THE AVATAR IN PANAMA - Theses - Flinders University

3.3 Reinventing the Double The Avatar in Panamaon a day trip with their happily married friends John and Magda. 32 Thenameless wife believes to know what her husband is thinking: she‘mindreads’ and her behaviour and decisions are motivated by herconclusions. 33 The significance of this outing to her is apparent: “elpaseo al lago determinaría nuestro futuro”, and, after some time, sheconsiders herself, “no […] más que un estorbo” which indicates that thedoubling process has mentally begun (101, 102).The protagonist alters her physical molecular structure. Finallyher isolation and the disintegration of her personality is laid out. Noise,the outlines of figures, everything external to her disappears and herperspective then vanishes: “los gritos y las risas se fuerondesvaneciendo. Del grupo sólo quedaban borrosas siluetas”. Commonlanguage is again prevalent: endurecerse, endurecimiento, me fuiendureciendo. (103). She decides: “[t]enía que desvivir por él, el tiempoque había perdido a mi lado, el que yo había perdido al lado suyo;devolver cada una de esas horas a su comienzo” (103). 34The transformation is relative: “Cada vez que Humberto saltabapara atrapar la pelota, yo me sentía más y más como una cosa, comola mesa apoyaba los codos” (102). Ironically she becomes reified,structurally joining the table at which she is seated; she has literallyturned herself into a support for her husband: “Los demás se sentaron ami alrededor, sin hablar casi, mirándome sin verme” (103). The wife’sself-attributed feelings of worthlessness have been caused by, andprovoked in a way, the breakdown of her marriage, and her sacrifice forher husband. The doubling is due to an imbalance in the relationshipespecially on the part of the wife.Tal vez si me hubiese mirado una sola vezmientras jugaba, no con ternura sino por sabersimplemente si aún conservaba mi condición depersona, las cosas hubieran sido diferentes esatarde junto al lago […] Yo no quise que al32In another example of Jaramillo Levi intertextuality, the couple of “Paseo al lago”,John and Magda reappear hispanicised as Juan and Magda in “Ahora que soy él”(ASE).33 This concept of “mindreading” which allows a person to presume another’s opinionor attitude on something and consequently altering one’s behaviour is a symptom ofclinical depression.34This idea of the unliving of time occurs also in one of Enrique Anderson Imbert’smany short stories. The reversal of time is a feature of Anderson Imbert’s “El espejo yel reloj”, one of his many casos exploiting the mirror and the theme of the double:“Antonio fue a mirarse en la luna turbia del espejo, pero tuvo que desviar la vistahacia la imagen reflejada del reloj”. Without warning the timepiece begins “a dar lashoras al revés. Todo el tiempo viejo, acumulado, chorreaba del reloj.” AndersonImbert, “El espejo y el reloj”, Cuentos en miniatura: antología (Carácas: Equinoccio,1976) 52-53.236