Nunca estás y estás
by Clairette Atri Mizrahi
“El dolor es soportable. Eso es lo que más duele.”
A possible collapse / derrumbe, on the verge.
The possibility of an earthquake always looming in Mexico City. The possibility of an earthquake looming in an Arab-Jewish household. Knowing that she cannot work nor use electricity after sundown, a young Mexican Syrian-Jewish mother hurries to get, not merely something, but everything—an entire world—ready for Shabbat dinner. “Nunca estás y estás” is a threat of possibility; the threat of worlds more subtle, emerging; the threat of worlds more quiet, more vivid, un llanto, un grito, on its edges; the threat of worlds giving in—collapses that yield to forbidden blurring: between inner and outer world, between Arab and Jew, between mother and lover, between now and then, between what is and what could be.
