Ostrich Legs

Ostrich Legs

by Alicia Kozameh
Ostrich Legs

Ostrich Legs

by Alicia Kozameh

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Overview

Partially autobiographical, this is a masterpiece of introspective, linguistically innovative fiction about the relationship between two sisters, one severely handicapped, the other gifted yet overlooked. Mariana is four years older than her sister, Alcira, but Mariana is severely disabled and is slowly dying. Conveying the experience of a physically messy process, this account points out the flaws in adult society through the point-of-view of its child protagonist. At its core, this novel is about the abuse of power and its consequences—whether that abuse is by a government, a parent, or a child.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781609402495
Publisher: Wings Press
Publication date: 02/01/2013
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 200
File size: 1 MB

About the Author

Alicia Kozameh is a former Argentinean political prisoner. She is a creative writing and literature professor at Chapman University and the author of five novels in Spanish, including Steps under Water, a collection of short stories, and a book of poetry. She has also worked extensively with Amnesty International to share her prison experiences and to promote human rights. She lives in Los Angeles, California.

Read an Excerpt

Ostrich Legs


By Alicia Kozameh, David E. Davis

Wings Press

Copyright © 2013 Wings Press, for Alicia Kozameh
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-60940-251-8


CHAPTER 1

I must be seeing her, I'm sure I'm seeing her, right there, like that, seeing her turn that knee outward, seeing her sitting on those slate tiles on a patio in yellows. I must be seeing her, that thick straight hair, that darkness. Mommy, hungwy she must be saying, and I must be hearing her. Hearing her, listening to her, and not yet, but soon, asking myself, why hungry? Why so hungry?

I must be looking into the distance and, as I try to lose myself I can hear that voice, now I'm sure I'm hearing it, paying it all the attention it's crying out for. My sight must be fixed on some dark corner shadowed by secret movements, the air moving, restless, almost soundless. And I'm saying: why hungry? I must be hearing letters that are missing, her mom, hungwy, I must be asking myself why a heavy, loud rain doesn't come crashing down to change the scenery, just for today.

I must be seeing her rigid arm groping out into space, trying to point to something that's got her attention, I want, some I want red or yellow hanging from a nail or in the wooden blocks tossed into the blue wicker basket. And I must be seeing her, I must be asking myself what that last moan is directed at: my getting there late, the time it takes for me to go and fetch what she's asking for, or if it's some air bubble lost in her bit of lung, struggling, fighting to get out, making it up her throat in the effort and strumming her vocal chords.


And a feeling of dread must be coming over me without knowing why as I realize in the air that is enclosed, deadened by that patio, that her straight hair is my curly hair and that my curly hair is her straight hair, all of her hairs so useless, just like her knees and her fingernails. Because she doesn't walk or scratch. And because our hairs, being the same ones, don't really exist. That's what I must be saying, no, maybe not back then, but I'm saying it now, that being squeezed out of the same hips makes us both alike, the same, and that if her hairs are useless then mine are too. I must be thinking that now and feeling it now and then, back then when I was four years old and watching her, when I'm watching her now, talking to her all the time.

And I must be walking, very slowly, trying to get the I want red, the one I think she's asking for. Slowly, somehow knowing the slower I go, the more colors and shapes all around me will register, more for later on, more and more for the future.

I must, I'm almost certain now, I must be putting one foot up on one of the crosspieces of a clear green, or is it a pale blue wooden bench, and with my other foot planted on the seat I reach out, pull at the I want the colored one, thinking: loose nail, don't fall out, careful, I hope you don't find that nail on the ground, Dad, I'd better get the bag — the I want that is a plastic bag with round handles and white dots — get it without messing it up, dad seeing the nail: how did this nail fall out of the wall, answer me, who pulled it out, and all the walls falling down, burying the nail, burying me. Me and Mariana. Me, she asked me for the red bag, the one with dots, it's roomy, you can play with it, too. And Mariana, always asking for something.

Yes, oh yes, I must be thinking or feeling, and a silent joy must be running up my throat as a result of the success: the bag here, the nail still in its place, no yelling or spankings, Mariana with her toy, me playing helper. There. Done.

But for some reason I must not be completely convinced yet. My head repeats that stereotyped There. Done. now lost in the fear, already forgotten in the jolting rhythm of fright.


And with my arm extended, in an also successful attempt to correct my rigid, unsteady hand, I must be swallowing my saliva just like when I accidentally swallow an olive pit, even despite all the recommendations and threats. There; done.

I must be listening to the sound of rushing water, which brings with it who knows what, maybe my mother up through the toilet, and not her early morning maté pee, and I must be mentally fixing that sound to remember that I exist. I must be thinking about it now and feeling it then and now. There's no room to question the times, or for that matter the appearance of events in time.

The tiles leading into that kitchen, the ones going into that bedroom, the ones going into the bathroom. Which ones. Which row should I take. The tiles touching at the corners lead me into the bathroom, the ones touching on the sides go into the kitchen. The ones connected at the corners are fragile, the ones connected on the sides are solid. They take me. Sometimes I must be going toward the risk of the bathroom and sometimes toward the safety of the kitchen. So many more decisions are made, like the ones my father has to make, for example, in the bathroom than in the kitchen.

Gray they must be, or red, those patio tiles. It's not like it matters. Certain reds are consistently grays. And I must be starting to walk, now I'm certain I am, turning smells and air, sounds and light, wooden toy blocks and exhaustion into a flawless game of balance good enough to give me the necessary energy to put me, now, in the home stretch and, having jumped over that last angle, it plops me down on that toilet.


And from there I must be imagining just about anything. I must be looking at the elastic hem of my panties, lost in this fundamental distraction. My legs sticking through the bands, the desire to free myself from being tied up, the temptation of my free legs and the joy at my panties lying there on the ground, almost out of reach, just enough to feel a satisfactory circulation of heats in my feet — I must be curling my toes, releasing them, stretching them, I must be looking at them-, a warmth in my knees, bending and flexing, a warmth in my thighs plastered to the white wooden lid that's starting to peel, a warmth in that white, hairless, tiny cunt, smooth and warm, where the sensation of a physical and secret sweetness and that tickle of relief that urine provokes as it comes out become one.

I must be imagining almost all of this during the time that begins with my going into the bathroom, ending with my mother barging in with all of her shouts and her hand gestures and her sharp, squinty eyes.


I must be realizing, I think, that the sky is slowly altering its appearance as the hours pass, with the position of the sun shifting and some cloud rolling by as the afternoon fades, and I know I can't forget that this is the time of day, late afternoon, when certain unforgettable things happen. Like when my father comes home from work. His eruption. And while I establish a web of distances between those panties lying there on the floor, my panties in relation to the wall, my panties in relation to the wash basin full of soaking clothes, my panties in relation to the bathroom, in relation to the bidet, in relation to the mop hanging off the side of the bucket, to the dryer, to each tile, to the shower, to the mirror and to myself, while I'm convincing myself that those panties are free panties, but only ostensibly free, while now that I'm seeing them subjected to everything surrounding them by each distance, the muscles in my face change up and tighten, I'm imagining the arrival of my father, Dad's here, he said something, I didn't catch it, he went into the kitchen to say hello to mom, opened up a colored striped canvas armchair standing in a corner and, on the way to pouring out a whisky, gave Mariana a kiss and she gave off hungry sounds from her seat, and he sat in his chair and looked down. I don't see his face or his glasses, or his chest because the newspaper is huge and covers him, but yes, I see an arm. I also see arm hairs, and probably before my mom puts the food out on the table, I'll go, come into the bathroom, and quietly, in few movements, I'll get a comb and sneak up on him so he can't chase me off with a slap before I complete the mission, and I'm going to put all those hairs back in order since he must be tired from working all day, those hairs, bunches of some here and other bunches there like cowlicks, and others sticking straight up like those centipedes that came out of plants, the ones from the patio my dad throws alcohol on and sets on fire.

I'm going to comb his arm hairs because he's very tired. I'm going to run the comb across his arm, a giant centipede. My dad's arm is a giant centipede, and then his other arm, and then his legs too because they're also hairy, and in the end then my dad's a bunch of giant centipedes all connected together at the ends. That's my dad.

So I don't know if I'm going to comb his arm hairs. Because when I ran the comb across him the other day it bothered him and he yelled something. He got kind of nervous. And he should, because Susanita's mom, Susanita from across the street, is always telling her that you shouldn't tease insects, or bother them or pull out their antennas or legs because they're poor things, or because they can sting you back, or because they suffer, and that's the same as a poor thing.


What happens is that Susana gets up early and her mother gives her a glass of Nestle's and Susana goes out to the sidewalk and opens the box of bugs she collected the day before and since she doesn't like the Nestle's she throws all the bugs in the glass and then stirs them with a little stick until the ones that are alive die from drowning, Susana says from indigestion, and then she takes the glass in to her mother and tells her: you want me to drink the glass of Nestle's because you want me to die of indigestion. And then Susanita comes back outside and always tells me the same thing: she tells me that when she takes the glass to her mother, she doesn't know if her mom is laughing or crying. I think she must be crying for thinking that her daughter is a bug inside a glass. She probably wants her daughter to be in a big pot. It's more comfortable.

But I'm going to comb his arm. I have to move fast to find the comb because if I don't then dinner will be ready and my dad will get up and all of us will go to the dinner table, and then I won't be able to comb him. One time I wanted to comb him when he was eating, but he kept moving his arm around too much because he was cutting his meat and forking his salad, and I better not do it anymore because every time he moves I think he's about to hit me. So it's best if I don't. So I have to hurry up. But my mom is already coming out of the kitchen, she says dinner's ready, that's what she says. So no. Not today. My dad's arm, not today. Not today my dad's arm.

All of this must have been going through my head at the exact moment my mother barges into the bathroom and stands over the panties I've taken off, and she shouts you little shit, get those panties on and come out of there right now. She says that as she's pulling me off the toilet, jerking me up by my dress and pushing me out in the direction of the patio.

At the moment when I'm trying to get my panties on, as I'm pulling them up to cover, to protect that something I'm really not sure what it is with a piece of elastic cloth, I must be seeing, probably seeing Mariana crawling from one side of the patio to the other, dragging her thing across the gray or red tiles, with an I want the red with spots hanging off her arm.

I must be thinking, then and now, that a little tomato juice and parsley leaf has splattered on my left thigh, and it makes me want lunch. Giving me a way to guess my mother's anger, having her drag me out of the bathroom without letting me wash my hands, her, my mother, who is such a stickler for cleanliness.


And I must be keeping myself from being tempted. From being trapped. From being led. Time to eat. Lunch is on. The table. My mother lifting up my sister and setting her down in her seat with the imitation leather plastic back. Fake leather is what it's called. Brown. So her backbone won't hurt her. And you, Alcira, sit down. I'm telling you to sit down. Sit down! Hold on, I'll cut your meat. No. Fine, no, then you cut it yourself. I've got my hands full with her. Let's see, Marianita, here, open your mouth. Eat. Don't spit it out. Wait, wait, Alcira, bring me that towel. Hurry up. Wet it and then wring it out. Not that one! The one hanging up. Yes. Hurry up. Hurry up I told you! Let's see, lift your head up. Close your mouth. Close it. Alcira, sit down. Mariana, chew your food before you swallow.

And I must be hearing, before and now, the footfalls in the hallway, those steps in the hallway, quick, repeating, quick, the key jiggling in the patio door, the metallic sound of the door closing, Hello Carlos, what, you came home for lunch? You said today you weren't ... And he: Who took that bag and moved it out of its place, he who keeps everything in its place, and now I should say the comb in its place, money in its place, pencils in their place, stupidity in its place, nobody can touch it, everything where it rightfully belongs, who the hell took down that new bag to play with and me opening my mouth and shutting off my throat, covering my eyes with my left hand as I turn over the tomato waiting in the spoon with my right hand, this is me, and Mariana stretching out her arm and trying to slide her plate closer to her and saying hungwy like mom wasn't feeding her, like mom wasn't feeding her.


Code tile. Gwound.
Althida, Althi, gimme wed bag. Gimme gimme.
Hungwy. Bana den.
Althi want comb da-daddy. Althi komb daddy arm.
Daddy arm hurt. Daddy yellt. Hurt.


I was watching her, gasping, waiting for her to run after you, especially since I was the one who selected the type of surgery, since I was, as in just about every case, the doctor and you the patient. So she should have run and caught up to you just as you were escaping from my operating table. All that work to get into the kitchen, slide open the silverware drawer — while my mother was busy whipping up some veggie concoction in a big glazed pot — and pull out a knife, the biggest and sharpest one, and to dash out of there in order not to be caught so I could operate on you. To open up a wound in you. And you grew scared and ran from my knife, and she just looked at me, pale-faced. She couldn't pull herself free from whatever that chair was. She didn't go after you; my ally, she was not.

You made it inside your house diving down that long hallway with its yellow walls stippled in green and fuchsia from the bougainvilleas trained along the wall. And with your two feet entangled, stumbling forward and smashing your knees against the tile floor. I loved watching you sweat and get that lump in your throat. You couldn't catch your breath and I willed myself to go faster. But you beat me there. Your feet hit the second door, saving you. I stopped and stood there, knife in hand, listening to a mommy, hungwy, dulthelete, or something along those lines, which so suddenly managed to calm me down and cause me to doubt my own existence: what does it mean to be alive, I asked myself, to be a very hyperactive eight-year-old, with pale blue eyes, and to have a girl from down the block who couldn't understand my surgical tendencies, and who was in sole possession of something so utterly vile and showy; and at the same time it was just as hard to look at that dark and straight-haired creature, which was what they called her sister.

What I've only now begun to wonder is why your sister never interested me as an object of experimentation.


My view was surprising, yet magnificent. Not everyone had a friend like you that would run away with such desperation, who was the possessor of that amazing product of nature, that morph of human and animal-like features. That freak of nature. I flaunted that pride, delighted in it, and it led me through the most overwhelming zones of euphoria: I would lift up your skirt, stick my hand as far up as possible and wake up at six in the morning listening to my intestines make sounds, mixing a kind of objectivity with my plans to nail you once and for all with that knife my mother ended up hiding behind that hulking monstrosity, which back in those days was called a china cabinet. And she did that not to save you from me, but to rescue me from that premature vocational definition. Because my mother loved me and she still loves me. Take that! And more than ever now that I'm full grown and pushing forty and having developed so well what fills out my trousers. My mother, little neighbor, loves me more than ever.


(Continues...)

Excerpted from Ostrich Legs by Alicia Kozameh, David E. Davis. Copyright © 2013 Wings Press, for Alicia Kozameh. Excerpted by permission of Wings Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"The human body—complicated, mysterious, simultaneously beautiful and repellent—plays the starring role in Alicia Kozameh's compelling novel. Alcira is the younger of two sisters; her elder sister, Mariana, is physically and mentally disabled. The novel traces the complicated relationship between the sisters through the years and shows how the family addresses the challenges of Mariana's upbringing. . . . This is a complex, multileveled, satisfying novel that will give book-group readers plenty of themes to discuss." —Booklist (January 2013)

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