A short story about gender violence

I wrote the short story Presage about a domestic abuse victim for the International Women’s Day. It was published in Estrenes. Antologia de poemes i contes. University of Lleida in 2005. Then it was translated into Spanish and also published in Resonancias no. 127. Some years later, it was published in English in the literary journal of Literature by women When Women Waken, Fall 2013 Issue 3, Grief.

When it was published in the United States, near my name, at the top of the page, was an editor’s note alerting for sensitive people to stories that may involve domestic violence.

Unfortunately, domestic violence in Spain is a nightmare. For example, only this year 2019 in numbers: fifty two women were killed by their own husbands, even on Christmas, on Valentine’s Day or on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

The short story Presage is also available in the following languages:
CATALÀ ESPAÑOL ENGLISH DEUTSCH

Review:

Núria Añó has one short story that assesses the mind of a domestic abuse victim called ‘Presage’. The story tells of a woman named Anna and how she is not allowed to work. She works on the sly to try and provide money for her son, but her husband finds out and she pays the ultimate price.
Study.com · http://study.com/academy/lesson/short-story-writers-from-spain.html [Consultation: June 22, 2017] Read the full review

Presage, by Núria Añó

She could just pack up and leave, but she does not visualize what’s beyond ahead.

Anna, whose shadow casts itself on the wall since very early in the morning, now starts to fade away. Anna and that shadow of hers that moves from wall to wall should not be locked in here. She could just pack up and leave, but she does not visualize what’s beyond ahead. She knew more, but now she’s forgotten it. She can no longer distinguish between what she wanted to become and what she has become. She lives in a 60m² dwelling with official protection and has as husband the same guy who impregnated her when she was seventeen. Her son left long time ago, because he, unlike them, wanted to see the world from a new perspective. Now her son is learning the carpentry trade and he views these buildings of official protection as just as neat and gray as before when he comes and goes from his rented nest, with or without his girlfriend, on a second-hand bike or walking. Anna wanted to become someone. It could be said that she wanted to go far, she did not know where, but she wanted to get there and soon. She became a mother when she was eighteen, the first one at her prom, a complete first fruit. Some others followed afterwards.

There was one thing her husband couldn’t stand.

Previously Anna worked as a shop assistant and had fun with the customers. Except there was one thing her husband couldn’t stand: the boss was always shuffling money around. The husband was wary because she had to deposit all those wads of cash, and something kept him from sleeping at night: that she would leave him for someone else or for a wad of money.

He walked right into the store and begged Anna to take off that ridiculous uniform and come home. Anna answered, “Not a chance!”

After a hard day at work, the husband would go to the kitchen, and the only thing he noticed was that the kitchen was as cold as death. That, and that there were bits of soap in the sink. The husband waited at the table, his arms crossed, and after a tense quarter of an hour of waiting, he ended up with his head in his hands. One day he zipped up his coat and ran down the stairs at full speed cursing his wife and his job, but especially his wife. He often went to the pub to drown his sorrows. The son also got used to eating canteen food at school. But that afternoon the husband kept walking until he walked right into the store and begged Anna to take off that ridiculous uniform and come home. Anna answered, “Not a chance!” Her job helped to pay the bills, to buy clothes for the boy, school books for the boy, and private lessons for the boy. As it got late Anna kept working, wrapping presents with a smile on her face. It was almost nine o’clock when she turned the key in the lock, and as soon as she walked in, she got her first beating. Afterwards she had to cook dinner, even though she had a dislocated arm.

The husband’s voice is irritating, both inside and outside his living quarters.

There is always housework to be done, even in a small apartment. The husband’s voice is irritating, both inside and outside his living quarters. The neighbors know his voice by now, even though he doesn’t have much contact with them. Anna and the rest of the things that have been put off until later boil down to a bed that she makes first thing in the morning, a washing machine full of clothes that she picks up off the floor, and that later she will hang one by one on a small balcony that looks out over a light-filled patio. She tidies up the house, airs out the bedrooms and dining room, sweeps the floor and goes down on her hands and knees to scrub it, because that’s how you reach all the corners. Later she makes a note of what they need and does a bit of shopping, always aware of just how much she can spend. Before the floor has dried she makes lunch, turns on the T.V. while she folds and irons the clothes, and all of a sudden the husband is already there. His eyes and face make it clear that he’s waiting for something, which doesn’t mean that he’s waiting for Anna. She sits down next to her husband in the dining room, where their eyes are drawn to the T.V. out of habit. Unlike the house, the T.V. is comforting. So are the neighbors’ kids who laugh and shout as they throw stones on the patio. They don’t have any children anymore, although they tried it in the past. They brought up one. Now he’s gone, and soon he will start a new family of his own, following the model of this one, the only family he’s ever known.

Anyone could see that this woman is living a nightmare. Except that she goes through her daily life wide awake, knowing that she could make a mistake at any moment.

Anna and her sad shadow can often be seen slumped against the wall. That image appears in the double bed night after night. And it often reappears in the kitchen, or in the dining room. And basically in the sink while as she washes and dries her face. Anyone could see that this woman is living a nightmare. Except that she goes through her daily life wide awake, knowing that she could make a mistake at any moment. When she has a bit of free time during the day, she goes up to the fifth floor of the building to meet her neighbor. They are both avid fans of a television series. Afterwards she goes back down, and sometimes, not always, her son would come home around noon. The son doesn’t have any money and neither does the mother, but she always manages to put a hot plate of food on the table for him. “The boy needs money”. That’s what she would say before and after scarfing down the food. Afterwards, when she turned her back for a moment, the son would sneak into his mother’s wallet.

Sometimes she feels something inside her, something besides the constant uncertainty that has become a part of her. Anna works in secret.

Anna thinks a lot, and sometimes she feels something inside her, something besides the constant uncertainty that has become a part of her. Anna works in secret, and in exchange she has to take a six-month-old infant out for walks. Sometimes she turns around quickly, with the strange feeling that she is being followed—a kind of foreboding that she feels as she walks in the park. Nevertheless, Anna has to keep working. She says she does it for her son. So that he can have a future, even though in the beginning the price is high. Too high for someone so young. As Anna is walking back to the block of new apartments, she covers up the baby and turns around again, but it’s too late. The husband was leaving the pub when he sees her That’s when he started following her. Even though Anna’s figure gets further away and is lost in the crowd.

Anna and her husband don’t have many things in common, although both live under the same roof and sleep in the same bed.

Anna and her husband don’t have many things in common, although both live under the same roof and sleep in the same bed. Indeed, it seems that she and he have nothing in common other than what they are undertaking. Anna was cooking when the husband entered by the door carrying a bottle. He catches her from behind. He grabs her by the hair. He makes her fall, pouring gasoline over her and setting her on fire.

About the author

Núria Añó was born in Lleida, Catalonia, Spain, in 1973. She is a Catalan/Spanish writer, a translator and a regular speaker at conferences and symposia, where she gives papers on literary creation, films, cities or authors like Elfriede Jelinek, Patricia Highsmith, Salka Viertel, Karen Blixen, Alexandre Dumas or Franz Werfel at University of Lleida (UdL), Tunis University, University of Jaén (UJA), International University of Andalucía (UNIA), Spanish National Research Council (CSIC-Madrid), Sysmän Kirjasto Library in Finland, Shanghai Writers’ Association (SWA), Fudan University in China, East China Normal University, Sinan Mansion, Instituto Cervantes in Shanghai, Conrad Festival in Poland, Massolit Books, Baza or Instituto Cervantes in Krakow, also in libraries, secondary schools or in higher education. She also acts as a juror for international competitions.

Her novel Els nens de l’Elisa was third among the finalists for the 24th Ramon Llull Prize for Catalan Literature and was published in 2006. L’escriptora morta [The Dead Writer, 2020], in 2008; Núvols baixos [Lowering Clouds, 2020], in 2009, and La mirada del fill, in 2012. She is the author of a biography on screenwriter Salka Viertel, El salón de los artistas exiliados en California [The Salon of Exiled Artists in California, 2020] Jewish salonnière and well-known in Hollywood in the thirties as a specialist on Greta Garbo scripts.

Some of her novels, short stories and articles are translated into Spanish, French, English, Italian, German, Polish, Chinese, Latvian, Portuguese, Dutch and Greek.

Her writing focus on the characters’ psychology, generally antiheroes. The characters are the most important in her books, much more than the topic, due to “an introspection, a reflection, not sentimental, but feminine”. Her novels cover a multitude of topics, treat actual and socially relevant problems such as injustices or poor communication between people and frequently, the core of her stories remains unexplained. Añó asks the reader to discover the “deeper meaning” and to become involved in the events presented. Read more

Literary Prizes/ Awards:

Awarded at International Writing Program, by the Academy of Literature in China.
Awarded at International Writer’s and Translators’ House in Latvia.
Fourth prize of the 5th Shanghai Get-together Writing Contest in China.
Selected for a literary residence in Krakow UNESCO City of Literature, Poland.
Awarded at the International Writers’ and Translators’ Center of Rhodes in Greece.
Awarded at the Baltic Centre for Writers and Translators in Sweden.
Awarded at the Shanghai Writing Program, hosted by the Shanghai Writer’s Association in China.
Awarded by the Culture Association Nuoren Voiman Liitto to be a resident at Villa Sarkia in Finland.
Third among the finalists for the 24th Ramon Llull Prize for Catalan Literature.
Finalist for the 8th Mercè Rodoreda Prize for Catalan Short Stories.
Awarded the 18th City of Almenara Joan Fuster Prize for Fiction.