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The Rebellious Sheep

Author(s): Birgitta Vance and Cristina Peri Rossi


Source: Latin American Literary Review, Vol. 20, No. 39 (Jan. - Jun., 1992), pp. 53-56
Published by: Latin American Literary Review
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20111374 .
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CREATIVE WRITING

THE REBELLIOUS SHEEP


BY CRISTINA PERI ROSSI

INTRODUCTION AND TRANSLATION


BY BIRGITTA VANCE

CRISTINA PERI ROSSI was bom inMontevideo, Uruguay in 1941. She


obtained a degree in literature, and for ten years worked as a journalist and
teacher in Uruguay, publishing in the magazine Marcha among others. In 1963
she published her first book of stories. This early effort was followed by other
collections of short stories, a volume of poetry, and a novel; two of these books
were awarded prestigious literary prizes. Peri Rossi, active in the left-wing
resistance to military oppression in Uruguay, was forced to flee increasing
persecution in her native country and in 1972 emigrated to Barcelona, where she
continues to live today. In that city she has published the majority of her work
of the past two decades, including her most recent novel, Solitario de amor
[Solitaire of Love,] 1990 and collection of stories, Una pasi?n prohibida [A
Forbidden Passion,] 1986. Peri Rossi's work combines personal and political
themes through an indictment of powerful institutions?the military, patriarchy,
capitalism?that efface individual freedom and identity. She frequently evokes
scenes of eroticism and lesbian love, employs a child's perspective on the adult
world, and experiments with new forms of narration and genre.

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54 Latin American Literary Review

THE REBELLIOUS SHEEP

Everything would be easier if the first sheep would decide to jump. The
nights are long, the countryside very green. The city is dark.

She does not jump. She looks detachedly to one side. I stop to analyze that
look. It is their eyes that make us realize that animals are something else entirely.
But still she refuses to jump. The last cafe to stay open, closes at three. When I
leave the place, the trees are very still. With a freedom not permitted it during
the day a car, a remnant, rapidly crosses the street. I had never thought of sheep,
until it occurred to me to count them. It seemed to be a simple process. It is the
-
stillness, the silence and the solitude of the night that keep me awake my steps,
which Iwould prefer not to hear, in the coldness of the house- the creaking of
the steps when I go up the staircase, with their resonance of rheumatic wood. It
is the bones, it is the bones of the city which sound at this hour when everyone
is asleep, and the sheep, the first of the group, refuses to jump. I close my eyes.
Against the darkness of my pupils, the green countryside, the white fence, the
group of immobile sheep are outlined. They look to one side or another, distant,
as if looking were of no importance to them. Then, I try to force her. With my
eyes closed, I try to order the sheep to jump the fence. I do not know how aman
who is not asleep, but who has his eyes closed, can make himself obeyed. I am
irritated with myself. Why does this obdurate sheep refuse to obey the order? I
try to think of something else, but it it impossible. Now that I have summoned
her, in the darkness of the night, in the solitude of my closed eyelids, and she has
appeared with her great wooly coat, her short ears and her simulated passivity,
I can not simply shoo her away. How did we manage to invert our roles? I feel
like shouting Vm the one giving the orders here! She would remain indifferent
to this shout too. she does not listen to me. The first of the group is not always
the same. But you have to be an expert to distinguish one sheep from another,
especially if you have your eyes closed, if there isno light in the room, if the city
is indarkness, if the trees do not move and the telephone does not ring. The only
thing I can really say about the first sheep, is that she is the first. Nothing
distinguishes her from the others except that she is facing the white fence and one
would suppose that I shouldmanage tomake her jump in order to be able to go
to sleep. It is very possible that if this one, the first, would decide to jump, the
others would do so too. I know they would do it. They would imitate what the
previous one had done, without resisting, and I could count them, one by one, as
they went over the white painted fence. Then, sweetly, sleep would come,
wrapped in clouds and fleece, in grass, in abundant succession. But the first,
intransigent, refuses to leave the ground. Sometimes she approaches the fence,
but it is only topluck a tuftof grass; she does not lift her head, she feels no interest
for what lies on the other side. At times, I believe she thinks that to jump would
be an act of stupidity that could only occur to a sick and tired man who cannot
go to sleep. Of course, what could possibly make her want to jump? As far as she
can see, the field is identical on the other side. The grass is the same, and the

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The Rebellious Sheep 55

possibility of becoming separated from the flock does not appeal to her. 'Come
on, come on, little sheep, make up your mind,' I tell her. 'Don't you feel any
curiosity for the unknown?' She does not look at me. In fact, I cannot manage
tomake her jump, nor can Imake her look atme. It seems tome that I do not exist
for her. Nevertheless, she and her terrible resistance are real for me. I have to
resign myself to my rebellious little sheep. I think of people whose sheep jump
every night, and I conclude that they must be better shepherds than I.My flock
is indifferent. It does not feel the thrill of risk taking, nor is it tempted by
adventure. The fence in its whiteness constitutes the accepted limit of their
'
world. 'Don't you think the fence is oppressive? I ask the first of the group, from
time to time. She does not respond: she remains immobile, looking to one side,
removed from any kind of uneasiness. It is not, therefore, a restriction. The fence
is not a restriction. The fact that my sheep do not jump confers rare distinction
upon me. I am not, therefore, themaster of my sheep. I do not control them during
my wakefulness, and this is what prevents me from falling asleep. There is no
hope of sleep for me.

"The sheep refuses to jump," I said one night to an associate from the office
while we were playing chess at my home. He had recommended the simple
procedure of counting sheep jumping over a white fence for getting to sleep. He
lifted his eyes from theboard (hewas holding his devastating queen's knight in
his hand) and with an unruffled air (he is the type of man who is not easily
surprised) said to me: "Which one of them?" "The first," I answered.
He played his knight in a manner which could only contribute to my
destruction. I do not know how to complete my combinations: I might be
winning, but this irrevocably precipitates my loss. "Force her," he advised me,
drastically.
I can only win when I play against myself, when my right hand rivals my
left hand.
That night exasperated by having lost once again, despite my favorable
position and having been allowed an additional piece, I decided to force the
rebellious sheep. Hardly had I gone to bed, when I shut my eyes and obliged my
field to appear, my sheep to graze. It was the usual field, and the same flock, a
sheep, not very far from the rest, grazed near the fence. 'Jump,' I ordered,
imperiously. The sheep did not move, did not lift her head. 'Jump,' I said again
and I believe thatmy voice resounded in the silence of the building, in the
twilight-shrouded city. 'Jump, damn you,' I repeated. She was not listening to
my shout, she was ruminating around the fence, without looking beyond it.
It was then that I armed myself with a club. I do not know where I found
it because I do not usually keep weapons in the house. I detest violence.
Flourishing the club, I approached the sheep, thefirst one of the group. She did
not appear to see me, and if she saw me, then the club meant nothing to her. I
waved it in the air above her curly neck. The first blow fell directly on her head,
between both ears, and I had the sensation of squashing something soft,
doubtlessly the thick wool of her ringlets. Then, slowly, the sheep turned her
gently, dark eyes towards me. 'Jump,' I ordered her in exasperation, but once she

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56 Latin American Literary Review

had turned, the fence was at her back. She had fixed her dark eyes on me, and
despite my rage, I understood that the word fence meant nothing to her. How
could she possibly fail to understand such a simple order? 'Jump,' I shouted
again, and the second blow, dull, ferocious, fell on the same spot. Now the sheep
receded, staggering with her back to the white boards. We had become separated
from the group, confronting each other; the other sheep were grazing, the field
was green, beyond the fence another identical field stretched out. Was there any
reason for jumping? 'Jump,' I said to her again and with the third blow a thread
of blood began to flow from the roots of the curly fleece. Her gaze excited me.
The blood mingled with the wool; there were filaments of leaves and stalks
entangled in the fleece and I had the urge to remove them, to stroke her; to kill
' ' '
her, as well. Why don t you jump, you damn sheep? I yelled; this time I hit her
on the back, that velvety robust sheep's back which one day was going to die,
not a natural death, but which still counted on grazing, on ruminating next to the
others, even if Iwere never to sleep, although sleep were denied me forever and
the jump, the jump were the only way of my attaining it. Bees, dark leaves, tiny
twigs had become entangled inher fleece; the dark, thick blood was staining the
wool a little; the other sheep were grazing, she looked at me, looked at me
without understanding what Iwanted, the fence was at her back, an inoffensive,
simple white fence, easy to jump over, if one determined to do so. 'You can do
'
it, jump, I yelled, and hit her again, once more on her back. It seemed tome that
something crunched, but it was not the boards, it was not the fence and she
continued retreating. She was now a few steps away; in order to hit her again, I
would have to advance?this revolted me. Why was she so stubborn? If she
would deign to realize, if she were just capable of understanding what I asked
of her; her legs wobbled, at each blow she seemed more defenseless. 'Now her
'
legs are going to collapse, I thought, she is going to lie down on the ground until
she bleeds to death, but she is not going to jump, she will not lift herself over the
fence so that the others will imitate her; the stick was stained, 'That's how to treat
'
you, I said to her, then I sank it into her stomach, I took advantage of her bending
over to hit her there again, I did not know that a sheep's stomach was pink, I am
aman of the city, I am not accustomed to looking at sheep, to contemplating them
from their underside, that soft belly, oh, how spongy it was, the sheep was
expiring, itwas going to die at any moment without jumping, I landed another
blow there, in the section where she was pink, where she had the soft skin, that
delicate tender skin of a sheep that will no longer go to the slaughterhouse
because she did not jump, because she did not realize that the fence was an
obstacle that could be overcome. When I sank the club into her soft parts for the
last time, I felt a shudder; sleepiness overcame me, Iwas happy, the club was
motionless, very close to her flesh, the warm, whitish flesh which I now touched
with my avid hands, but itwas this warmth, itwas this soft contact which brought
me sleep, I understood that I was going to fall asleep, that stained with blood,
huddling close against the sheep's mangled, still warm entrails, Iwas going too
to sleep like a very innocent child who has not yet jumped over the white fence.

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