La última orfandad
_¡Madre, se quema el café! –grité y ella reaccionó como si despertara de un largo sueño.
_¡Dios, me quedé dormida! –fue su justificación ante la inercia.
Ese día debieron prenderse todas las alarmas en mi cabeza, pero simplemente tomé aquel acontecimiento como un simple descuido, producto del estrés o de la edad: hasta a mí se me quemaban las cosas a veces.
Cada cuento lo repetía mil veces como si jamás lo hubiese contado y se lo podía contar a cualquiera: a mí, a la vecina y hasta a cualquier desconocido que llegara a casa. Sus ojos comenzaron a tener la alegría de una niña que se emocionaba al ver una flor, un helado, pero también la tristeza de la oscuridad de alguien que está atrapado o perdido en un callejón sin salida.
Ya en ese momento, aunque hubiese querido hacerme la ciega, sus acciones o más bien sus olvidos ayudaban a quitarme la venda. Entonces decidí cuidarla como ella me hubiese cuidado a mí. Arreglaba cada desorden dejado en la habitación o en el baño, le ponía la ropa cuando olvidaba ponérsela y hasta le daba la comida cuando se ponía a jugar con ella.
_¡Quiero irme a mi casa! ¿Dónde están mis padres? –decía con ojos extrañados, dando vueltas por la sala como si estuviera perdida.
_¿Quién eres tú? –me dijo como si la memoria huyera de su cabeza.
_Quiero ver a mi mamá –me dijo y yo no supe qué decirle. Sus padres habían muerto hacía años y ella era huérfana. No podía decirle aquello. Además, saber que me había olvidado, que no recordaba que yo era su hija, fue un golpe tan fuerte para mí, que yo también sentí que la orfandad era un estado al que debía acostumbrarme.
HASTA UNA PRÓXIMA OPORTUNIDAD, AMIGOS
[Versión en inglés]
The first time the alarm went off in my head was when I saw her in front of the stove and coffee was spilling over the lit stove. She was still and her eyes were fixed on the steaming pot, as if she were watching the sunset over a familiar landscape. From the doorway I jumped up and turned off the stove:
_Mother, the coffee is burning! -I shouted and she reacted as if waking from a long sleep.
God, I fell asleep! -was her justification in the face of inertia.
That day all the alarm bells should have gone off in my head, but I just took that event as a simple oversight, a product of stress or age: even I got burned sometimes.
But then came the forgetting of names, addresses, words, dates. Mom started forgetting keys, leaving the stove on, the sink running, the lights on. She began to forget what she was supposed to do even though she had told her minutes before.
She repeated each story a thousand times as if she had never told it before and she could tell it to anyone: to me, to the neighbor and even to any stranger who came home. Her eyes began to have the joy of a child who was excited to see a flower, an ice cream, but also the sadness of the darkness of someone who is trapped or lost in a dead end.
Already at that moment, even if I had wanted to pretend to be blind, her actions or rather her forgetfulness helped to remove my blindfold. So I decided to take care of her as she would have taken care of me. I fixed every mess left in the room or in the bathroom, put her clothes on when she forgot to put them on and even gave her food when she played with it.
One day she went back to being the little girl she once was and reminded her parents:
_I want to go home! Where are my parents? -She said with quizzical eyes, wandering around the room as if she were lost.
Who are you? -she said as if the memory was running out of her head.
I want to see my mom,” she said and I knew what to tell her. Her parents had been dead for years and she was an orphan. I couldn't tell her that. Besides, knowing that she had forgotten me, that she didn't remember that I was her daughter, was such a blow to me that I too felt that orphanhood was a state to which I had to become accustomed.