Statue as I am

I’d left Torreon only days after it happened. I’ve tried to forget and move on; I’ve tried to assure myself that it was only my imagination playing tricks on me, but the memories are too real, and those images which I saw with my own eyes play again and again in my mind. The stories still circulate today, popping up online or on TV, as if they’re intent to follow me all across the continent. I’ve moved to Monterrey, Mexico City, Vancouver, L. A., New York. Nowhere is far or big enough to hide after my season in the production of Don Juan Tenorio in Torreon. The role I’d landed was Brígida, Doña Inés’ maid, shared with another which I preferred: a graveyard statue that turns into a ghost and kills Don Juan along with the other statues during the legendary climactic scene. That is, I preferred it most until opening night. I’ve managed better roles as I move from city to city, but the shadow keeps following me because of my relation to Javier. I have recurring nightmares because of the news I read every week. I fear that it’ll soon be my turn, because she’s ticking us off one by one.

Everyone I’ve told the story to agree with what the doctors said when they examined us: that my mind was over-imaginative from the play and that that was my way of dealing with the dramatic events that we’d just undergone. Maybe it’s true, given, I repeat, my relationship with Javier. I thought I loved him, yet by the time of these events it’d become painfully clear that we was just filling an empty space that I should have filled myself; and it was even clearer still that he was filling that space for more than one woman. I was intent on ending it after opening night, but he’d said that he wasn’t going to let me go that easily.

The evening before opening night, the lights technician showed up at my house and said: ‘Leave now while you can, take advantage of your freedom’. I should have listened to him. I remember him most from all the cast and crew, Chuy, an easy-going man in his mid-forties, with his dark curly hair and goatee. When we’d first met, months earlier, he asked me why I was Brígida. I’d told him that it was only the first job I’d landed.

‘You’re with Javier, right?’ he’d said.

‘Yes.’

‘Why didn’t he give you a better role?’

I’d been puzzled by this, oblivious to the meticulous art of pulling strings.

‘I… I don’t know… Should he have?’

‘He always does.’

He’d walked away and I was left staring at the dust his drill had made. As I watched, a small footprint appeared in the middle of the dust. I rubbed my eyes and moved to my post to wait for the start of rehearsal, thinking how ridiculous it was of me to be imagining such things in that place. I’d thought that I’d better get used to that huge, empty place, since I would spend so much time there to learn my lines and movements between rehearsals, for there was no place I could do that at home, with my two sisters, my mother, my nephew, and my brother in law who came from the mine every month.

It’d taken a few weeks for Chuy’s words to sink in: Javier always gave big roles to his women. I was the only one who’d not landed the main female part. And there were titters and glances in my direction whenever Raquel, the very same Doña Inés, was in the room. I finally understood that Raquel was one of Javier’s; as were another three, at least, but none of them in the theatre business. Yet he constantly swore that in the end I’d be the only one in his life, that I only had to wait until the play was shown and he wouldn’t have any more stress, nor the need to be with another woman. It was until the sixth week of rehearsal, during a party at which some of the cast and crew did drugs and blurted out some truths (while Javier went off with Raquel), that I came into knowledge of a most gory episode in Javier’s, and that very same theatre’s, life.

It’d been at a time before Raquel, whom by then I’d learned had been with him for two years. He’d managed, like now, to fool two women from the same play into being “his”. The two women, Carolina Casares and Teresa Cantú had been civil to each other during rehearsals, and apparently he was satisfied with how he’d handled things, because he’d told Chuy that he was a true master of seduction, a real Don Juan, if he (and I even now) may be allowed to use the expression. But civility ended at opening night, as the curtain rose for the second half, and Carolina was seen dead in the middle of the bloody stage by the audience. The theatre closed for six months; Javier only worked on minor productions for a while, and then returned to the bigger stage along with a lot of newspaper and TV stories about the Don Juan who had prompted a lover to kill another of his lovers right on stage. The woman had gone to jail, and as far as I know she won’t get out for another twenty-odd years.

Apparently, one of the reasons why Javier wanted to do Don Juan was to make himself a star, feeding off the stories to make his fame greater. I was fresh out of beauty school, and had a naïve hunger for fame and fortune, with a flair for drama and a talent for getting people to believe my lies. It never occurred to me to research the company I was entering. Had I done that, maybe I would’ve thought twice about believing his lies.

After hearing the story that night, I walked the theatre hallways with a fluttery heart. It wasn’t always dark, but it wasn’t light as day either. There were always voices, albeit real or echoes, I’m not sure; in those places sound exists even after all living things are gone. The thumping, sawing and drilling the crew made before our rehearsals made my wait easier, giving me the comforting feeling of people around while I rehearsed my lines and walked about the stage. The stage terrified me, and it wasn’t only once that I imagined a body lying there. Whenever one of my cast mates saw me looking in that direction, they would nudge me and shake their heads, never erasing the silly smile from their faces. Then I noticed a female silhouette continuously walking a few steps behind Javier, making her way with caution not to touch any other of the actors, always moving behind Javier.

I was in trouble, for, as I watched the figure, I started missing my own steps or forgetting my lines, and Javier would yell at me while the company snickered. I spoke up after a week or two, but no one seemed to be aware of the woman. I feared I was hallucinating; nobody could account for an extra person on stage. I was beginning to think that they’d made up the story to make a fool out of me, when one day Chuy approached me with a newspaper clipping of an article about Carolina, and said, ‘It’s vengeance she craves; you should have understood that by now.’

The picture on the page looked just like the woman I’d been seeing among us. I tried asking him if it was some sick joke, if he was trying to make me go insane like the other actors, but there was something in his eyes that stopped me: he was so sincere, honestly trying to warn me about a reality that I had better see. But it was only one week till opening night and I couldn’t bail; not because of Javier, he’d stopped interesting me long before, but more because I hoped that an agent would find me and take me to my fame and fortune.

I asked Chuy if he saw Carolina as well. I’ll never forget the utter sadness that washed over his face. He neither said yes or no, but he sighed deeply and set back to work on the last stage details. As I walked away, I was startled to see the silhouette apparently looking at me from the stage. I ran to my post, and by the time I looked back the figure wasn’t there anymore. I trembled during the whole rehearsal, but I didn’t know what else I could do with the information and the visions that had been bestowed upon me. That night, Rebecca came to me as I was walking out of the theatre and said, ‘It’s been great fun, but it’s time for you to retire.’ I was entirely puzzled by this; I was just starting, why would I want to retire so soon? When Chuy showed up at my door that last evening, I should’ve known to take them both seriously.

Opening night came and our commitment paid off. At intermission everyone was in a celebratory mood, and it was agreed to go out for drinks when the show was over. I could see Rebecca glaring at me from the back room, but I didn’t think much of it. The second half started and we all got to our places on stage.

Everything went smoothly until the end – until Carolina was there when I was the statue: a ghost between the make-believe ghosts. When we moved towards Don Juan, she moved with us. She reached out for him before I was able to warn him; it was obvious that nobody else had seen her. Seconds later, Javier was limp and pale in the middle of the stage. The audience went quiet and cold; I knew because that’s how I felt, that’s how we all were on the stage. The ambulance came and doctors and psychologists came along to do checkups on us. I left, but the story came with me.

After so many years, the news that reach me have been the same for months on end: X, ex-girlfriend of Javier Mendoza, better known as the Dead Don Juan, has been found dead – the third, the fourth, the ninth that goes. All have died under extraordinary circumstances; and I believe all have died with a secret in their last glimpses of life.

The last article appeared this morning: Rebeca Gómez was found dead in her room last night. There was a testimony from Chuy, saying that he’d always wondered why a girl as smart as Rebecca had fallen prey to Javier in the first place, and that he thought the same of another young lady that had been his girlfriend – me! His name didn’t appear as Chuy, but in the original form of Jesús, and included the surname. I realised with a jolt that I should’ve known his full name; I should have made the connection, since his full name appeared in many articles regarding Carolina. Yet it was until this article that it was made clear who he was: ‘…as stated by Jesús Casares, light technician and set designer who worked for eight years with Javier Mendoza: My niece Carolina was a good girl, even with her faults and obvious mistakes; she didn’t deserve that horrible end.’

She might not have deserved that end, but neither one of us do, really.

If anything happens to me, the truth will be known.

~*~

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