Caray, Caray!

Tonight, Jacqueline Bracamontes is Irma de los Peces (Irma of the fish [think "Pisces" is the sign of the fish]).

Bloody footprints on tile. Gravel and water. More footprints, leading to a woman sitting on a piano bench, covered in spatters of blood.

Still not loving the new theme song…but I do love Jacqui's black sequin dress. I want one.

Irma is led out in handcuffs while the DIEM crew collect evidence. Moran tells Capellan, over the phone, that all they know is it was done with a lot of violence.

Flashback: A cheerful Irma bids her fish a good morning. "Mommy's going to feed you all, babies!" A pissed off dude comes in and gives her a hard time for being so cutesy with the fish. "You treat them better than you treat me! I'm hungry." She hightails it out of the room and gets his breakfast out of the microwave. He's looking at her notebooks and he asks her if she plans to continue with "this." "The University?" He says it seems less like a University and more like a place where they teach her useless things. She starts to remind him that he studied at a Conservatory, but he interrupts her and says she stopped studying "for love"…or so she made him believe. Irma reminds him that he consented to her going back to school. "What for? So you can learn how the oviparous animals reproduce, and the oviviparous, and the viviparous?" Jackass rips the pages out of her notebook and rips them up. She tries to walk out, but he grabs her by the arm and says he lost his appetite. The cameras focus on the fish.

Those are the "ovíparos" oviparous animals lay eggs with no embryonic development inside the mother, "ovivíparos" oviviparous animals lay eggs after the embryo has developed inside the mother, "vivíparos" viviparous animals give birth to live young…go forth and use those terms in everyday speech. Also, since I'm thinking about accents and grammar, and why those words needed accents, the stress in Spanish is typically on the second-to-last syllable, so you need an accent whenever you're trying to indicate that you're putting the stress anywhere else. And the accents are important because an unaccented and accented word might be spelled the same way, but have different meanings. For example "esta" (ES-ta) would mean "this one", but "está" (es-TA) would mean "it is."

Jackass, AKA Alfonso, goes over to the piano and takes a pill. He sits down and starts to play while Irma starts taping her notes back up. The phone rings and he yells at her to answer it without missing a beat. It keeps ringing and he tells her to either answer it or take it off the hook. By the time she picks it up, he's stopped playing. It's Raul, a classmate of Irma's. Alfonso picks up the extension to hear the conversation. Raul is offering to swing by her work and give her a ride to school today. She says she's not going because she hasn't finished the anatomy homework. He says it's not a big deal and he always turns his in late, but she doesn't like to. Raul says he'll call her tomorrow, then. When she gets off the phone, Alfonso is standing in the hallway behind her. He asks who it is and she tells him it was a classmate, calling to see if she'd finished some homework. "You know I can't practice with interruptions. Tell your friends to call at other hours." He grabs her by the face, gives her one of those semi-threatening little too-hard pats on one cheek, then kisses her. He says he's going to the conservatory. Irma asks him if he'll be home early, just because. He doesn't answer her, just looks pissed off and leaves.

OK, rant #1…if you have to lie to your SO all the time because the truth would upset them, hello, maybe it's not such a good relationship for you! And rant #2…yeah, dude, I get it, I need to keep my mind on my work when I'm practicing too, but that's why I turn the damn ringer off the phone! And if I don't and it rings, well, that's my own damn fault, isn't it? Jerk. And rant #3…you played for less than a minute and just because the phone rang, now you're going to stop and go practice at the conservatory instead? Why didn't you just go there in the first place for your precious peace and quiet! And I think I'm done now.

Aranda comes into Capellan's office and reports that they found a lot of "anti-ansiolíticos" (anti-anxiolytics), "sedantes" (sedatives), and "antidepresivos" (antidepressants). Capellan asks if they've already done a toxicology screen on the body and on Irma. She wants to know as soon as the tox screen is done and she wants a psych evaluation on Irma. She tells her to concentrate on the family history. "Irma Puente is the daughter of one of the best performers Mexico has ever produced." (concertista=performer). Capellan is looking at a news article on her computer about the suicide of Alejandro Puente.

Flashback: Irma is cleaning the glass on the front of one of several aquariums. Her boss, Don Victorio, comes to hustle her out of the shop before she's late for school. When she says she's not going, he says she can't skip…it's only the first semester! Irma lies and says there aren't any classes today. He buys it, but marvels at how nowadays they'll cancel class for anything. He's quiet for a while, but then says he's been wanting to talk to her about something important for the last few days (hace unos días=since a few days ago). He says, "Soy cansado, yo quisiera jubilarme" (I'm tired and I'd like to retire). Irma is afraid he's thinking of closing the "acuario" (aquarium…but I think it's more of a fish store). What he actually wants is to sell it to her and have her pay in installments. That will be his "jubilación" (pension). One guess what her loving husband is going to think of that. Irma says she can't buy anything right now. He tells her to think about it and talk it over with Alfonso. "Music is beautiful, but it's not always enough. This store could be your future." He says they should get together and talk about the "forma" (the form; how they're going to do this; the terms), but to be honest, if the business has grown, it's been because of her dedication and hard work. "Te pertenece mas a ti que a mi." (It belongs more to you than to me.)

Alfonso is playing at home, while Irma is trying to talk to him about the shop. His argument to "Princesa" (princess…and I do not think he means this in a flattering way…and also, FYI to Mr. 5ft, I would prefer "Reina" [queen]) is that they don't have the money. When she mentions doing it "a plazos" (in installments), he scoffs, "What? With your salary?" Irma says the shop makes enough that she can pay herself a salary and have enough for the payments. He asks, quite reasonably how much the payments would be and what the interest rates are. She doesn't know yet. Then he turns it around on her and says she doesn't know anything and what she needs to do is save her salary because what he makes isn't enough. Irma points out that if she doesn't buy it then he'll sell it to someone else and she may be out of a job. "So? You'll get another one. I don't see what the problem is."

At this point, I screamed at the TV. This guy is a jackass AND he's stupid on top of it. I know she doesn't have figures yet, but duh, of course she'd be making more as the owner than as an employee, which would keep him in booze, pills, and sheet music even better than her salary does now. And if he's so concerned about a steady income, then maybe he's the one that ought to get a regular job that pays more! He acts like he's the one maintaining her, when really it's the other way around. Show a little gratitude, damnit!

She leaves the room and he reaches for the pill bottle again, and don't tell me it's water in that glass. He goes back to playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata.

Irma talks to a woman, by a van with "Neptuno" (Neptune) on the side. This appears to be the shop's supplier. The woman, who is rocking a lovely curly bob, tells Irma that her husband is wrong. She thinks this is a great opportunity and the old guy loves Irma and she really knows the business well. She tells Irma that she didn't have "en que caerme muerta" (anyplace to drop dead; so broke she couldn't even afford to die, in other words) when she bought her first van and now she's zooming all over the place making deliveries. "Well, Alfonso says…" She interrupts and says it's impossible that Alfonso doesn't let her do ANYTHING. "Sure he does." Before the other woman can respond, she's kicked by the bun in her oven and sits down in the front seat of the van. "The kid doesn't like for me to work!" Irma says if she was in her shoes, she'd rest all the time. "Well, sure, but then you'd go crazy. Have you thought about it?" "About going crazy?" "No, of going to see my doctor." Irma says Alfonso is over 50 and she's not going to have kids, but she's got fish. The other woman gets all excited and tells her to come look at the black-tailed fish she brought.

Alfonso is practicing when Irma comes home. Sorry, I don't recognize this piece, but damn do I wish my hands could still move like that…damn arthritis! And possibly also lack of a full-size keyboard on which to practice. Irma has brought home a new baby and she puts the plastic bag in the aquarium so the water will be the same temperature before she lets the new guy or gal out with the others. Alfonso interrupts her fish bonding to ask her if they should eat. He upsets her by calling it a new "pescadito" and she corrects him that it's a "pez" (I think the difference is that pescado is usually dead, cooked, and on your plate, but a pez is alive and swimming…someone correct me if I'm wrong). He starts in with the bitching…"How many damn critters do you need before you're satisfied?" (bichos=critters, little creatures). The light and electric bills have arrived and he left money out for her to pay them. Irma asks what he'd like to eat. She's not eating because she had something earlier and she needs to finish her anatomy review. "If it's anatomy, I think I can help you," he says, grabbing her from behind and kissing the side of her neck. If he wasn't a stupid, menacing, jackass, that might have been romantic or at least funny. Instead it was possessive, threatening, and bordering on violent. She breaks away and says she's really got to finish her studying. He says "Fine! I'm in my house and I can't eat. I want to be with my wife and I can't! What I do doesn't matter. All day, working for nothing! Better I should get into a trash can and rot there!" Irma weakly says "Alfonso," but he rounds the corner.

The tox results arrive and Moran gives them to Gerardo. He slips the disc into his computer and says "As I supposed! It was the husband taking all those pills, not her." Moran is confused, but Gerardo smiles.

Flashback: Raul gives Irma a ride home from class and tells her about her nickname among her classmates: "Irma, la de los peces" (Irma, the one of the fish; Irma the fish girl). Irma laughs. Raul gives her a present--an embroidered fish with a tassel that looks like it's meant to hang off something, like a rearview mirror. He goes around to open her car door and Alfonso looks down from an upstairs window. Raul asks her not to leave school and she doesn't answer. She stops to pick up the fish she dropped and Raul watches her go inside before he leaves. Alfonso watches him.

Irma starts to get into bed, but Alfonso barks at her, "Where were you?" She says she was at class and he accuses her of lying. "I don't tell lies. I'm not like you. I called you the other day at the conservatory to ask you something and you weren't there." He asks her who she was with and when she insists she was at class, he turns on the light to demand to know if she needs to be with someone younger. "I'm not enough for you anymore? You need someone to do things to you that I don't do? To touch you like this?" She struggles to get away from him and he backhands her and screams "You don't like me anymore!" What happens next is left to the imagination, but there's more hitting and her screaming "no!"

Capellan, Aranda, and Moran meet in Capellan's office to discuss the case. Aranda says that Alejandro Puente, the father, was a performer and the "maestro" (maestro; conductor) of the National Conservatory of Music…Capellan doesn't need to hear this bit. Moran says he was diagnosed with "artrosis"(degenerative osteoarthritis), "artritis degenerativa" (degenerative arthritis). Capellan opines that he probably couldn't live with the idea that he was going to have to stop playing. His wife died of cancer in '95. Irma was the only daughter and she found her father with a bullet in the "sien" (temple) in 2004. She got psychiatric help, but 3 months later, she married Alfonso, a pianist and former student of her father's, who was 20 years older than her and addicted to antidepressants. That makes it sound like if the psychiatric help had worked, she wouldn't have married him. Capellan says it's a history of constant losses and rapid substitutions. Moran gets a call announcing the arrival of Don Victor. Capellan asks to have him sent in.

Flashback: Irma is at work, wearing large dark glasses. She tells a couple to remember to leave the fish in the aquarium in the plastic bag for 2 hours until the fish gets used to its new home (we always used to do it for half an hour…I guess times have changed). The happy couple leaves with their new aquatic child. Don Victor comes into the shop and asks if Irma has thought about it. She just keeps dusting things on the shelf. "Did you talk to your husband?" Irma starts sniffling. "I suppose he didn't agree?" She just keeps dusting. "Irma? Come here, please." He's looking at some fish. "Have you ever asked yourself why fish have that special fascination for you?" She says they make her feel "acompañada" (accompanied). Don Victor says they're hypnotic. "They move without ever stopping. Like they're always looking for the way back to the sea." He looks at her sadly and takes of her sunglasses. "I got up half asleep to go to the bathroom and I hit myself on the door." This is such the typical story that "hit myself on the door" might as well be code for "my husband beat the crap out of me" and therefore no longer useful as a lie. Even Mr. 5ft knew she was saying "I hit myself on the door" even though he didn't understand the words. Don Victor says he's got too many years on him not to know that those aren't the marks of love. "Irma, the difference between us and our captive fish is that for us there is ALWAYS a way out. ALWAYS." Irma starts crying and he hugs her. It sounds like he cries with her.

Alfonso comes home with flowers. They always come home with flowers after their wives accidentally hit themselves on doors. Bastard. He asks if she didn't go to school. Oh, look, he's got a box of chocolates too. That ought to make everything ok. She says she couldn't go to school. On account of having run into a door. He asks her to forgive him and says he doesn't know what happened to him. He offers her the flowers. "Look. I brought you those tights you like so much." Oh, so not chocolates, then. He gets whiny. "Forgive me, Irma." To paraphrase Oz on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "I can't help feeling like the reason you want me to forgive you is so you can feel better about yourself. That's not my problem." So suck it, jackass. Irma says she doesn't understand why she can't buy the aquarium and why she can't study and why everything bothers him. "I can't do this anymore, Alfonso. I feel like I'm going to go crazy." "Please forgive me!" he whines. He says he doesn't feel like he knows his wife and like she's always thinking of anything buy him. "So how's it going with your little friend? That imbecile. You know, with the car?" Careful, your jackass is showing. She says his name is Raul. "You like him don't you?" he asks all tearful--like I'm supposed to care. When she asks how he can talk to her like that, he starts with "Irma" a touch too loud and coming towards her. She covers her head with her arms and screams. He gets hold of himself and says he doesn't want to keep fighting and everything will be fine. "Forgive me, please, I swear it will all be fine, forgive me."

Don Victor chats with Capellan in not an interrogation room, or her office, but some room with a couch. "She worked with me for five years. I offered to let her buy the shop, but her husband opposed it. In the last year, she was living in a profound fear and great sadness. She couldn't find a way to get out of there."

Flashback: Raul thanks Irma for loaning him some notes, which he has come by her place to pick up. Oh, this is going to suck. He asks if she's going back to class tomorrow and tells her she'll flunk out if she keeps missing class. He asks her to go for coffee or ice cream, but she refuses. He says he'll be in touch and as she walks him toward the front gate, Alfonso comes in. He introduces himself as Irma's husband and Raul introduces himself as her classmate and offers his hand. The guys shake and Irma rushes to explain that Raul needed to borrow her Chem notes. "Is dinner ready?" Irma says it's not. "Well, I like to have something to eat after I make love…don’t you two?" Raul looks shocked and says he'll call Irma later, then he runs out of there as Irma runs up the stairs. Yes, Raul, you caught the vibe, and what did you do? Run for the hills. Thanks, dude. Sorry, not his fault. And that's going to be no consolation to him after it all goes down. Irma, for some unknown reason, didn't lock the door behind her when she went inside. Alfonso comes in after her and tells her to wait…"You didn't even greet me!" He sits down in the hallway and starts pulling papers out of his briefcase. "Why do you do this to me?" He says it's because he's a man (on behalf of the DECENT men I know, I call BS on that) and he knows when "me quieren ver la cara" (they want to see my face; someone's trying to put on over on me). Irma says Raul just came by to pick up some notes. "He wants to sleep with you. That's if he hasn't already." "Why do you say that, as if you didn't know me?" "It seems like I don't know you." Irma says he's changing and he's not like he was before. He's more…He interrupts her, "More what? More crazy?" He goes over to the aquarium and uses a net to take out one of the fish. Irma panics. "In this moment, you're going to forget that damn university…do you understand?" She agrees, to save her baby, and he lets it back down in the water while she cries.

At the shop, Don Victor talks on the phone, while Irma skims a tank. He gets off the phone and comes over to tell her that someone wants to sign a contract with him within the hour. "But if you say you want it, I'll go back on the deal, I'll go back on it right now!" She says no, they've already talked about it. "But you'll be out of a job!" "I'll find something, don't worry. Hurry up or you won't make it in time."

Raul talks to Aranda. He can't believe it. "Did you and Mrs. Puente have a romantic relationship?" Raul says she always kept her distance and her respect for "that guy" above all. "She was always there for him. Leaving everything. She didn't leave in peace. He spent all his time tormenting her with his obsessive jealousy of everything and everyone." He says he knew her for five or six months.

Flashback: Irma mops the floors at night, and Alfonso comes over, drink in hand, to ask if she didn't go to the university today. I could kick him. I could do worse, but that's a start. "You told me not to go anymore." He laughs and says he's surprised she does what he says. "You're going to forbid me from more things." He plays innocent and says he's not going to forbid her anything and if she didn't go to class it's because she didn't want to. "Don't blame me for it." He asks her what's wrong. "The 31st is my last day of work." She says after that she'll "aflojar" (slack off). He ignores the sarcasm and says she'll find something, and besides with the orchestra and his classes, they've got enough to get by. She stops mopping. "You told me that we couldn't buy the shop because we needed my salary to live on. That we couldn't make the monthly payments…and now you say the contrary?" "You made a proposal, if I can even call it that, and a childish one at that! You didn't even know what the payments would be, or the interest!" he shouts after her.

The supplier, Toni, comes by the shop again, as Irma is finishing packing up the whole shop. Toni asks if "he" hit Irma. "How can you be with a guy who does that do you? Please!" She asks if Toni wants her to leave him "a estas alturas?" (at this point; now; this late in the game). Toni says that's an option. "You don't have a husband, you have an excuse not to do anything with your life. You're going to go crazy if you stay with him."

Toni talks to Aranda. She doesn't know if he ever abused her sexually, but she says he did hit her. "La acosaba, la presionaba, la tenia encarcelada, pero a Irma lo que mas le pesaba era que no podían tener hijos." (He harassed her, he pressured her, he had her imprisoned, but what weighed most on Irma is that they couldn't have children.)

Flashback: Irma gets ready for bed and Alfonso watches her. He tells her to leave her stockings on. Irma says she saw Antonia today and she's pretty far along in her pregnancy. They couldn't have kids either, because her husband also had "paperas" (mumps) when he was young. Alfonso reminds her that the doctor said "maybe" it was because of the mumps. "Why do you keep repeating this to me?" Irma wants to go see Toni's doctor and that she said it wasn't that expensive. He says they don't have money for it and besides, she's over 30. "What does that have to do with it? Antonia's about my age." He laughs and says it's different. "Antonia's a businesswoman. She has her own business." I'm seething. Seething. Seething. Seething. Boiling. Seething…. "And?" "She's well kept, she's whole, but you, my love? You've had to work and you're a little worn out." He says they'll just have to make the most of it and starts kissing her. Nasty ass jerkface.

Alfonso practices and Irma comes over to sit near him. He stops and asks what's wrong with her. "Are you worried about your job? Don't worry it will all be fine." "I wanted to buy the shop from Don Victor." He says it's done and gone, let it go. "Alfonso!" She gives him a hard look and says she wants a separation. This is the dangerous time. Right here. Not before she leaves him, not after, but while it's in process. I wish she wasn't doing this alone. She has to repeat herself. "Last night you wanted to have a child and now you want a separation? Don't be childish!" She's furious at him calling her childish. He tells her to just buy another fish. "Don't you make fun of me! I don't want to keep living like this!" She says she wants to have her own life. "What have you been watching on TV?" "Don't make fun of me!" He asks how she'll live, she has nothing, she's no one, she doesn't have a career or a job…she's nothing! Irma mumbles "eres un tarado" (you're an idiot). He tells her to say it looking in his eyes. She tries to get away from him, but he grabs her from behind. She goes running down the hallway and he stalks over to the fish tank and knocks it over. Oh, it's on now, jackass.

Capellan talks to Irma in an interrogation room. "There are those who say that fish don't have souls. Did you know that, Irma? I don't believe it. It's that in the tank [pecera] they're not in their natural habitat. They're not free. There, enclosed in the tank, decorated with corals and plants, they're there to give pleasure to those who look at them. But they're not free. Is that how you felt, Irma? Like a fish, a prisoner in the tank?" Irma tries to talk, but it takes her a while. "I, before, I wasn't a fish. But he suffocated me…every time, less air…I couldn't breathe…he wouldn't let me breathe. And I couldn't take it anymore. I had to become a fish." "How? How did you become a fish, Irma?" "Swimming with them. In silence. Hasta que nos mató." (Until he killed us.)

Flashback to the tank falling over again. The fish flop around on the floor and Irma comes over, in shock. Alfonso tells her to clean it up. Irma cries and reaches toward the fish. My instinct is to yell at her to grab them and get them into some water, but I know that most tap water is chlorinated and that kills them, so unless she had some non-chlorinated, and non-chemical-infested water lying around, there's nothing to put them into so they survive.

Irma takes the fish and wraps each one up in a piece of newspaper. She picks up the box of tights he'd brought home and takes the tights out of the box.

Alfonso practices Moonlight Sonata again, if a bit violently. Irma walks out, on her bloody feet, toward the remains of the tank, while Alfonso screws it up and starts over. She starts putting the larger rocks from the tank into the stocking. Alfonso screws up again, bangs on the keys, and makes another bad, angry start. Irma comes up behind him, calls his name, and whacks him with the rock-filled stocking. As the butterfly flies away, she continues bashing his head in.

Alfonso's body is lying on the floor, as is the stocking. The camera pans up from Irma's bloody feet and she's sitting on the piano bench. She looks up at the camera.

"Irma Puente Berrueto se entregó a la policía y confesó el asesinato de su marido. El diagnóstico psicológico determinó que Irma padecía de una depresión maniaco-compulsiva profunda. Por lo que fue internada en un hospital psiquiátrico. No volvió a hablar jamás."

Irma Puente Berrueto turned herself over to the police and confessed to the murder of her husband. The psychological diagnostician determined that Irma suffered from a deep manic-compulsive depression. For which she was interned in a psychiatric hospital. She never spoke again."

I will agree that there are delusional symptoms and depressive symptoms, but I have no idea what that diagnosis is supposed to mean, since it doesn't exist in the DSM IV TR and I can't find an analogue for it. I also don't see any mania in her behavior, and I'm not sure I would call any of her behavior "compulsive". Thoughts?

Next week: Aislinn Derbez

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