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Zonas húmedas
Zonas húmedas
Zonas húmedas
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Zonas húmedas

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

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Tras causarse una fisura anal por apurar su depilado íntimo, Helen, la adolescente protagonista de este relato-confesión, se encuentra en la unidad de Medicina Interna, y mientras espera analiza aquellas regiones de su cuerpo que la opinión biempensante suele considerar poco propias. Porque a Helen la mueve una indomable curiosidad por sus recovecos y orificios. En efecto, a la muchacha le gusta el sexo: en solitario o en pareja; por vía anal, oral y vaginal, menstruando o con chocolate... Y el lector se deja contagiar por la risa de esta antiheroína moderna, que elabora sus traumas infantiles con un lenguaje fresco y trufado de guindas poéticas. Una primera novela transgresora, equilibrada con humor e ironía, que ha encabezado durante meses los ránkings de venta alemanes y ha sido el primer libro del ámbito germano en alcanzar la cumbre de la lista mensual de best-sellers mundiales según Amazon, con más de un millón y medio de ejemplares vendidos y 25 traducciones. «Una incursión en los últimos tabúes de nuestra época» (Elsa Vigoureux, Nouvel Observateur); «Evoca la voz de Salinger en El guardián en el centeno, Crash y el ideario feminista de Germaine Greer en La mujer eunuco» (P. Oltermann, Granta).

LanguageEspañol
Release dateOct 1, 2009
ISBN9788433932686
Zonas húmedas
Author

Charlotte Roche

Charlotte Roche was born in 1978 in High Wycombe, but was brought up and lives in Germany. She has been a highly respected presenter on the German equivalent of MTV.

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Rating: 2.7765667891008174 out of 5 stars
3/5

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A hilarious commentary to make you question how you think about your body, and it's functions. At times repetitive, and maybe a little too bizarre; Wetlands may be counterproductive for the message it wishes to portray. Eighteen year old Helen is in hospital being treated for an infected anal lesion. The promiscuous narrator is no stranger to her body, and much of the book is filled with stories of previous sexual exploits. At the core, however, is an attack against the modern waxed, douched, scented, and doused in makeup female.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Pretentious gimmick.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    This truly is the most disgusting book I've ever read. Without a doubt. I WILL be giving spoilers in this review, hopefully to spare you from having to gag your way through the book itself. DON'T READ THIS REVIEW IF YOU PLAN TO READ THE BOOK!! This was torturous to read (gross, stomach-turning and yet monotonous) but it bugs me not to finish a book once I've started it, just in case a seemingly bad or slow-starting book turns out to be great. FYI, this one did not magically change for the better. So for those of you who had the common sense to close the book after the first few pages and move on, I congratulate you. You made the right choice. But if you were curious how this repugnant thing turned out, here you go... This book takes place entirely in the hospital where 18-year-old Helen is recovering from surgery for an anal lesion. Which she goes into great detail about: how she got it, what it looks like, what it feels like, what it smells like, what it tastes like (shudder), ad infinitum. She goes into great detail about her hemorrhoids: how she got them, what they look like, what they feel like, what they...etc. etc. We also hear her reminisce about her varied, risky and hedonistic sex life (including anal, oral, receiving oral while menstruating, visiting brothels): how she gets into it, who goes where, what goes where, what it all looks like, what it all feels like, what it all smells like, what it all tastes like, etc., etc. This may make it sound like the descriptions are erotic. Trust me. They are not. They are told in a blunt, bold, crass manner by an unlikable character with a nose-thumbing attitude that is obviously intended to shock those around her. Not to speak for everybody, but my guess is unless you have a fetish for the hard-core things Helen digs and never shuts up about, you WILL be disgusted.She expounds on her drug use and how it has caused a loss of brain cells, which she finds humorous. She remembers a time when she and her friend got into a boyfriend's stash and ingested different drugs in copious amounts in one sitting while drinking red wine. Then they both got sick and vomited everything up into the same bucket. Of course, she had to describe in detail what that looked like, smelled like, oh, yes, and even tasted like. They saw some pills floating in that muck and thought it was a waste, so they both drank the bucket of mutual vomit until it was empty. Yes, I know. Do you understand why I felt nauseous at times reading this book?Helen had exceptionally poor hygiene habits. Understatement. HUGE understatement. She hadn't washed her face in years. In fact she went to great pains to make sure her face never got wet. It wasn't a fear of water. She just didn't think it was necessary (probably a rebellion against her mother's aversion to germs). She described secretions that would accumulate on her body after not bathing certain areas for a period of time. She described how she and a friend would swap used tampons under the bathroom stall doors and re-insert them--that way they could be "blood" sisters. She would deliberately smear blood on handrails, on money, on elevator buttons. Of course she never washed her hands, are you kidding me? It didn't matter what she touched. She liked being dirty. The grosser the better. At one point she was looking at and touching the infected tissue (now medical waste) that she had requested to see after her surgical procedure. That's okay to be curious about those things. HOWEVER; she had just gotten done describing every detail of it (blood, pus, red/yellow tissue, etc.), then realized her hands were dirty/bloody. Oh, well. She can just lick it off. Oh, and then finish her pizza. This whole book is relentless in its capacity for crudeness. Constant descriptions of blood, excrement, pus, scabs, mucous, you name it. And she loves eating it all, describing the most vile things as "delicacies". After trying to come up with ways to stay in the hospital, hoping it will force her parents to visit at the same time and realize they want to get back together, Helen ends up opening up her surgical wound by inserting part of the brake on her bed into the wound, causing her to nearly bleed to death and need a second emergency surgery. This girl is cooked.I had a glimmer of hope that there would be some redemption for Helen and for the book itself when she revealed flashback memories of the dysfunction of her childhood. It seems her mother's warped sense of, well, everything most likely caused the current repulsive behavior that Helen so childishly displays on a constant and unrelenting basis. Helen is obviously hurt and angry. Yes, I feel bad that her mother attempted suicide when she was younger and tried to take her little brother with her (leaving Helen to wonder why her mom didn't want to take her too). Yes, I feel bad she is still hurting about her parents' divorce and really wants them to get back together. I presume these understandable hurts transferred over to the obvious anger and disdain toward everyone else, to the degree that she blatantly tries to shock everyone around her, has no regard for others, and is basically, just...nasty. In every way.In the end, she talks Robin, a male nurse who befriends her, into letting her live with him so she won't have to go back home to her mother. He agrees and is actually pretty kind to her. Seems like a good guy. But can Helen walk away with us thinking she might be growing up and possibly have a chance with this nice nurse guy? That maybe he'll be able to teach her some good hygiene? Well, maybe, but first she has to rip up her hospital room in order to leave a "goodbye message", an elaborate visual depicting her mother's suicide attempt years earlier. Drawing an oven on the wall, ripping the wallpaper down to look like the oven door, laying her mom's clothes out on the floor to make it look like how she found her unconscious mom and little brother. Just letting dear old mom know that she remembers. A last F.U. to her family. Gee, how unlike Helen's usual behavior. P.S. One crazy thing is the author's photo is such a complete contrast to the story itself. She looks all coy and shy, kind of pixie-like. Shoot, she even has little daisies on her blouse. It's so weird that this type of work could come from the mind of someone who looks like her!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Wetlands is all about Genitalia and bodily functions. Wetlands presents them en masse with a sliver of a plot in between, giving us pretty much one character to relate to, namely Helen. Helen spends the book hospitalized, musing about her genitals (as well as her hemmorhoids). The little we get served about helen is in that case, a big heap of vagina, with some asses thrown in. The topic is fine and dandy in my book, and as i can see why this is a welcome topic nowadays, when gender roles seems to be creeping slowly back to the middle ages. The problem is that it all seems a bit joyless. There is not much story told in between, just big spoonfulls of vaginal ooze, which is amusing for a while, but not too long. To top it off, Wetlands is presented with a rockist sensibility, a sense of fuck you, which feels dated and tiresome. That leaves wetlands standing with a big middle finger, but is in the end neither provoking nor gross. But in the end, Wetlands is still an essential read for pretty much everyone. It's still a decent novel about a subject that needs to be adressed. I just wished for something interesting to be said between all those piles of vagina.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I loved this book. I loved that it pushed the gross out boundaries but in a very natural way. I have recommended this book to several female friends of mine; I really hope they read it! It is hilarious, thought provoking and just plane interesting! I absolutely love the unbridled look at human function in all forms.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I enjoyed this book, but also hated it at the same time - hence the 2.5 star review! I'm sure once you've read it you'll understand where I'm coming from.I'd never heard of this book until a few months ago, then loaned it from my local library. As others have said before me, the explicit descriptions of sex acts, bodily functions etc aren't really anything new, depending on what you've already read, watched, experienced etc. but how you perceive them is of course dependent on how open-minded, strong-stomached you are! I was shocked at some of the descriptions, and I thought I was pretty open-minded, especially when it comes to sex!In terms of the actual story and characters, I really thought Helen was, to be perfectly honest, a complete idiot, very selfish, very strange and, please mind my language, an utter bitch. I couln't sympathise with her at all, and wished ill things on her, although given her perversion and obsession with sexual parts, and espeically hygeine, I think the kind of things I wished on her she would have gotten off on! I believe Charlotte Roche (using descriptions of sexual acts, intimate parts, hygeine, and then the injuries Helen suffers and then consequently, inflicts on herself) intended to get under the readers skin in such a way that you cannot help but imagine doing these things to yourself, and not just be shocked/impressed at the range of disgusting things an 18 year old girl is capalbe of! I know I certainly could not stop thinking about some of the things, way past after they had happened, as they really got to me. And as for the ending - very disappointing and also quite stupidly far-fetched. It seemed to me that Roche had lost her thread and couldn't really think of an ending. I don't think trying to see Helen 'happy' worked for me, as I didn't think she deserved to be. I wasn't shocked by this book, but more disturbed by it and was also slightly embarrassed whilst reading it, as, as others may also feel, Roche inflicts things on you in those pages that most people would never think of, admit to, do to themselves/others. That's why I gave it 2.5 stars, as I feel a love/hate relationship towards it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Not particularly groundbreaking to anyone who has read a sex blog in the past ten years, but as a work of feminist literature in this so-called "post-feminist" world, this is a particularly important little book. Approaching a woman (or adolescent girl, as the case may be) not just as a subject of disgust, but as a creature who revels in what our society considers to be abject, is still considered among most to be a faux pas at best and a reprehensible act at worst. This book will work your gag reflex, and that's something we can all do with more of.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I learned about this book on LT. It was quite controversial, so of course I had to read it. It was only available new in hardcover which I don't buy, and it would have had to be ordered. None of my local stores had it. My new Kindle ability came to the rescue and I downloaded it.It was a short, quick read. The writing was fine (translation). It lived up to its billing it is controversial. It is possibly the most disgusting book I have ever read - so if you are easily grossed out or offended, skip it. There are lots of descriptions of the body and its functions and the fluids and solids it creates and excretes. The main character helps out with the distribution of these fluids and solids and in fact revels in what most would find repulsive.She is 18 and in the hospital due to an anal lesion she produced when shaving between her butt cheeks. It has become infected and she required surgery to repair it. While she is there she is musing about her life and her beliefs regarding her body, sex, and hygiene. The other issue that drives her is the divorce of her parents and how she feels lost and betrayed by their split. She schemes of ways to bring them back together, like a much younger child would.As has been described elsewhere she battles with the idea of hygiene that society has imposed on people in general and women in particular. But I also think that her despair at her parents' divorce ties into her behavior and is not just a secondary story line. She is clearly acting out, possibly because she feels invisible to her parents. They are too busy with their own lives to take her or her feelings into account. Her grossness is her way of shouting for attention with her extreme actions making her stand out and actually 'exist'. She is also showing her anger in how she forces her beliefs on others. She will interact with others but they don't know that the hand they shake has just been inside her, and has not been washed. She will rub her used tampon on the walls and hand holds in the elevator, all manifestations of anger. She is forcing her beliefs on others without giving them a chance to accept or reject them. That part pissed me off.Mostly I thought she was interesting, and sad as well as gross. Her treatment of others, rather than her grossness was what lost me her sympathy. Read at your own risk.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is the most unusual,original book I had the pleasure to read in the past six month.Charlotte Roches dares every subject that would seem shockingly disturbing otherwise,and she does it with such style,in such a natural and pleasurable way that it is almost impossible to close the book until you reached the last page.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I loved the character's frank discussions of hygiene & sexuality, but hated the plot. I kept telling myself, of course she's immature, she's still a teenager, but the whole thing with her parents just felt preposterous.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I tried describing this book to a friend and had a difficult time. I've heard it described as provocative, and I would agree. It's both humorous and disturbing. It's definitely not for everyone. The young woman is shockingly open about her sex life and her obsession with hygiene or rather her battle with society's obsession with hygiene. But at the heart is a girl who is just struggling to adjust to her parent's divorce.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It's a book about two things:1. The female body, as it shits and pisses and menstruates and functions and malfunctions.2. Seriously broken families.Do not read this if you're squeamish. Most certainly do not read it while you're eating.I must admit I'm still not 100% sure what I think of it. But the fact is that I read most of it on aeroplanes and in Heathrow T5 and people looked at me as though I was crazy as I giggled quietly to myself and occasionally laughed out loud. So I must have enjoyed reading it, in between all the cringing, and it's certainly a very brave book.It reminds me of a few things. In some ways, it's a tongue-in-cheek take on the Vagina Monologues. In some ways it's a 21st century female take on The Catcher in the Rye, anrguably a more successful one at that.That's probably as much as I can say about it now. It sure as hell is weird.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Es muy gracioso y poco reservado, me gusta sobre todo la forma coloquial en que describe muchos aspectos de la sexualidad femenina.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Reading "The Wetlands" made me think of a comment I once saw posted on a slightly seedy internet comment board in which some guy bemoaned the fact that French and German porn actresses tended to bore him because they were too comfortable with sex. Watching them go at it, he said, was sort of like watching them do aerobics, albeit using some unusual equipment. It got me thinking: maybe you can be too comfortable with sex! It might be lapsed Catholic in me talking, but maybe the idea that our naughty bits are indeed naughty adds something important to our sexual experiences. "The Wetlands" seems to confirm this hypothesis. Never have I read a novel so explicit and yet so dull. The explicit elements of this book have probably been described by other reviewers at length, so I won't go them here, save to say that Helen Memmel, our protagonist, has such a blasé attitude towards her own body that it verges on disassociation. Forget a mind-body connection: Helen describes her body as if it's a piece of furniture and hasn't yet secreted a bodily fluid she isn't perfectly at home with. Perhaps the author's trying to desacrilize the body or normalize its functions, or maybe she's trying to tweak Americans' supposedly overly puritanical conceptions of their own bodies. Either way, it makes "The Wetlands" a pretty flat and unexciting read. This is especially true since Helen herself isn't that interesting: even for a teenage protagonist, who might be forgiven for not being especially reflective, she's glib and self-centered. Heck, I'm not too sure that "shallow" isn't the correct adjective here. We watch her irritate nurses, manipulate doctors, and recount a couple of bodily fluid-intensive experiences without gaining much insight into the life that she may or may not have. Helen's a dirty, dirty girl, but not in the exciting sense that that phrase usually implies. The novel could probably have been improved by periodic visits from the grinning, broad-shouldered bald guy on the Mr. Clean bottle. And that, I guess, is my main problem with "The Wetlands." I'm just some American with a rather tense relationship with microbes, but I imagine that you'd have to go through some pretty significant trauma to get to where Helen is in this novel. And, yes, she talks about a couple of genuinely unpleasant incidents her past in her usual afectless tone. But there's little emotional resonance here. A lot of what passes for the emotional underpinnings to Helen's character is day-dreamy, by-the-numbers teenage sentimentality and doesn't seem to explain, never mind justify, the weird, messy place that she's ended up. Frankly, this kitschy stuff's a lot less forgivable than all of Helen's talk about her secretions and orifices. There are probably places here where the author could have made a larger point about modern society's relationship with impurity and our physical selves, but Helen's not really the right vessel for that: there's little in the way of social critique here. So that's it. "The Wetlands" is recommended to fans of outré literature who have a high tolerance for discussions of all things proctological, people interested in literary depictions of the body -- of which I admit I'm one -- absolutely shameless perverts, and nobody else. Remember to wash your hands thoroughly after reading this one.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Well, it was what it was and she either had her hand up her cunt or up her arse just about most of the time. I honestly don't know how she managed to type. Maybe she didn't type but instead just daubed on the walls. Whatever, but there sure was a lot of that stuff, more than anywhere else I have yet to read. I can remember reading one bit and starting to see where it was going and thinking to myself, "she couldn't", then, "she wouldn't", then "of course she did".

    And somewhere along the way I kinda thought that the whole point of it was "of course she did".

    I found none of it shocking or disgusting, I mean, who hasn't had their fingers in the their own, or someone else's, orifices at some point or another and revelled in it? Well, I have but never enough to write a whole book about.

    I did like the subtext of the parents story and was a bit sorry there wasn't more substance to it, maybe I should have said I wished the parents had been more solid and not just another smear on the wall.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a slim novel about a young woman’s happy obsession with her own body and it’s functions and excretions, especially her genitals and her anus. It takes this theme pretty far indeed. I guess you already have a strong hunch if this is for you or not. If you don’t think it is, it isn’t. Trust me.Eighteen year old Helen is in hospital to have very painful surgery performed on her sphincter. She decides to use this condition to try and get her parents back together. Which means she can’t allow herself to be sent home too soon. In the meantime she hits it off with Robin, a young male nurse, and tells him about her lovelife and other secrets. All of it dosed in hefty doses of mucus, menstrual blood, hair, blackheads, urine and smegma.German writers do this kind of happy provocation better than anyone. What could have been purely about shock value and grossing the reader out, instead, through Helen’s attitude and matter-of-factness becomes a rather liberating read. You’d kind of want every teenage girl with deep fears of a hair in the wrong place, or even the faintest whiff of sweat, to take a test-dive into this cesspool and come up a freer person. Holding the novel together is a small streak of sorrow. Roche plays Helen’s sadness about her family extremely low – subtleness in a pretty darn un-subtle book, and it’s effective. I wish there had been a little bit more of that though, instead of peppering the pages with new musky smells until the very last page.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It’s a book with a buzz. It’s the first German book to top the lists of Amazon bestsellers, and the one to which reviews referred to as a ‘feminist manifesto bordering pornography’. In truth, this book is both a tale of a troubled teenager, and a reaction to the artificial and sanitized model of femininity of the cosmetic ads and glossy magazines covers. Helen, an 18-year-old heroin, desperately needs warmth and attention, but nobody really cares about her. She wants love; she wants her parents together. She does outrageous things to get a stir from them, but to no avail. She is shameless, provocative and promiscuous, she experiments with drugs; all of that it seems to come to terms with her mother’s failed murder suicide and her parents’ divorce. Just like Helen, the book is outrageous, irreverent, attention seeking, but it’s also funny and very bold.

Book preview

Zonas húmedas - Richard Gross

Para Martin

Considero muy importante cuidar a los ancianos en el seno familiar. Hija de divorciados que soy, deseo, como casi todos los hijos de matrimonios separados, que mis padres vuelvan a estar juntos. Cuando estén necesitados de atención, sólo tendré que meter a sus nuevas parejas en un geriátrico; después los cuidaré a ellos dos en casa, donde los acostaré en la misma cama hasta que mueran. Ésta es para mí la idea suprema de la felicidad. Sé que en algún momento podré hacerlo, sólo tengo que esperar con paciencia.

Desde que tengo uso de razón sufro de almorranas. Durante muchos años pensé que no podía decírselo a nadie, ya que las almorranas sólo les salen a los abuelos y siempre me parecieron muy impropias de una chica. ¡Cuántas veces habré ido al proctólogo! Pero el hombre me aconsejaba dejarlas donde estaban mientras no me causaran dolor. Y dolor no me causaban. Sólo me picaban. Para remediarlo, el doctor Fiddel, que es mi proctólogo, me recetaba una pomada de zinc. 

Contra el picor exterior se pone la cantidad del tamaño de una avellana en el dedo que tenga la uña más corta y se reparte por el anillo anal. El envase viene con uno de esos aplicadores puntiagudos dotados de muchos orificios que se pueden introducir en el ano y permiten la inyección de la pomada en pleno recto. Así es como logro calmar la picazón interior.  

Antes de tener ese ungüento me rascaba durante el sueño el ano con tanta fuerza que por la mañana me despertaba con una mancha de color chocolate en las bragas tan gruesa como una chapa de botella. A gran picor, buen dedo rascador. Como ya decía, algo muy impropio de una chica.  

Mis almorranas tienen un aspecto muy particular. Con los años han ido prolapsando, y ya tengo todo el anillo anal rodeado de lóbulos cutáneos nubiformes que se parecen a los tentáculos de una anémona de mar. El doctor Fiddel llama a eso coliflor.

Dice que quitarlas sería una intervención puramente estética que él sólo realiza si se convierten en un verdadero problema para alguien. Una buena razón para hacerlo sería, por ejemplo, que a mi amante no le gustaran o que me sintiera avergonzada a la hora del sexo. Pero yo eso jamás lo admitiría.  

Si un tío me quiere o está encoñado conmigo, esa coliflor no debería tener ninguna importancia. Además, llevo muchos años, desde los quince hasta los dieciocho que tengo ahora, sin que mi hipertrofiada inflorescencia me haya impedido practicar el sexo anal con gran éxito. Gran éxito significa para mí: correrme a pesar de tener la polla metida solamente en el ano y sin que me toquen nada más. Estoy muy orgullosa de ello.  

Por otra parte, es la mejor manera de comprobar si un tío me quiere de verdad. Ya en uno de los primeros encuentros le pido mi postura favorita, la del perrito, o sea, a cuatro patas y con la cara hacia abajo, en la que él viene por detrás y busca con la lengua el chochito mientras su nariz se hunde en mi ano. Eso implica un avance pausado y paciente, ya que el ano está cubierto con mi hortaliza. La posición se llama cópula facial. Nadie se me ha quejado todavía.  

Cuando se tiene una cosa así en un órgano importante para el sexo (¿el culo llega a ser un órgano?), hay que ejercitar la relajación. Ejercicio que a su vez ayuda a soltarse y distenderse de cara a la relación anal, por poner sólo un ejemplo.  

Dado que en mi caso el ano forma parte explícita del sexo, está sometido al imperativo moderno de la depilación, igual que el chochito, las piernas, los sobacos, la zona supralabial, los dedos gordos de los pies y el empeine. Naturalmente, la zona supralabial está vedada a la hoja de afeitar y queda reservada exclusivamente a la pinza depiladora para prevenir, como todas hemos tenido ocasión de aprender, que el bigote se vuelva cada vez más tupido. Una chica tiene que evitar eso. Antes, yo era muy feliz sin afeitarme, pero luego empecé con esa memez y ya no puedo dejarlo.  

Volvamos a la depilación anal. Al contrario que otra gente, conozco perfectamente el aspecto de mi agujero; lo observo todos los días en el cuarto de baño. Es fácil: hay que ponerse con el culo de cara al espejo, separar las nalgas con fuerza hacia los lados, mantener las piernas rectas, agachar el torso con la cabeza hasta casi tocar el suelo y mirar atrás por entre las piernas ligeramente abiertas. En esta misma posición efectúo también el afeitado del ano, con la diferencia de que la operación me obliga a soltar una de las nalgas para poder rasurarme. Coloco la maquinilla sobre la coliflor y empiezo a depilar la zona de dentro afuera, con ganas y coraje. Se puede deslizar la hoja hasta la mitad del glúteo porque hay pelos que llegan a extraviarse hacia esa zona. Como la depilación es una cosa que en el fondo me revienta, tiendo a ejecutarla con prisa y a lo loco. Y fue justo en una de ésas como me provoqué la fisura anal que ahora me tiene hospitalizada. Todo por culpa de tanto rasurado femenino, tanto «siéntete como Venus» o «sé una diosa». 

Quizás no todo el mundo sepa lo que es una fisura anal. Se trata de una grieta o corte muy fino en la epidermis del anillo que, si se inflama (cosa por desgracia muy probable en esas partes bajas del cuerpo), produce un dolor infernal. Como el que yo siento en estos instantes. Además, el esfínter está siempre en movimiento, cuando hablas, ríes, toses, caminas, duermes o, sobre todo, cuando estás sentado en el váter. Pero eso sólo lo sé desde que empezó a dolerme. 

Las almorranas hinchadas aprietan con toda la fuerza contra la herida que me causé en el afeitado; hacen que la fisura se dilate cada vez más y me provocan el dolor más grande que jamás he experimentado. Con creces. Inmediatamente después, en el segundo puesto del ránking de dolores, están los que me produjo mi padre al cerrar con un golpe tremendo la puerta del maletero de nuestro coche raspándome, raaaassss, la columna vertebral de arriba abajo. Y los terceros en intensidad los sentí cuando me arranqué el piercing del pezón al quitarme el jersey. Desde entonces mi pezón derecho se parece a una lengua bífida, como de víbora.  

Estaba hablando de mi ano. Entre unos dolores horrorosos me fui arrastrando del instituto al hospital y enseñé mi corte a todo médico que quisiera verlo. Enseguida me dieron una cama en la unidad de Proctología, ¿o se dice unidad de Medicina Interna? Medicina Interna suena mejor, además no vamos a suscitar la envidia ajena con tanta especialización. De todas formas, lo preguntaré cuando esté libre del dolor. Ahora tengo que procurar no moverme y permanecer tumbada en esta posición embrional: con la falda levantada, las bragas bajadas y el culo mirando a la puerta para que cualquiera que entre sepa al instante cuál es la madre del cordero y de todos los dolores. Parece que la inflamación está al rojo vivo porque todos los que han entrado han exclamado un «vaya» unísono.  

Dicen también que tengo pus y una ampolla repleta de líquido colgada del ano. Me imagino que la ampolla debe de tener la forma que adopta el cuello de esos pájaros tropicales cuando se infla de aire en época de celo. Una bolsa tensa de un brillante color rojo y azul. El siguiente proctólogo que entra se limita a decir:  

–Buenos días. Soy el doctor Notz.  

Y entonces me clava algo en el ano. Siento cómo el dolor me taladra la columna vertebral hasta llegar a la frente. Casi me desmayo. Después de varios segundos de dolor intensísimo tengo una sensación de humedad, como si algo estuviera reventado, y pego un grito:  

–¡Ay! Avise, hombre. ¿Qué ha sido eso? 

–Mi pulgar. Disculpe, pero el grosor de la ampolla no me dejaba ver lo que hay detrás. 

¡Vaya manera de presentarse una misma! 

–¿Y ahora qué ve? 

–Tenemos que operarla inmediatamente. ¿Ha comido algo esta mañana? 

–¿Cómo voy a haber comido con tanto dolor? 

–Bien, entonces le pondremos anestesia general. Con el diagnóstico que presenta es mejor así.  

Me alegro. Prefiero no enterarme de esas cosas. 

–¿En qué consistirá la operación? 

La conversación ya ha llegado a cansarme. Me cuesta centrarme en algo distinto al dolor.  

–Vamos a hacer una incisión cuneiforme para extirparle el tejido inflamado alrededor de la fisura.  

–No entiendo lo de cuneiforme. ¿Me lo puede dibujar? 

Parece que al doctor Notz suelen pedirle un croquis de la intervención que va a realizar. Está deseando irse. Mira hacia la puerta y suspira imperceptiblemente.  

Por fin se digna sacar el boli plateado del bolsillo de la solapa. Un artilugio de aspecto pesado y al parecer valioso. Mira a su alrededor como si buscara un trozo de papel para dibujar encima. No le puedo ayudar y espero que no crea que voy a hacerlo. Cada movimiento me duele. Cierro los ojos. Algo cruje y oigo cómo arranca un pedazo de papel. No puedo menos que volver a abrir los ojos, el dibujo que me va a hacer me tiene muy intrigada. Sostiene la hoja en la palma de la mano y garabatea algo encima. Después me presenta su obra. Leo: col rizada con crema de leche. ¡No puede ser! Ha arrancado un trozo del menú. Le doy la vuelta a la hoja y veo que ha trazado un círculo que, supongo, representa mi ano. Presenta una hendidura aguda, de forma triangular, como si alguien se hubiera llevado un trozo del pastel.  

¡Ah, ya! Muchas gracias, doctor Notz. Con el talento que tiene, ¿no ha pensado nunca en dedicarse a la pintura? El dibujo no me sirve en absoluto. No me aclara nada, pero dejo de insistir. Está visto que el hombre se niega a arrojar luz en las tinieblas de mi ano. 

–¿Verdad que puede aprovechar la ocasión para quitarme la coliflor de un rebanazo? 

–Hecho. 

Se va y me deja tirada en mi charco de suero sanguíneo. Estoy sola. Me asalta cierto miedo preoperatorio. Una anestesia general me inspira la misma seguridad que si uno de cada dos anestesiados no volviese en sí tras la intervención. Me considero muy valiente por no echarme atrás. El siguiente que llega es el anestesista.  

El narcotizador. Se sienta justo al lado de mi cabeza, junto a la cama y en una silla demasiado baja. Habla en tono muy suave, y a diferencia del doctor Notz se muestra más comprensivo hacia la desagradable situación en la que me veo sumida. Me pregunta cuántos años tengo. Si fuera menor de dieciocho, tendría que estar presente un tutor legal. Pero no lo soy. Le digo que soy mayor de edad desde este año. Me mira a los ojos con mirada escrutadora. La gente nunca me cree porque parezco más joven. Pero conozco el juego. Pongo cara de puedes-creerme y le devuelvo una mirada fija a los ojos. Enseguida me mira de otro modo. Me cree. Adelante, pues. 

Me explica el efecto de la anestesia, dice que deberé empezar a contar y que en algún momento me quedaré frita sin enterarme. Él permanecerá durante toda la operación en mi cabecera para controlar mi respiración y mi tolerancia a la anestesia. Ya. O sea que ese estar-sentado-demasiado-cerca-de-la-cabeza es una deformación profesional. De hecho, la mayoría de las personas no se enteran puesto que están dormidas. Y él tiene que achicarse y arrimarse a la cabecera para no interferir en el trabajo de los cirujanos. El pobre. Siempre acurrucado. Postura típica de su profesión.  

El hombre ha traído un contrato que tengo que firmar. Ahí dice que la operación puede producir incontinencia. Le pregunto qué tiene que ver todo eso con el pipí. Sonríe y dice que en este caso se trata de incontinencia anal. Yo en Babia total. Pero de repente comprendo lo que podría significar: 

–¿Quiere decir que pierdo el control del esfínter y me quedo chorreando caca a todas horas y en todas partes? ¿Que necesitaré pañales y oleré a eso siempre? 

–En efecto. Pero no es frecuente –dice mi narcotizador–. Firme, por favor. 

Firmo. Qué remedio. Si es lo que aquí exigen... Difícilmente puedo operarme yo misma en casa.  

¡Santo cielo! Queridísimo Dios que no existes, te ruego que eso no ocurra. ¡Pañales a los dieciocho! Cuando tenga ochenta, vale. Pero no quiero haber vivido sólo catorce años sin pañales. Además, no es que favorezcan precisamente. 

–Señor narcotizador, ya que es usted tan amable, ¿sería posible ver lo que me saquen una vez que esté terminada la operación? No me gusta que me quiten cosas y las tiren a la basura de los abortos y apéndices sin que pueda hacerme una idea del objeto. Quiero tenerlo en la mano al menos una vez y examinarlo detenidamente.  

–Si usted quiere, claro que sí. 

–Gracias. 

Entonces me mete la aguja en el brazo y lo pega todo con cinta gaffa. Es el canal para la anestesia general que me va a poner. Dice que dentro de unos minutos vendrá un enfermero que me conducirá al quirófano. Después sale y, al igual que su colega, me deja tirada en medio de mi charco.  

Lo de la incontinencia anal me tiene preocupada. 

Queridísimo Dios que no existes: si salgo de aquí sin ser una incontinente anal dejaré todas esas travesuras que me provocan mala conciencia. Por ejemplo, ese juego en el que mi amiga Corinna y yo vamos merodeando por la ciudad completamente borrachas y les arrancamos las gafas a los gafudos para partirlas por la mitad y tirarlas al primer rincón que encontramos.  

Hacerlo requiere ancas veloces porque algunos, de pura rabia, son capaces de correr muy rápido incluso sin gafas.  

En el fondo es un juego idiota porque produce una excitación y una descarga de adrenalina que siempre nos pone sobrias. Un gran despilfarro. Después hay que emborracharse de nuevo. 

Me gustaría mucho dejarlo porque por las noches sueño a menudo con la cara que ponen los desgafados: como si les hubiéramos arrancado una parte del cuerpo.  

O sea que empezaría por renunciar a eso, y voy a pensar de qué más puedo abstenerme.  

Quizás de lo de las putas, si fuera absolutamente necesario. Pero sería un sacrificio enorme. Preferiría que bastara con dejar lo de las gafas.  

He decidido convertirme en la mejor paciente que este hospital jamás haya visto. Voy a ser muy amable con estos médicos y enfermeras desbordados de trabajo. Y voy a limpiar yo misma toda mi mierda. Ese suero sanguíneo, por ejemplo. En la repisa de la ventana hay un gran cartón abierto lleno de guantes de goma. Debe de ser para los exámenes clínicos. ¿El Notz ese se los puso cuando me desvirgó la ampolla del ano? Mierda, no me fijé. Junto al depósito de los guantes de goma hay una gran caja de plástico transparente. Un tupper para gigantes. A lo mejor contiene algo que me pueda servir para la autolimpieza. Mi cama está al lado de la ventana. Despacio y con mucho cuidado me estiro un poco, sin mover el culo inflamado, para alcanzar la caja. La acerco a la cama. Ay. Al levantarla y tirar de ella he tensado los abdominales, es como pegarle un cuchillazo a mi herida. Quieta. Cierra los ojos. Respira hondo. No te muevas. Espera a que el dolor se vaya. Abre los ojos. Ya. 

Ahora puedo abrir la tapa. Qué excitante. La caja está a tope de compresas enormes, pañales para adultos, calzoncillos desechables, paños de gasa y paños forrados de plástico por una cara y de algodón por la otra.  

¡Ojalá hubiera tenido algo parecido cuando entró Notz! Ahora la cama no estaría mojada. Es muy desagradable. De los paños necesito dos. Uno lo pongo con la cara de algodón para abajo, sobre el charco. Así lo absorbe. Y pongo otro encima para no tener que estar acostada sobre el plástico. Plástico sobre plástico y el algodón hacia arriba. Bien hecho, Helen. A pesar del dolor infernal, eres tu mejor enfermera.  

Alguien que sabe cuidarse tan bien como yo, seguro que no tardará en recuperar la salud. Aquí en el hospital tengo que preocuparme un poco más por la higiene que en la vida normal allá afuera.

La higiene con mayúscula no es

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