Continued
from Spring Issue 2009:
Part 2 “Don’t Go”
I got up again
and said to him, “Tomorrow your brother is coming over to visit us,
maybe I should stay.” He laughed at me and said, “You know I’ll
take good care of him, you’re just nervous because you never travel
without me and you’re looking for a pretext
to stay.” I turned around and went back to bed, it was useless he
would never believe me, and I did want to go, but now I was afraid.
I covered my head with a pillow and pressed
the ends against my ears in a desperate attempt to keep “the voice”
away, but there it was again, “DON’T GO.” Now I was angry and
talked back, “Leave me alone, I must go.”
I repeated this a couple of times and the voice disappeared, and
finally I went to sleep.
The next day we
traveled and everything was happiness, there was a Fashion Show,
a special sale for us, a delicious banquet, all was superb, we went
to sleep very late that
night. In the early morning around 2 AM, one of the women woke up
and saw a burglar taking things out of the room and to the terrace.
We were on the first floor of the building, and she shouted at him
as he fled out to where he had already taken much of our belongings,
but he only had time to grab my satchel. That was all he could take
but it was also everything I had, so there I was in a sleeping gown
and slippers feeling numb and with a “blank face”.
The police
were called and they came immediately over with their dogs; but my
thief was an intelligent one, he fled away wading through a stream
and dogs can't follow tracks in water; the investigation went on but
he was never caught. He had taken some of my best clothes, shoes,
eyeglasses, documents, my watch, and so on
Early in the
morning the other women dressed me up like a little girl. They found
among their own possessions, clothes and shoes that would fit me.
They were all really nice to me, combing my hair, putting some
make-up and a set of earrings and necklace; I went to the main
celebration dressed in everyone else’s generosity. Since then, I
tried to pay attention to any kind of “clue”, nevertheless, I have
failed more than once.
In June l999 my
mother died, she was 74 and had been a very sick woman since her
early forties, and I had become her nurse. Even though I was
burdened with work and responsibilities. I had a small classroom and
taught English lessons in the afternoon and at night, as we needed
this income. I had to do this myself. It was the only way to improve
her delicate condition and achieve long periods of stability, so I
struggled very hard with her and she became very dependent on me.
After she died,
I was frequently haunted by nightmares. Sometimes I would hear her
steps on the hall, at other times I would feel her sitting on the
edge of my mattress and I would try to wake up but I couldn’t. One
night I dreamed she came and told me, “I came
for you because I feel very lonely.” I answered back, “You have
your mother and your favorite aunt with you” and she vanished. A few
days later, I woke up in my dream to find her laying between my
husband and myself wrapped up in her blanket, and I urged her to go.
Later on, she appeared in my dream standing in front of our bed
holding her blanket in her arms and asking me with a gesture to let
her go to bed with us, I asked her to leave.
After a year, the bad dreams disappeared, but not only bad
things happened during that period of time. A month after her death
my husband and I had a stupid quarrel over something he claimed he
had paid for and I knew I had been the one that had paid for it. He
was about to leave for a meeting and then he left angrily and
abruptly. I felt miserable and walked to my mother’s room and lay in
her bed sobbing. There I started telling her about what had happened
and how bad it made me feel. After a while, I got up and went to the
kitchen, and there I was when he returned. He came straight to me
and said, “You know, you're right, I remembered”. I felt surprised
and relieved, this was the first time in 34 years
of marriage he admitted being wrong.
A couple of
months later we argued about a decision I had made, and he was
rather harsh. He used to say I was too sensitive, but I felt very
bad about it. I turned around and took refuge in my mother’s room,
as this had become a habit. He left for the garage. There
I was again laying in her bed and mumbling my sadness. A while later
he started calling me since he never entered this room unless he was
asked to. A miracle happened. He apologized for his
harshness! This second time I thought it was too much of a
coincidence, and honestly, I never intended to call for her help.
In 2001 I had to
face a very strong experience I was not ready for. My mother had
been dead for two years and she had to be cremated; I asked for a
two year extension and since I got it I felt relieved. However, it
did not bring me peace, and a couple of months later I started
having frequent nightmares and they were always the same; it became
a pattern. In my dream, she came out of her grave and walked behind
me everywhere I went, people looked at me with wide-open eyes and I
went on telling everybody the same words in a very low voice: “She
doesn’t want to be in her grave.”
I felt very bad
and started going to a psychiatrist, but the nightmares continued. I
never paid any attention to what I was saying in my dream and that
was a big mistake.
About a year went
by, and one day my husband told me that since we intended to move to
another city we should ask for the cremation I had postponed, and so
we did.
The grave had a crack and there was a lot of dirt the rain had
carried into it; the grave was
a mess of bones, cloth, hair and dirt. The bones were carefully
washed, dipped in alcohol and powdered, then placed in a small
metallic box which was neatly sealed with cement in
a special wall for this purpose. A few months later I suddenly
realized the nightmares had disappeared, in a shock I remembered
what I always repeated in them and felt astonished. Why had I not
paid attention to my own words?
In May 2004
my husband and I went to Austria to visit our daughter and her new
family for 3 months, It was a wonderful opportunity but not without
disturbing experiences. There we were in a beautiful and comfortable
house all by ourselves, but there was also something strange about
the house, something only I could feel. Our bedroom and a small room
connected to it by
a door kept me in a state of uneasiness. I felt I was being watched
all the time. I perceived a “presence” and all these experiences
developed into such a compelling story that I felt forced to write
it down. It turned into a fantastic story I named THE BURNT TOWEL.
In late August
2005 my husband and I were not getting along very well, we quarreled
frequently. He had developed liver disease and it is said that
persons with this condition have a poor temper. That day I went to
bed early feeling I couldn’t take it any longer and fell asleep
immediately. I was dreaming and there we were intently discussing;
he was standing in the middle of the living room and I was standing
in the kitchen in front of the oven. Suddenly my mother appeared in
my dream, facing the counter and without looking at me she placed
both hands inside a plastic tray where we kept the flatware and
divided them into two identical bunches, and then she disappeared.
I woke up very
distressed, so after breakfast I told my husband what I had dreamed.
Then I asked him, “What do you think my mother wanted to tell me?”
His face had turned red and rather embarrassed as he answered, “To
split with me.”
Part 3
To Be Continued— Fall Issue 2009
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