Read Online The Scroll of Seduction by Gioconda Belli - Free Book Online Page A

cookies, like the other girls’ parents. At no point would they come to take me home. I had no home. I was like a helium balloon that had no hand holding on to its colored string; a balloon that had drifted away, the wind charting its course. Being at a boarding school with other girls who were also not living with their parents had allowed me to play tricks on myself, to pretend that after all my years there, on any given day, if I did everything right and was a good student, I too would receive a visit from my parents, and would walk out the tiled foyer with them. But that was not to be. No one would come for me. I pictured graduation day. The celebration after the ceremony in the auditorium and the mass in the chapel. And I knew exactly what I would feel behind the smile I would display to share the joy of my peers, behind the expression I would wear as I wished them luck and said good-bye to them, and the emptiness I would feel when I trudged back to my bedroom to pack my things, Mother Luisa Magdalena by my side, chatting away to try to console me.
    This realization shattered the illusions I’d been hiding behind. At one point my sadness scared me and I told myself that I had to stop crying. I hugged and rocked myself and started to console myself the same way my father used to: speaking softly, sweetly, saying it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s all over now.
    I sank into a deep sleep, and when I woke I felt like I was drowning. When I opened my eyes, I floated to the surface and gulped in air. It took me a minute to recognize my tiny room, the trees silhouetted in the window. Slowly the alarms ringing in my body quieted down as I saw the silent furniture, the walls (I never realized how immobile the world is until I confronted tragedy; that was when I began to see the soullessness of everyday objects). I hadn’t stirred up the memories of those first days after my parents died, hadn’t recalled the conversations I overhearddescribing the hangar where my grandparents identified the bodies. They didn’t realize I was listening when they told my aunts and uncles the sickening details of black bags, tray tables, and the mystery of my father’s right arm, which mysteriously remained intact, the only recognizable part of his body. The airline psychologist had explained this was relatively common: a random extremity would often manage to escape, uncharred. The fuselage would rip and the fire would miss it. At least they were lucky enough to be able to positively identify their loved one. Most people would just have to wait for the dental records. In my dream, I had taken my father’s arm from the stretcher and thrown it over my shoulder, begging him to hug me one last time. In my nightmare, I saw the charred remains of his cadaver struggle to stand up, not just to hug me but to lean on me, silently begging me in a voice that just my heart could hear to get him out of there. But my stealthy attempt to reach the door unnoticed had failed because my father’s movements were accompanied by loud, metallic noises, as if he were pulling a string of tin cans tied to him. When I had turned around to reproach him, I had seen that the noise was coming from my mother’s blackened skeleton, which he was dragging behind him, pulling it by the hand. In the hangar, the other mourners had turned to stare at me disapprovingly. Suddenly I had heard my grandfather’s voice. He and my grandmother had caught up with me and had pushed me toward the table where the corpses I was trying to take with me had been just moments before. Gesturing angrily, they had insisted that I put them back. I had not wanted to obey, but an overpowering will had forced me to please them. My father’s forearm, his strong hand, had clung to me in a desperate grip. While my grandfather struggled, I had begun to scream, only to have my grandmother cover my mouth with her hand. Unable to breathe, I had woken up. It had been