Cristina Cerrada is a Spanish author, sociology graduate, creative writing teacher and member of the literary group Hijos de Mary Shelley. She has written, since her first publication in 2003, nine novels and several short stories, many of them compiled into two collections, and has been the recipient of major literary awards.
His latest novel, “Stalin’s Teacher”, is an excellent example of his narrative style. With very few words she is capable of capturing our attention and capturing feelings, fears and desires, while giving us the necessary brushstrokes to situate ourselves in time, in space and in those events that will become history.
The title of this work is explained in a brief quotation from Mischa Bakaleinikoff at the beginning of the book and constitutes an introduction to what follows. Stalin’s teacher experienced, without intending to, three periods in her life, linked to the personal development of the dictator: first, when the child Stalin was her student, she protected him and even took pity on him “on more than one occasion “. When Stalin was at the height of her fame, the teacher was honored merely for instilling her knowledge in school, but after Stalin’s death “many would have wanted to go after her and punish her.”
This is, in essence, what happens to citizens residing in areas that lead to armed conflicts. Eka, the protagonist of this novel, who experiences the personal tragedy suffered by her mother due to traumatic ancestral customs for women, finds herself trapped in the vicissitudes of a war decided by the leaders of the day. What had been a “quiet” community in historical terms, although complex in its day-to-day neighborhood, suddenly turns into hell due to the armed struggle and the excesses of the soldiers, who, as is unfortunately usual, consider the women mere sexual devices to devastate others.
Eka survives, only to reach the capital of her country, which one day was a place of coexistence of different ethnic groups, religions and customs, but where soon one group becomes the enemy of the other. The “expulsion campaigns” and “ethnic cleansings” begin, and anguish and stupor take over the narration: “I have lived here all my life. My grandfather built this house. We have always lived here. And the trees? And the cattle? In a month it’s the harvest.”
But Eka already knows that war is relentless. And she’s looking for something to distract her and help her move on, and that something, in her case, is emigrating to Canada. Obtaining a visa is not an easy task and the black market moves exorbitant amounts of money for a common policewoman who moves in hostile spaces, where there are no more forces to maintain the attachment to family ties or the duties of a good neighbor.
Eka still has few unconditional friendships, but her personal traumas assault her every time something or someone causes her the slightest bit of discomfort. So, the protagonist of the novel lets her frustrations and internal anger flow and goes deeper and deeper into an abyss of no return. But, like the seed of “The Last Flower” of James Thurber’s graphic story, and like the Eka village church, destroyed and rebuilt multiple times over the years, there is something about Eka that remains and survives and offers us a temporary hope at the end of the story. Collateral damage, however, is irrecoverable.
Cristina Cerrada gives us dates and geographical names that place the action in the war between Georgia and Russia in 2008. But what she narrates is what happens in any war that we want to name.
Stalin’s teacher
Cristina Closed Seix Barral, 236 pages
18 euros