New Yorker Fiction Review #289: "My Sad Dead" by Mariana Enriquez

 

Review of the short story from the Feb. 13 & 20, 2023 issue of The New Yorker...

What is the purpose of using ghosts or spirits in fiction? We must ask ourselves this -- at once simple and also extremely complicated -- question before delving into a review of the short story in question, "My Sad Dead" by Argentine journalist and fiction writer Mariana Enriquez. 

Let us first put forth the (in my opinion fairly reasonable) idea that ghosts do not exist, at least in the format typically used in fiction and films. The idea that there is a spiritual realm or plane that exists, one that we living humans cannot readily perceive, is not something I feel particularly qualified to rule out. But, suffice it to say, most of us do not have regular (or even irregular) encounters with apparitions, as does Emma, the main character in "My Sad Dead," and her neighbors. 

If regular encounters with ghosts are not part of everyday experience, then -- in a story such as this, something we might call "magical realism" -- the ghosts must stand in for something. What do they stand in for? In my opinion, Mariana Enriquez uses the ghosts in this short story in a fairly straightforward way: as vehicle through which she and her neighbors process and grieve over the deaths that have occurred in their neighborhood, in a quarter of the city wracked by violence.

Emma is a 60-year old, divorced doctor who no longer works as a doctor but rather as an administrator at a "private medical company." Emma lives in modern-day Buenos Aires, Argentina, in a cluster of otherwise attractive middle-class seeming town houses which happens to be surrounded by extremely low-income neighborhoods hopelessly beset by an ongoing rash of violent crime. It's so bad, Emma notes, that some of her neighbors have purchased firearms and are deathly afraid of leaving their homes. Others, like herself, carry on their daily lives under the constant threat of being mugged, beaten, or worse, and many of them have been. 

Emma's tale begins when she is visited by her mother's ghost. Her mother died of aggressive cancer and -- because she was allergic to morphine -- spent her last days in excruciating pain, which explains why her ghost begins its haunting of Emma's house with one of the same screams she used to utter in her final days, a noise which one of Emma's neighbors remarks upon, but which Emma explains away.

In the world of this story, ghosts can be seen and heard by all, and come back to "haunt" those who were nearby when they died, or with whom they have some unfinished business. Thus, over the course of the next few months, the neighborhood is haunted by the ghosts of a trio of teenaged girls who were gunned down walking home from a party, a teenaged boy who was the victim of an "express kidnapping" gone wrong, and a would-be thief who fell from the roof of one of the neighbors homes as he was trying to rob them.

Emma, for reasons not precisely clear (this is, after all, a story about ghosts), seems to have an ability to communicate with the ghosts and becomes the neighborhood's de facto ghost whisperer. One of the particularly charming moments in the story is when Emma goes to talk to and comfort the trio of teenage ghost girls after they realize they have been murdered and start freaking out. 

Mariana Enriquez's prose (translated from Spanish, it is worthy to note), is frank, tender, and laced with humor, and the wise, forgiving Emma is a lovable character, making this story an easy read; however, it is not a simple story to unpack. What is really going on in "My Sad Dead"? What is at stake?

The specter of violent crime looms over Emma's neighborhood and her entire section of town (perhaps the entire city). Despite the fact that people still seem to be going about their daily lives, one gets the strong impression of a city on the brink of chaos. Just a few blocks away from Emma's door, neighbors are kidnapping and killing each other; people are gunned down on her very street. These events, while alarming, are a part of life for Emma and her neighbors. 

Twice, very early in the story, Emma alludes to another looming specter, that of fascism.  

"My ex-husband, who works at an oil company and lives in Patagonia, tells me that the neighbors are just afraid. I tell him that fascism generally starts with fear and turns into hatred. He tells me that I should sell the house and move to the South to be closer to him."

A bit later she describes how, in neighborhood meetings, which are really just commiserating sessions, the neighbors advocate increased police violence in retaliation, recommending that the police put the heads of criminals on stakes. Emma also relates how, at these meetings, the neighbors mythologize about the golden days when their grandparents immigrated (mostly from Europe) to Argentina, and what good people they were.

Emma strongly rejects these myths and -- though she doesn't say much of anything in opposition -- opposes police- and state-sponsored violence as the answer. This is Emma -- and Mariana Enriquez -- strongly warning against the kind of populist mythology that often paves the way for right wing leaders to take power. At 60 years old (and assuming the story takes place in present day), Emma would be old enough to vividly remember the military coup and dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983 and to not want to see it come again. Perhaps her memory is longer than those of her neighbors. Perhaps whatever sagacity it is that causes these ghosts to seek her out also gives her the insight to know the kind of horror that could be coming on the horizon, something even more frightening than violent crime: a violent, oppressive government. 

This highly complex story operates on a few other levels besides being simply a thinly-veiled warning whistle to the kind of popular fear and story-telling that enables fascist dictatorships to gain power. It also operates as a philosophical statement on the nature of life, aging, forgiveness, and death. In talking about the role she plays for the spirits who visit her, Emma says:

"There's no peace or closure. There's no reconciliation. No passage to the other side. All of that is fiction. I just soothe them and keep them from re-offending so often that they make life unbearable for the living. But they do come back eventually; it's as if they forget, and we have to start all over again. Why is that?"

What is Mariana Enriquez saying here? I see this as a powerful statement of the author's belief that healing is a never-ending process and that there is no such thing as "redemption." There is only temporary comfort and a learned process of self-soothing that keeps us all from descending into madness. 

One line in this story that will haunt me for quite a while is this, which comes toward the end of the story, as Emma conjures with her ex-husband's continued suggestion that she leave her home and come to live closer to him and to be there in case his new wife's pregnancy goes wrong:

"...I'm no longer on the side of the living. I can't leave my mother alone; she spends more and more nights sitting in the kitchen, just as she did when she was sick and couldn't sleep for the pain. Nor can I leave the rotting girls who laugh hand in hand on the street...All of them, my sad dead, are my responsibility."

In taking "responsibility" for these ghosts, her sad dead, Emma is taking responsibility for her own grief, her own emotional history. She could choose to run from all this, but she doesn't. That is how she makes sense of the world and of her place in it. 

Photo illustration by Silvia Grav.