SubStance

I feel hands thumping at my chest. A drum playing its score without respite. Like that boat that didn't stop pitching like a mean and savage wind. Where am I?

Come on! You can do it. Be strong. Come on, breathe!

All my life I wanted to breathe, and now that they are urging me to, I simply wish to close my eyes. To stop this unholy pain in the hollow of my chest and to give in. It hurts so much.

"Hurry up, Nina."

"Wait for me, Jacob. Wait for me, I need to catch my breath."

We had to walk two kilometers to get to school. The mountain is always beautiful for those who climb it willingly. Sometimes I see a foreign tourist or nature lover open their arms wide to take in the pure air. For me, inhaling hurts so much at times that I am left with mere dribbles of breath. Mama says I was born with frail lungs. Some days, when there was time, she would make me drink a warm infusion upon waking. But in the mornings, Jacob and I almost always had to hurry. We had to rise before the sun, wash our faces in icy water, throw on our jerseys riddled with holes Mama had roughly patched, wipe the dry skin of our feet with a wet rag, remove the red earth dirt from between our toes, and run off on the pebbly footpaths so as not to be late.

"Wait for me Jacob!"

"I don't want to arrive after the bell rings. Mr. Marcel will again whip me. You know he's not kidding with that."

"I can't breathe. Wait for me Jacob!"

"Come on, hurry Nina."

I scrambled behind him. When the brotherly instinct prevailed, Jacob would let me catch up and hold my hand. More often, his large anxious strides left me behind, and I would clutch with one hand the skirt of my uniform which the morning wind kept lifting up. How could I hold it against him? It was not his fault nor mine that we arrived very often after the morning prayer. That hunger only barely contained by the light and sugary coffee mama made slowed our steps. That our panting intensified [End Page 195] and left both our throats burning. I would be holding back tears. I had to collect my breath before entering the classroom. Before facing the beatings by stick and the scolding that awaited me.

Breathe properly. You have to help me now, we got you out of the water but now we need some effort from you!

To hell with this voice. They turn my body over as if I were a crude package. I feel a mouth pressed against mine. I feel that marine smell pressed against my skin. What is happening? I wish to sleep, to let myself loose and sink.

"Breathe," they tell me.

I am far more used to holding my breath. If I hadn't done that when they came to get Papa, I would not be here. I could hear the sound of their weapons, a frightful sound of dryness, like a frayed branch breaking, an arrowhead pounding a bone. I could hear their voices even though my hands were over my two ears. Pebbly sounds on a bare skin, evil voices without redemption. Hidden in the tree, I didn't want to see, nor hear, nor breathe. Only to disappear, like when the school mistress's eyes searched for where and how to vent her anger, on which buttock, on which face to land the smack filled with a bitterness aimed at life. To disappear like when the wind blew hard on stormy days and the cabin paling cried with terror. To not breathe, to disappear.

That morning, they entered the yard making a great din. The rooster fled beating its wings. Papa had guessed they might come again. Ever since they had come the week before to ask him to sell them his plot of land and he refused. Papa told Jacob and me: "Go hide children! All will be...