Corner of the Dead
Publication Year: 2008
Published by: University of Massachusetts Press
Cover
Title Page
Download PDF (18.5 KB)
pp. v-
Copyright Page
Download PDF (26.5 KB)
pp. vi-
Dedication
Download PDF (28.0 KB)
pp. vii-
Part I
Chapter 1
Download PDF (38.8 KB)
pp. 3-5
THERE ARE PLACES in the Andes where we are afraid of dust. Of what might be borne in the dust. We crossed the border and two men in camouflage stepped out from a shack with a corrugated roof, machine guns strapped like mail bags across their chests....
Chapter 2
Download PDF (35.5 KB)
pp. 6-10
I AM STARING at the toast on my plate. The lightly browned texture reminds me of freckles. I carve a mouth by cutting a section from the middle, curve the empty space upwards to make a smile....
Chapter 3
Download PDF (41.6 KB)
pp. 11-14
Outside the hotel window the streets of Ayacucho were frozen like those in a travel poster. I strained for the sound of an Indian harp. All I heard were gunshots. I tried to convince myself it was the sound of a muffl er backfi ring. Rolff was the fi rst person to introduce himself. I waited for the rest of his name. He only...
Chapter 4
Download PDF (24.2 KB)
pp. 15-
THERE WERE three more villages that day. Then a month of villages. Rolff made lists. Arye wrote down phone numbers and passed them to Marta. Marta spent the evenings making calls. I used the camera to block my view....
Chapter 5
Download PDF (51.7 KB)
pp. 16-22
The wind and the dust, I learned, had been condemned to carry ashes. I wanted to say we had been to one village or another; that we had looked but had found nothing. This, Arye would not allow. In our first week Arye bought...
Part II
Chapter 1
Download PDF (49.6 KB)
pp. 25-31
L I M A . Is this you? Still gray. I ask Karl if he sees gray or is it that I am still seeing what I remember from when I was here three years ago with Arye, even though I am here again and am no longer working off memory. It is gray, he says,...
Chapter 2
Download PDF (40.2 KB)
pp. 32-34
AT SUNSET we gather in Enrique’s courtyard. His house is the best in the village although only half-finished. In the two years we live here, the holes where windows should have been are never filled. The radio is set to...
Chapter 3
Download PDF (37.8 KB)
pp. 35-37
IT WRAPS ITSELF around me. Exhaustion and dread and I am shaking. We fell asleep earlier than usual last night. It was the cold. I’m not sure who woke first or if we woke at the same time but it was to a chorus...
Chapter 4
Download PDF (44.1 KB)
pp. 38-42
THE NEXT MORNING we eat our bread and butter. I was afraid to go for milk. Usually I buy it from the woman across the way and boil it for fifteen minutes. I get up from the table to go outside to wash the dishes when Karl tells me to sit. I’m going to leave this...
Chapter 5
Download PDF (35.8 KB)
pp. 43-44
I WALK FASTER toward the cuyera. The light is on in the bedroom. I run up the path, calling to Karl. I don’t want him to be frightened by the noise outside the window. He’s listening to the radio. He looks like a sick pale child with tear-stained cheeks. When I sit...
Chapter 6
Download PDF (37.8 KB)
pp. 45-47
BUSES AND CARS are ambushed. Men in camoufl age block the roads. There are raids in the mountains, people are rushing to escape although it isn’t clear where. They are not aligned with anyone. They...
Chapter 7
Download PDF (43.3 KB)
pp. 48-51
I ASK FOR ONE PORTION. The meat woman asks why only one. Karlos is away. She invites me to stay with her in the apartment above the store, just until he gets back. She calls me by the name he sometimes uses,...
Chapter 8
Download PDF (24.1 KB)
pp. 52-
I HAVE THIS DREAM. Coffee cups rattle on the table, shaken by the force of military jets flying back and forth across the same path of sky. Coffee runs down the sides of the cups. Dark puddles pool on the glass table....
Chapter 9
Download PDF (45.4 KB)
pp. 53-58
THE FIRST Catholic church in this country is at the entrance to the next town over. Its ceiling is made of reeds from the river. A mural on the inside wall tells the story of the conquest. Inside it I am safe even...
Chapter 10
Download PDF (35.1 KB)
pp. 59-60
H E ISN’T BACK. It has been more than two days and two nights. And that was all he said it would be, two days and two nights. In the afternoon I do laundry with the women. They laugh at me and it is true I don’t know how to do the wash without washing myself. After changing...
Chapter 11
Download PDF (23.8 KB)
pp. 61-
MY NIGHTMARES could be from fever. How high my temperature is I’m not sure. I can’t get up for the thermometer. I’m shivering with cold and my throat...
Chapter 12
Download PDF (43.7 KB)
pp. 62-66
I A M FALLING, but, cannot land. I’m not desperate for aspirin but I am dreaming of water, of many glasses of cold water with perfectly formed ice cubes. I reach for one and begin...
Chapter 13
Download PDF (23.9 KB)
pp. 67-
I’LL BE BETTER tomorrow and by tomorrow Karl will be back. What day is it? Is it day already? Blanca wants to know how to...
Chapter 14
Download PDF (35.1 KB)
pp. 68-69
KARL ASKS if I know what day it is. I’ve been sick since you left. Thanksgiving. How do you know? A mountain climber...
Chapter 15
Download PDF (42.9 KB)
pp. 70-74
KARL AND I see them as they wind down the mountain behind our house. They go to Enrique’s, knowing who he is and where he lives. We think they have listened to Enrique when they do not stay. Men gather in front....
Part III
Chapter 1
Download PDF (35.4 KB)
pp. 77-78
LIMA . What has happened to you? There are no lights as far as we can see. Passengers from other buses are asleep on the steps. We hear reports of looting in the city center. There is no choice but to spend the night with them outside the terminal....
Chapter 2
Download PDF (38.8 KB)
pp. 79-80
EL CUARTEL GENERAL DEL EJ�RCITO is a modern building that looks as if it is built on sticks, surrounded by gray haze. There are no windows. I ask Karl if the Pentagon has windows. We...
Chapter 3
Download PDF (24.2 KB)
pp. 81-
WAVES POUND against the rocky shoreline. A Peruvian Alcatraz. Each time I hear them crash ashore, I jump. Even when we are deep inside the prison and under, I hear the waves breaking through....
Chapter 4
Download PDF (23.8 KB)
pp. 82-
ONE MORE. Karl insists. It takes a few days to travel to Puno. If he weren’t pushing me, I would have given up already. At nearly thirteen thousand...
Chapter 5
Download PDF (41.7 KB)
pp. 83-86
WE HAVE NO NEWS, Karl tells Amparo. But we will keep looking. It’s possible he’s nearby, that he hasn’t been taken to prison. He could be with...
Part IV
Chapter 1
Download PDF (36.2 KB)
pp. 89-90
AN ENVELOPE arrives addressed to me. Inside are photographs Karl took of ice and snow. Now I know I left the note I wrote that morning. The bicycle I buy on Third...
Chapter 2
Download PDF (24.4 KB)
pp. 91-
I HAVE NO USE for this lovely felt hat the women in my village gave me. Blanca selected the embroidered ribbons in orange, purple and blue because they matched the ones that wrapped around the brim of her nearly identical hat. The hat is stuffed somewhere in...
Chapter 3
Download PDF (23.8 KB)
pp. 92-
IT IS THE END of the day check-in before they let me go home. The doctors know it is important that I am on time. I worry when someone is late. Late might mean gone. It is why I never make anyone wait....
Chapter 4
Download PDF (35.8 KB)
pp. 93-94
KARL WROTE TO ME for many years after I left. His envelopes were blue. I remember some of his letters by heart. To remember by heart is to remember by feel. This is the worst way to remember. I saved this one. I received it...
Chapter 5
Download PDF (29.3 KB)
pp. 95-97
I TELL THE DOCTOR about our last vacation. The way caravans of families surround us. I use my hands and draw a wide circle indicating the beach. Everyone knows, somehow, the acceptable distance for....
Chapter 6
Download PDF (41.5 KB)
pp. 98-101
AT THE NEXT SESSION the doctor asks how the steak was. I stare at her neatly crossed legs. She doesn’t really want to know. She picks a piece of lint from her woolen jacket. It’s her way of checking facts....
Chapter 7
Download PDF (35.5 KB)
pp. 102-103
RICHARD HANDS ME a wrapped box. Anniversary day. This will be our last. We don’t yet know this. I have nothing for him. Inside his box is a wallet. I keep looking at it, hoping in the looking it will turn into something else. Or I will be able to make...
Chapter 8
Download PDF (42.6 KB)
pp. 104-107
NO LEAK IN THE CEILING. It hasn’t rained for a very long time. Even if it had, only the penthouse would leak and we don’t live on the top floor. The lintel could be rotted though. That would be a way to get rain. But to date our...
Chapter 9
Download PDF (34.8 KB)
pp. 108-109
N O , I ’ D RATHER NOT, I say. Why is that? It’s just a place. The doctor tries to get me to look her in the eye. The rhododendron bushes. The missing. I’m always seeing what’s missing....
Chapter 10
Download PDF (39.3 KB)
pp. 110-112
FROM OUR BEDROOM window I could see the Andes, and closer still, our outdoor spigot. Once the water came out the color of rust. When the clouds lifted, after six months of rain, it looked as if the summit could be reached in an...
Chapter 11
Download PDF (25.2 KB)
pp. 113-
PHOEBE CAME into my bed, sunk her head into my abdomen, the bones of her skull pressed against my spine. Once she lived inside me. The...
Part V
Chapter 1
Download PDF (24.1 KB)
pp. 117-
I SCRAPE MY PALMS against the bottom of the pool. I focus on the moving shapes and shadows, they are like continents on the map I am charting in...
Chapter 2
Download PDF (35.6 KB)
pp. 118-119
THE PHONE RINGS. This hardly ever happens. I’m awake and then asleep until the next ring. It stops. I could go on this way not feeling thirst or hunger. Today, however, Phoebe is relying on me to...
Chapter 3
Download PDF (29.2 KB)
pp. 120-122
I DON’T WANT TO BE HERE. Why? The doctor asks. I don’t want to be falling apart. Are you? I decide not to look up. Is there a pill to take to avoid the next stretch? The part where I collapse? If I can sleep I dream of not being able to do what I’m supposed to do. My sister is with me...
Chapter 4
Download PDF (43.4 KB)
pp. 123-127
I TELL THE DOCTOR about the house falling apart, that I don’t think I can keep it up much longer. Keep what up? The idea of having to go back to work. There’s a kind of lizard in the Amazon with...
Chapter 5
Download PDF (37.1 KB)
pp. 128-130
WHAT DID YOU BRING? The doctor asks. The box is on my lap. Photographs of Perú. I take a deep breath and open it. This is Arye from the first time I went to Perú. I didn’t...
Part VI
Chapter 1
Download PDF (35.4 KB)
pp. 133-134
THE HUDSON RIVER laps against the landfill of lower Manhattan, stretches to the bedrock of New Jersey. Outlines of tree branches reflect like jagged spears. I have been walking for a long time. I come most every day....
Chapter 2
Download PDF (35.5 KB)
pp. 135-136
KARL STAYED in our village for many years after I left. This letter is from five years later. I was married, I think he knew but I’m not sure, maybe not....
Chapter 3
Download PDF (38.4 KB)
pp. 137-139
THE TRUTH and Reconciliation Commission was convened. Karlos wrote requesting my negatives. I sent everything. It is possible Arye was the forensic anthropologist working in our area. And it is possible that....
Chapter 4
Download PDF (37.1 KB)
pp. 140-141
YOU SEND ME photographs of your Andes. The ones that are outside your bedroom window. These photographs remind me of the mountains we once saw together....
Acknowledgments
Download PDF (78.2 KB)
pp. 143-
I am most grateful to the gentle people of Gatazo Zambrano, Chimborazo Province, Ecuador. Especially the family Rea Cuvi and the young girl I once knew there (a ti un abrazo fuerte). On this side of the equator...
Back Cover
E-ISBN-13: 9781613761236
E-ISBN-10: 1613761236
Print-ISBN-13: 9781558496545
Print-ISBN-10: 1558496548
Page Count: 160
Publication Year: 2008
Series Title: Juniper Prize for Fiction
