Letras Hispanas Volume 11, 2015

Title: “Tenues límites entre la historia y las historias:” Reading Alicia Partnoy’s Textual and Visual Testimony, La Escuelita Author: Patricia Lopex Gay E-Mail: [email protected] Affiliation: Bard College; Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures; 30 Campus Rd, Annan- dale-On-Hudson, NY 12504 Abstract: Alicia Partnoy’s literary testimony, The Little School. Tales of Disappearance and Survival in , was first published in English translation in 1986. The focus of this study is the original Spanish manuscript revised by the author and published twenty years later in Argentina under the title La Escuelita. Relatos testimoniales. I address two aspects of said work that have not yet received due critical attention: the reinforcement of the testimonial function of the Spanish literary text due to its acceptance as legal evidence in the truth trials of 1999, and the role that the visual representations made by Raquel Partnoy, the author’s mother, play within the testimonial narrative. Departing from these images, I analyze the original ways in which La Escuelita attests to the transgressive use of fiction made by victims during captivity. I argue that rather than be opposed to referential testimony, fiction becomes here the lens through which victims relate to and make sense of the world. In a final reflection, I examine the distancing and identification ef- fects that mark testimonial narrative, inserting that narrative in a broader discourse of solidarity and social justice which opens La Escuelita to the real. Keywords: Argentinian literature, contemporary Latin American literature, La Escuelita; Partnoy, Alicia; Testimony and Fiction, Text and Image Resumen: El testimonio literario de Alicia Partnoy, The Little School. Tales of Disappearance and Survival in Argentina (1986), apareció originalmente en traducción inglesa. El centro de este es- tudio es el manuscrito original español que la autora revisó y publicó en Argentina dos décadas después, bajo el título La Escuelita. Relatos testimoniales. Exploro dos aspectos que aún no han recibido la debida atención crítica: el refuerzo de la función testimonial del texto literario espa- ñol después de que fuera aceptado como evidencia en los juicios de la verdad de 1999, y el papel que las representaciones visuales hechas por Raquel Partnoy, la madre de la autora, desempeñan dentro de esta narrativa testimonial. Partiendo de dichas imágenes, analizo los modos originales en que La Escuelita representa el uso transgresivo de la ficción hecho por las víctimas durante su cautiverio. Propongo que lejos de ser contraria al testimonio referencial, la ficción deviene aquí el prisma a través del cual las víctimas se relacionan con la realidad que buscan comprender. En una reflexión final, examino los efectos de distanciamiento e identificación que constituyen la narrativa testimonial, insertándola en un discurso más amplio de solidaridad y justicia social que abre La Escuelita a lo real. Palabras clave: Literatura argentina, Literatura latinoamericana contemporánea, La Escuelita, Partnoy, Alicia; Testimonio y Ficción,Texto e imagen Date Received: 5/27/2015 Date Published: 11/16/2015 Biography: Assistant Professor of Spanish Studies, Bard College. Ph.D., Spanish and Portuguese, New York University; joint Ph.D., comparative literature and translation studies, University of Paris 7 and Autonomous University of Barcelona. She specializes in contemporary literature, with a strong interest in film, photography, and comparative literature. Her research focuses on fictionality, theories of the archive, autobiography, and translation studies. She is also a member of the North American Academy of the Spanish Language. ISSN: 1548-5633 90 Letras Hispanas Volume 11, 2015

“Tenues límites entre la historia y las histo- rias:” Reading Alicia Partnoy’s Textual and Visual Testimony, La Escuelita1* Patricia Lopez Gay, Bard College

En las Escuelitas están los desaparecidos, a quienes secuestran de la vida. Una mañana, una tarde o una noche cualquiera los amordazan y les vendan los ojos. —Alicia Partnoy, La Escuelita

In Diana Taylor’s seminal study Disap- discourse, and literariness, understood as pearing Acts (1997), Alicia Partnoy’s The Little fictional space inevitably detached from the School. Tales of Disappearance and Survival in events which actually occurred.2 Argentina (1986) is placed in the category of literature produced by reaparecidos who were Entering La Escuelita victims of during the Argentine military regime. According to Tay- Con la carne de la poesía anestesiada no se lor, such works, “unlike the evidence given by puede construir versos… these same people before human rights com- —Alicia Partnoy, La Escuelita missions, are literary representations, neces- sarily removed from the events that took place The incisive image of anesthetized flesh, in the past” (141, emphasis added). Further chosen to evoke paralysis or suspension of literary writing, is a recurring theme in Part- on, Taylor identifies a tension between Part- 3 noy’s “testimonial” gesture of recording the noy’s work. In a recent interview, recalling disappearance of a group of individuals, and the day she received pen and paper while in her “literary” attempt to restore life to these the Villa Floresta prison, after her traumatic individuals for the reader (165). Following stay in the concentration camp called La the same line of thought, in subsequent stud- Escuelita, Partnoy employs the term “anes- ies on The Little School, Louise A. Detwiler tesiada” once more to describe her temporary has described the paradox inherent in the incapability of creating literature. Partnoy’s genre known as “testimonial novel,” where symbolic retreat from this paralysis, we learn the reader of fictional writing is expected to upon further reading, was the rewriting of believe the truth of the narrated events (“The each and every one of the poems that she had Blindfolded (Eye)Witness” 61–62), and Amy written before her abduction: Kaminsky has referred to the “uncomfortable “El día en que terminé de recordarlos marriage of two modes,” the fictional and the me avisaron de que… ya no estaría nonfictional (53, emphasis added). desaparecida. Creo que fue una ca- Focusing on the text revised by the au- sualidad muy significativa: había re- thor and published only twenty years later in cuperado mi historia como creadora y Argentina under the title La Escuelita. Rela- volvía a la vida.” (in Collette 122–23) tos testimoniales (2006), this study proposes that Partnoy’s poignant narrative has over- Since then, Partnoy has continued exploring come the tension that was initially identified the limits of the unspeakable that becomes between testimony, understood as referential speakable through literature. Patricia Lopez Gay 91

The main body of La Escuelita, which is between two and five pages in length, serve undoubtedly Alicia Partnoy’s work with the to illuminate the ordinary within the extraor- greatest artistic and political impact to date, dinary, the quotidian within horror, within a consists of twenty short stories and a series markedly fragmentary narrative.7 of visual representations made by Raquel This polyphonic literary testimony has Partnoy, the author’s mother.4 The textual and also been received as a clear response to the visual narrative seeks to return a voice to a official univocal discourse which covertly “we” composed of dissipated singularities supported the systematic disappearance of which now can and must, ethically and politi- citizens during the Argentinian military dic- cally, be imagined. Carefully crafted diegetic tatorship (Pinet 89-108). Indeed, defiantly, micro-universes unfold, each one complete Partnoy’s literary testimonio opens with an within itself. Due to the at times uncertain excerpt of an official statement, “Fragmento identity of characters, a referential ambiguity del Documento Final de la Junta Militar so- emerges that has been interpreted as a recre- bre la Guerra contra la Subversión y el Terror- ation for the reader of the sense of disorienta- ismo,” which reads, “Se habla [así mismo] de tion experienced by the blindfolded prisoners personas ‘desaparecidas’ que se encontrarían (Detwiler 62).5 The intermittent indetermi- detenidas por el gobierno argentino en los ig- nacy of narrative identity that characterizes notos lugares del país. Todo esto no es sino La Escuelita may also mirror here the confu- una falsedad utilizada con fines políticos” sion created by the renaming of prisoners, a (17).8 common practice both among the soldiers As we learn upon reading the author’s who were responsible for disappearances and introduction, at the beginning of 1977 Ali- among Partnoy and her fellow activists, with cia Partnoy, a victim of state terrorism, was the objective of not being recognized.6 In secretly abducted and transported to a clan- addition, more broadly, I posit that the mal- destine detainment center located on the out- leable narrative voice in La Escuelita is the re- skirts of her hometown, Bahía Blanca. When sult of a solidary “democratizing” movement she was released at the end of 1979, after sev- through which every victim is able to either eral months in the concentration camp and express herself from the “I” perspective, or to two years in various “legal” prisons, the gov- be expressed from the third person. ernment forced her to leave the country. Part- It is revealing that Partnoy did not noy took refuge in the United States, where choose to write her literary testimony from she still resides.9 Since then, her defense of a unireferential first-person point of view human rights has not only unfolded in the lit- which would have pursued the expression of erary field but also in the political and social only her personal experience during captiv- arena. Partnoy has testified before organiza- ity, and that she did not opt either for an ab- tions such as the , Amnesty solute plural which would blur the singularity International and the Argentine Human of each victim within the collective. Instead, Rights Commission, as well as in the truth as these stories unfold we see a chameleonic trials of Bahía Blanca. narrator take shape whose implicit function As mentioned at the beginning of this is to recreate and weave together the voices essay, the limits between Partnoy’s literary of the desaparecidos, including that of Part- work, supposedly detached from the events noy herself. A heterogeneous plurality of that have occurred, and her activism for the imagined victim subjects reconstruct their cause of the desaparecidos have been overtly agency either by directly recounting part of demarcated (Taylor 141). The idea that litera- their own biographical experience or becom- ture is an autonomous field removed from the ing protagonists of the short episode being real may follow here from the understand- narrated. The contrasting narrative pieces, of ing that language is a medium of symbolic 92 Letras Hispanas Volume 11, 2015 construction. Because literature is par excel- y, una vez desatado cada nudo, lence made in language, the argument goes, digo mis versos. it always fictionalizes. For thinkers like Paul Resistí. Voy entera. (97, 99, emphasis added) de Man, even the autobiographical, conven- tionally charged with referentiality, becomes These lines trace the path of Partnoy’s divided a fictional form: the performative metaphor voices earlier evoked by Taylor, one relating through which language substitutes the re- to her literary work and the other to her work ferred reality or through which, one could as a human rights activist. According to the also suggest, language itself becomes the re- poetic voice, imagination is by convention ferred event.10 Hence the denial by rigorous supposed to be excluded from testimony; Latin Americanists such as Roberto González imagination, the argument would follow, Echevarría of testimonialists’ claims of au- should be confined to the realm of literary thenticity.11 fiction. Generally, La Escuelita is regarded as Notably, within the context of Latin fiction in the sense that it is the result of an American literature the questioning of au- aesthetically refined work on language, and thenticity and authority inevitably leads back that it is at least partly based on imagination to the scandal unleashed by anthropologist and even invention. Indeed, in her rigorous David Stoll.12 In his widely discussed book, critical study on Partnoy’s literary testimony, Rigoberta Menchú and the Story of All Poor “Re-enacting Memory,” Portela has Guatemalans, Stoll has argued that Menchú’s referred to the “problematic paradox” that literary testimonio presents inconsistencies Detwiler detected when analyzing the subti- with respect to what really happened. This tle of the English edition of the book, Tales of controversy brings us back to the blurry no- Disappearance & Survival in Argentina (55). tion of “fiction,” which can also mean inven- Strictly, Detwiler’s assertion that the term tion, imagination. Whether or not Menchú’s “tales” “pronounces an element of invention Me llamo Rigoberta Menchú y así me nació which many critics in the field would contend la conciencia (1998) is a work of fiction un- is in direct opposition with testimonial writ- derstood in the latter sense of the term, the ing” (“The Blindfolded (Eye)Witness” 63) is question posed here is a more general one, still applicable to the Spanish term “relatos,” which may mean “cuentos,” in La Escuelita. which simply put would read: Is it legitimate 15 that testimonial narrative, in the name of its Relatos testimoniales. Nevertheless, as made literariness, includes invented aspects? Part- evident by the explicit use of the word “testi- noy’s own creative work clearly outlines this moniales” in the new subtitle, the testimonial friction between “straight testimony,” to use function of Partnoy’s literary text is signifi- Kaminski’s expression (52), and literature.13 cantly strengthened in the Argentine edition. Cited below are revealing stanzas from the Published in 2006, the Spanish text poem “Testimony,” collected in Partnoy’s sheds light on the determining fact that La book The Revenge of the Apple/Venganza de Escuelita was included as legal evidence at the la manzana:14 truth trials of Bahía Blanca. Under the prin- ciple of free evaluation of court evidence, the Dicen que en estas cosas original manuscript formed, along with other no debe quedar ningún espacio evidence presented at the truth trials of 1999, librado the factual base on which the case regard- a la imaginación o a la duda. ing the concentration camp La Escuelita was Saco ruled. In the appendix that closes the Argen- el informe de Amnistía tine publication, “Anexo 5,” Partnoy openly y hablo por esa tinta. Digo: “Lean.” describes the history of the original manu- ...... script, its subsequent translation and publica- Enarbolo la acción como receta, tion in English, and its publication in Spanish la información como antídoto infalible after the text had served as legal proof. The Patricia Lopez Gay 93

author then adds, “Hoy, a veinte años de su as imagination and invention, are also inti- publicación en inglés… estas páginas rompen mately articulated within the textual and vi- con los últimos restos de su exilio para llegar sual narrative of La Escuelita. The images by a tus manos” (123). In addition, more gen- Raquel Partnoy included in the book capture erally, the linguistic register employed in the the reader’s gaze, figuratively representing, in author’s introduction and the peritextual an- turn, the introspective gaze of victims who nexes that frame the stories of La Escuelita is were unable to see. These intriguing black and informative and at times juridical, by contrast white drawings are the indirect, aestheticized with the rest of the book.16 I propose that form of visual testimony that Raquel Partnoy the inclusion in the Argentine publication of provides about the experience of her daugh- three additional appendices of this kind, and ter and other disappeared persons in concen- the short narrative “Había una vez una Es- tration camps. In recent statements, the artist cuelita…” analyzed below, further reinforces explained that she created the images before the testimonial function of Partnoy’s literary the original manuscript of La Escuelita was text.17 written (“Dibujos en La Escuelita”). By work- Partnoy prolongs her literary testimo- ing together with the verbal language, not ny through returning the text to its Spanish bound by it, these drawings contribute to the original language: La Escuelita is a repetition narrative construction of a visual and textual with variations of The Little School. In the fi- testimonio which revolves around vision, or nal note referred to earlier, “Anexo 5,” absent lack thereof. in the English version, and thus exclusively addressed to the Spanish-speaking reader, the testimonialista also evokes the moment in which the court authorized her to read two of the stories from the original manuscript. It is in Partnoy’s unique performance of reading before the jury, which we will later return to, that I perceive the ultimate symbiosis of her two formerly divided voices, the political and legal voice with the literary.

Fiction as Resistance in La Escuelita Fig. 1. Raquel Partnoy, Las manos resisten, in La Escuelita.18 …En los espacios irreales de vendas que trascienden The images display the prisoners’ eyes, which los pensamientos vedados are visible from behind the blindfold: to bor- y las palabras prohibidas, row the narrator’s expression in The Little en los rincones poblados por desaparecidos que están School, we may refer to them as the “mind’s y sombras que fueron, eye” (42). Using Raquel Partnoy’s visual rep- las manos vencidas resisten. resentations in dialogue with the verbal lan- —Raquel Partnoy, “Las manos resisten” guage of testimony as a point of departure, I will propose that the introspective gaze opens Through an effect of mise en abîme, the the victim to a transgressive space of fiction- two poles of the binomial “testimony and alization. It is from within this space of cre- fiction,” whereby fiction is now understood ative resistance, I claim, that the captives seek 94 Letras Hispanas Volume 11, 2015 to understand and navigate their world, as who base their interpretation of the world on well as establish a sense of solidarity amongst sensorial perceptions such as hearing, touch, themselves. smell and, on occasion, very limited sight, Upon reading the first pages of the Ar- must rely on the imaginative action of the gentinean edition, we learn that the prisoners “mind’s eye” in order to apprehend the real. in La Escuelita were “obligados a permanecer As implied in the Spanish version of the story tirados en colchones o en el piso, sin hablar, “Benja’s First Night,” “La primera noche del sin ver, manos atadas, estómago vacío, sopor- ‘Benja’,” the perceptual signals that the victim tando golpes, insultos y la incertidumbre de la needs in order to interpret her surroundings bala final” (20, emphasis added). In the next may come from fellow prisoners with whom story, the narrator describes how the new communication is very rarely possible. In La prisoner, understood to be Alicia Partnoy, Escuelita, Alicia Partnoy’s fellow activist and realizes that during the first night one of the friend, Benja, who has just arrived to the guards had adjusted her blindfold (22). The camp, tells himself, “¡Mirá vos dónde vine a repressive gesture of adjusting the blindfold encontrármela a “la Rosa” [Alicia Partnoy]! in order to guarantee that the captives can- Esta venda me aprieta demasiado los ojos. not recognize one another nor their captors Esto no sería nada… si pudiera sentarme… is in fact constant.19 As a consequence, the “Rosa” no me habla, no se debe poder hablar. detainees end up internalizing the basic code Sólo me avisó que estaba allí, justo en la that maintains the order of the camp, to the cucheta de arriba, la cucheta a la que estoy extent that one of the prisoners in the story atado” (37).21 Again, these lines are absent in “Fórmula de tratamiento” requests to have the English narrative. While The Little School his blindfold replaced, fearing that the guard only records the point of view that we under- would discover it was loose and accuse him stand to be Partnoy’s own, in La Escuelita the of not telling (85). In effect, those imprisoned narrative alternates between typographically in La Escuelita do not see but are seen, closely different fragments, each one corresponding watched over by the military guards and tor- to the stream of consciousness of a captive. turers.20 These lines found in Raquel Part- Despite the fact that in this story dialogue noy’s poem “Las Manos Resisten,” written to between the prisoners never actually occurs, comment on the drawing of the same title, these two parallel monologues included in explicitly propose that the prisoners sense the Spanish text attest to a process of solidary “las imágenes escondidas / de los represores identification between victims that helps al- asomados / a imaginarios telones” (no pag). leviate the lack of communication. What tactics are employed before the omni- As mentioned earlier, in addition to be- present gaze of the enemy, internalized by the ing a lens through which the victim subject captives? My point of focus will shift from the grasps reality, imagination, and sometimes lurking external gaze of the soldiers to the invention, provide a means of coping with introspective, liberating gaze of the victims this oppressive reality. In the Spanish version earlier described. of the testimony, we learn that in the concen- In one of her studies of The Little School, tration camp, La Escuelita, the torturers con- Detwiler mentions that “these eye-witnesses stantly try to convince each detainee that she undoubtedly manage to ‘see’ the referent does not exist, “de que ha desaparecido del through a combination of sensory input from mundo, de las guías telefónicas, de su puesto sources other than the visual mode” (“The en la historia, del pulso de sus seres queridos” Blindfolded (Eye)Witness” 62, emphasis (19). In this context of extreme dehuman- added). It becomes clear upon reading Part- ization, the character of the story entitled noy’s literary testimony that the witnesses “Telepatía” (re)acts by deploying strategies Patricia Lopez Gay 95 leading to the humanization of the self, which more obvious when the omniscient narra- relate to the memory of her place in her fam- tor explains, “El desprecio se sumó al odio ily history. With the objective in mind of rec- mientras se quitaba el resto de la ropa como reating an encounter with her family, the vic- si ellos no existieran, como si fueran gusanos tim describes her preparations for mentally que podía borrar de su mente con sólo pensar abandoning the space of reclusion: en cosas más agradables”(60).23 The combative use of imagination by me desperté sobresaltada tratando de victim subjects in La Escuelita is, as demon- acordarme dónde había dejado a mi strated above, inseparable from the condi- hija aquel mediodía, para abrir los tions of mental and physical repression in ojos a una venda que me los tapaba which the captives found themselves. Amply, hacía ya veinte mediodías. Ese sobre- salto me dio una idea… Querer es po- while Partnoy’s prose is overtly rooted in fic- der. Si yo quiero, puedo controlar mi tion, the understanding of fiction suggested pensamiento, hacerlo viajar, huir. SA- here is far from being opposed to that of truth LIR ¡Te lo ordeno! A mí me dan tantas and referential testimony. As I will point out órdenes: “¡Sentarse!¡Acostarse!¡Boca shortly, La Escuelita brings to mind the cat- abajo! Apurarse.” Por eso yo le exigí a egory of contemporary works evoked by Jo- mi pensamiento: “¡Vamos! Rajá. Rá- sefina Ludmer in her essay “Literaturas post- pido, Salí.” (43) autónomas,” works in which the real “incluye el acontecimiento pero también lo virtual, After various failed attempts, the prisoner lo potencial, lo mágico y lo fantasmático.”24 is able to imaginarily abandon the space of Indeed, not only does Partnoy’s textual and reclusion and “see” her family members. visual testimony pertain to the ambiguous Similarly, through the strategic use of imagi- territory of literary fiction, but also, it attests nation, another character in “Conversación to the emancipatory power which fictional- bajo la lluvia” invisibly reconstructs her own izing had during the traumatic experience of agency. Following the information included captivity. in the peritextual sections, in these two pieces the reader is prompted to associate the main character with Alicia Partnoy. However, In conclusion: Building a “Conversación bajo la lluvia,” like the piece Discourse of Solidarity “Chancletas con una sola flor,” is written in third person. In these two stories, the third- person narration might in fact be the narra- tive trace that marks the symbolic distance Partnoy takes with the narrated world, a dis- tance which makes the unspeakable speak- able, as suggested earlier.22 “Conversación bajo la lluvia” revolves around the moment in which the guards interrupt the dialogue between the main character and María Ele- na, another victim. After separating the two women, the soldiers ask one of them to un- dress herself. We are then presented with the character’s pervasive efforts to consciously fictionalize reality in order to escape or cope with that oppressive reality. The mechanism Fig. 2. Raquel Partnoy, Sin título, in La Es- of self-empowerment at play becomes even cuelita. 96 Letras Hispanas Volume 11, 2015

Words and images intermix in La Es- proof in the truth trials of Bahía Blanca, La cuelita, creating a unique and articulate piece Escuelita can be perceived as the ultimate of testimonial literature. In the textual and vi- symbiosis between the fictional and the tes- sual narrative first-hand testimony given by timonial. Amply, this articulation of fiction Alicia Partnoy, the victim, and second-hand and testimony in Partnoy’s narrative calls testimony given in the form of drawings by into question the categories of “literary” and the victim’s mother, Raquel Partnoy, are wo- “non-literary.” On an intratextual level, this ven together. The skeptical testimonial reader confusion becomes particularly evident when may momentarily question the truth-value examining the short hybrid text added to the of these visual representations, following the Argentinian edition of the book, “Había una general assumption referred to by Portela, vez una Escuelita…” (“Había una vez”), which “the one who survives is the closest to the has yet to receive due critical attention.28 The truth of what happened than the ones who Spanish index includes this text, whose title did not” (47). Nevertheless, the ontological suggests the beginning of an imaginary story, distinction between direct and indirect testi- as the first of the short stories composing the mony is of no interest to this critical analysis. book’s “literary body.” However, as will be Partnoy’s assertion considering the aim of her shown below, “Había una vez” can and must own scholarly work on testimony is here quite also be read as a prolonged introduction from illuminating, “Testimonio is not about truth. the author specifically directed at the Latin Rather, the form serves as a tool for build- American reader. ing a discourse of solidarity with victims of Unlike “Había una vez,” the two short state terrorism” (“On Being Shorter” 175).25 stories from the Spanish manuscript that Raquel Partnoy’s drawings, like the one re- Partnoy chose to read aloud during the truth produced above, not only symbolically show trials recount precise episodes depicting life the solidarity among the female prisoners in the camp. The image of Alicia Partnoy therein represented, but also, they also show sharing these fragments with the jury il- the artist’s solidarity with the desaparecidas.26 lustrates the articulation of fiction and tes- In addition to ascertaining that La Es- timony, as suggested earlier, and presents, cuelita de facto brings us closer to the truth without doubt, the most powerful example of of the events that have occurred, it becomes the incursion of literature in the realm of the imperative at this point to underline the nec- “non-literary.” In an unparalleled and unique essary inclusion of this testimonio in a web of literary performance, which became legally discourses of solidarity and social justice that binding, Partnoy chose not to read any of the transcends both the limits of direct and indi- texts in which the “I” recalls her own personal rect testimony, along with those of the case experience as a survivor. Instead, through the denounced here by the Partnoys.27 When La reading of “Natividad” and “Graciela: Alred- Escuelita was finally published in Spanish in edor de la mesa,” Partnoy sought to give her 2006, the Argentinian government had de- voice to Graciela Romero de Metz, her friend clared the unconstitutionality of the pardons and fellow activist who was abducted and of state terrorism-related crimes, 959 crimi- brought to La Escuelita while pregnant.29 nal cases were being reopened, and a new In “Anexo 5,” Partnoy affirms “selecci- disappearance had recently occurred, that of oné estas lecturas [durante los juicios de la witness Jorge López, who has not yet reap- verdad] porque el único resquicio para la jus- peared. The publication of works like La Es- ticia… era la situación de los niños nacidos en cuelita was, and remains, particularly urgent. cautiverio” (123). When Partnoy wrote these As argued in the first section of this lines, in 1999, the truth trials established the study, at least since its recognition as legal irrefutable existence of webs of appropriation Patricia Lopez Gay 97

and trafficking of newborns whose moth- with her friend’s suffering and death” (Portela ers were executed during the military dicta- 62). Building upon this observation, I see in torship.30 The cases of Graciela Romero de the changing narrative voices that mark Par- Metz, her husband, Raúl Eugenio Metz, who noy’s literary testimony the textual trace of the was also murdered during his time in La Es- identification process through which the tes- cuelita, and their baby are recorded in “Anexo timonialista seeks to identify with fictionally 1” (105–06). Graciela’s son, whose biological recreated singularities. Broadly, an impulse of identity has yet to be established, was taken solidary identification among victims is at the by the very military that executed her shortly origin of forms of testimonial writing like La after she gave birth. In the last story of the Escuelita. However, we, as readers, are in turn series, “Natividad,” Partnoy rewrites in liter- excluded from such identification processes, ary language the scene of new life announc- since “readers in testimonios are asked not to ing death. The final line of the piece consists identify but to act as witness to the events” of a rhetorical question followed by an ellip- (Taylor 165).32 With less of an ontological sis only in Spanish, “¿Cuántos niños por día than ethical and political scope, the mecha- nacen prisioneros en /La Escuelita?...” (104). nisms of identification and distancing at play By presenting the case of Graciela’s son, who in La Escuelita, I propose, are inseparable still awaits justice, and ending with an open from the text’s inclusion in a broad discourse question through which testimonial reader of solidarity and social justice that singular- may feel interpellated, this text both symboli- izes literary testimony with respect to other cally and literally leaves the literary testimony modes of literature. without conclusion. Additionally, the allusion In Partnoy’s La Escuelita, the distancing to the unknown still to be revealed, as well as effect I describe and which serves as coun- the open-ended quality of the testimony, are terpoint to the process through which the further reinforced in the Argentinian edition testimonialist identifies herself with other through the insertion of a typographical void victims, is not only produced by the constant between “en” and “La Escuelita,” which are oblique evocation of horror. The linear read- purposely separated into two different lines. ing that would generally allow for literary The second short story that Partnoy immersion and narrative identification with read aloud during the truth trials, “Graciela: literary characters becomes here unviable for Alrededor de la mesa,” is another poignant a number of reasons. First, as shown by De- piece, located around the middle of the book, twiler in her analysis of Raquel Partnoy’s vi- in which the expectant mother imaginarily sual works, the images included in The Little speaks with her unborn child. Together, School demand a high degree of interpretative these texts illuminate the malleable narra- activity on the part of the reader (“Strategic tive identity that permeates Partnoy’s literary Silences” 38). I thus propose that in La Es- testimony. When analyzing these two stories, cuelita, a fragmentary work that is composed Portela refers to psychiatrist Jay Lifton, who of words and images, the reader experiences has described the survivor’s process of iden- an intermittent perceptual shift that momen- tification with other victims as “[the survi- tarily suspends her reading, allowing her to vor’s] tendency to incorporate within himself oscillate between the verbal and the visual. an image of the dead, and then to think, feel Additionally, the stories themselves, many and act as he imagines they would” (496).31 of which are introduced by fragments of ac- Hence, Partnoy’s adoption of Graciela’s voice tivist poetry, transition from one to the next constitutes here “an attempt at identification through abrupt shifts of voice and varying 98 Letras Hispanas Volume 11, 2015 narrative focus, as the previous pages have fuerza para borrar de la faz del con- highlighted.33 Moreover, as Detwiler has also tinente todas las Escuelitas. (20, em- pointed out, due to the feeling of confusion phasis added) created by sporadic unidentified narrative voices in Partnoy’s testimonial literature, the This fragment, absent in the English version, reader is also likely to pause in order to con- illustrates Partnoy’s urge to insert her testi- sult the annexed documents in search of ad- monial writing in a wider web of Latin Amer- ditional information, interrupting the flow of ican discourses of social justice and solidarity. the stories (Detwiler, “The Blindfolded (Eye) Inviting action for a Latin American collec- Witness” 111). Lastly, I posit that narrative tive cause that goes beyond the specific case identification with characters is here disrupt- denounced here, the lines above break down ed, and the distancing effect with the narrated narrative levels through the invocation of an events is strengthened, when the testimonial inclusive Us: “let us attempt,” “let us spy,” “let reader feels that she is being addressed by the us gather the strength.” The reader of testi- narrative voice.34 monial literature, recalls Taylor, is supposed I claim that from these interpellations to “act as witness to the events” (165). I pro- to the testimonial reader emerges the only pose that the distancing effect created in part character with whom we are expected to through interpellating the testimonial reader, identify: the intratextual figure of the reader. as described earlier, is precisely the one that allows us to de facto become self-aware read- In La Escuelita there are notable instances 35 when the narrative voice addresses the reader ers prone to act as second-hand witnesses. explicitly in the plural form, as in “hoy les In La Escuelita, the reader is constantly abro la puerta [a La Escuelita],” “más tarde les reminded of her exclusion from the escapist cuento porqué,” and “entonces pasó lo que les immersion that helps the victim characters decía” (19, 95, 98, emphasis added). Thus, La navigate and grasp their world, as shown Escuelita does not generally imply an intimate above. While the first-hand testimonialist act of reading, but rather, a presence of col- seeks to identify with other desaparecidos to lective listening that takes us back to the act whom she gives a voice through literary writ- of tale-telling suggested by the title of the text ing, the testimonial reader is, instead, expect- alluded to earlier, “Había una vez.” Blurring ed to spy from a distance. the lines between the “literary” and the “non- In a game of mirrors, from her own literary,” this short piece added to the Spanish spy-position, the critical reader seeks in turn edition, and presented as the first of stories, to rethink testimony through literature and, can also be read as the author’s prolonged in- conversely, literature through testimony. As troduction to the stories to come. Within its mentioned earlier, Ludmer has shed light on first lines lies a possible clue to understanding certain contemporary texts which, in spite of the intended scope of Partnoy’s testimonial allowing literary readings, “son y no son lit- narrative: eratura al mismo tiempo, son ficción y reali- dad.” I believe Partnoy’s hybrid writing points in the direction signaled by Ludmer. More- Tratemos de aflojarnos la venda que over, La Escuelita appears to confirm Yúdice’s nos han puesto sobre los ojos, es- intuition, “Testimonial writing [thus] fits into piemos por el resquicio cómo trans- and contributes to the ongoing challenge of curre la vida en La Escuelita. Por la sangre de los que conocieron las aulas the literary, which is no longer understood del terror antes de que los fusilaran, simply as an autonomous cultural activity por el dolor de los que están en este conditioned by social and political factors” momento soportando las diversas (20). Indeed, Partnoy’s literary testimony, clases de la infamia, sumémonos a la received as both fictional writing and legal Patricia Lopez Gay 99 evidence, does not solely constitute a cul- classical rhetoric, A Synoptic History of Classical tural manifestation determined by its socio- Rhetoric (1983), Nance distinguishes between “fo- political context. When it finally reached its rensic,” “epideictic,” and “deliberative” testimonios originally intended reader, two decades after (19–47). Forensic discourse is a juridical form of address that seeks to establish whether actions in the publication of the English translation, the the past were just or unjust. Epideictic testimonios, text became both an aesthetic and a political she explains, accord praise or blame. Lastly, delib- intervention in post-dictatorial Argentina. erative or persuasive testimonios such as Partnoy’s Oscillating between words and images, be- The Little School incite the reader to act, as I will tween the distancing effect and the imagina- propose in the final section of this article. tion of the testimonialista’s identification with 6To read more about the practice of renaming the voiceless, the critical reader unequivo- among militants and the military personnel, see cally apprehends Partnoy’s textual and visual the short story “Nombre” and the section titled narrative as an exemplary piece of testimonial “Personal represivo” included in “Anexo 2” of La Escuelita (Nance 19–47). literature. Without falling into relativisms, 7 Partnoy’s sage warning in her introduction Marta Bermúdez-Gallegos and Edurne Por- tela have interpreted narrative fragmentation in to La Escuelita seems, after all, well justified: The Little School as symptomatic of the trauma of “Les pido que se mantengan alerta: en esas torture on the language of the testimonialist, and Escuelitas, los límites entre la historia y las Detwiler has related it to the limited vision of the historias son tan tenues que ni yo misma los blindfolded victim. In the last section of this study, puedo detectar”(15). I argue that narrative fragmentation is also a key element in the distancing effect upon the testimo- nial reader, an effect which is not devoid of ethical Notes significance. 8The “Documento Final de la Junta Militar so- 1* I am immensely grateful to Alicia and Raquel bre la Guerra contra la Subversión y el Terrorismo” Partnoy, and Nicole Caso, who have been generous was made public by the Argentinian government with their knowledge and suggestions throughout in 1983, only three years before the first edition the process of preparing this article. of The Little School was published in the United 2In this study, I exclusively refer to the first States. edition of the The Little School and La Escuelita in 9Additionally, as a scholar, Partnoy has focused the U.S. and Argentina respectively, both included her work on testimonial literature. She also edited in “Works Cited.” the book (1998), whose mission was to make the 3The impossibility of writing when there exists voices of thirty-five Latin American women in ex- a lack of distance from horror is also evoked in Re- ile heard. venge of the Apple/Venganza de la manzana (10), a 10By contrast with De Man’s thinking of the collection of Partnoy’s poems of imprisonment to autobiographical in “Autobiography as De-Face- which I will later refer. ment,” John Paul Eakin has claimed that rather 4Both The Little School and La Escuelita con- than being language itself, the subject is constitut- sist of twenty short stories. However, as I will soon ed within language. Building on this observation, discuss, the text presented as the first story in I assume that it is through the autobiographical Spanish, “Había una vez una escuelita…,” as well act of bearing witness that the testimonial subject as other peritextual texts that frame the stories, is constructs herself in language. Thus I differ with absent in the English version. In the revised Span- the idea that autobiography is a genre of “extraor- ish version, on the other hand, the story “Bread” dinary individuals”(Sommer 12). Instead, and does not appear. without neglecting the specificities of testimonio, 5In her influential study, Can Literature Pro- I place Partnoy’s La Escuelita within Leonor Ar- mote Justice?, Kimberly Nance includes Partnoy’s fuch’s broad category of “espacio autobiográfico,” The Little School in the category of “deliberative” a territory wherein converge hybrid textualities testimonial discourses which are marked by am- such as interview, testimony and conventional biguity. Building on James Murphy’s analysis of autobiography. It is precisely on this horizon of 100 Letras Hispanas Volume 11, 2015 intelligibility described by Arfuch that genre and Partnoy’s Testimony about ‘The Little School of discourse intersect, and plays out the construction Bahía Blanca,” which without a doubt affirms the of subjectivities inherently marked by plurality, referential value of this literary testimony. The an- polyphony and fragmentation. nexes that complete the Argentine edition pub- 11For a detailed reflection on the parallels and lished twenty years later are “Descripción de La insurmountable differences existing between post- Escuelita,” where the reader will find a floor plan modern thought and the literary production of of the concentration camp today destroyed; “Tes- Latin American testimony, see George Yúdice’s es- timonio y Juicio,” where the obstacles that Partnoy say, “Testimonio and Postmodernism.” faced to testify at the truth trials are described; and 12In addition to González Echevarría, men- “Lista elaborada durante la dictadura,” where the tioned above, other critics interested in testimonial names of victims who passed through La Escuelita truth within the field of Latin American literature are listed. include Joanna R. Bartow, Miguel Barnet, Gustavo 18Alicia Partnoy is identified in this drawing, A. García, Kimberly Nance, and Nora Strejilevich. “Las manos resisten,” by wearing slippers with only For the European context, see Barbara Foley and one flower, subject of the first story in English, sec- Javier Zapatero Sánchez. ond in Spanish. See “The One-Flower Slippers” 13More generally, the complexities regarding (Little School 25–27), and “Chancletas con una sola the textual genre of The Little School/La Escuelita flor” (Escuelita 21–24). are made evident by the variety of categories em- 19For instance, further on the narration chang- ployed to describe the work, such as “testimonial es to the first person, and reads: “Me ata la venda novel” (Detwiler, “The Blindfolded (Eye)Witness”), medio floja. Ahora me ata las manos y salgo del “prison memoir” (Treacy), “testimonial”(Franco), baño. Puerta, pasillo, reja...” (Escuelita 100) . and “prison narrative” (Portela). 20Portela’s study, one of the few critical works 14Like The Little School, The Revenge of the to reflect on the visual representations included Apple was translated by Partnoy along with other in La Escuelita, also sheds light on the enemy’s translators. Unlike The Little School, The Revenge panoptic gaze, drawing our attention to the four of the Apple/Venganza de la manzana is a bilingual figures that monitor the captives from an elevated publication. position: “the importance of these eyes is that they 15In her thorough analysis of the subtitles in observe, control, and restrain the two women – The Little School/La Escuelita, Portela seems to without being seen” (75). suggest that the Spanish word “relatos” resolves the 21“Rosa” was the name adopted by Alicia Part- “problematic paradox” that the term “tales” intro- noy shortly before she was abducted. As men- duces in English, as was previously noted by De- tioned earlier, name changing was a common twiler. However, according to the Diccionario de la practice among activists. Real Academia de la Lengua Española, “relato” can 22The story entitled “Chancletas de una sola mean “conocimiento que se da, generalmente de- flor,” which is thus also written in third person, tells tallado, de un hecho” as well as “narración, cuento” the history of Alicia Partnoy’s abduction, along (emphasis added). I emphasize here the ambiguity with the brutal separation from her eighteen- of the term “relato” because fiction understood as month old daughter, Ruth, and the subsequent fear invention and imagination is not opposed to refer- that Ruth could have been captured and appropri- ential testimony in Partnoy’s La Escuelita, as will ated by the military regime. By contrast, Partnoy’s soon be shown. literary testimony is written in first person when 16Partnoy took this juridical and informative giving voice to the disappeared Graciela Metz in register to the extreme in her testimony included “Graciela: alrededor de la mesa” and “Natividad,” in Nunca Más, the report published in 1986 by analyzed below, along with an anonymous male the Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de narrator in the short piece titled “El sapito Glo- Personas (CONADEP). As a counterpoint to La glo-glo.” The narrator’s identity, which remains Escuelita, wherein the emphasis is on the human anonymous in the Spanish version of “El sapito connection between the victims, Partnoy’s testi- Glo-glo-glo,” is revealed in the English translation mony in Nunca Más contains detailed descriptions of the story’s title, “Ruth’s Father.” of moments of explicit violence. 23The way “Una conversación bajo la lluvia” is 17The original U.S. publication of The Little constructed also serves to illustrate the extent to School contains “Annex 1: Fragments of Alicia which the unsaid highlights horror in La Escuelita. Patricia Lopez Gay 101

As the torturers are imaginarily struck down by 29In the author’s introduction, Partnoy the victim, the narrative follows the victim’s intro- declares,“las voces de los compañeros resuenan spective stream of thoughts, until we read: “Una con fuerza en mi memoria. Publico estos relatos media hora después le desataron las manos. -¡Ves- para que esas voces no sean silenciadas”(14). I tite!” (61). consciously use the expression “give her voice to 24With the idea of literature’s post-autonomy, Graciela” instead of “appropriate Graciela’s voice” Ludmer announces a paradigmatic shift in the no- because my focus will be here the testimonialist’s tion of the literary that has also been touched upon solidary urge to recreate voices of the disappeared, by contemporary Latin American critics such as rather than the testimonialist’s hypothetical will to Florencia Garramuño, Tamara Kamenszain and impose her own voice over the dissipated voices George Yúdice. According to this paradigm lit- of the disappeared. This solidary impulse is in- erature cannot be encapsulated by that which is separable here form the “democratizing” move- conventionally considered “literary,” but rather, ment that marks Partnoy’s testimonial literature, a extends to a realm of non-distinction between the movement to which I referred in the first section of literary and not literary. this essay, through which every character is able to 25According to recent statements by Raquel either express herself from the “I” perspective, or Partnoy, referring to her production as a visual to be expressed from the third person. artist at large, after her daughter’s disappearance 30Twenty-two years before, in public defiance in 1977 she began to include small figures in her of the government’s state terrorism intended to drawings of Bahía Blanca. Raquel now interprets silence all opposition, the Asociación Madres de these figures as the disappeared; since that time, Plaza de Mayo began its silent weekly protests in she has continued painting in the same style “para front of the Casa Rosada presidential palace. To- mantener viva la memoria” (“Dibujos en La Es- day, this world-renowned association of Argen- cuelita”). tine mothers whose children were “disappeared” 26In her study of Raquel Partnoy’s visual repre- during the military dictatorship remains fully en- sentations in The Little School, Detwiler proposes gaged in the struggle for human, political, and civil that the drawings “narrate more fully what in the rights. written text at times appears as gendered silences” 31In Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima, Jay (“Strategic Silences” 42). About testimonio, gender Lifton analyzes the survivor’s process of identifica- and feminism in Partnoy’s Little School, see also tion with the deceased victims, and establishes its Nance 176. origin in the survivor’s sense of guilt before those 27Other more recent cultural manifestations who did not survive (495–98). Although the sub- also participate in the web of solidarity whose jects of Lifton’s study are survivors of Hiroshima, center this study situates in Partnoy’s literary tes- he argues that his thesis is also applicable to the timony, La Escuelita. Rodrigo Caprotti’s fictional- case of concentration camps. I am not interested ized documentary series, La Escuelita, historias del here in the survivor’s hypothetical sense of guilt terrorismo de Estado en Bahía Blanca was aired in described by Lifton, but in the material trace of Argentina on Televisión Digital Abierta in March this process of identification, which in the case of 2014. The documentary alternates between dis- Partnoy is realized through literary writing, with playing actors recreating the described events, and the clear solidary objective of intervening in the serving as an archive of evidential truth. It includes execution of justice and civil activism. To read interviews from Adriana Metz and Alicia Partnoy, more about testimonial writing and trauma in The among others, and dedicates the last episode to Little School, see especially Taylor, Treacy and Por- Partnoy’s fight for justice. tela. 32 28Of the aforementioned studies, the chapter About the expected role of the reader of testi- included in Portela’s book Displaced memories, monial literature, see also Sommer 108 and Nance published in 2009, is the only work that mentions 19-47. the inclusion of a short text between the introduc- 33La Escuelita contains eight poetic quotes in- tion and the first story, “a new fragment that em- troducing various stories. These quotes are from phasizes the political project of Partnoy’s genera- renowned names in Spanish and Latin American tion” (87). activist poetry, such as Blas de Otero and Leonel 102 Letras Hispanas Volume 11, 2015

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