Susana San Juan Character Analysis

Water dripping from the roof tiles was forming a hole in the sand of the patio. Plink! plink! and then another plink! as drops struck a bobbing, dancing laurel leaf caught in a crack between the adobe bricks. The storm had passed. Now an intermittent breeze shook the branches of the pomegranate tree, loosing showers of heavy rain, spattering the ground with gleaming drops that dulled as they sank into the earth. The hens, still huddled on their roost, suddenly flapped their wings and strutted out to the patio, heads bobbing, pecking worms unearthed by the rain. As the clouds retreated the sun flashed on the rocks, spread an iridescent sheen, sucked water from the soil, shone on sparkling leaves stirred by the breeze.

Hundreds of meters above the clouds, far, far above everything, you are hiding, Susana. Hiding in God’s immensity, behind His Divine Providence where I cannot touch you or see you, and where my words cannot reach you.

I waited thirty years for you to return, Susana. I wanted to have it all. Not just part of it, but everything there was to have, to the point that there would be nothing left for us to want, no desire but your wishes. How many times did I ask your father to come back here to live, telling him I needed him. I even tried deceit.

“Hand me that, Susana!”
She picked up the skull in both hands, but when the light struck it fully, she dropped it.
“It’s a dead man’s skull,” she said.
“You should find something else there beside it. Hand me whatever’s there.”
The skeleton broke into individual bones: the jawbone fell away as if it were sugar. She handed it up to him, piece afterpiece, down to the toes, which she handed him joint by joint. The skull had been first, the round ball that had disintegrated in her hands.
“Keep looking, Susana. For money. Round gold coins. Look everywhere, Susana.”
And then she did not remember anything, until days later she came to in the ice: in the ice of her father’s glare.

“I went back. I would always go back. The sea bathes my ankles and retreats, it bathes my knees, my thighs; it puts its gentle arm around my waist, circles my breasts, embraces my throat, presses my shoulders. Then I sink into it, my whole body, I give myself to is pulsing strength, to is gentle possession, holding nothing back.
“‘I love to swim in the sea,’ I told him.
“But he didn’t understand.
“And the next morning I was again in the sea, purifying myself. Giving myself to the waves.”

“I… I saw doña Susanita die.”
“What are you saying, Dorotea?”
“What I just told you.”

People began arriving from other places, drawn by the endless pealing. They came from Contla, as if on a pilgrimage. And even farther. A circus showed up, who knows from where, with a whirligig and flying chairs. And musicians. First they came as if they were onlookers, but after a while they settled in and even played concerts. And so, little by little, the event turned into a fiesta. Comala was bustling with people, boisterous and noisy, just like the feast days when it was nearly impossible to move through the village.
The bells fell silent, but the fiesta continued. There was no way to convince people that this was an occasion for mourning. Nor was there any way to get them to leave. Just the opposite, more kept arriving.
[…]
Don Pedro spoke to no one. He never left his room. He swore to wreak vengeance on Comala:
“I will cross my arms and Comala will die of hunger.”
And that was what happened.

Water dripping from the roof tiles was forming a hole in the sand of the patio. Plink! plink! and then another plink! as drops struck a bobbing, dancing laurel leaf caught in a crack between the adobe bricks. The storm had passed. Now an intermittent breeze shook the branches of the pomegranate tree, loosing showers of heavy rain, spattering the ground with gleaming drops that dulled as they sank into the earth. The hens, still huddled on their roost, suddenly flapped their wings and strutted out to the patio, heads bobbing, pecking worms unearthed by the rain. As the clouds retreated the sun flashed on the rocks, spread an iridescent sheen, sucked water from the soil, shone on sparkling leaves stirred by the breeze.

Hundreds of meters above the clouds, far, far above everything, you are hiding, Susana. Hiding in God’s immensity, behind His Divine Providence where I cannot touch you or see you, and where my words cannot reach you.

I waited thirty years for you to return, Susana. I wanted to have it all. Not just part of it, but everything there was to have, to the point that there would be nothing left for us to want, no desire but your wishes. How many times did I ask your father to come back here to live, telling him I needed him. I even tried deceit.

“Hand me that, Susana!”
She picked up the skull in both hands, but when the light struck it fully, she dropped it.
“It’s a dead man’s skull,” she said.
“You should find something else there beside it. Hand me whatever’s there.”
The skeleton broke into individual bones: the jawbone fell away as if it were sugar. She handed it up to him, piece afterpiece, down to the toes, which she handed him joint by joint. The skull had been first, the round ball that had disintegrated in her hands.
“Keep looking, Susana. For money. Round gold coins. Look everywhere, Susana.”
And then she did not remember anything, until days later she came to in the ice: in the ice of her father’s glare.

“I went back. I would always go back. The sea bathes my ankles and retreats, it bathes my knees, my thighs; it puts its gentle arm around my waist, circles my breasts, embraces my throat, presses my shoulders. Then I sink into it, my whole body, I give myself to is pulsing strength, to is gentle possession, holding nothing back.
“‘I love to swim in the sea,’ I told him.
“But he didn’t understand.
“And the next morning I was again in the sea, purifying myself. Giving myself to the waves.”

“I… I saw doña Susanita die.”
“What are you saying, Dorotea?”
“What I just told you.”

People began arriving from other places, drawn by the endless pealing. They came from Contla, as if on a pilgrimage. And even farther. A circus showed up, who knows from where, with a whirligig and flying chairs. And musicians. First they came as if they were onlookers, but after a while they settled in and even played concerts. And so, little by little, the event turned into a fiesta. Comala was bustling with people, boisterous and noisy, just like the feast days when it was nearly impossible to move through the village.
The bells fell silent, but the fiesta continued. There was no way to convince people that this was an occasion for mourning. Nor was there any way to get them to leave. Just the opposite, more kept arriving.
[…]
Don Pedro spoke to no one. He never left his room. He swore to wreak vengeance on Comala:
“I will cross my arms and Comala will die of hunger.”
And that was what happened.