Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas

ISSN: 0890-5762 (Print) 1743-0666 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rrev20

Deeds of a Good Citizen (Part I)

Claudia Hernndez
To cite this article: Claudia Hernndez (2014) Deeds of a Good Citizen (Part I), Review:
Literature and Arts of the Americas, 47:1, 39-41, DOI: 10.1080/08905762.2014.890398
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08905762.2014.890398

Published online: 14 Apr 2014.

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Date: 08 August 2016, At: 14:44

Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas, Issue 88, Vol. 47, No. 1, 2014, 3941

Deeds of a Good Citizen (Part I)

Claudia Hernndez
Downloaded by [Tulane University] at 14:44 08 August 2016

Translated by Marguerite Feitlowitz

Claudia Hernndez (El Salvador, 1975) is the author of Otras ciudades

(2001), Medioda de frontera (2002), Olvida uno (2005), and De fronteras
(2007), from which the following story is taken.

When I arrived there was a corpse. In the kitchen. Of a woman. Lacerated.

And it was fresh: the smell of the blood was still mineral. The face was
unknown to me, but the body reminded me of my mothers, with knees
so bony it was as though they didnt belong to her, as though she had
borrowed them from another woman who was taller and thinner than
she was.
None of the locks had been forced. Nor was there a weapon anywhere.
Nothing that could help me trace the killer who had cleaned up even the
bloodstains on the floor. Not a single drop had been left. Ive seen a lot of
murders in my life, but never one whose workmanship was as impeccable
as the one performed on the young woman whose face suggested she was
called Lvida, perhaps for the grimace of lament that had sealed her
bruised lips.
As any good citizen would have done, I didnt wait for a message to
come over the radio or television, but rather had one printed in the
newspaper. It said:
Im searching for the owner of the corpse of a young woman
full-fleshed, prominent knees, and the face of someone called Lvida.
She was abandoned in my kitchen, very near the refrigerator,
wounded and practically drained of blood.
Information at 271-0122
Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas ISSN 0890-5762 print/ISSN 1743-0666 online # 2007 Claudia Hernndez. Translation
# 2014 Americas Society, Inc. http://www.tandfonline.com http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08905762.2014.890398

Downloaded by [Tulane University] at 14:44 08 August 2016

40

Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas

Four people called. The firstwhose high-pitched voice immediately

had me imagining he had very fine handswas searching for the fresh
corpse of a man: a member of his family had been killed and they had to
get him buried so they could live without pangs of conscience. He knew
that Id advertised a woman, but he hoped that those who caused the
death of his relative might have decided to also leave his body somewhere
in my house, although not near the refrigerator. I, who knew I had no
other corpse in the house, promised that Id call if by chance they came to
deposit him with me, or if I could be of help in some other way. He
thanked me with all his heart and wished me a good day.
Then there was a call from a woman, whojudging by the noises
perceptible behind her voiceworked in a public office. She wanted to
congratulate me: There are no citizens like you anymore, she said. She
didnt want to give her name. She hung up when I insisted on meeting
her, so I could know whom to thank.
The third call was from a man with a serious voice who wasnt calling
on his own initiative, but rather on behalf of the office where he worked.
He wished to know if I had taken health measures in order to avoid
contagion in the neighborhood. He was sending me a form that I was to
fill out and sign, which made me responsible in the event of an outbreak
of deaths in the vicinity.
The fourth call moved me. It came from an older couple who were
searching for their daughtera young woman named Lvidawho had
the traits Id given in my advertisement, but who was supposed to be
alive, not dead, and with purple, not violet, lips.
After a week without anyone else claiming her, I thought it prudent,
though it went against my wishes, to take her to the health department,
because she was starting to smell bad, in spite of my attentions and the
baths with balsam and kitchen salt. It occurred to me then that I could call
the couple and convince them that it was their daughter, but I discarded
the idea because it seemed too cruel to make them lose faith that their
Lvida might yet breathe. I decided it was better to offer her to the man
with the high-pitched voice, who had still not found his relatives corpse
nor a way to calm his family.
When I reached him on the phone, I suggested that he accept the
corpse that was in my kitchen and present it to his familyin a sealed
casketas that of the relative they had lost, in that way we would be
doing two favors: we would bury this girl and calm his relatives. He was
delighted to accept and arrived a few hours later.
I recognized him immediately through the peephole, not by his
sorrowfully hopeful face, but by his hands, which were very fine, exactly
as his voice had suggested. I opened the door. We shook hands without a
smile, the way old strangers do. After I offered my condolences, he said
that I was much taller than he had imagined. I did not want to continue
the conversation, which would entail the awkwardness of his having to say

Deeds of a Good Citizen

41

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he didnt know how to thank me. I knew he was anxious and that he was
in a hurry, so I led him to the kitchen in order to give him the young
woman.
Together we put her into the casket that he had carried in and that we
filled with various objects from my house so that it would weigh what his
dead relative would weigh, if he had found him. Once wed finished, he
begged my discretion. I swore to it, as any good citizen would have done,
and I helped him carry the casket to the car belonging to the funeral
home, which was waiting for us outside.