The Suicide Museum by Ariel Dorfman

Author:Ariel Dorfman [Dorfman, Ariel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Other Press
Published: 2023-09-05T00:00:00+00:00

11

SHE WAS A brownish mongrel Labrador bitch, dappled with some white streaks under her throat that gave her a somewhat regal look. She regarded the scene with alert, mournful eyes and then, wagging her tail, padded toward the tray laden with cookies, whimpered expectantly. Hortha nuzzled her head, his fingers caressing the spot behind the ears as the dog squinted with pleasure, licked his free hand. The other hand reached for a cookie and popped it into her mouth. After chomping it down, the dog watched Hortha’s every movement for a sign of another treat. A primeval ritual which did not continue only because it was interrupted by two little girls, perhaps eight and nine respectively, what on earth were they doing up so late on a winter’s night in a swanky hotel, dressed in matching Mickey Mouse pajamas and furry princess slippers? The two pixies sprinted into Hortha’s bedroom calling out to Alondra, soon apologizing confusedly to us for the intrusion, the silly dog, always escaping. Hortha pointed to the cookies, told them to take as many as they wanted.

The girls enthusiastically filled their grubby fingers with an assortment, enough for them, for Alondra, for the rest of the family, whoever and wherever they might be, and then retreated, proud to have completed their deep-night mission. We listened to them patter away, let them fade into silence until the sound started to increase again. The footsteps began to come closer and one of the girls, the smallest one, returned to our room bearing a tiny gift.

It was an acorn. She carefully deposited it next to the depleted tray of cookies, waved to us, receded once more into the night. We stared at the acorn, transfixed, wary of breaking the enchantment of the moment.

“A visitation,” Hortha finally said. “Children and animals, what more can we ask for?”

“And the acorn,” I said.

“An acorn. Like the one you and I planted when we were their age. It’s too much. Almost too perfect, too convenient that they should come out of the night just as I—to remind us, to illustrate—”

“Don’t,” I said. “Don’t try to explain magic, Joseph. Magic should never be explained.”

“But I need to. Because they appeared just as I was about to lay out the next episode of the Museum we are building for them, so they can have a future, an episode where the children are the protagonist, where that future speaks.”

There was no stopping him. “Go on,” I said.

“The lights come back on and the visitors will think, having just gone through hell, oh no, another ordeal, because they’ll find themselves in a gigantic courthouse where a Final Judgment is taking place. I got the idea from a bizarre account that Pilar found, of a trial held in Boulogne-sur-Mer in 1725, against the corpse of a man who had taken his own life. Our trial, in the Museum, is not against the corpse of one man but judging the corpse of all humanity, staged in a future when we have ceased to exist.

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