Ángela Pradelli – The Bather

Olga does not have an ordinary job. She likes it, partly for the money, partly for the ease of it, partly because it suits her hours and temperament, and partly because, well, it was so much better than the other dead end jobs she used to have. She bathes people, the sick and the elderly, in their homes, carefully, with rubber gloves more often than not, and she's very good at her job. Each new client comes from the recommendation of an existing client; she doesn't advertise and never has.

Ángela Pradelli's The Bather (trans. Andrea G. Labinger) is a story enamoured with its own concept. Pradelli is clearly fond of her protagonist and the situation into which she has placed her. A story of bathing sick individuals could have been a tale of the grotesque, and though there is some of that, this is largely a gentle, sensitive, humorous story willing to laugh at the situation while avoiding sniggering at the patients. First, though, we are introduced to Olga, who is young and directionless, aware her future doesn't look very bright but not all that convinced she must do something about it. A string of bad jobs has left her without an occupation and, now, at the end of her tether,, she has been unable to find any job at all, returning home each night exhausted and hungry from her search.

And then a neighbour comes to visit with a suggestion:

“But I’ve never bathed anyone,” Olga repeated, “not even a baby.”
“Twenty pesos a bath,” he tempted her.
“Twenty?”
“Twenty. Two baths a week.”
Olga hesitated.
“Anyway, it’s only for a little while,” he added. “A month, let’s say, or maybe a few days longer, just till she completes her rehab.”

The money, as it turns out, is sufficient to get by if she scrapes, and the job itself isn't so bad. Soon one client leads to another, and before she knows it her day is full and her bank account is overflowing. Olga, unlike a nurse, unlike someone who has been trained into the profession, does it purely because of the pleasure she is able to give to her patient, and the clear comfort she provides. It's a rewarding job and not too difficult, and over time she has become very good:

Olga’s baths were very thorough. Full body. She didn’t leave a single crevice untouched by soap and sponge. Afterwards: talcum, perfume, deodorant. She clipped fingernails and toenails, and she also trimmed nose hairs and those little hairs that poked out of ears. Some weeks she gave three or four baths a day. It was good money. About a thousand a month. Maybe even a little more.

Once Pradelli has established Olga's character – caring, sensitive, emotive, resourceful – and established her somewhat odd occupation, the story opens up, becomes larger and more expansive. Pradelli introduces us to a number of Olga's patients, slipping into the grotesque with one, the humorous with another, and the kind with the last. Olga's job is, on its surface, odd, and ripe for literary exploration; it appears, too, that deeper down there's something to it, allowing Pradelli to explore the descriptive and emotional potential of such a situation. Consider the following:

He weighed nearly 450 pounds. The first few times were tough. His 450-pound expanse was stretched out in the middle of a double bed. First Olga washed the entire front of his body. Then she had him turn on one side. Walter had rigged an efficient system of straps. The straps were tied to heavy hooks that had been deliberately screwed into the walls beside the bed. The man grabbed the strap and held it tightly. Olga turned him, pushing against his back. They had to use extreme caution because of his heart. He had coronary problems, but at that weight, the doctor said, an operation would be impossible to consider. Because of the risk. When Olga finally succeeded in turning him, the man latched onto the strap to remain on one side while Olga washed that section of his exposed back. Then Olga ran to the other side of the bed, handed him the other strap, and helped him turn again, pushing against his back once more. Olga worked fast so that he wouldn’t become too agitated, because of his heart. His wife took advantage of those bath days to change the sheets. It was a pretty simple procedure. While he was turned on his side, they folded the dirty sheet to the middle of the mattress, replacing it with a clean one, also folded to the middle. And then, when they turned him toward the other side, they did the same thing. First they picked up half of the dirty sheet, and then they unrolled the fresh ones as best they could until they had covered the whole mattress. They hurried so that he wouldn’t over-exert himself.

We learn a lot in the above paragraph about Olga as a character, and also about Pradelli as a writer. The situation could have been handled as a farce but has instead been utilised as an example of Olga's character and Pradelli's descriptive economy. There is much to be gleaned from the above – arguably it captures, all in one go, the thrust and direction of the story as a whole.

Pradelli continues along in this anecdotal vein, plumbing the history of Olga's patients to shine further light on Olga and the profession itself. As the story progresses, the descriptive language becomes suggestive, even sexual at times. Olga's profession is, after all, concerned with pampering a naked person whilst in the comfort of their home. Much is made of Olga's little notebook, in which she keeps the details of her clients, and of her discreet nature. The link between prostitution and bathing is difficult to avoid from the outset, and becomes increasingly so as Pradelli's language shifts to include similar terms and descriptions.

The story becomes fully sexualised when the absurdly named Dunkan Parodi (with a 'k' and not a 'c', we are informed over and over), a healthy and financially successful middle-aged man asks to become Olga's client. The shift in tone becomes stronger now, changing to become sensual and sexually charged. Rubbing someone while they are naked and soapy can be, of course, sexual, and while it is not if the person is sick and you are caring for them, it certainly is when they are rugged, good-looking, handsome and smell very nice:

Dunkan’s back, broad and stiff at first, began to relax as she soaped him.
Then she repeated the procedure with his neck and his arms. Soap, sponge. Soap, sponge.
She inserted the soap into the hollow of his armpit and scrubbed that dark cavity with short, brisk movements until a few soapy drops started running down the side of his body.
The soap came to a halt at Dunkan’s chest hair. A salt-and-pepper thicket framed by his nipples.
Then she soaped his belly and his legs. Dunkan lifted his legs, resting his feet on the edge of the tub.
Olga slid the soap down his legs, all the way to his feet. Kneeling on the floor, she massaged Dunkan’s ankles, making circles with the foamy sponge.   From the floor, Olga could see that Dunkan had lightly closed his eyes, and then, still on her knees, she slowed her rhythm, continuing to draw circles around his ankles. First in one direction, then the other.  And back again. His left ankle first, then the right, and then the left once more.
When she had finished with his ankles and gotten up from the floor, she added a neck massage that she had never used on any other client before. She soaped her hands thoroughly and encircled Dunkan’s neck with open fingers, reaching from the nape to the Adam’s apple. Then she pressed down lightly with the fleshy part of her thumbs, moving upward in a straight line from his spine to the back of his neck.
He closed his eyes. Olga closed hers. Just as Dunkan had done before, when she was massaging his ankles. As he was doing right now. Again. Only now Olga couldn’t see him.
Both of them, eyes closed.

Ángela Pradelli's The Bathers is an excellent story concerned with the possibilities of a seemingly innocuous premise. It is surprising just how much Pradelli is able to accomplish from the initial conceit of a woman employed to bath others, but it's all there, internally consistent, coherently derived and charmingly told. The ending leaves it open as to whether Olga has really learnt just what, exactly, her job has come to be, and that's the best place for it. Is she a prostitute? No. Is she just a bather of the sick? No. Ambiguity is rife within our lives, so why not hers?

The Bather by Ángela Pradelli is a short story from Words Without Borders' January 2011 edition, The Work Force issue. All of the work reviewed is freely available online.

See Also

Index of short stories under review