Teresa Carballeira

Teresa Carballeira, also known as Teresiña Carballeira and nicknamed the Embroiderer, is a resident of the asylum whose past violence sharply contrasts with the genial woman Alice Gould encounters there. Her story turns on that contrast: she is associated with three deaths, yet later described as well and remembered in ordinary, sociable scenes of hospital life.

Identity and Life in the Hospital

Teresa is identified as a Galician countrywoman. When she meets Alice, she gives her name as Teresiña Carballeira; she is also associated with the nickname the Embroiderer. Her day-to-day setting is the asylum, where the open regime allows residents some freedom to move through the building and grounds and to take part in occupational workshops. Alice tells her she will visit her at the workshop, placing Teresa within this routine of work and contact with other residents.

Teresa has already noticed Alice before they speak. She says she saw her once at Mass and once in the bar, then asked who she was and learned her name. The exchange presents her as observant and socially at ease: she recognizes a fellow resident from shared spaces and approaches her without hostility. Alice, in turn, addresses her warmly and promises a further visit.

The Three Killings

Teresa's history is disclosed to Alice as an account of three deaths. She killed her mother with an axe, believing the woman to be a snake. She also killed two hospital employees whom she mistook for dangerous animals: a social worker, whom she threw down a stairwell, and a nurse, whom she stabbed. The social worker was later replaced by Montserrat Castell.

The killings are related as events of mistaken identification, not as violence Teresa explains in her own words. The account gives the circumstances of each death but does not supply a further diagnosis or Teresa's own recollection of them. Alice is shaken by the revelation and briefly wonders whether Ignacio Urquieta might be the resident responsible for the three deaths. She then learns that the killer was Teresa, a fact that makes her planned excursion with Ignacio seem newly alarming before the uncertainty is resolved.

Meeting Alice and the Present-Day Contrast

When Alice later speaks with Teresa, the encounter offers no visible reprise of the violence in her history. Teresa is described as cordial and pleasant, and she is said to be well. Alice nevertheless cannot put the earlier account out of her mind: as she walks away, she remembers that this is the woman who killed her mother with an axe. The gap between the remembered crimes and Teresa's friendly manner is therefore registered through Alice's response, not through a new confrontation.

Narrative Role

Teresa's brief but consequential place in the story complicates the way residents are read through reputation and present behavior. The account of her killings makes Alice wary, while the later meeting shows Teresa participating in familiar routines and exchanging ordinary courtesies. The narrative does not erase either side: her present sociability does not undo the deaths, and the deaths do not turn every subsequent interaction into an act of threat. That tension gives Teresa's appearance its force, while the limited information about her leaves her motives and inner experience unresolved.