Galego | English

Fiction

Case perfecto

By Marina Mayoral

About this book

A famous scientist dies under strange circumstances, similar to those described in a novel written by his wife some years before. By the time of his death they are no longer living together but one of their children accuses the mother of his father’s demise. In order to defend herself, the mother writes a long letter to him analysing the roles of different characters in this death.

Case perfecto forces the reader to take sides, to decide whether they are witnessing the story of an “almost perfect” crime or an unfortunate event, a random one. With her peculiar sense of humour and subtle ways to go into the deeper corners of human nature, Marina Maryoral shows in Case perfecto a complex fabric of feelings that unites and divides the members of a family with which many readers may identify.

Book fragment

A perfect crime

You said: You had it all set, years ago. All the details. A perfect crime, mother. And you left.

And I stayed here silent, against the wall, my arms crossed, seeing you leave towards the door, without looking at me, without saying goodbye.

I should have told you something, but what? How can you reply when somebody tells you something like that? Not somebody – my own son.

This is like a melodrama.

Even then, lost and amazed as I was, I thought that the scene was something of a soap opera, the end of a romantic drama: climax and curtain. The audience is amazed for a few minutes and starts clapping just after: this is the punishment for a guilty woman, for a bad woman, a bad mother, an egotistic woman who thinks only about herself and who will be left alone, as women are when they do not care about their children, their parents, their husbands…

But obviously you thought otherwise: you accused me of murder and left. Your punishment was to tell me that you knew and that you did not want to see me ever again. A Dashiell Hammett-like end.

What could I say? You did not expect any answer from me, it would even annoy you. The way you spoke did not leave any room for replies, that is why I kept quiet, because whatever I could say, would be useless then. You were not ready to listen. Unfortunately for me, for some time already, you only listened to Susana.