Justice, She Said

Write a story about someone seeking revenge for a past wrong, they said. 

How can I do that, I said. 

Yet they deserve it, I said then, after mulling the idea over for a bit. 

Once I’d accepted the fact that revenge was justified, I began to think of how to write about how to carry it out and I started to look around for models to guide me. You see, I knew I would probably be committing a crime and might very well get caught. Still and all, I wanted my crime to be perfect. Please be advised that my own act of revenge might not be revealed here; that would be counter-productive, like confessing to what I wanted to do before I’d been accused of it?

Do you follow me? Ha! That’s part of the plan: you’re supposed to wonder what really happened or if it happened at all. A pretty smart strategy, I’d say.

But first, let me tell you why and how I developed such a need for making them pay… them, the ones whose identity you might never know. Whose crime might never be revealed. This is all about seeking revenge, only that. And about why I thought my own action was justified. Whether or not you agree with my decision is not my concern. My concern is that you know my reasoning.

Here is why I took action…

Long ago, I heard a story about my grandmother. It happened when she was a little girl. It wasn’t only about my grandmother; it was about my great grandmother, too. 

My great grandmother’s name was Rosa. She was very, very poor and had three young children to care for. I believe Rosa’s husband had emigrated to America in search of work. So many did that in the nineteenth century and he was one of thousands, no, millions. I don’t know his name and he must have gotten lost, because Rosa never saw him again.

Things got worse and worse. The famine was horrendous, but the fat cats were indifferent to the peasants, who were being ground into shadows, pulverized by poverty. Rosa was desperate, yet she knew exactly why she was so destitute and she knew the landowners were refusing to help in any way. Finally, she broke, but not before she retaliated in the only way she knew how. Two of her children did not survive, and she did what she had to in order to save the third.

And so my great grandmother Rosa was forced to flee Galicia. She left her tiny village of Agolada with her remaining child, who was my grandmother and whose name was Carmela. They had to hide in haystacks while they were running away. Rosa had committed a terrible crime, according to many people. Still, most people understood why she had done what she did; they were the ones who never told the guards if they saw her hovering near the haystacks. They were the ones who shared their food with her, even bringing it to her at night. They also gave her directions to get to the port where a ship was leaving for another place, a safe one, far away.

Rosa and little Carmela reached New York. They soon found their way to Boston and then to Maine. My great grandmother worked first cleaning houses, but then she got a better job in a bakery. It was a good job because she already knew how to bake bread in the community oven in Agolada. It was very good bread and many people came to buy it.

Rosa raised my grandmother all by herself because no man wanted a murderess for a wife. (I’ll explain that later.) My grandmother Carmela was even more fortunate and had a happy, if boring life, with enough to eat. So did her children, my mother - whose name is Minia - and my uncle Marcos.

My mother told me this story many times because she also wanted me to know why my middle name is Rosalía. I wanted to know, too, of course, since it’s a very uncommon name in this country. That’s why my mother showed me a poem her mother - my grandmother Carmela - had translated once she was in her new home and had grown up a little, had even learned English. The poem isn’t in Spanish because none of the peasants in Galicia could speak the language of the señores, the people who had all the money.

Those who understand the original Galician might question the form given to the English version, but I like it because the ending of each line pushes home the point by repeating the -o- sound. An -o- that resembles the mouth of the woman who carries out justice by her own hand because those who should have that role are like wolves. I also like the English because my mother translated it. She still knows Galician, but I never learned it. Maybe I will some day.

I was told this poem is very famous where my great grandmother came from. Many people there can recite it by heart, even though it’s not very pretty. To be honest, I don’t know why the poem was brought all the way from the place where it was written. I also don’t know if I’m supposed to think great grandmother Rosa did what the woman in the poem says. Maybe it’s just a sad story Rosa learned by heart to comfort herself.

No, that’s wrong. The verses fit Rosa’s and Carmela’s story too well. I’m guessing my mother, Carmela’s daughter, wanted me to think what had happened wasn’t real, that it was only a poem written by a woman named Rosalía. Maybe you’d like to read it and tell me what you think about “Xustiza pol-a man,” ‘Justice by my own hand’.

Aqués que tén fama d' honrados na vila

Those who are thought to be honorable in this town

roubáronme tanta brancura qu' eu tiña;

stole from me all the purity I owned;

botáronme estrume nas galas dun día,

they spread manure one day on my best gown, 

a roupa de cote puñéronma en tiras.

they tore up my old clothes, threw them on the ground.

Nin pedra deixaron en dond' eu vivira;

They left nary a stone standing where I called home;

sin lar, sin abrigo, morei nas curtiñas;

with no hearth, no coat, I lived in the shed in the cold;

ó raso cas lebres dormín nas campías;

I slept beside the hares in fields not my own;

meus fillos... ¡meus anxos!... que tant' eu quería,

my children… my angels!… the ones I loved so,

¡morreron, morreron ca fame que tiñan!

They died, they died, their hunger a great hole!

Quedei deshonrada, mucháronm' a vida,

I was left without honor, my life a wilted rose,

fixéronm' un leito de toxos e silvas;

they made me a bed of brambles and thorns;

i en tanto, os raposos de sangre maldita,

and meanwhile those foxes with their evil blood,

tranquilos nun leito de rosas dormían.

slept peacefully in their beds of roses.

―――

―Salvádeme ¡ouh, xueces!, berrei... ¡Tolería!

- Save me, oh judges, I roared… I cannot go on!

De min se mofaron, vendeum' a xusticia.

They laughed at me, by justice I’d been sold

―Bon Dios, axudaime, berrei, berrei inda...

- Dear God, help me, I roared, I roared all the more…

tan alto qu' estaba, bon Dios non m' oíra.

but he was so high up, dear God didn’t know.

Estonces, cal loba doente ou ferida,

Then, like a she wolf who’s ill or wounded,

dun salto con rabia pillei a fouciña,

with a leap I grabbed the scythe, fury made me bold,

rondei paseniño... (ne' as herbas sentían)

I circled around slowly… (even the grass didn’t know)

i a lúa escondíase, i a fera dormía

and the moon hid, and the beast was snoring

cos seus compañeiros en cama mullida.

with his friends en a bed of comfort.

Mireinos con calma, i as mans estendidas,

I looked at them calmly, hands outstretched, eyes open

dun golpe ¡dun soio! deixeinos sin vida.

and with a single blow - just one! - their lives were my own.

I ó lado, contenta, senteime das vítimas,

And then happy, I sat next to their corpses,

tranquila, esperando pola alba do día.

calm and waiting for the day to be born.

I estonces... estonces cumpreuse a xusticia:

And then… then justice was bestowed:

eu, neles; i as leises, na man qu' os ferira.

I, for them; and the law, for the hand that drove it home.

I should explain now that I am an artist. I have gotten a grant to create a sculpture in Portland on the waterfront to honor the immigrant women who came fleeing from famine and other evils. There’s a lobsterman statue in the city, which is the largest in Maine. I think the figure depicted in anonymous, like the Unknown Soldier. 

My sculpture will have names, though, because the stories like Rosa’s and Carmela’s are about things that need to be named and remembered. And so my great grandmother Rosa will sit with her sickle beside The señores Monteagudo, Fernández, and Piñeiro whose heads have been severed like the guillotine severed heads in the French Revolution. There will be a plaque with the poem, too. Also a map, so people here who know too little about geography or history can learn things.

Poetry remembers everything, knows everything. We need it, like Rosa, Carmela, Minia and I, Rosalía, need it, to tell our story.