‘Elena Knows’ by Claudia Piniero   (2007) – 143 pages               Translated from the Spanish by Frances Riddle

“She imagined someone trying to tell her about this illness she now knows better than anyone because it’s inside her. She could describe it better than Dr. Parkinson, she thinks, and she’d call it Elena’s Affliction.”

Elena is trying to cope with both her Parkinson’s disease and her daughter Rita’s sudden death. The police found her daughter’s body hanging from the belfry of Elena’s church on a rainy night. Father Juan at the church and the investigating police quickly come to the conclusion that Rita committed suicide. However Elena knows that Rita would never go inside the church on a stormy night. Elena knows her daughter was murdered.

Elena must investigate herself. But she must also contend with her Parkinson’s.

“Who would have thought that being able to get your arm in a sleeve could be such a big deal, she thinks. Now she knows how important it is.”

Besides her terrible struggle to do even the simplest tasks, another feature which gives this crime novel its authenticity are the conversations between Elena and her daughter Rita which are shown in flashbacks.

“If you’re lucky enough not to shake, Rita had said, why go around telling people? They’ll just pity you. But if no one sees you shaking no one’s going to know you have Parkinson’s, and the longer it takes for them to give it a name the better, Mum.”

As both mother and daughter contend with Elena’s affliction, their conversations turn into severe clashes. These awful fights show the love between mother and daughter better than would have scenes of affection.

“She loved and still loves her daughter even though she never said it, even though they fought and kept their distance, even though their words were like cracks of the whip, and even if she didn’t hug and kiss her daughter, she felt a mother’s love. Is she still a mother now that she doesn’t have a child?”

With her Parkinson’s, Elena can barely ride the bus to this lady Isabel’s house to ask Isabel to help solve the crime of her daughter’s death.

“What’s left of you when your arm can’t even put on a jacket and your leg can’t even take a step and your neck can’t straighten up enough to show your face to the world, what’s left?”

Argentine author Claudia Piniero has been pigeon-holed as a crime writer, but there is much more to ‘Elena Knows’ than a crime story.

Grade :    A