Read Online My Fathers' Ghost is Climbing in the Rain by Patricio Pron - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Patricio Pron
Ads: Link
worked.
El Trébol Digital
, June 17, 2008
24
In the lower corner of the article was a photograph. It showed a group of people—perhaps there really were a thousand, as the anonymous writer of the article claims, though it doesn’t look like it—listening to a bald speaker. In the background of the photograph was a church I recognized, with a disproportionately tall tower, which looked like a swan curled up on the shore, stretching out its neck in an attempt to find nourishment. Seeing it, I remembered my father once told me that my paternal great-grandfather had climbed up the old tower, which had been damaged in an earthquake or some other natural disaster, in order to clear out the rubble so it could be rebuilt, but because the tower’s wooden beams were rotted from exposure to the elements, my great-grandfather was riskinghis life, not to mention the inevitable thread of paternities that led to us; but in that moment I couldn’t remember if my father had told me the story or if it was made up, a flight of fancy based on the similarity between the thinness of the tower and that of my paternal grandfather as I remembered him, and still today I don’t know if it was my paternal great-grandfather or my maternal great-grandfather who climbed the tower, nor do I know if at any point the church tower suffered damage, since there aren’t many earthquakes or natural disasters in El Trébol.
25
“Three cases of homicide, disappearance and kidnapping in one year in the city,” affirmed another article, pointing out: “Three unresolved cases.”
26
Once more, the key word here was
disappearance
, repeated in one way or another in all the articles, like a black armband worn by every cripple and have-not in Argentina.
26
An article in the morning paper
La Capital
of the city of *osario on June 18 expanded, corrected and contextualized the previous article: the demonstration had brought together eight hundred people, not a thousand, and the list of demands requested “that justice be done,” which, in addition to the way most of the speeches alternated between the present and past tenses, made it seem as if the demonstrators suspected Burdisso had been murdered and they wanted the authorities to consider this possibility. At the same time, the growing demands, with their explicit warning that what had happened to Burdisso could also happen to others, seemed to shift the focus from an isolated police event to a generalized, omnipresent threat. It could be said that the eight hundred people who took part in the demonstration—an insignificant segment of the population, if, as another article maintains, the city has thirteen thousand inhabitants—were already beginning to switch from demanding “justice” for Burdisso to demanding it for themselves and their families. No one wanted to suffer Burdisso’s fate, but no one at that point knew what had happened to him andno one wondered why he had been chosen instead of someone else, someone else among those who exorcized their fears with a demonstration and a list of demands.
27
A couple of letters to the editor were published in
El Trébol Digital
on June 18 and 19 of that year: one denounced “the black humor” of an anonymous text message that proposed marching for the disappearance not of Burdisso but of a rival sports team; the other wondered if Burdisso had been “swallowed up by the earth.”
28
A survey, published on the same site on June 18, contained hardly any variation from the one published a week earlier.
He’s going to show up (2.64% as opposed to the previous 2.38%); He’s never going to be seen again (11.45% as opposed to 13.10%); He’s going to be found alive (2.64% as opposed to 3.57%); He’s going to be founddead (28.63% as opposed to 25.00%); He moved without telling anyone (5.29% as opposed to 4.76%); This was a crime of passion (24.67% as opposed to 25.00%); He was kidnapped (5.29% as opposed to 8.33%); He is dead by natural causes
El Trébol Digital
, June 17, 2008
24
In the lower corner of the article was a photograph. It showed a group of people—perhaps there really were a thousand, as the anonymous writer of the article claims, though it doesn’t look like it—listening to a bald speaker. In the background of the photograph was a church I recognized, with a disproportionately tall tower, which looked like a swan curled up on the shore, stretching out its neck in an attempt to find nourishment. Seeing it, I remembered my father once told me that my paternal great-grandfather had climbed up the old tower, which had been damaged in an earthquake or some other natural disaster, in order to clear out the rubble so it could be rebuilt, but because the tower’s wooden beams were rotted from exposure to the elements, my great-grandfather was riskinghis life, not to mention the inevitable thread of paternities that led to us; but in that moment I couldn’t remember if my father had told me the story or if it was made up, a flight of fancy based on the similarity between the thinness of the tower and that of my paternal grandfather as I remembered him, and still today I don’t know if it was my paternal great-grandfather or my maternal great-grandfather who climbed the tower, nor do I know if at any point the church tower suffered damage, since there aren’t many earthquakes or natural disasters in El Trébol.
25
“Three cases of homicide, disappearance and kidnapping in one year in the city,” affirmed another article, pointing out: “Three unresolved cases.”
26
Once more, the key word here was
disappearance
, repeated in one way or another in all the articles, like a black armband worn by every cripple and have-not in Argentina.
26
An article in the morning paper
La Capital
of the city of *osario on June 18 expanded, corrected and contextualized the previous article: the demonstration had brought together eight hundred people, not a thousand, and the list of demands requested “that justice be done,” which, in addition to the way most of the speeches alternated between the present and past tenses, made it seem as if the demonstrators suspected Burdisso had been murdered and they wanted the authorities to consider this possibility. At the same time, the growing demands, with their explicit warning that what had happened to Burdisso could also happen to others, seemed to shift the focus from an isolated police event to a generalized, omnipresent threat. It could be said that the eight hundred people who took part in the demonstration—an insignificant segment of the population, if, as another article maintains, the city has thirteen thousand inhabitants—were already beginning to switch from demanding “justice” for Burdisso to demanding it for themselves and their families. No one wanted to suffer Burdisso’s fate, but no one at that point knew what had happened to him andno one wondered why he had been chosen instead of someone else, someone else among those who exorcized their fears with a demonstration and a list of demands.
27
A couple of letters to the editor were published in
El Trébol Digital
on June 18 and 19 of that year: one denounced “the black humor” of an anonymous text message that proposed marching for the disappearance not of Burdisso but of a rival sports team; the other wondered if Burdisso had been “swallowed up by the earth.”
28
A survey, published on the same site on June 18, contained hardly any variation from the one published a week earlier.
He’s going to show up (2.64% as opposed to the previous 2.38%); He’s never going to be seen again (11.45% as opposed to 13.10%); He’s going to be found alive (2.64% as opposed to 3.57%); He’s going to be founddead (28.63% as opposed to 25.00%); He moved without telling anyone (5.29% as opposed to 4.76%); This was a crime of passion (24.67% as opposed to 25.00%); He was kidnapped (5.29% as opposed to 8.33%); He is dead by natural causes
Similar Books
