Claudia Piñeiro,
Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro, translated from Spanish by Frances Riddle, is a short novel packing a powerful punch. It unfolds in Buenos Aires during the course of one day.
The central character is Elena, a sixty-three-year-old woman suffering from a crippling case of Parkinson’s. Her daughter, Rita, is her caregiver. The novel opens with an apparent suicide. Rita has been found hanging in the belfry at the church. Elena is convinced her daughter did not commit suicide and insists the police investigate the death as a murder. When the police and the priest fail to take her seriously, Elena embarks on journey to solicit the help of Isabel, a woman she met briefly twenty years earlier through her daughter.
The novel is in three sections, Morning, Midday, Afternoon—the times of the day governing Elena’s medication schedule. Since her limbs are completely inert without her medication, Elena has to time her mobility according to when she can take her next medication. She has to wait for however long it takes for the medication to activate her body to follow the signals coming from her brain. Even with medication, she achieves barely a modicum of mobility in her limbs. She personifies the disease as the whore that has invaded her body.
Piñeiro’s portrayal of Elena as she struggles with her disease is particularly poignant and effective. Elena sets off on her quest to solicit the help of Isabel. She treks through the streets of Buenos Aires, painstakingly putting one foot in front of the other. Her body is so debilitated as a result of the disease that she can no longer lift her head up. She navigates the streets by eyeing the pavement and the shoes of passers-by. Even the simplest movements are plagued with a mental and physical struggle that can be overcome only with a Herculean effort. After an arduous train journey followed by a taxi ride, Elena reaches Isabel’s home. Isabel invites her in only to disclose shocking information that completely shatter’s Elena’s perspective.
The novel is peppered with flashbacks which reveal the contentious relationship between Elena and her daughter. They bicker and they fight. Her daughter expresses the burdens that come with taking care of her mother’s every physical need, including her hygiene. Rita complains about her mother’s smell, her appearance, and her inability to control her drooling. And for her part, Elena is cantankerous and irritable and physically helpless.
The novel tackles a number of difficult issues including the overwhelming burden of caregiving for the incapacitated; the agony of a crippling disease; bureaucratic obstacles; mother-daughter relationships; the meaning of motherhood; and control—or lack of control—over one’s body. Elena has lost physical control of her body. And Isabel and Rita also suffer from loss of control over their bodies. But theirs is manifested through social and religious restrictions that exercise power over their bodies and are no less damaging than the disease that plagues Elena.
This is a powerful, sensitive portrayal of the deleterious impact on lives and perspectives that can ensue when physical, social, or religious forces beyond our control exercise power over our bodies.