la Niña Basculante

la Niña Basculante is a hospital resident whom the doctors describe as profoundly intellectually disabled and catatonic. The text gives her the name Alicia, the same name as Alice Gould, and also refers to her as Niña Oscilante. Although her condition is described in stark clinical terms, her few appearances offer almost no access to her own experience; instead, they reveal how she is diagnosed and perceived by others.

Identity and Diagnosis

When César Arellano explains to Alice Gould that her illness is mixed with other syndromes that are difficult to diagnose, he introduces la Niña Basculante as a contrast. Alice Gould asks who Alicia is, and Arellano clarifies that the patient called la Niña Basculante is named Alicia, like Alice Gould herself. He describes her as profoundly intellectually disabled and says she also has catatonic syndromes. In his account, her condition has been correctly diagnosed and is irreversible; he further asserts that she does not suffer and does not know what suffering is. These are the doctor's claims, not an account of Alicia's own thoughts or feelings.

Presence in the Ward

A later passage refers to her as Niña Oscilante and places her among the residents Alice Gould sees—or scarcely sees—from a landing. The narration compares her to a wall clock, while the ward's other patients are presented as familiar fixtures in unchanging places. Alice's attention passes over them, so this moment gives no further account of Alicia's actions or circumstances. The image nevertheless makes her nickname and presence in the ward legible through the perspective of an observer who has ceased to attend to its residents as individuals.

Narrative Significance and Limits

Alicia's role in the available scenes is brief but telling: her name links her to Alice Gould, while Arellano's diagnostic explanation contrasts her clearly defined condition with the more complicated illness under discussion. The later wall-clock image shifts the emphasis from medical classification to the routines of looking that make the residents seem like fixed objects. The text supplies a diagnosis and a few labels, but does not develop Alicia's personal history, relationships, or point of view; those limits are part of what distinguishes the clinical account from the fleeting, detached glimpse of her in the ward.