagines as she pursues her monologue of insults and personal affronts directed to me. But I am not impressed; in fact, a sticker on the front of her helmet hypnotizes me. It says: “Non-Violence is a Weapon of Mass Compassion.”

The index finger still on the trigger of my Nikon, I point my camera towards the head of the flabbergasted biker.

Click.

I run for my life and leave behind me the most unique collection of contradictions ever put together on a ghostly parking lot.

Author : Catherine Beeckman, USA, 2010 English translation: Catherine Beeckman Illustration: Catherine Beeckman pearls around the neck • 209

Waiting Paula Saporiti

She runs by the edge of the river. The water refreshes her feet.

She splashes her brother with a curtain of wet crystals, forming little rainbows in the air.

Mirrors of water and light multiply their smiles.

Well-being so rarely felt, so deeply felt, that such happiness appears real.

Suddenly, a piranha born in her guts grows in her stomach and painfully invades her entrails.

Placing her dirty little hands over her tummy, she writhes in pain.

She opens her eyes, and awakens on the floor of a train among bags of trash and cardboards.

Dawn begins, and morning light filters through the car window. Blinded by the light, she stands up and crosses the rails half asleep. The whistle of an oncoming locomotive makes her shudder.

He is sitting next to a bar window in Retiro. His gaze wanders and pierces the reflection of the opaque glass, depicting a humid Buenos Aires that sticks to the skin and to the houses. Waves of humans parade in front of him.

Among thick droplets that paint streams on the teary glass, he glimmers her eyes.

“She is starving”, he thinks, and with a gesture invites her to have a seat.

Hesitating, she pushes the revolving door at the entrance. She pushes it with her small shoulder and half of her body. Once she gets through, he notices for the first time her numerous colored skirts, which swirl in the air in a balancing act, and her small legs, covered in layers of socks.

She is inside now and the bar lights shine over her whole body.

He discovers her headscarf of lilac, white and light blue flowers, and a crown of golden medals on the forehead.

The petite gypsy approaches his table, thinking it is a miracle that the waiter who just brought a coffee and two croissants did not send her out.

Grave and serious, her lips are tight, and her eyes are fixed on the table; she sits in silence. He moves the plate towards her, and she eats eagerly, and drinks until she chokes, while he appreciates the brilliance of her black eyes, and the glow of her golden skin.

Thick, black eyebrows, almost blue, like velvet cloths, circle her eyelids and countless jet black eye lashes.

He feels happy watching her eat, and he smiles at her.

So does she, and she looks at him gratefully.

She is a young girl, and yet she speaks like a mature woman.

“A good man who is alone. A man who waits. Do you want me to tell you what else I see in you?”

Her female eyes scrutinize him, and the words flow from her mouth with a confidence disconnected from the small person that now, with a slightly sad smile and a nod of the head, invites him to say yes.

Doubtful but interested, he accepts, while two winged birds meddle on the back of his hands, lifting them and placing them on the table like maps.

While she holds them, she contemplates in silence for a long while. After inhaling and straightening her back, she says in a grave voice: “I see a night in which, like every night, you returned from work to your house, on foot.

The black leather of your shoes shined against the cobblestones, your cigar clouded the moon splendor.

You imagined yourself sliding over an infinite hopscotch, avoiding the limits of the stones.

The game relaxed your mind, and detached you from the real world, which you attend during a day’s work.

Your steps echoed against the silence of the late night. And the echo stopped when you arrived at number ten, Los Tilos street.

You had a key, and entered. Thus easily negotiating the first obstacle that appeared between the two of

pearls around the neck • 211

you, the door.

Later you knew, after seeing her that a second impediment, harder to overcome, was waiting: the fantasy world inhabited by Beatriz. It was an insurmountable wall, against which you bang time and time again.

You saw her that way, retracing mental pathways in front of the mirror. While she was brushing her curly hair, which fell like silk curtains over her shoulders. Her sight fixed in the crystal.

You were trembling of love for her.

Then came the impotence, which flooded your whole being, realizing that once again you could not awaken her attention.

As always irresistible, she was ignoring you.

When you approached her from behind you felt she was distant, dehumanized, unreachable. The pearl necklace embellished her neck and her low neckline: a goddess dressed up to reign over a dream. You pulled her necklace, trying to get her close to you, while forcibly pulling, and getting it tightly around your hands, her neck felt to you like a marble column.

Her gray eyes searched for you, and looked at you one last time, while a hail of pearls fell on the floor, and flooded the blue carpet in the room.

She interrupts her account: “Don’t wait for her, she will not come”, the strange fortuneteller continues.

“How do you know?”

“She never loved you. She told me.”

Surprised, he moves his lips, whispering. “… She told her …. She told her….”

He leans forward, over the table, as if hanging on a balcony, towards her.

Whispering like a lunatic lost in a delirium, he asks her, while trying to grab her arm.

“Are you also dead?”

But the small gypsy had evaporated, while the man’s eyes desperately looked for her.

Still resounding in his head the answer: “The same as she. The same as you.”

Author: Paula Saporiti, Argentina, 2009 English translation: Jorge Lucero Illustration: Tim Gallo 212 • pearls around the neck

The Knitter Susana Maria Bavio

For years I endured the sorrows, secrets and miseries of the Belisario family. I was always a silent witness to the happenings developing at their home. So many events have ended up overwhelming me.

Maybe, if I could talk about them, express them out loud, it would ease my soul. I would finally be happy. This afternoon, a woman came up to the porch. Elena Belisario invited her to the dining room and offered tea. They chatted animatedly for a while. I couldn’t understand what they were saying.

Between sips, the English teacups would rise and fall from the little dishes to their mouths, lit up with lipstick. Every once in a while the woman would point slanted stares in my direction. Her curious eyes appeared loaded with an odd anxiety. Then Elena invited her to the living room. Now I could hear her voice clearly. I could see her up close. For a moment, the visitor stood in front of me and watched me in silence, meticulously, from head to toes, marveling. But for a split second I thought I saw a desolate abyss growing in her pupils. And I wondered why she was looking at me like that. Maybe I reminded her of herself, or probably her own mother. What was she searching for in me? I’m just an old woman who, sitting in an old wicker chair, knits, immersed in the oscillating motion of the needles, as the late light of the day threatens the daisies resting in the little convent’s yard, bound between the four edges of a heavy wooden frame, beautifully layered with gold.

Author: Susana Maria Bavio, Argentina, 2011 English translators: Cynthia Jaramillo, Susan Surrat Illustration: Catherine Beeckman 214 • pearls around the neck

P.A.D. Laurabeth Gill

Power For those who abuse Is the dull steel of crushing boots Marching inexorably forward, Trampling helpless dreams under The unthinking drive to obey.

Anger Feeding off the crowd The bright splash of red Dulling and condensing, it becomes far deadlier A hard bullet lodged in the chest Slowly poisoning the mind.

Desperation An all-consuming need Enforcing the painful silent struggle uphill Where trampling others under the feet is allowable Acceptable, condone-able, even reasonable Just to get to the top of the heap.

Author: Laurabeth Gill, a 15-year-old South African, 2012 Illustration: Tim Gallo 216 â&#x20AC;˘ pearls around the neck

El Curro, nothing more Marisa Estelrich

Have a seat. This is not a luxury cell but there is enough room for two. On the berth over here or on the chair. You won’t be afraid of me, will you Peña? I’m still El Curro, your childhood friend. If you want, I can show you my birthmark in the shape of a peanut that used to make you laugh so much. I know, I know, it won’t be necessary. Come over here, then. On your own accord or because I insist. But if you don’t want to, we can speak like this, standing up, as though we were having a drink together at the counter of the local tavern.

Come here! It’s much better like this. And now that you’ve sat down, I would like to thank you for coming, I want you to know; because it wasn’t easy for me to write to you after all this time, and in such circumstances. And it mustn’t have been easy for you either, I suppose, after so many years of my not answering your letters, to agree to such a request. Yet, you are here, my dear Peña, wasting your Saturday morning in El Curro’s stinking cell, and that’s all that matters.

Let’s see, let’s see the things you have in your briefcase: a pencil, a mechanical pencil with a gold cap, a tape recorder and even a computer, and a modern one at that. Wow, man! Life has truly smiled upon you over there in the big city! All this is great, yes, really great. It makes me confident for our business.

Yes, right now, I promise, but before, let me look at you, old man, because with the hair cream, the dark suit and the cufflinks, I’m wondering whether you truly are Juan Manuel Peña. Ah yes, of course, you will have your doubts and I’ll have mine. Tell me, then, before I begin telling you my story, that you are Peñita, the scrawny kid who used to cry when he lost a game of marbles at recess? The one who pressed his lips together and closed his eyes tight when diving with El Currito into the pond to catch frogs? Is that you? Then I’m sure you haven’t forgotten the hiding Old Casilda –with the mole shaped like a tick– gave us when she caught us with our pockets full of figs and chicks. You remember her, of course you remember her! Then let the smile that is already springing in your eyes come to your face. Don’t worry and don’t fool yourself, Peña, because I’m not fooling myself. We’re not those kids anymore, I know, neither are we the young guns who went around having a wild time. The years have passed, obviously: now people call you “counselor” and I am still El Curro, El Curro, nothing more.

The same one who, aside from catching frogs and pinching trifles, was always ready to stick his neck out for a worthy cause, yes, and if it was worth it. Was it worth it, my friend? This will be for you to tell me, Counselor Peña.

I should start with the letter? Very well, let’s start with the letter. As I explained in the letter, I became the main suspect in the murder of Joaquín Gómez de la Serna, husband to Magdalena Iturrazpe.

Husband, yes, but who became so forcibly. And, although I won’t deny that I would have derived pleasure from tearing him to shreds, the events actually took such a turn that I could only accuse fate, which does in general have a way of charging everyone with what they deserve. Forgive me; it’s not that I mean to put on airs. I know that you are the lawyer and that you will tell me, once I have told you my story as it happened. These are all my notebooks, where I wrote everything down. I will read some parts to you. I will summarize some, I will tell you others, and you will comment.

Three years after you left the village to go study, on the evening of the Country Club ball, Joaquín Gómez de la Serna raped Magdalena Iturrazpe and, just like that, made her pregnant. For Magdalena’s parents, the scandal weighed more than their daughter’s pleas. What’s more, since he was the only heir to the Gómez de la Serna’s fortune, Joaquín was not a bad match and my darling was not to be disregarded, since she was the village’s prettiest girl. I am sure you thought so too, admit it, Peña.

You don’t remember her? Yet, the last time we went out together, you had been the first to notice her: “Look at this beauty,” you’d said, “who?” I’d asked and you’d answered: “The dark head with the curves of a guitar.” And you even danced with her once. After that it was my turn and I ended

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up dancing not one but six ring dances and it would even have been more if you hadn’t taken me by the shoulders to pull me outside with the excuse that it was time to go. You remember now? Well, as I was saying, it only took a few conversations laced with Scotch whisky for my darling’s parents and future in-laws to organize a fairy tale wedding. Joaquín begged for forgiveness with a great deal of tears, showered her with presents wrapped in promises and all was forgotten, even though it had happened.

I found out much later and I understood, but at the time I was the one she loved, although secretly of course, so you can imagine my rage and my distress. For the truth is that before this goddam evening, Magdalena and I had been thinking of running away. It was our only possibility. We had realized that, one afternoon, long before Joaquín even appeared, the afternoon when Magdalena gathered all her courage and confessed to her mother that she loved me. She hardly pronounced my name and Doña Eulogia collapsed like a puppet, and as luck would have it, she fell on the living room’s cactus, instantly going from fainting sighs to shrieks of horror.

“Lie down here, mother, and don’t move your hands or you’ll only hurt yourself more,” Magdalena instructed her as she dialed Doctor Retana’s number, whom she implored to come urgently to their place. She hung up and also called her father’s office right away, but since he wasn’t there, she left the same message with his secretary. Magdalena was taking out the last of the visible thorns with tweezers when someone rang at the door. His copper wig pulled down over his ears, Dr. Retana appeared, followed by Don Iturrazpe, drenched in sweat, his shirt hanging loose. Doctor Retana did what he was supposed to do and left. After a while, under the effect of the sedative, Doña Eulogia fell into a deep sleep. Don Iturrazpe ordered Clemencia, the maid, to stand watch by the armchair and took Magdalena to his office, where he asked, whispering: - Can you now explain to me what happened to your mother?

- Nothing, I simply told her that I was in love and she fainted.

- That you were in love? And with whom, if your father may ask?

- With El Curro, father, I am in love with El Curro, Magdalena declared once again.

My name didn’t please Don Iturrazpe either but instead of fainting he gathered momentum and dealt my darling a slap that took her breath away. He told her she was a shameless hussy and warned her: “If it were only up to me, I’d throw you out of the house right now. Be thankful that I don’t want to cause your poor mother any more pain than she’s already suffering.”

What pain? That he didn’t explain, Peña, but I will. Don Iturrazpe’s “thing” hadn’t been working so well for a number of years. Doña Clemencia had showed up at the market one morning with her grocery bag and her story. The story Serafin, the gardener, had told her. How did Serafin know about it? My, Peña, you ask such questions! Well, because Serafin, aside from mowing the lawn and caring for the rosebushes, had also taken charge of a few other things for Doña Eulogia. Meanwhile, Don Iturrazpe went to the convent to proclaim his virility. Yes, the convent. And the man was quite extravagant at that; he would ask Vicky, for example, to blindfold him, then to take his clothes off one by one, and then once he was completely naked, to whip him from the ankles up to the nipples. Yes, that way he could do it!

But let us go back to this gentleman’s office, shall we? After threatening her, he lectured her and ended with the following sentence: “I swear, Magdalena, if I hear that you have as much as exchanged a gaze with El Curro, you can forget you’ve ever had parents. After all the efforts your mother and I have made to give you a good education, we won’t let you ruin our reputation and yours in the arms of that poor devil, with his poetic airs, whose father is unknown and whose mother is nothing but a cook and a thief.” Yes, a thief he said, because of Doña Clemencia’s gossiping. I’ll explain right away but let me finish first. “What a prospect! What a shame!” the old man screamed, concluding: “An Iturrazpe pearls around the neck • 219

doesn’t marry just anyone.” No, not just anyone, I thought, just the biggest bastard the village had.

Magdalena begged him for forgiveness and swore to obey, yet two days later Doña Clemencia came to knock at our door. My mother, may God in all his glory keep her soul, was surprised to see her when she opened the door. Uh? What did my mother die of? Well, a rather curious infection, which ended with gangrene. Thank you for asking, Peña, but as I was saying, when Doña Clemencia showed up at our house, my mother remained stony-faced. They had worked together, you know, for six years at the town hall councilor’s, you know, the one they kicked out of the village when it was confirmed that the community’s funds had been used to finance the purchase of his hunting reserve. We learned about that afterwards, of course, after mother and Doña Clemencia had been accused of stealing the lady’s jewels. They were beautiful and there were a lot of them. How do I know? Well, because I was the one who’d stolen them. Yes, me, Peña, and there isn’t the slightest remorse on my conscience, because stealing from a thief isn’t stealing. Especially not if the cause is worth the consequences.

I happened to be going, on a winter afternoon, to the Mount of Olives because the place inspired me to write, you know, when I heard Don Septimo’s hammer resounding on the anvil. I made my way through the bushes and drew close to greet him. There he was, the poor man, facing his workbench, perched on his stool, his cap and gloves on, exposed to the bad weather. When he saw me, he dropped his hammer and said: “Vandals, Curro, dirty vandals. They stole almost all my tools and as if this wasn’t enough, they smashed my forge.” I gave him a few pats on the shoulder and reassured him: “you’ll see, Don Septimo, how your luck will turn.” The following week, I came with a basket full of cakes, cooked pork meats, olives and dates that my mother had wrapped in a small blue and white checkered cloth, with a matching napkin.

- For you, Don Septimo, I said.

- Thank you, Currito, certainly your dear mother prepared this, he said, rummaging in the food.

But where did you find all this? He asked, gaping, as he opened the napkin and leafed through the wads of bills as though they’d been the strings of a guitar.

- This, I will tell you another day, Don Septimo, but today we have much work to do, I replied.

- Another day, my, oh my! Another day, Currito, I will repay the favor. I swear upon the Arcadia, he said, crossing himself three times, HE watches us from above.

Whom did I sell the jewels to? Well, to the gypsies. And it all seemed fine until the day my mother came home in tears, because she had been fired, of course, but also because Doña Clemencia suspected her and didn’t want to be her friend anymore. It was impossible to bring them back together until the day when Doña Clemencia appeared at our door, a letter in her hand. In the letter, Magdalena was recounting in minute details everything that had happened since her confession. As soon as I finished reading it, I took a pencil and a piece of paper and started devising my plan to run away from this damned village when she had finished her studies to become a librarian. And she agreed, of course she agreed. Doña Clemencia and my mother became our emissaries: every Monday, between 10 and 11 am, they met at Doña Lola’s snail stall. If it rained and there was no market, they would see each other at Don Septimo’s forge. There were only two more months before Magdalena was going to receive her diploma when the Country Club party was announced. She didn’t want to go and didn’t want me to go but Doña Eulogia wasn’t going to let such an opportunity pass her by. “All the upper crust is going to be there, my dear girl. You are going to wear your blue satin dress, the one with the low neckline, or the purple taffeta one with the low back, and you’ll go. Your father will take you and if there is no one to bring you back, he’ll come pick you up.”

It was a moonless night, my friend; it was a very sad night. All pretty, perfumed and made up, my darling arrived at the party. Needless to say I hadn’t been invited, but my mother had been hired

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to work in the kitchen and I went to help her. I wore my white chef’s hat and my apron, and I peeled potatoes, chopped onions, washed the dishes, and dried glasses, serving dishes and silverware.

Meanwhile, behind the swing door, we could make out the great party. It wrings my heart every time I think of what I learned a week later when I read the only letter Magdalena wrote to me. Do you want me to read it to you?

Joaquín invited me to dance. I tried to dissuade him by saying that I had a backache. “Just one dance, pretty girl,” he insisted, pulling my hand, leading me towards the dance floor. A moment later, using the heat as an excuse, he suggested that I go sit on the terrace’s deckchair and he arrived instantly with two glasses. “Wait for me here. Don’t go away, and don’t make me force you,” he said; and for a moment, I have to confess, Curro, that I felt attracted by his gallant way of imposing himself [how naïve women are, really!]. He soon arrived with a yellow rose between his lips and in each hand a stem glass with sparkling champagne bubbles. He sat next to me, put the glasses down and slipped the rose in the curls of my hair [what about the thorn? I thought as I was reading, the bastard’s removed them]. We intertwined our arms and drank. He asked me whether I’d seen the fish pond, which was even prettier at night, when illuminated, and one word leading to another, he put his arm around my waist and we stepped down from the terrace to go in the garden. Suddenly, we stopped. He stroked my cheek with the back of his hand and kissed my forehead like a father. And before I could react, we were lying down in the grass. I started trembling and I begged him to take me back but he said: “Be a good girl, and let me take care of you. You’re in good hands.”

It isn’t necessary for me to go any further for you to understand how this little story ends, and what’s more I couldn’t bear it. But what’s happening to you, Peña? You look like you’re about to froth at the mouth. I understand that you’re moved by my story but you look as though you were the fiancé.

You disconcert me. Do you want a cigarette? A glass of water? All right, let’s go back to the wedding.

Within a month, the invitations had been sent out.

Doña Clemencia and my mother still met at the snail’s stall. Clemencia would tell her how things were at the Iturrazpe’s without omitting a single detail. I would write a letter or two each time but Magdalena didn’t even write a small note. Her silence became my ordeal and one night, I couldn’t take it any longer; I climbed her wall, grabbing onto the ivy. I know it sounds like a story from another time, but that’s how it happened, so I’m telling you. The ivy led right to the bedroom balcony. The window was open. I approached her bed and gently put my hand over her mouth in case she got scared and screamed, and I whispered in her ear: “It’s me, princess, your Curro, who’s dying if a broken heart.”

We fell into each other’s arms and kissed. She told me that she was pregnant and that they were forcing her to marry Joaquín and I begged her to run away with me. I promised her I’d be a good father even though the child wasn’t mine. But to no avail, Peña. The day of the ceremony, after everyone had sat down, I hid behind a column next to the statue of Saint Francis. The betrothed were there, with their witnesses, the village’s richest people, father Lucas wearing his best cassock and the chapel decorated with more flowers than spring itself. After eight months, Martirio was born. After two years, Adela.

With these two pregnancies in succession, my princess lost her waistline, and this good-for-nothing Joaquín started seeing whores, staying away for weeks at a time; that’s what Doña Clemencia told me.

It sure caved in on her, Doña Eulogia’s upper crust!

I didn’t try to see Magdalena again. “She’s now the mother of two, I told myself, and in the end, she’s also responsible for her fate, even though she made me believe others decided for her.” But one morning, I went to the market, it was after my mother’s death, and I thought I saw her from the back

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at the dried fruit stall. I came closer, as if hypnotized, and stopped behind her. When I heard her voice, my eyes welled up with tears. I swear! My love crushed my pride, Peña. I wanted to bury my nose in her neck but I merely managed to utter her name: “Magdalena.” She turned around and when she saw me her face lit up. We walked towards the Mount of Olives and we sat on my jacket. I threw pebbles in the water and she kept eating walnuts, not stopping nor offering any either. Suddenly, I took her in my arms and I kissed her desperately, throwing myself upon her, but she begged me to stop. Yes, she was going to leave with me now, she swore. Could I ever forgive her for not having had the guts, she begged, could I still forgive her, and even if I couldn’t. We started making plans again but I was very much alone, you know, to succeed with such an undertaking. So I went to Don Septimo’s forge and I told him everything.

“You can count on me, you know that Currito, for anything,” he said. We agreed that he would go to Magdalena’s under the pretense of fixing roofing tiles, early the following Thursday. And that’s just what he did. A half hour later, I also went there, as we’d agreed. Joaquín had gone away, for some business, Magdalena had told me. I had parked my car a block away in order not to arouse suspicion and I tucked my gun in my belt, under my jacket. No, I didn’t think I would use it but it’s never superfluous, Peña.

The garden door was open and behind it Magdalena was waiting for me. “Come in, Curro. As I told you, Joaquín won’t be back before lunch time,” she assured me. Yet, we’d barely entered the house that we could hear the clinking of keys. The door opened and then: “Magdalena, Magdalena, where are you?

Answer me!” It was Don Septimo who answered: “Madam has gone out, Don Joaquín.” he said to him.

- What are you doing here, Septimo? Joaquín asked.

- Madam had me called in to fix the fence.

- Where did Madam go?

- Run some errands.

- Errands, at eight thirty in the morning? Are you quite sure, Septimo?

- That’s what she said. She said: “I’ll walk slowly but I’ll still be at the market early.”

- Clemencia is the one who goes to the market on Mondays, and today’s Thursday, as far as I know.

Are you lying to me, Septimo?

He started giving him an earful and kept yelling at him and then we heard a terrible noise. Magdalena and I were crouched against the wall, behind the living room’s armchair. I made signs to tell her not to move and then I tip-toed to the dining room. When I got there, Don Septimo was lying under the table, covered in glass shards and blood. “You son of a bitch, I screamed, you killed that poor old man.” At that moment, Magdalena appeared. When he saw her, Joaquín rushed towards her, brandishing Septimo’s hammer, as if I didn’t exist, as if I wasn’t pointing my gun at him. I had no choice but to pull the trigger, sending a bullet in his leg, another one in his chest, and another one in his head until he finally dropped dead.

Very quickly the neighbors arrived, and then two police cars and an ambulance. The ambulance staff removed the body. A police officer escorted Magdalena upstairs. Another handcuffed me; he placed my gun in a plastic bag and there you have it, I landed in here, no communications allowed. They just gave me the authorization to contact a lawyer, provided I knew one. So, I wrote to Magdalena and asked her to look for your mother so that she would give us your address so that I would be able to send you my letter. And she must have done so since you are here, but I haven’t heard from her.

I killed Joaquín, Peña, but he had just killed Don Septimo and if I hadn’t stopped him, he might have killed Magdalena too. It’s quite clear. You go speak to her. You will see that I haven’t lied to you. You’re already leaving? Yes, it is late, I understand. Pack your things, then, while I write a short note for you to give to my darling if you see her. No, thank you, I have some paper and an envelope here: a true privilege.

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**** - Good morning, counselor Peña. Please have a seat. Would you like a cup of coffee? Magdalena asked.

- Yes, thank you; and thank you for agreeing to my request to come see you, Peña said.

- Have you seen El Curro? Magdalena asked - Yes, of course, and he told me everything, but now, I need your testimony to build up the arguments that are going to make up the defense. Please, tell me what happened from the moment you heard the clinking of keys.

- The clinking of keys, all right. We heard the keys clinking and then the screams of my husband who appeared by surprise. Poor Don Septimo tried to protect me by telling him that I had gone out on some errands but Joaquín didn’t believe him and kept on screaming. He probably pushed him against the glass table because we heard a terrible noise. Then, Curro made signs at me to have me stay quiet and he gave me his gun: “Just in case things take a turn for the worst,” he said, and he slipped towards the dining room. “You son of a bitch,” I heard him yell, “you killed the poor old man.” So I left my hiding place and I appeared all of a sudden. Joaquín rushed towards me, brandishing Don Septimo’s hammer with the same gestures of fury he usually had when I tried to defy him. “Shoot,” El Curro yelled, so I obeyed: one shot in the leg, and another, and again another. Then El Curro took the weapon from my hands, he wiped it with his jacket and grabbed it by the barrel and the breechblock.

“Magdalena, listen carefully,” he said to me, “if the police shows up, we both have to say the same thing. Joaquín killed Don Septimo and was about to hit you with the hammer when I shot a bullet in his leg to stop him, and since he didn’t, I shot a second and a third time until he collapsed.” Very quickly the neighbors arrived, followed by the police and an ambulance. The ambulance staff took the two bodies on stretchers, El Curro was handcuffed and I was bombarded with questions. I was in shock, but I think I repeated El Curro’s version quite faithfully. Aie, Counselor Peña, I am in despair!

What is going to become of me and my two little girls after such a tragedy? Magdalena concluded, no longer able to hold her tears back.

- Come, now. Calm down, I am here to help you, and please call me Juan Manuel, we are from the same village and we trust each other, Peña declared as he pulled his handkerchief out to wiped a tear from her face. Ah, I almost forgot, Curro gave me this note for you. If you want, read it while I go get my cigarettes in my car.

Magdalena opened the envelope and started reading: My sweet darling, I do not know why you answered none of my letters but this has no importance today, what is important is that Peña came to see me. I told him everything. You can trust him. With his knowledge and his experience, he will be able to prove that the crime I am accused of wasn’t one. Although you are not allowed to visit me, please write to me to ease my solitude. Please send a photo as well, that I may shower it with kisses and caresses. I will soon be free, Princess, to spend the rest of my life by your side, as I’ve always dreamed I would. Wait for me, it shouldn’t be much longer!

With infinite love, Curro - Have you read it? Peña asked after closing the entrance door. Magdalena lowered her head and started crying again. Peña sat next to her, lifted her chin with three fingers and pushed away a lock of

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hair that had fallen on her forehead. “Magdalena,” he said, looking at her face and her neck, “there are possibilities, but you have to let me handle it. Do you promise?”

- Yes, counselor Peña, I promise, Magdalena replied between two sobs.

- Yes, Juan Manuel, Peña corrected, pressing gently on her chin.

- Yes, Juan Manuel, Magdalena repeated, choking back her tears.

- That’s better like this, Peña declared, stroking her cheek with the back of his hand, just as Doña Clemencia’s head appeared at the kitchen’s swing door.

– My dear girl, I left some eggplants, rubbed bread and appetizers in the fridge. You should have enough with this, too much even, since the girls are sleeping at your parents’, Doña Clemencia announced, with a frown.

- Yes, thank you Clemencia. I will see you on Monday then, Magdalena answered.

- You don’t want me to sleep over to keep you company and leave early tomorrow morning?

Doña Clemencia asked.

- No, Clemencia. I am fine, thank you, Magdalena answered.

- It’s nothing, you know. Not like there is much for me to do at home, Doña Clemencia insisted.

- I thank you, but it won’t be necessary, Magdalena said.

- All right, as you wish. I will leave now then, but close all the doors, my dear girl, and the windows, Doña Clemencia advised.

- I will. Good night, Clemencia, said Magdalena.

- Close them well. In case of, you know, vandals, she concluded as she pushed the swing door, which oscillated a few times, as if to emphasize her indecision.

Author: Marisa Estelrich, Spain, 2009 English translation: Sylvie Froschl Illustration: Catherine Beeckman 224 • pearls around the neck

15.

Chapter 15

Écoutez cette histoire véridique…

“Listen to this true story…

One day, a group of Australian aborigines was wandering about an arid landscape, accompanied by an ethnologist. This ethnologist, who was carefully making note of all his adventures, observed that from time to time, the group, composed primarily of men and women, would stop for a rather long time.

They would not stop to eat, look at something, sit, or rest. They would just stop. After two or three stops, the ethnologist asked them why.

“It is very simple,” they replied, “we are awaiting our souls.”

The ethnologist then understood that every once in a while, the souls would stop along the path to look, feel, or listen to something that the body could not or would not register.

Our souls have invisible needs that are concealed to our body.

They take nourishment from the world’s beauty (…), from knowledge, from education, from wisdom (…), from sharing, from justice, and from brotherhood.”

An excerpt from “L’Âme du Monde” of Frederic Lenoir, editorial NiL, 2012 You too, wait for your soul, which is still wandering throughout the pages of this book; and nourish it by sharing what you have.

My sincere belief is that we feed our souls with what we are capable of giving.

It is up to you to decide…

You have read; your heart has been touched; your mind has been shaken…

Each text calls to something within us, points to a shortfall in a world we can improve.

Below is a list of organizations that intervene in the everyday lives of women and children in today’s world. Follow your affinities or your preferences, choose one, and give something…now.

If you are aware of organizations close to your home that: Improve education, contribute to school programs, create continuing education workshops, help in the adoption of children, social rehabilitation, and detoxification processes, encourage sex education and the prevention of teen pregnancy, finance medical research and biotechnology, work toward cancer prevention, help adolescents exhibiting suicidal behaviors or help young anorexic girls, promote the civil rights of women and children, such as in the case of political asylum, fight child trafficking or child pornography, fight against hunger, demand a cleaner and healthier world, less contaminated surroundings…doubt it no more.

The foundations chosen hereafter are those, which I have worked with throughout the course of my life.

They are just a few references. Choose one of them or be generous with any other foundation that you are familiar with.

226 • pearls around the neck

But do not leave this lecture unfinished, do not betray this anthology, do not lose your pearls of wisdom.

Your gesture will converge into a movement of global compassion. http://www.covenanthouse.org/about-homeless-charity/leadership/staff http://www.msf.org/msf/donations/donations_home.cfm http://www.droitsenfant.org/trafic-enfants/ http://www.eduhaitian.org/A_Little_History.html https://www.roomtoread.org/ www.amanichildren.org/ http://www.surfrider.eu/en/home.html http://www.changingoceans.org/fr/sponsors.php http://www.stjude.org/ http://www.foundationdefrance.org http://www.aa.org/ http://www.na.org/ http://www.globalvolunteernetwork.org/ http://www.grassrootscrisis.org/Who.aspx http://www.amnesty.org/ http://www.women-in-need.org/press.html www.marchofdimes.com/ http://www.hungernwnc.org/ http://www.mothercabrini.com/ministries/swaz.asp

pearls around the neck â&#x20AC;˘ 227

Thank you!

228 â&#x20AC;˘ pearls around the neck