Just as every second Sunday
of each month, Matilda spent the whole lunchtime ringing her old’s house
doorbell. As no one would answer, she decided to read Mrs. Dalloway sitting on the doorstep.
Was she killing time? Of
course she wasn’t. Killing time was having lunch with her parents, drinking
beers in the pub with Lavender, or walking home after class instead of taking
the bus. But reading could never be a way of killing time; it was by reading that
she could immortalize time, as she would spend it doing something
unforgettable.
Just as Matilda opened the
book, Mrs. Dalloway decided she would buy the flowers for her party. A few
hours later, when Mrs. Dalloway learnt that Septimus had killed himself,
Matilda heard a piercing shriek.
“Harry! It’s four in the
afternoon! Matilda!”
“Matilda doesn’t live here
anymore. She hasn’t lived here since she was seven.”
“I know. What I’m trying to
say is that today was our lunch day with her. Maybe she came over and thought
that we weren’t at home… That we don’t care! Of course we care about having
lunch with our daughter!”
Matilda could’ve rung the
doorbell when she heard that her parents had awakened, but she’d rather listen
to their hilarious conversation.
“Of course we care.”
Matilda’s phone rang.
Zinnia Wormwood, with her thick blonde hair –Matilda has always been thankful
for not having inherited it—, filled the screen. Her daughter picked up a leaf
and used it as a bookmark. She’d always believed that this was what made autumn
beautiful: the floor is all covered with bookmarks. As she hung up the phone,
she heard her mother screaming while pretending to cry. Matilda guffawed, stood
up, and rang the doorbell.
 |
| Zinnia Wormwood |
Harry Wormwood opened the
door and touched Matilda’s head. Oh! Her father! A deep love to give away
hidden behind that shield of indifference! A deep desire for hugging someone,
but total ignorance in how to do it! But that wasn’t important; tapping
Matilda’s head two or three times was Harry’s hug, and that was fine.
“How long will you stay out
there?”
 |
| Harry Wormwood |
 |
| Michael Wormwood |
She came in with the smile
that the portraits of her brother Michael had erased. She wouldn’t have cared
if she had been insulted by him then. She just wanted him in front of her, to
listen to his attacks once again, and to hug him one last time. But that wasn’t
possible anymore. She stared at her favorite picture and telekinetically put it
in her bag.
Miss Honey would be happy
of placing it by the hearth, for sure.
Matilda’s brother’s death
had been the most painful experience in her life. She hated herself for not having
talked to him for many years, for cutting ties when she had so many things to
say to him. But, sometimes, someone dies to show us our mistakes. Guilt proved
Matilda that she couldn’t keep hiding from her family; it proved her that she
still loved them. Thanks to that death, she had lunch on the second Sunday of each
month with her parents. They always wanted the best for her, but were too
distracted to know what the best was.
“Dinner is ready! Come here!
I love cooking for the two people I love the most.”
Matilda thought that that
phrase summarized her mom’s brilliance. Was she joking or did she really
pretend Matilda to believe that she had cooked those pizzas that screamed
“We’re from last night!”? The answer will always be a mystery to everyone.
Matilda was interviewed by
her mother with thousands of questions that were all answered with short but
kind words. Why should someone elaborate on their answers when who is asking is
not interested in hearing them? Zinnia didn’t care if Matilda was going to
celebrate her twenty-seventh birthday (actually, she was turning twenty-five),
she didn’t want to know her Contemporary Literature exam results, and she
wasn’t even a bit worried about Lavender’s anorexia. Zinnia just questioned
Matilda to show her that she was important for her, really important, even if
she wasn’t interested in her life at all. Love can take any shape, and
sometimes that shape is the shape of stupid questions.
Harry grabbed the remote
and turned on the fourth member of the family. His daughter remembered when he tore
up a book she had borrowed from the library and made her watch TV. That memory
produced so much hatred inside her that she almost made the TV explode once
again. But that wasn’t the way. No one could force her to do things anymore.
Maybe she should have returned the favor and given her dad a book, but he would
have said he was not going to read it, for sure. Then, if Matilda asked why, he
would answer “Because I’m smart, you’re dumb; I'm big, you're little; I'm
right, you're wrong, and there's nothing you can do about it.” Those words
echoed strangely beautifully in her head, so she chuckled.
“What’s going on?” her father
asked.
Matilda quoted that phrase
and started to analyze it and to describe its funny constant rhythm; she even
said she would include it in one of her poems. Her parents scanned her for a
second and kept watching TV. They would never understand what she had said,
though they admired her fancy words. Because that was intelligence: to use
fancy words.
They watched TV until seven
in the evening, while the dirty dishes were still waiting on the table for
someone to put them away. Much to her surprise, Matilda adored that activity.
Perhaps she had discovered how to turn off her sometimes insufferable brain to
make it rest. The show she enjoyed the most was one about people locked up
inside a house who had to complete certain tasks that, according to Zinnia,
were different every week. In the episode Matilda saw, they locked up a man
called Bruce in a room with a leather whip.
“How can someone be so
scared of a leather whip?” Matilda asked.
Her mother explained to her
that the head of his old school had attacked Bruce with one. Matilda wondered
if… But it was impossible. That would have been too much of a coincidence.
Because of what they were
seeing on the screen, Harry and Zinnia were growing even more nervous than the
very contestant. He was hitting the table and she was biting her nails,
probably getting too much red nail polish into her digestive system. Then, when
Bruce was about to press the red button to surrender, Matilda contracted her
parents’ nervousness and her hands started shaking. She stood up and screamed
“You can do it, Bruce!” So, as if he had listened, he stepped away from the
button and completed the task.
When the show was over,
Matilda’s parents went to the bathroom and she put away the dishes. Without
using her hands –why would she use them?—, she took each plate to the sink and
turned on the tap to start removing the grease. Without saying goodbye, Matilda
grabbed her bag and left.
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| Miss Honey and Matilda |
Written by Manuel Botana
Translated by Mariel Kozynski
Nice, love it!!
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