A psychiatrist once told me his patient reported, "The couch in my living room is out to get me."
As the psychiatrist observed, "But if the couch is out to get him, what prevents all other objects and people in his world from likewise being out to get him?"
The patient's statement leads us to ask: How deep a fissure can paranoia cut in the mind?
Turning to the novel under review, on the first page we read:"It's hard to believe I had a life before this one, a job, a flat, which I now remember nothing about."
The above reflection comes from Clara, the tale's narrator. The Rooftop by Uruguayan author Fernanda Trías counts as the author's first novel available in English. A special call-out to Charco Press and Annie McDermott for her smooth, accessible translation.
I can well believe Clara finds it impossible to remember a life outside the one she's living now since she's confined to her ramshackle apartment with her ailing father, trapped by fear, anxiety - and paranoia.
One reading of The Rooftop: a tale of a young woman's madness, a life of psychic suffocation where her only escape are those brief moments she can sit out on a rooftop. In keeping with the opaqueness of the story, at this point I'll shift to linking my further observations to a batch of direct quotes -
“I have to convince myself that what's in the other room isn't a man, isn't Dad. Tucked up together it was like they were sleeping.”
Clara sleeps in one room, her Dad in another with a canary in its cage next to his bed. Why does Clara need convincing? Does Clara take comfort in imagining others in her Dad's room? Mystery, mystery...the more I read, the more I questioned the reliability of Clara's narration.
“No one could possibly understand how I feel: isolated, expecting nothing, knowing I'm locked in a desperate battle to defend something that's already gone.”
Now that's desperation! A young lady conducting a battle for an imagined past, for a harmonious family life that probably never was.
“I unbuttoned my blouse so he could see how my breasts were growing....He looked at them, curious, but then it was as if he'd suddenly remembered something horrible and his face changed.”
We can wonder how deep Clara's madness – baring her breasts for her father! And further on we read, “I silently prayed his (her father's) hand would carry on going. Higher, just a little higher, in between my thighs.”
Nothing like sex with all the Electra/Oedipal undertones to add fuel to the fire of madness.
“Julia had been slim and athletic, and Dad used to tell her it made him proud to have a wife like that.”
Julia is Clara's now dead stepmother and they're living in Julia's apartment. Clara and her father eek out their days via Julia's saving. And what happened to Julia? Was she the victim of South American political crossfire? Is national politics or a military uprising contributing to Clara's paranoia?
“According to Carmen, it was possible to bring things about through thought alone. You had to sit somewhere comfortable, close your eyes and imagine what you wanted to achieve as if it had already happened.”
Clara does come in contact with others, primarily Carmen, an older woman from Eastern Europe in a downstairs apartment who does her shopping and also served as her midwife. Additionally, there's drama aplenty in their apartment building with Carmen yelling at the fat whore across the hall from Clara, a fat woman continually partying and blasting music (Clara watches the unfolding saga, including visits by the police, mostly through a peephole).
“'It's our baby,' I said, when I could finally get up. 'That's all that counts.'”
Midway through the tale, Clara has a baby girl, Flor. Is her Dad the father? We witness the impact Clara's paranoia has on Flor the baby growing into Flor the toddler.
“The world is a bad place. The streets are dangerous and you can't trust the people. That's where Julia went wrong. And that's why I wanted to keep Dad safe, though he never understood.”
Is Clara caring for her father or is she keeping him as an unwilling prisoner?
“The first afternoon I went up without giving it much thought, never dreaming how important the roof would become. My space, my hiding place. From up there, everyone looked so small that they no longer posed a threat.”
Claustrophobia, anyone? I can imagine a director turning Fernanda Trías's novel into a film, Alfred Hitchcock black and white veiled in shadows.
Author Fernanda Trías
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