Eveline

Carmen Llena Pérez

She stood among the swaying crowd in the station at the North Wall. She looked quite nice, with her Brown dress and a tiny suitcase in her hand. Inside, she was completely lost and confused. Suddenly, the world stopped and everyone was staring at her. “What’s wrong? Why is everybody looking at me?” Tears ran down her cheeks, she started feeeling anxiety and found herself shouting for help. No one would move a finger. Eveline closed her eyes, started breathing slowly trying to keep herself calm. Then, she opened her eyes. Everything was normal. Frank was almost 10 metres away from her. She run to his arms and kissed him desperately.

- Eveline, the visit has ended.

She looked at the person whose voice had just sounded. The voice belonged to a serious woman dressed in a white uniform.

- Please…a little bit more

But she knew it was not possible. She had to say goodbye to him, Thomas, her husband. Where was Frank? “We have told you before Eveline, Frank is not here” they would answer every time. But, where is he, then?

She hadn’t known anything about him since they met at the station. At that moment, she was so scared about the future that was waiting for her, that she ran back to her home. Time went by, and she never received any letter. She didn’t send anything neither. After a while, she met a man, Thomas. She was not in love, but she still married him in order to help her dad, who was dying. She did everythinmg she could, but he passed away two months after their wedding. Eveline was not happy with her life. Thomas loved her, he was crazy for her and because of that, she started feeling uncomfortable, desperate, remembering her old life: her family, her home… and Frank. She became obsessed, she could only think about him. Thomas knew that, but he never said anything. After three years of marriage, Eveline started feeling so paranoid she couldn’t sleep. “Frank… Frank…” she would say at any time of the day. Her husband did his best to please her,
but she was so sick, so immerse in her past that there came a moment when she was not
living in the present anymore.

Now, she is in a mental sanatorium, recreating every day at every hour the moment
when she saw Frank at the station. And Thomas, with his broken heart, imagines how
his life would be if he hadn’t met her, if she had gone with Frank. But you know, love is
love.

December 2018

Eveline

Yara Flórez García

Frank decided to go up on board, but he kept gazing at her, waiting for a glance. He really was in love with his Evy. That young lady full of dreams was the proof that he needed to change and become a new man instead of that sailor with no future. What else could he do. Frank didn't know how to persuade Eveline of his good intentions.

She was standing there but no-one could make her reason. Her hope for a new life of opportunities was flying through the misty air and Eveline was there completely paralyzed. Suddenly, old memories came into her mind and the idea of leaving her father and her family became the one and only matter of concern. She had made a deathbed promise and that was something unbreakable.

‘‘Lady, you should move on! You are disturbing other passengers!,’’ someone shouted.

She was still not able to move; as hell on earth, everything was so confusing. Were her feelings for Frank real or just an illusion to escape from that stinky and depressing life? At the same time, she started to open her hands slowly and free her soul from the iron railing. When she  was finally completely free of her ties, she started to run as fast as she could to give up her new life.

Back to her house and sickening old life. She sat again at the window covered by dusty cretonne curtains thinking about what to expect now. Everything was lost for her. She was trapped in a life in which her father would soon start to be violent. He suddenly appeared in the room, furious about the news that someone had broken him. But Eveline did not notice him standing next to her. Immersed in her own thoughts, she kept looking through the curtain slit. Once again her father raised the voice. ‘‘Are you a fool?’’ he said, while the veins of his neck started to swell.

All the fears that Eveline used to have about her father suddenly came to her mind, but she answered quite calmly and peacefully: ‘‘I am not.’’ She remained there as if nothing has happened and her father said: ‘‘How could you even think that you can leave your family for a sailor?’’ But she couldn't answer that. She had been dreaming about opportunities, but they had all become just a mix of the breeze and mist that surrounded the boat in which she was supposed to leave.

She got up from the chair, picked up her coat and handbag and went out. It was late afternoon, the light was going down but it was still warm enough in the streets. She kept wandering until she realized that there was no possible solution to her problem. Nevertheless, walking through the side-walk that was next to the park where she used to play she felt relief. The stress disappeared and she finally understood that her happiness was conditioned by the memories of her childhood.

December 2018

Eveline

Malena Alonso García

Everything was paralysed around her. But suddenly everything moved even faster than before. Eveline could not make a move or a sound, she could only watch the ship sailing away from her and the people going away without knowing that Eveline´s future had just escaped on that boat.

When she was finally able to move she started running and didn’t stop till she arrived at her house, at the exact same place where she had been weighing her decision a few hours before.

She hadn’t had time to assimilate what just had happened when her father arrived claiming for his dinner, a dinner that Eveline had not prepared since she was at the dock. She tried to explain to him that she thought he would be late that night and she thought of preparing it later, so it could be warm when he arrived. But Eveline´s father did not even listen to her and he started throwing thing away, plates, glasses, everything that was on his way. Obviously, he had been drinking. Eveline cried while sitting in the kitchen’s corner and when her father finally left, to go back to the bar she guessed, she continued crying for an hour, only thinking about the boat and her dark future.

She thought she could never move again, but without knowing how, she stood up and went slowly to her bedroom. She grabbed her mother’s old suitcase from the wardrobe and started packing the few clothes she had. She hadn´t packed before because she knew she wasn’t going with Frank, but now she felt the necessity of escape. She sat at the table and started writing a letter. She had been wondering if writing the letter was the best thing to do, but she finally wrote it.

The letter was addressed to her father. She explained that she hadn’t been successful on taking the role of her mother and she would never be. She tried to convince him that leaving him was the best for both of them, she did not want him to be furious. She left the letter on the table and went out.

She had thought so much about her father that she had not even considered where to go.

She was trying to figure out what to do and where to go when she bumped into a girl who was passing by. The girl said she was called Lili and then asked Eveline if she was okay.

“Are you going anywhere? I can go with you if you want. I have to take a ship, but it           doesn’t leave until 3 pm.”

Eveline’s mind was going crazy, but she heard the word ship and she could not avoid asking about it. The girl went on talking:

“I am taking a ship, I’m moving to America. I want to be an actress. My mum says actors are lazy and unsuccessful people, but I don’t care, I’m sure one day she will have to take back her words when she sees me on the big screen”.

Eveline didn’t know what to say

“Are you going anywhere, or are you just lost? Why don’t you come with me?  You look very kind and you already have your luggage.”

Eveline answered she had not money

“You know what? That’s what we are going to do. I´ll pay for your ticket, I have some extra money and if you work in the kitchen or something it will be cheaper. But in exchange for it you will live with me. We can be roommates and everything will be cheaper and funnier as well.”

Eveline tried to think about it, but her mind was confused. Without being conscious of what she was doing, her lips said OK.

Lili helped her with her suitcase and both girls went straight to the ship.

Eveline gazed at the dock, maybe for the last time, and when she was starting to think about her family, her father or her house, Lili appeared.

“This is the start of our new life.”

The ship started to move, Eveline looked at the face of her new best friend, of her real saviour. She turned forward, never to turn back again.

Eveline

Natalia García Bonilla

Eveline was still holding onto the barrier so hard that it looked as it was going to break it. Frank was calling her to get onto the boat while he was swallowed by a tide of people eager for a better and prosperous life.

Eveline felt lost. She closed her eyes and tried to remain calm.

"Evvy, fast! "

She listened as Frank called her. She breathed and began praying to God. Around her everything was lost in the distance. She no longer heard the noise that people made, she did not hear her boyfriend call her. Was he really her boyfriend, did he really love her? She no longer heard the noise of the ship, nor of the water nor of the wind. The last thing she heard was the word freedom  a girl's voice.

"Eveline, what's wrong?"

Frank was there. Standing by her side. A sailor. A sailor with perhaps a girlfriend in each port? She tried to push that thought away from her mind. She did not know what to do, she felt so lost. She looked inside and saw herself as a scared girl who needed to be loved, whose father did not treat her badly again, because he did not go home drunk again, and whose family was united. Her mother could be alive and hug her. She hugged Frank and asked him to go and say goodbye to her father forever.

Everything was covered in dust. There was a dead air. That house died when her mother did. Frank waited outside, and Eveline went in to look for her father. She called him, and the answer she got was “Go away, bastard”. She followed those words that hurt her like bullets to find her unwanted father. Of course, he was in the kitchen, sitting and drunk like a vat. As soon as he saw her, he got up and started shouting and insulting her. He told her that it was her fault that the family was like this, she had not fulfilled the promise she made to her deceased mother to keep everyone together. The threatening father looked at her with bloodshot eyes. He just opened his mouth to tell her that he swore to God that he was going to kill her at that moment, that she was not going to look for more freedom through the window, she would burn in the underworld. He began to beat her. He grabbed her hair and banged her against one of the walls. She felt the pain that was beginning to appear in her head, saw the blood running down her face, as she was slowly blaming herself, feeling bad. She wanted everything to end. Did she really do something wrong, or was her mother asking her something that not only involved her? She was not guilty of anything. She was a good person. She did not have to endure those blows, she deserved to be loved, and Frank loved her, her father made her afraid of Frank. Frank was out.

"Frank, help me!"

Outside the sailor heard the girl calling him. He entered as quickly as he could, and saw that violent scene. He did not think twice. He took a knife from the table and went to attack the father of his Evvy. Everything went wrong. The monster of her father saw he coming and nailed the sailor a knife in the heart.

"I hate you, father."

After saying that, she took the same knife with which her love was killed, and committed suicide and everything turned black.

Eveline was still holding onto the barrier so hard it looked like she was going to break it. Frank was calling her to go to the boat while he was swallowed by a tide of people eager for a better and prosperous life.

Eveline felt lost. She closed her eyes and tried to remain calm.

"Evvy, fast! "

She was sweating, everything had been the product of fear. A girl passed by saying “freedom”. She did not know what had happened. Maybe that was the signal she was waiting for from God. But what did God want to say with that? Inside her, she knew that she had to leave, to leave that place that was dead and wanted to kill her. She left the barrier that held her, and moved beyond it. She went to get hold of her freedom, to a new and better opportunity of life next to Frank.

She was free.

December 2018

Eveline is Eveline (Ending to James Joyce's "Eveline")

Paula Fernández Lombardero

She stood there, clutching the iron railing tightly, watching how her chance to star a new life moved away aboard the boat. Maybe it was meant to be like this. She, staying at the docks and going back home to live with her father. Sitting at her window, watching time go by, getting old, being the same girl, as always…

She took her suitcase, after having a fleeting glance at the boat, which now resembled a formless figure because of the distance it was taking from Dublin.

What was she doing? A picture of her mother flooded her thoughts. Would she have wanted her daughter to live like this? Would she have wanted her little girl to live without a chance to decide what she wants?

Eveline shook her head lightly, lowering her eyes to her shoes. It wasn’t time to think about that. She firmly fastened her suitcase and took the way back home. With her father, who would surely be drowned in alcohol, with the memory of her mother… Back to her monotonous life. The way back home was long, even more if so it you went on foot. For her, to cross the city of Dublin was like walking a new place. The city itself made her think of others, how wonderful it would be to live far from home, far from her life tied to the memory of her deceased mother and her abusive father. Far from mistreatment. Far from…

And there it was.

She stood paralyzed in front of the shop window of seams. What if… No. It was crazy. She deflected her gaze back toward the city docks, looked beyond it, and observed the sea, the horizon, the sun slowly falling to, later, meet the water… And once again, she looked at the shop window. More specifically, at the curtains.

“There you are.”

It all became meaningful for her at that moment. She just needed to see a couple of curtains to find out what she wanted. She looked at the clock that stood in the tower of the town hall and without delay, entered the shop. The owner of the store, an elderly lady, received her with a warm smile, which increased Eveline’s security. They started talking about the different styles of curtains and of the fabrics. Eveline focused her gaze on a pair of curtains. She knew that those were the ones. The design was simple, a pink background and a pattern of white camellias. The lady kindly explained to her that the camellias meant “love” and the white camellias “pure love”. She thought of her mother and her father who, in spite of all the abuse she got from him, must surely love her. After all, he was her father.

She bought the curtains and left the shop to resume the way home. The last one. As soon as she arrived she left the curtains, which were wrapped, in front of the door. She bent down to be able to open her suitcase and draw from it a pen and paper. In it, she wrote everything she wanted to say to her father, both good and bad things. In that paper was reflected Eveline’s desire for her father to live happily, at least as happy as he could. But above all, the yearning for a new life was reflected in it.

When she had finished writing those words, which became a tough challenge for her, she got up and, with the letter in her hands, stared at the door of her house calmly. She hesitated several times before knocking on the door. She though writing that letter had been a challenge, but she was wrong, the real challenge was a few feet away... In an act of courage, she picked up the curtains from the floor and tightened them with her arms. She passed the letter under the door and knocked at the door; then she picked up her suitcase and hurried to hide. A few minutes later her father opened the door and stood on the threshold looking in all directions until he looked down at the floor and saw the letter. As soon as he saw her name, “Eveline”, in the letter he knew what it was about. She saw a small smile on his face and again, he went back into the house. Now she does.

She is free.

17^th December 2018

Eveline

María Fernández Trava

He rushed beyond the barrier and called to her to follow. He was shouted at to go on but he still called to her. She set her white face to him, passive, like a helpless animal. Her eyes gave him no sign of love or farewell or recognition.

Did she make the right decision? That was all her mind could think of while she kept clutching the iron railing and looking into the mist. Did I just miss the opportunity to have the happy life I have always wanted?

People passed like they already knew about their paths in life. Was it really that difficult to discover hers?

“Sweetheart, are you ok? You look so pale.” An unknown voice spoke to her, but she could not notice it. She was lost in her thoughts.

“Oh my goodness! Look at your hands. You are bleeding!” She felt the warms hands helping her stop gripping the iron railing and as she slowly started to be conscious of what surrounded her, she noticed the cuts on the palms of her hands and jumped.

“Careful! Come, let me help you treat those wounds. It will be fast, yes?” She looked up and she saw a sweet yet concerned smile facing her. Still not in her senses, Eveline let the old lady guide her. It felt like the right thing to do.

After a short, silent walking, they arrived at a field. Her childhood memories were coming back and she wished she could go back.

“Sit down here, I’ll be back in a minute, so don’t worry. Ok?” She nodded. All the events that happened that day, her mother, the field going through her mind. It was overwhelming.

“I’m here! Let me see those hands again. I promise it won’t hurt.” The old lady softly held her hands and started cleaning the blood as Eveline kept reviving the moments again and again in her head. She felt so stupid; she could be heading to Buenos Ayres at that moment, with a bright future waiting for her. Now all she had was an enraged parent waiting for her to come back home, so she would have to bear with all his screams again.

No. This wasn’t what she wanted. Why? Why didn’t she leave? She didn’t want to go back to that place. Why didn’t she leave? She started hyperventilating.

“Oh no, darling! Am I being too harsh? I’m so sorry, I’ll try to be more careful. Wait, are you ok, sweetie?” The woman was shocked when she saw Eveline’s tears, but quickly she wiped them away.

“Tell me what is on your mind,” she said with a calm voice that felt so familiar and close to her.  She couldn’t take it anymore and started telling the lady about Frank, about her parents, about how the field seemed so familiar. Everything.

The woman smiled tenderly.

“Of course you did the right thing! You decided for yourself, without anybody’s help! That’s so brave.”

Eveline felt relieved after getting those thoughts out of her chest. Nevertheless, she still believed she had failed her mother.

“You know what? Us mothers only want our children to be happy, no matter what promises we’ve made. I’m sure your mother would be proud of how much you love and respect her; still, she wouldn’t want you to be in this situation. You don’t deserve to suffer like this, and your father needs help, he can’t keep treating you like that.”

The mist seemed to have almost disappeared and Eveline’s breathing went back to normal.

“You still have a long life to live and it’s totally ok if you still haven’t decided what to do. But it is important that you know that even if it’s always nice to have someone by your side, you can be happy by yourself. It is your life after all.”

“Thank you, Miss...” Eveline muttered.

“Nizzola. It’s Nizzola. Besides, why don’t you stay here and take a break if this field makes you feel so comfortable? I don’t mind.”

That was what Eveline did. It felt like what was stolen long ago from her had finally come back to her life. A tiny step forward to happiness that would be followed by some more soon enough, as that would not be the only time she would pay a visit to Nizzola’s place.

December 2018

The voice (A different ending to “Eveline” by James Joyce)

Paula Fernández Maseda

He rushed beyond the barrier and called to her to follow. He was shouted at to go on, but he still called to her. She set her white face to him, passive, like a helpless animal. Her eyes gave him no sign of love or farewell or recognition.

Suddenly, her hands could not feel the iron. Her skin was asleep, almost dead, as heavy leather that caged her bones. It was not hers anymore.

The sky of Dublin began to burst into thousands of drops above her, but she did not feel the Irish rain tickling her arms, her hands or her cheeks. She felt nothing but numbness from her fingertips to the core of her very soul.

He had left. And there she stood, paralyzed for what felt like an eternity. Her insides felt oddly empty. She searched in her gut for some sadness, some anger, some guilt for not leaving with him…But all she could find was a turbulent apathy.

Her feet walked home. They knew the way by heart. When she arrived at the door with her rain-soaked hair, she reached for the keys in her bag. She had known from the beginning that she would not be able to leave. How could she? This was her only home, she was a part of it.

She burnt the letters she had written and for an instant, she thought she would know how to pretend that nothing had happened. Her body sat at the window again, but her mind was still in front of the cold, blue and gigantic ocean than led everywhere and nowhere. She had lost track of time and space and had the impression that her mind was rambling in nothingness, miles away from her body.

When had he left? It seemed like years ago. Gosh, how much she craved his hands around her waist, just like when he walked her home and they passed by the red brick houses. She wanted that tenderness and warmness so desperately that it hurt.

She could almost hear Frank’s voice calling her from the ship. Even from Argentina.

“Come, Evvy”.

Frank had sounded so sweet all those nights at the theatre, singing melodies that hugged her tightly and erased the loneliness from her tired eyes, yet Eveline could only remember how harsh his voice had blared at the harbour. How strongly it had beaten her, whipped her and crushed her. Frank’s eyes had looked at her with a terrifying lust and hunger that she did not want to fill. They looked like her dad’s.

 She imagined him now with all the lasses that loved him and she tried to guess how much he craved their bodies. Those girls would go on any vessel with him, wouldn’t they? He deserved someone that could do that for him. Someone that could break promises and swim entire oceans for him. He deserved much more than she was willing to give, didn’t he? But he had left. And she deserved someone that would have stayed.

For God knows how long, life went on without her realizing it. Her body worked at the Stores, cooked dinner and took care of the children. Her hands washed the dishes, her ears heard the poisoned words that came out of her father’s mouth and her nose smelled the beer in his breath night after night. Her eyes still gazed out of the window from time to time, but she was not there anymore. She was always looking vacant at the black mass that had left without her.

Eventually, her house became a black mass as well. Always dark, each day it seemed smaller, shabbier, sadder… The air was so stagnated that it became poisonous, like petroleum that choked her. The walls seemed to be coming closer together, stained with grey mould and mildew. And the dust that was once on the curtains piled up on her skin.

Her body was as sad, dark and small as the house. It often forgot how to eat, so Eveline began to starve herself. It forgot how to sleep. Some days, Eveline’s body could not even remember how to breathe.

At this point, her reality and her nightmares had blended. The priest in the yellowing photograph looked at her with disturbed eyes and whispered things that made her nauseous. He spied on her, following her everywhere she went. She knew it! Eveline tried to figure out what he wanted, but she was too scared to ask.

 After some days, she started to hear her mother’s voice behind the walls. What a beautiful voice had her mother had! She remembered how she used to sing in the kitchen while she was cooking dinner for the whole family. She would not taste a bit of it, leaving it all for the children that she had learnt to love so deeply. She must have been Eveline’s age when she gave birth for the first time. She was life. Then, her body and her mind began to break slowly. So did the family. Her mother’s voice now haunted her.

“I was just like you.”

Eveline cried when she heard that. She was breaking too. How long could she bear it? How more could she stay in this house before it swallowed her?

Her brain was filled with her mother’s loud, painful voice. It stabbed her like a sharp, cold knife. She tried to cry it away, but it would not leave. It was treading on her living rests.

“I was just like you.”

“I was just like you.”

“I was just like you.”

The house was falling down on her and she felt like part of the ruins. Was she a corpse already? She could not be. She still heard the voice. It felt like a fingernail scraping over a blackboard again and again. She shivered. The voice was so loud that she could not even hear herself. She was muted by her mother’s cry.

And then she realized. She could not remember the last time she had listened to her own voice. Every word she had uttered in her life had been someone else’s. She  filled her lungs with the eerie air of the house and with all the strength of her beaten body she shouted:

“But I won’t be like you!”

And she heard herself for the first time. She wanted to say every word she had swallowed deep down in her throat and grow fond of every vowel she had kept hidden. She wanted to hear herself. She wanted everyone to hear her.

 As she uttered her first words, Eveline opened the door and her mother’s voice vanished. She stepped outside and as she breathed in, she tasted the purest, freshest air in her mouth and knew something was healing. She was. It was the first time she had breathed after birthing her freedom.

She closed the door to never come back, for she had to find a room of her own, a house, a place to breathe, where she could be her own prophet.

December 2018

Revisiting "Eveline"

"Girl by the Window" (Edward Munch, 1893)

In December 2016 I asked my LITIN students to give closure to Jame Joyce's "Eveline" (Dubliners, 1914). Only four took the challenge, but all four of them came up with incredible endings. Here they are.

Closure to James Joyce's "Eveline"

Ana Gutiérrez Sánchez

 

Eveline stood there, frozen, waiting; hands cramping from her firm grasp on the railing. What to do? In a second, life came back to her, eyes wild with realization. Leave! She had to leave; she had to break her mother’s promise to keep home, her home, from falling apart. How could she stay, knowing the outcome of such a decision? Knowing like she knew the result of a still life, like the one her mother had led and had made her lead for almost two decades; knowing like she knew that she would eventually go insane, drowned in the grey atmosphere of a dusty room.

“Evvy! Hurry!”

Eveline clutched the locket around her neck, which now held a yellowing photograph of its previous owner, Eveline’s mother. Looking at the picture she could see disappointed eyes and pursed lips of disapproval in a face that, she remembered, had once held the beauty of youth and innocence. Much to her chagrin, Eveline knew she had gone from childish features directly to the tiredness of a much older woman, completely skipping the youthful glow that she so craved.

And she would have it; she would reverse time and breach the surface of the ocean drowning her, she would dust herself off and keep Frank from becoming her father, keep herself from becoming her mother. She would be reborn on her own terms. She would go. She would just go.

Eveline breathed, basking in the feeling of salty air in her lungs, devoid of the dust she had grown so accustomed to. She breathed in the metal of the ships, the sounds filling the air around her, people’s voices carrying in the wind; Frank’s still calling for her.

“Eveline, come!”

She finally moved. Step by step, one foot after the other. Off the docks, through the gangplank and onto the deck. The gentle sway of the waves caught her off guard for a split moment, and she held on to the deck railing to keep from stumbling.

Frank came up behind her, placing a hand on her waist to help her regain her balance.

“Finally! Are you okay?”

Eveline had not thought she would cry when she left, but now she felt tears pricking her eyes, overwhelmed by this newfound hope.

“Never better”, she smiled.

The ship spurred into movement and, sooner than she would have thought, they were in open sea. She stood there, beside Frank, watching the ship’s wake disrupting the pattern of the waves. They were finally leaving. She was leaving.

She had left.

9th January, 2017

Illustration of Eveline

Illustration by Stephen Crowe, 2010

Source: http://www.wakeinprogress.com/2014/07/dubliners-4-eveline.HTML

Eveline, Part II

Miguel García Tamés

Eveline loosened her grip on the iron railing, composed herself and started walking home without looking back. Along the way, her thought focused on the last expression she had perceived on Frank’s face: it was not the sad grimace of a disappointed lover but rather a serious, cold, sinister look; so terrifying that it had made her heart want to stop beating. She had never seen before this expression in Frank’s invariably merry countenance: this new look was black, as black as the massive boat that awaited him at the station. And yet, she knew that this expression she had caught on the sailor’s face was genuine. He was not acting, no: he was showing his real feelings. She immediately grasped the bitter truth: he did not love her, then. He had never really loved her; his intention was only to lure her into going away with him... But why? To which end? If he did not love her, why had he taken so much trouble trying to be nice to her?

As she walked lost in these thoughts, she heard a paper boy screaming: “Latest news! Irish prostitution network dismantled in Buenos Ayres!” And suddenly she understood everything about Frank: his niceness, his attentions and his sweet devotion for her from the very first time they had met. Above all, she could now explain to herself that odd impression she had sometimes that Frank performed his songs and stories in a strangely professional fashion, as if he had been rehearsing them over and over... How many other girls might have fallen prey to Frank’s charms before her? How stupid she had been!

She went directly to the police station and filed a suit against Frank. A deep sensation of relief overwhelmed her as she went out of the shiny brick building and she thanked God for having inspired her to leave Frank in the crucial moment.  Back home, she dusted off meticulously the cretonne curtains and resumed her boring, insubstantial life.  For some years, she endured Miss Gavan’s harassment at the shop and her father’s abuses at home. But she did not care much, for now she knew that God was on her side.

Then, one Saturday, her father arrived home later than usual, in a particularly inebriated state. As so often, he had started to tease her about the money, but this time she could perceive a strange aggressiveness about him that somehow was not altogether new for her. To her alarm, in his eyes she recognized the same furious look which she had helplessly witnessed many years ago, when her mother was still alive. He was going to beat her. “Why are you looking at me like that?” her father asked in a drowsy voice. She did not answer, and he started advancing clumsily towards her, his eyes injected with blood. She felt her cheek pale and cold and, out of a maze of distress, she prayed to God to direct her, to show her what to do. She realized her father was talking to her “You are not even listening to me! Is this your way to show respect for a father?” He was already very close; she could smell the gin in his breath as she kept moving her lips in silent fervent prayer.

The drunkard raised his hand in order to smack her in the face, but he never reached his goal: Eveline ducked, stepped swiftly aside and, as her father’s body lost balance, she pushed his head with all her strength against the corner of the sink. A trickle of blood flowed out of her father’s ear as his body lay motionless on the kitchen floor, creating a curious pattern on the tiles. It reminded Eveline of a sea wave, a purifying red wave that had released her forever of her father’s future abuses.

The police report stated “Accidental death due to domestic fall. Autopsy revealed high alcohol concentration in blood”. Of course, nobody ever suspected that such a caring, selfless daughter as Eveline might have had anything to do with the fatal accident.     

Eveline mourned her father conveniently, but she did not miss him in the least: actually, she would have felt quite happy had it not been for the constant presence of the voice of her dead mother in her head. As a result of some kind of universal karma, she seemed to have replaced her husband’s presence, and she constantly reproached her daughter for not having kept the family together as she had promised. Eveline tried to convince her mother that it had been God’s will, but her mother did not accept this explanation, so they went on arguing and arguing as only mother and daughter can do.

After the brief mourning period, Eveline resumed her tasks at the store, and Miss Gavan resumed her harassment with growing intensity.

“Miss Hill, you are too distracted these days! Don’t let your grieve interfere with your professional tasks!”

But of course, Miss Gavan could not know how busy her mind was lately, discussing her father’s assassination with her mother. Day after day, the situation at the store was becoming worse.

“Miss Hill: if you keep committing stupid mistakes, you will soon be dismissed!”

Dismissed! The thought of losing her job made Eveline feel dizzy: what should she do then? Were should she go? Frank’s dark countenance flashed in her mind, along with the dark vessel at the station and the looming presence of some dark brothel in Buenos Ayres.  She realized that Miss Gavan’s harassment would not stop unless she put an end to it herself. She remembered with relief that God was on her side. Once again, she prayed to God to direct her.

“Miss Hill: you’re not even listening to me! I am going to have to report your attitude to the store manager!”

She kept moving her lips in silent fervent prayer and God’s answer came loud and clear: Eveline’s hand clutched the big iron scissors and started stabbing Miss Gavan to death, careless of the horrified looks of colleagues and customers. As the body of her oppressor became progressively silent, she started to feel the red, warm ocean that had been flowing onto her body: her hands, her face, her dress were touched by this new purifying wave and she enjoyed it in an almost voluptuous manner. After a while, she searched for her mother’s voice in her own mind but could not find it. Maybe she is gone too, she thought with instant relief. She noticed that the store was remarkably silent. She thanked God: for the first time in her life she was free.

16 December 2016

Picture of Dublin docks, circa 1880

The sailing ship Adolphine moored at the Custom House in Dublin, circa 1880.

The Choice (An ending to "Eveline" by James Joyce)

Lydia García Moreno

 

She stood gripped to the iron railing as she watched the boat walking away from the quay wall and becoming a small point in the distance. Although her body could not move, her heart said goodbye to Frank. Everything around her faded, she was about to faint and started to feel a light pain making its way through her hands. The world stopped for a minute and all she felt was her chest going up and down, hardly breathing, and her thoughts went faster and faster: she had lost the opportunity to escape, to get away from her life and to be happy. But maybe it was not like that, maybe she never had to go away from there, maybe she owed that to her mother and maybe her father was right. Maybe it was not about her parents, it was about her, she wanted to stay. Reality fell down onto her like a big bucket of cold water and this possibility rumbled in Eveline’s mind.

A loud boat beep got her out of her impasse and slowly she started to walk. Looking down at her feet, every step was a deeper feeling of relief, but Frank’s shouting was still in her ears like a hammer hitting again and again. Her mind had been crossed for so long with her father’s words and her mother’s words, everybody had had a word except her. Her suitcase crushed with a bike parked in the pavement and fell to the ground suddenly pulling her arm and forcing her to raise her eyes. The red colour of the brick houses did not bother her any more, she even found them pretty as she walked next to them. The noise of her bag hitting her hip stopped and she found herself right in front of her home door, praying for the house to be empty - she would give the relevant explanations later.

It was not difficult to find the house keys inside her bag, they were always in the same pocket for her to enter quickly and silently - her father hated hearing noise at night. The door opened carefully and Eveline looked around but nobody was inside. She took off her coat and left it in the rack behind the door, then carried her baggage upstairs as best as she could and looked at the time - one hour until her father came and started asking all the questions she would not be able to answer.

All the elements in the house were exactly the same as they were when she was gone. The children shoes were placed in the entrance corner behind the coats, just where she had left them. The living room and the kitchen were cleaned and the food in the fridge was intact. She had worked in the Stores and saved money to leave a full fridge and some sweets for the children – that was her way of fulfilling the promise made to her mother without having to stay.

A deadly silence reigned all over.

In front of her was that horrible curtain that always covered the window. Her mother bought that curtain when her parents arrived at the house for the first time and nobody was allowed to touch it, but she was sated. A stream of rage possessed her and she ran straight to the window shouting unintelligible sounds, took the curtain and tore it out so hard that she fell to the floor with that thing in her hands. As a small tear run down her cheek, she hug the curtain and inhaled the smell for the last time. A soft breeze entered through the window freezing her face and letting her breathe again, deeply and freely. Free. She felt free now. She had chosen.