- How Things Disappear
A little over a year ago, my aunt Marina suffered a physical collapse that had no precise name or diagnosis. It manifested with pain in strange places, swelling, an inability to walk, and a complete loss of appetite. Her three children concluded that their eighty-five-year-old mother was on the verge of death, and for reasons that remain unclear to me, they decided to empty the contents of her house in order to sell it while she was in the hospital.
Perhaps they imagined that they spared her hard work. Perhaps they imagined that because she could no longer manage the stairs of her house—a two-level townhouse on the outskirts of Guatemala City—she would need a different place, even if she did recover. Regardless, it happened quickly. The furniture was trucked off for a grandnephew who was soon to be married. Important articles of clothing, packed in suitcases, arrived at her daughter's house for the next phase. All the chintzy, beloved, invaluable trinkets that Marina held dear vanished. It was better not to ask how. Porcelain figurines and miniature vases. Threadbare plush toys. Cut glass. Music boxes. [End Page 337]
At her daughter's house, still unwell but very much not dead, Marina learned of this loss with shock and grief. Then fury. Then the abrupt conclusion that she was still alive but might as well have died. Her things, her precious things. They had brought clothes that she didn't care about, and all her favorites were gone. The objects that gave meaning to the space around her, anchoring her vision with reminders of the past, had been swept away. This new landscape proved disorienting and pointless. Why go on if your past has already been thrown out?
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A nation's archive is its repository for the past. And in most places, an ethos of conservation militates against loss. Housed in grand buildings that are explicit monuments to the nation's greatness, documents are protected with layer after layer of security. No bags, no pens, no cameras allowed. Please use gloves. Or don't touch at all; this history is behind glass. The ability to protect the fragments of the past depends on a nation's resources. But even in the absence of abundant resources, an ethos of conservation can safeguard documents from the ravages of time.
At the General Archive of Central America (AGCA) in Guatemala City, archivists have long worked with very little to preserve their collection. The AGCA holds approximately 220 million documents pertaining to the history of Central America, but the archive receives scant funds from the Ministry of Culture and Sports. The tables and chairs haven't been replaced for decades. Electricity is expensive, so the archivists sometimes carry a light bulb around in the stacks and screw it in as needed. In recent years, the archive has implemented fees for patrons who wish to take photographs or use the power outlets. It's still not enough to cover the salaries and [End Page 338] upkeep, so the archive staff have often taken it upon themselves to decorate and maintain the place with their own supplies. I was there in 2006 when an artist drew life-size portraits of patrons and staff going about their day. Drawn in charcoals on plain brown paper and taped to the walls, they seemed fragile; I assumed they'd last a month or two. Archive staff care for the corridors and their artwork so painstakingly that the drawings, looking almost like new, are still hanging.
Though they live in the same country and come from the same household, my aunt and her children do not view objects in the same way. Marina was raised in a middle-class family in Guatemala City at a time when hardship and education and money were understood differently than they are today. My mother, the youngest of six, remembers that at mealtimes the three girls got smaller portions than the three boys. New shoes appeared on birthdays, and they had to be cared for assiduously: polished weekly, heels repaired, and laces mended. For all six of the...