Three Messages and a Warning - By Eduardo Jimenez Mayo Page 0,5

she’d finished her chores, Guadalupe and her little one would retire to their room and leave me alone, watching my children sleep. Since the door to my room was always left open, I could never sleep, fearing that at any moment he might come in and attack us. Closing the door wasn’t even an option; my husband always got home late and if he’d found it closed he’d have thought . . . And I mean he got home really late. You work such long hours, I remarked once. I wonder if work’s the only thing keeping you out . . .

One night, I was woken at nearly two in the morning, hearing him in the distance . . .

When I woke, I saw him at my bedside, looking at me with his fixed, penetrating stare . . .

I jumped up and hurled the gas lamp I kept lit at night. Our little town didn’t have electricity and I couldn’t stand the dark, knowing that at any moment . . . he deflected the lamp and slipped away as it crashed on the brick floor with the gasoline bursting into flames. If Guadalupe hadn’t heard my screams, the whole house would have burned down. My husband had neither time to listen to me nor any concern for what went on in our house. We spoke only when necessary. Over time, our affection and our words had run dry.

I still feel sick when I think about this . . . Guadalupe had gone shopping and left little Martín asleep in the crib where he rested during the day. I went to check on him intermittently; he was sound asleep. It was around noon. I was combing my children’s hair when I heard the little boy’s howl mixed with strange grunts. When I reached the bedroom I found him cruelly hitting the child. I don’t know what happened, but I somehow got hold of the boy and managed to swing a club I found in my hand, attacking him with all the rage that had been building for so long. I don’t know if it did much damage, since I passed out cold. When Guadalupe got back from her errands, she found me distraught and her little one bleeding and covered in bruises. She was overcome by pain and fearsome fury. Fortunately, the boy survived and healed quickly.

I was scared that Guadalupe would go away and leave me all alone. If she didn’t, it was because she was a noble, valiant woman who had deep affection for me and my children. But that day saw the birth of a hatred in her, one that demanded vengeance.

When I told my husband what had happened, I begged him to take him away, pleading that he might kill our children like he tried to kill little Martín. “You get more hysterical every day. It’s really painful and depressing to see you like this . . . I’ve told you a thousand times that he’s harmless.”

I thought then that I should flee from that house, from my husband, from him . . . But I didn’t have any money and getting in touch with the outside world was almost impossible. Without friends or relatives to turn to, I felt as lonely as an orphan.

My children were terrorized; they didn’t want to play in the garden and wouldn’t leave my side. Whenever Guadalupe went out to the market, we’d shut ourselves up in my room.

“This situation cannot continue,” I told Guadalupe one day.

“We have to do something, and soon,” she replied.

“But what can we two do alone?” Alone, true, but full of such hate . . .

Her eyes gleamed strangely. I was terrified and thrilled.

Our chance came when we least expected it. My husband went to the city on business. He’d be back, he told me, in twenty days or so.

I don’t know if he realized that my husband had left, but that day he woke up earlier than usual and stationed himself in front of my room. Guadalupe and her son slept in my room that night, and, for the first time, I was able to shut the door.

Guadalupe and I spent almost all night scheming. The children slept quietly. Every so often, we heard him walk up to the bedroom door and bang on it furiously . . .

Guadalupe sawed several planks of wood, big, strong ones, while I looked for a knife and some nails. When everything was ready, we tiptoed over to the