Time of the Flies
“So that’s what I call myself when I’m alone, the name Charo wrote in lip liner at the end of the letters she sent to Ernesto, my husband. Excuse me, my ex-husband.”
AUGUST 8, 2024
One hallway leads to another. Every once in a while, Inés hears someone call out to her, but she doesn’t turn around, she just raises a hand and then lowers it. She repeats this minimal gesture every time she hears her name, trying to be polite. She suspects that if she were to turn around she might break down and she doesn’t want the last image they have of her to be tearful. She wants them to remember her as a friendly woman. She said goodbye to Manca early that morning. Then they sat together at lunch but remained silent; everything they had to say had already been said in private, or didn’t need to be said, at least not for the moment. Because there are certain things Inés doesn’t even dare to let herself think, much less say out loud. Manca knows that certain things frighten her friend, and she doesn’t want to scare her.
Inés is led by a newer guard she hardly knows. She would’ve preferred to be escorted by one of the guards she spent so many years with there on the inside. Fifteen. The bag she carries on her shoulder weighs nothing since she gave away most of her few personal items. She feels like she’s about to be reborn — again; she was born for the first time when her mother delivered her; the second, when she killed Charo — Yours — and now she will be born for a third time as soon as they open the gates and she’s allowed to walk free. We’re born naked, so why take anything, she thought when they told her to pack her things, after she learned she was getting out. That’s what she thinks again now: we’re born naked.
The door will not open again; if she were to turn around, frightened, blistered by the intense sun, seeking shelter, they would not let her back in.
The guard presents her discharge papers at the desk separating the inside from the outside. Someone receives them and the door opens automatically. Inés stands staring at the street, which she barely remembers, not daring to take another step. She feels like the sun is shining brighter out there on the other side and that once she crosses the threshold she’s going to need sunglasses, which she no longer wears. The sun is the same on the inside as on the outside, she knows, but she thinks she’ll miss the shade of the pavilions, the commotion of her fellow inmates, the calm of her cold, damp cell. She squints her eyes like a flag at half mast, preparing to face whatever may come. The guard says ‘Good luck!’ which Inés knows is meant to usher her along as she stands hesitating. Finally, she takes three steps and she’s on the other side. Behind her, the door closes. Inés doesn’t see it because she doesn’t turn around, but she hears it: the mechanism setting the system in motion, rotating on its metal axis, the bang as the door connects with its frame, the gears turning until they fit together and lock. The door will not open again; if she were to turn around, frightened, blistered by the intense sun, seeking shelter, they would not let her back in. If she wants to get back in, she knows, she’ll have to make another mistake. Was it a mistake? Fifteen years later, she still has no answer.
Behind her, there is only silence. She takes a deep breath, glances around, adjusts her bag on her shoulder. The street is deserted but it would make no difference if it were crowded with people. She knows she is alone.
This does not surprise her, she didn’t expect anyone to be there waiting for her. And this is brutal confirmation of the thought she had when she learned she was getting out: she has been born anew, completely naked.
✺ ✺ ✺
One Year Later
I see a fly.
A fly that doesn’t exist, fluttering in front of my left eye. And I like saying it that way, almost a declaration of principles: I, Inés Experey, see a fly.
Experey comes from “ex Pereyra,” of course. Ex of Ernesto Pereyra. Because I am no longer a Pereyra. And my maiden name, Lamas, is what the guards called me on the inside; hearing it transports me back to a past that I don’t deny but that (c’est fini) is now over. I am no longer Inés Lamas, the name I was given at birth. At first, when they called me by that name, I didn’t even realise they were speaking to me because I hadn’t used my maiden name for so long, since that day at the courthouse standing before the judge (Inés Lamas, do you take Ernesto Pereyra to be your lawfully wedded husband?). I got used to it over time, since I had to respond when they called me, but I never liked it. (Lamas, are you deaf or do you have a fly in your ear too?) So as soon as I got out I dropped both Pereyra and Lamas forever. New life, new name.
I’m not sick and never was. Much less lovesick. Hurt, suffering, damaged, betrayed, mistreated, played for a fool, yes. Not sick.
The name I now use, Experey, I chose myself; after all, it’s not like you have to show your ID card every time you meet someone new. I identify as Inés Experey. Isn’t that how they say it these days? I identify as. I heard it on TV. I’m a sponge, I absorb everything, I learn by watching. I take what is useful; I leave what is not. Identifying as serves me, so I take it. Why not? Maybe I could even get them to put it on my ID card (Inés Experey, ID no. 13555555), because I have more than enough reason to justify the change. A lot of people have had their names or genders legally changed. I’d like the same treatment. I’m a different person, I am not the same. It’s been sixteen years; fifteen inside, one outside. My hair is now white, I no longer care whether one hair color is more beautiful than another or about what constitutes the “typical Argentinian hair color,” as I once called it. That didn’t work out too well for me before. Because I was thinking small. Now I want to think big, universally. All over the world, people let their gray hairs grow out and I followed suit. With a good gray enhancing shampoo, obviously, because I don’t like coarse, wiry, yellowed greys. A gentle product, not the kind that turns your hair purple, which is worse than going natural. I’m a changed woman, from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. Fifteen years inside and one in my new home, a small, modest house very different to the one I shared with Ernesto, but all mine, not jointly owned. Luckily I am not the same person I was before, that would mean I hadn’t learned anything. And I did learn, I think I learned a lot. I have reinvented and renamed myself. Inés Experey is not a bad name, it reminds me of who I was and at the same time it banishes my old self (get out, Ernesto Pereyra!). And her as well (get out, Charo!).
Though Yours ... Yours is another story.
I have a confession: in private, when I’m alone in front of the mirror, saying things to myself that I don’t want anyone to know, not dirty things but dark, heavy things, (example: if I had Charo in front of me again, I think, I’d wager, that I would once again [BANG!] shoot), I call myself Yours. As if Yours could be any woman’s name when we need it to be and, therefore, it is my name as well. It just happened one day, here on the outside, as I was plucking my eyebrows. I pulled too hard and it hurt. I must have pinched my skin. “Poor Yours,” I said to myself, “don’t let them hurt you anymore.” I was startled by the fact that I’d called myself by that name, even just in my head. I looked at myself in the mirror: a speck of blood marked the spot of the injury and I took a deep breath, then I repeated out loud: “Yours.” My voice sounded weak, but it felt good, strangely calming. So I stood up straight, pushed my shoulders back and I tried it again with a faint smile, looking up, my chin jutting forward: “Yours.” That time I felt like the name was mine and so I kept it. But I only use it when I’m by myself, never in front of anyone else because they wouldn’t understand. I didn’t even tell Manca about it, and I tell Manca everything. Or almost everything. Yours: the name that Charo, the woman I killed, used to sign the letters she sent to my ex-husband. Some people called her “his lover.” An ugly term, inadequate, because that woman didn’t love him more than I did. I was also a woman who loved him. Mine was an unexaggerated love, it’s true, without the need for so much song and dance. We’d been married for years and didn’t have much sex — I always acknowledged that — (do people still have sex after so many years of marriage? Seldom and quickly, in all likelihood). But my love was unconditional, solid, strong. Sick, they called me in the case over Charo’s death, and they didn’t ask me if I agreed with that assessment. I’m not sick and never was. Much less lovesick. Hurt, suffering, damaged, betrayed, mistreated, played for a fool, yes. Not sick. But all my objections were in vain. His Honour did not understand anything beyond what was duly registered in the Penal Code. And even though gender violence was later registered as a crime, it didn’t exist then, so Ernesto couldn’t have been charged with it. But she, Charo, even though she’s now dead, took many things that once belonged to me; so I think it’s only right that I keep Yours, her signature, for my own private, domestic (dark) use. So that’s what I call myself when I’m alone, the name Charo wrote in lip liner at the end of the letters she sent to Ernesto, my husband. Excuse me, my ex-husband.
No one can argue that it’s not a fair trade-off.
✺ ✺ ✺
Chorus:
Unhappy woman, Feu, feu [Ah, ah] unhappy for your miseries. Where will you turn? To what host for shelter?
Medea by Euripides
Let’s set the insects and fumigations aside for a moment and get to the bigger issue: one woman killing another woman. Are you talking about Bonar or Inés? Bonar wants to do it, Inés already did it. And is the woman being killed just because she’s a woman? No. Yes. Is she the husband’s lover “just because she’s a woman?” In a way. Really? Don’t be silly. What are you saying? That it’s not femicide. Yes it is. Only a man can commit femicide. I don’t agree. Yes, the killer has to be a man. Can’t a woman kill another woman just because she’s a woman? It’s not that I want to pick on men. I just think that if we noticed that women are, on the whole, radically less violent, we might be able to theorise where violence comes from and what we can do about it a lot more productively. There are violent women. That’s the exception, she said “on the whole,” didn’t you hear? Inés isn’t violent. But she committed a violent crime: she killed Charo. That’s different. Charo’s death wasn’t femicide. Yes it was. Let’s not get bogged down in a theoretical legal debate when we’re not even the jury. What are we? We’re the chorus. We’re an assembly.
Let’s put it to a vote.
Let’s not behave like sommeliers of women’s murders: this counts as femicide, this doesn’t. This qualifies. No it doesn’t qualify, it’s one woman killing another woman. So? Are we talking about Inés or about Charo? Who killed who? Charo is dead, Inés killed her. But she’s a victim too. Both of them are victims, of the system. What system? The patriarchy. I don’t think so. Why not? How ridiculous! Is it called femicide or feminicide? In Argentina, femicidio; in the rest of the Spanish-speaking world, feminicidio. Do we say Spanish-speaking or Latino? Does everything have to be debated, every single word? Words matter above all else. Call it whatever you want, it doesn’t make it femicide. Don’t call it whatever you want, choose the word that best describes it because language constructs reality. It doesn’t construct reality, it organizes it. Let’s get back to the point.
We’re talking about the point.
Let’s put it to a vote.
Is Inés a murderer? That’s going too far. Not according to the law. The law considers her a murderer? Of course it does.
You’re distorting the spirit of the law: the crime of femicide can only be committed by a man. False, it’s a hate crime against any woman that leads to her death, and there are women who hate other women! ... feminine power when directed at other women has historically been wielded in what has been described as a ‘masculine’ manner (...) I want not to ask you but to tell you not to participate in the oppression of your sisters. Who said that? No idea. Did she sign up to speak? Yes. Technically, as far as the penal code is concerned, it would be considered femicide. No, it wouldn’t, not at all. Is there jurisprudence? Does anyone have the law on hand? The law doesn’t even recognize the term “femicide.” The law says “he who shall kill...” if they want to be able to charge us it should say “he or she who shall kill,” at least. He or she who shall kill. I like it, but it’s kind of a tongue twister. She sells seashells. The penal code takes the masculine as universal. Too bad. No, it’s good, because it exempts us from certain crimes. Exactly, if the law talks about “he who shall kill” I can’t be guilty. Oh, yeah, right, like the judge is going to accept that argument. It’s a hate crime. Inés didn’t hate Charo, she was just suffering. She could’ve got a divorce. As if it were that simple, after so many years of oppression! That’s no excuse. I don’t agree. I don’t either. I do.
Let’s put it to a vote.
Inés killed Charo after many years of psychological abuse during her marriage, characterized by both explicit and implicit machista violence. That doesn’t make it okay to kill another woman. She could’ve killed her husband, that would’ve been less controversial. That’s true. What controversy, I’m lost. If she’d killed her husband she might’ve been let out years earlier on parole or house arrest. If she’d killed that same woman, today, not sixteen years ago but in this day and age, even with the law against femicide, she’d have received a lesser sentence, I assure you. Why? Because they’d take into account the abuse she’d suffered. I don’t think so. Today is the anniversary of a woman’s murder and the birthday of a little girl that the murderer knows nothing about. Is Inés a murderer? That’s going too far. Not according to the law. The law considers her a murderer? Of course it does. I think so. It’s not about what you think, it’s about the facts. Not always. I don’t agree. If I were the judge, I’d give Inés a lesser sentence due to the extenuating circumstances, even if she did kill another woman. If I were the judge, I’d give Inés a harsher sentence, for femicide, because Inés is a woman who killed another woman simply because she was a woman. Wait your turn to speak, please. Are you a lawyer? No, and neither are you. I think ... Did you put your name down? For what? To have the floor, we’re a self-assembled assembly, you have to ask the assembly to give you the floor. Sorry, I thought this was a chorus. It is. Put your name down. Where? Who has the list? Feminism: how we pick each other up. I don’t agree with that definition of feminism, I don’t agree with the image of us as fallen. We’ve fallen many times. We’re falling right now. No, we’ve never fallen down, we’ve been bent, subjugated, flattened, but we’ve never fallen down. What do you mean, I feel like I’m falling right now. I always feel that way. Take my hand, I’ll pull you up. I’d need a crane. Maybe you’ve fallen and you didn’t realize it. Fallen from where, how deep, observed from what height? The height of men? I’ll say it again, I want to stick to facts. I want an answer. Anyone who’d like to have the floor should put their name down and wait their turn to speak. What if we have something urgent to say? We all have something urgent to say. I’m listening, sister. Why do I have to consider every woman on the planet my sister? Just because we all have vaginas? Yes, that’s exactly why. There are trans women who don’t have vaginas. I don’t have “sisters” I have partners in arms. Too bad for you. I don’t have a vagina. I envy you. I wasn’t born with a vagina but I have one now. There are many kinds of feminism in the world, many different political stances within the social movement and different critiques of our culture. I don’t agree. Me neither. I do. We have to agree on at least a few basic things if we want the movement to endure. We are. That’s how we’ve achieved everything we’ve achieved. But we’re placing it in jeopardy. We’re still together. I’m not so sure, there’s always someone chiming in to say they don’t feel like someone else’s sister, that we all have to have vaginas and the whole kitchen sink. What kitchen? She sells seashells. I’ll make a list of the points we can all agree on and we’ll put it to a vote. Thank you.
Let’s vote.
This is an excerpt from Time of the Flies by Claudia Piñeiro, translated by Frances Riddle, first published on August 6, 2024 by Charco Press.
✺ Published in “Issue 19: Fiction” of The Dial
