From
Reading Room/7:
Then Disappear
—Carmen Boullosa
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THE FACE
The evening breeze did it. Two, three strokes,
like a chisel on rock but softly, like a kiss. Afterwards I looked
in the mirror and saw that a face had bloomed there. The dregs of hate
had been removed for an instant. They wouldn’t forgive me.
The first one to notice it when he checked me over
was The Scrupulous Gentleman. He ordered them to bring me to the girls’ bedroom for
a talk. His motive was twofold; he wanted to take me away from the others
too, so they wouldn’t notice the change. What has been seen can
never be unseen. He sent me to that room for the same reason he’d
financed the ad in the morning paper opposing the publication of gross
images, specifically nudes and violence.
I went to the bedroom. Before The Gentleman came in,
a woman, some type of attendant like the nurses who prepare patients
for gynecological checks, asked me to take off my clothes and put on
a white smock, soft and smooth. She showed me how I should position myself
for The Gentleman’s
entrance. I assumed the pose and could see him when he carne into the
room.
“Dahlia,” he said, “you will no longer pester us with
your absurd insinuations. No longer. I’ll give you two minutes
to take that garbage off your face and apologize.”
The garbage off my face!... How could I take it off?
“Sir, forgive me, I didn’t put it there, I don’t know
how it got there, so I can’t take it off. I wouldn’t know
how to do what you ask.”
I couldn’t see his reaction because of the absurd position they
made me stay in.
“You refuse to obey me, Dahlia, and I don’t have time to
make sure you’re ashamed of your mischief.”
At that, I felt someone put a mask on me from behind.
Then nothing.
With the help of a doctor, they condemned me again
to the absurd situation.
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