Elena Knows

by Claudia Piñeiro

A memory for details, Elena knows, is only for the brave, and being cowardly or brave is not something one can choose.

If so many people believe that we are all of dust and to dust must turn again, why delay the return. They pick fancy caskets just to show off, she thinks, why would they do it otherwise, if they know neither the coffin nor what’s inside it are destined to last but to rot, to be eaten by worms, both the wood and that body that no longer holds the person it was, a body that no longer belongs to anyone, like an empty bag, incomplete, a pod without seeds.

Elena is not astray. Elena knows. She waits. With her bowed head and her shuffling feet, without seeing the road or what it will bring. She doesn’t go astray, even if she sometimes wanders.

Elena’s deaf body is surrounded by deaf ears, she thinks, more deaf than her feet when they won’t walk. All of them deaf, deaf people who say they understand even though they refuse to listen, Elena knows.

As if her religion were based more in the rituals, in the folklore and traditions, than in the dogma or faith.

Elena walked out onto Ramsay street crying, when she got into Roberto Almada’s car he asked her, What’s wrong Elena, why are you crying? They treated me kindly, son, she said, and couldn’t say anything more.

People confuse thinking with knowing, they let themselves confuse the two.

But you only know something once you’ve experienced it in your life, life is our greatest test.