payment page
Maximiliano who was said to have killed his wife in an ice-house brawl when she came at him with a mop. I had to shoot, he had said-she was armed. Their laughter outside the kitchen window. Her husband's, his friends'. Manolo, Beto, Efrain, el Perico. Maximiliano.
As Cleófilas washes dishes, she listens to Juan Pedro and his friends talk and joke amongst themselves outside in the yard. Through words and gestures, Maximiliano says that some unnamed woman “needs” sexual gratification, the implication being that she needs a man dominating her sexually, consensually or not. This “locker room talk” is a form of boastful, sexist conversation that sometimes takes place when boys or men talk freely amongst themselves. Maximiliano goes on in the quotation to joke about domestic homicide, having “killed his wife in an ice-house brawl.” His disproportionate response, shooting her dead when she attacks him with a mop, is hardly “self defense.” And yet, he seems to have suffered no consequences or shows no remorse. Don Pedro and his friends all laugh at the idea. To them, the idea of domestic abuse and homicide is humorous and not horrifying. This casual attitude towards domestic abuse normalizes and perpetuates it.
Was Cleófilas just exaggerating as her husband always said? It seemed the newspapers were full of such stories. This woman found on the side of the interstate. This one pushed from a moving car. This one's cadaver, this one unconscious, this one beaten blue. Her ex-husband, her husband, her lover, her father, her brother, her uncle, her friend, her co-worker. Always. The same grisly news in the pages of the dailies.
After overhearing Juan Pedro and his friends laughing about Maximiliano’s killing of his wife, Cleófilas wonders if she is overreacting. She has talked about this topic with Juan Pedro before. He has “always said” that she exaggerates. But she follows with evidence that she is not exaggerating. The daily newspapers she reads are “full of such stories” of domestic abuse. The women, dead, unconscious, or beaten black and blue are victims of the men in their lives. The widespread pervasiveness of domestic violence, or at least the threat of it, seem to be a normal part of life for women.
This poor lady's got black-and-blue marks all over. I'm not kidding.
From her husband. Who else? Another one of those brides from across the border. And her family's all in Mexico.
Shit. You think they're going to help her? Give me a break.
Cleófilas is at the doctor’s office for a prenatal sonogram. She breaks down in tears during the examination. The quotation comes from the overheard telephone conversation between Graciela and Felice. The idea that the bruises are “[f]rom her husband. Who else?” shows how widespread this sort of domestic abuse is. Readers must infer who Graciela refers to when she asks “[y]ou think they’re going to help her?” A reasonable guess would be the police, the authorities one would expect to protect victims of domestic abuse. But her response “[g]ive me a break” lets readers know that this sort of abuse is all too common and routinely ignored by the police.
