Share

Share

Share on Facebook Share on Facebook Tweet Share on Twitter Share on WhatsApp Share on WhatsApp

SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTER

This text by Camila Sosa Villada , "My Postcard from Rosario," is part of the book celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Buenos Aires International Literature Festival (FILBA), which is being held virtually from June 16 to 19. The publication will be available for free download starting on opening day, June 16, and includes texts by Rosario Bléfari, María Moreno, Eloísa Oliva, Camila Sosa Villada, Hebe Uhart, and Beatriz Vignoli, among others.

How many hours of nothing must I have wept over the jokes made about my Indian mustache, straight and thick like clumps of dark bridal bouquets, lucky for whoever catches it but never for the bride, like tentacles of black thread that stole from customers' wallets the wages with which they would later, perhaps, treat their girlfriends to breakfast: coffee with milk, two croissants, two small pastries, butter and dulce de leche, and the added touch of orange juice, which is what would make it complete. All those young men in town who shouted at me, "There's coffee, there's coffee! There's coffee!"

How many times did I hate the shadow of my upper lip in front of the boarding house mirror, plucking out the reasons for my sorrow hair by hair with tweezers stolen from some perfumery, in a fleeting, empty theater. How many needles soaked in alcohol to stick under the ingrown hairs and force them out, removing them from the root. How many nights did I go to sleep humiliated by the critical venom of some jerk who dared to tell me I'd be pretty if I took better care of my appearance, if I put a little silicone in my forehead, which was wide and hard, and a little more in my lips. And a big bit in my breasts and a lot in my ass. And how lovely I'd look if I had electrolysis, which was one of the most painful things in the world, a satanic system that sent an electric shock to the root of the hair, so they practically electrocuted my whole beard to keep the boys happy and not disappointed when they stroked my sandpaper cheeks.

All those tears my pillow soaked up because my mustache was my ugliness, followed by my boxer's nose and crooked, poor man's teeth, and I'd think about all the money I'd have to scrape together to improve my appearance, which was barely that of a woman's caricature. All the fortune I'd have to amass if I ever decided I wanted to be pretty. And once I'd cried out all these details, my mustache would sprout, go under the sheets, and masturbate me with its ticklish touch. If I was face down, it would massage me too, and if it was winter, it would tug at the moth-eaten bedspreads and make a little hollow under my head to make the position more comfortable. And if the books were far away, it would go to the tin bookshelves and bring them to me, turning the pages with a delicate, effeminate touch. And many times they dried up the salty rivers that flowed from my eyes and never complained of pain when I shaved them or tore them out with hot wax that made me jump in front of the mirror in a hairy polka that relieved the burning. 

Then, the demands of television told me I couldn't go around with such a mustache in front of the cameras because people couldn't stand trans women showing themselves as they are. And I started investing in this appearance like someone signing up for a plan to buy a used car, or a small house in a cooperative, or the vacation of a lifetime through a travel agency. And I, who had developed a suspicious intelligence around my cultural ugliness, suddenly found myself going to a clinic to have my mustache burned off with a laser, a technique almost as sadistic as electrolysis, but much faster. 

When I left the little transvestite doll ready to be loved by celluloid, suddenly the thrill was gone, and I divorced myself from acting. I lost interest in film and television, and I began to suspect I'd been deceived. Silly, naive, and pretentious little transvestite doll. My fine mustache wouldn't return, and I, with skin as smooth as the edges of the afternoon, would be alone and without an audience until further notice. You lost everything. And courage. And innocence. And cunning. In the drawers remained a raging sheaf of wool that had once been the splendor of your fury.

In 2019, I was invited to Rosario for a cultural event where we talked about love. I took advantage of a few free hours and went alone to the riverfront to watch the river flow by—the river that has always been my obsession. Whoever watches a river flow by, perhaps sees themselves unfolding in history, sometimes calm, sometimes deep, sometimes crystal clear, sometimes murky. Now I am a transvestite, just as I was once a river, and perhaps I will be reincarnated as some waterfall cascading from the High Peaks to the villages of Traslasierra. Fresh, cold, icy water, and the willow branches as a reminder of my lost mustache. 

On the riverbank, steps from the Spanish Cultural Center, I pondered the origin of my mustache. The oldest-talking transvestites say that in the Rosario River there's a whole school of transvestite mermaids, half water nymphs, half transvestites, who acquired their DNA from the dead women thrown into the water to conceal their bodies. The Water Nymphs, or loricariids—so you don't think I didn't consult Wikipedia while writing this poem—have a kind of suction cup on their mouths that secures them to the bottom of things and, moreover, feeds them. The same suction cup that the transvestites had on the tips of their lips to sip the muddy little penises of their clients and lovers (at this point everything becomes blurred, the boundaries porous). It seems that these fish, as they swam over the bodies of the murdered women, took not only the algae covering them but also all the deoxyribonucleic information of the transvestites and slowly began to resemble the dead women. First, wigs grew, made of very fine natural hair, kept like new by the river's fresh water; then elephantine breasts and pink blush on their cheeks, long mustaches for slapping fools, and false eyelashes with doubled tips for greater volume and length.

Soon the Old Women of the Water could also sing (they say that if Rosario were silent, their singing could be heard), soft and irresistible cumbias from Santa Fe. As the years passed, the Old Women of the Water had a memory very similar to that of transvestites and remembered the persecutions and killings, but also the celebrations and the courage and that rage that was like a good fever that made them stand up . And soon they had legs, long, muscular legs covered in that oily skin that shines like hope or promises, and their gills became subtle and they approached the shore, and the male catfish and pacus and other fish felt jealous, and they stayed grumbling in the river, because without even trying, the Old Women of the Water could now tell stories, and when they least expected it, they came out at night to the nearest beaches to try out their new limbs: legs to dance, hands to scratch, and mouths with suckers to stick to the working-class and macho flesh of those who came to touch the novelty. Freshwater mermaids.

The whiskers of the Water Wives became entwined with the mermaids' downy hair, and just as they swatted away flies, they entwined the necks of their lovers and drew them to their breasts. They could have slapped, strangled, wielded a knife, or carried a pearl necklace to the altar of Iemanjá, which they made from the rust found at the bottom of the river. And we became less fish and more human, and that caused us great sadness, but that's how things were, and it was worth reconciling ourselves with the days that cannot be repeated, to turn another corner, or to say no instead of saying yes. And soon we fell in love and forgot the muddy loves, sticky in the filth, almost blind and capable of anything, and now we end up trembling as if we hadn't lived at all. We walk among the people, unaware that we come from those fish with despised flesh, that eat mud at the bottom of the river. We meddle, nosy, uncomfortable, in this waterless school that is humanity. So human, they are. We're such mermaids.

In the distance, on the river's surface, a mermaid appears and waves her arm, telling me that she's there, that what I've always known is true: we are the river, we go to it, or to the seas, or to whatever is water, to whatever knows how to sink, to the rebellious, that which no hand can grasp. She laughs, her whole mouth full, as a catfish swims very close, making her golden skin tremble. Whenever you want, come by for some mate, nice and sweet, with pastries with cream and quince paste, lots of calories, so many calories in the Rosario River. They've always done it this way, the love of trans women to let you know you're home, is with lots of carbohydrates, lots of triglycerides. Lots of sweet mate, with a teaspoon of sugar each time. In the river, on the land, in Santiago del Estero, in Santa Fe, in Salta, in Jujuy, it's always been this way.
They come to get me, and the mermaid disappears, swallowed by the waves, and a huge ship elevates the afternoon another step. I ask the handsome faggot to be quiet for a second, to see if I can hear the song of my ancestors, and nothing… shouts somewhere that echo in my nostalgia.