The Invisible Mountain (21 page)
“Your pills, Señorita.” He waited for her to look up from her scribbling.
She smiled and opened her mouth.
Dr. Roberto Santos’ fingers itched and burned as they placed three little pills on the soft dampness and paused, then withdrew reluctantly while she pulled her tongue back into that mouth and tilted her head to drink water, exposing her bare neck.
“
Gracias,
” she murmured. “You’re very kind.”
She wrote ferociously, and sometimes he watched her from the doorway. Propped on pillows, notebook on tray, brow pressed in tense inspiration. What a fascinating specimen. He discerned no particular pattern to these bouts. Eva was like a feral cat: sleek, restless, changeable—and intelligent too, more so than Cristina, with her banal gossip. He could never imagine Cristina surrounded by poems of her own writing. But he also couldn’t imagine her in a wheelchair, surrounded by the sickest, poorest people in the city.
It was unsettling to consider where Eva had come from. He tended not to think too much about his patients’ world outside the hospital, the dross and tangle of their daily lives. Even now, with this woman, he preferred to keep her in the present tense, to think of her like a fish—spit up from the maw of the sea—and this hospital a dry shore where she glimmered and flapped in need of help without him having to taste the salt of drowning. Worlds like theirs were not meant to mix. Not ever. Which is why
argentinos
of his class—and, even more so, of Cristina’s class—had been horrified last week when Perón married Eva Duarte. It was one thing to let such a woman become a mistress. But a wife, and, should he win the election, a first lady?
“What,” Cristina had moaned, clinking a porcelain teacup into its saucer, “is happening to our country?”
Roberto Santos had nodded as Cristina griped on. I wonder. Has Eva ever been a mistress?
That, he thought—pacing the hospital hallway, poring over charts, resting his right hand on a grieving woman’s back—must be the answer. What he felt must be pure carnal response. If he could make her his mistress, if he only had the luck and balls, he could free himself from this fever. He tried thinking of Eva at Flor de Oro, tried choosing girls who
looked somewhat like her, pretended it was her splayed beneath him in the upstairs rooms, but it was no use. He still woke up in the morning with the thought of her in that dreary bed, half paralyzed (God help him) yet so bright, urging him to eat her in one long, slow bite. No: he was fooling himself; he wanted more than he could get with any Flor de Oro substitute. He wanted to
know
Eva. Know—what?—not her past, perhaps, but the shape of her sleeping breaths, the precise curl at the edges of her thoughts. Something inexplicable, internal, made her the strange woman that she was. Her words were flecks of it. He wanted to see more. He wanted, desperately, to see each poem that filled those little scraps of paper. He had the nurses collect them while Eva was asleep, then slip them back before she woke. For his research, he said. (Reckless again: nurses had a way of seeing through things, and what if they suspected? what if they talked? Buenos Aires might be big, but not too big for gossip, especially something like this, a society engagement, a pretty young patient, a doctor scrubbing clean a family name.) He diligently copied the papers’ contents into her chart. They enthralled him. He couldn’t stop. Each page was dated at the top right corner, in thin little numbers, even if they held only one word, like
Absolute
—
or
(shoelace)
or
sing sing sing
Others held longer fragments, such as
Burning burning as I climb
Take me up and take me down
Or, most bizarrely,
Get out of my ribcage
You pirate butcher fool
—
And this one melted his knees,
Falling from the world’s edge
Then I was sent Santos;
His neck grew hot; he loosened his collar. Luck and balls, that’s what I need. It was a quiet morning in the ward. He had the airy doctors’ lounge to himself. Still, he stood in the supply closet, reading Eva’s fragments by the light of a weak bulb. He felt silly, lurking this way, taking an absurd yet necessary precaution.
Footsteps approached the lounge. Instinctively, Roberto pulled the door closed. Ridiculous, that’s what he was, hiding under shelves of surgical masks. There was no acceptable explanation.
“Just a swig of coffee, then we’ll head over.” It was Dr. Vásquez. Two sets of feet headed to the far counter. Roberto heard the muffled clink of mugs. “So, what do you think of that poet girl?”
“Bizarre, Doctor.” Must be a student. Such wonder in the voice. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“It certainly corroborates Santos’ hypothesis.”
“Will she ever be told?”
“No.”
Coffee pouring. The clink of spoons. “It’s crazy, Doctor—”
“I know. I know. But you can’t divulge placebos to a patient. Anyway, she’s a harmless sort of crazy.”
“What else can be done for such cases?”
“Nothing. But they help us test the edge of modern medicine.” Roberto could hear the smirk in the doctor’s voice. The closet air was tight and stale and he could—to his surprise—have punched Dr. Vásquez’s stubby nose. He heard two mugs clang in the steel sink, and they were gone.
Roberto opened the closet and took a deep breath. There was the lounge, with its modern chairs, its coffee pot, the ficus tree, whose leaves were tipped with brown. Everything in its place. Everything in good order. Clean, reasonable, empty. Soon.
———
She also knew some things about Dr. Santos. She knew that a reverent hush gathered around him in crowded rooms, that he was engaged (to a Caracanes, the nurse had whispered), that his fingers shook when they placed pills on her tongue. She knew his visits were a clock by which she could measure time; he slept in a house full of fine things; his gaze lingered like a hungry dog’s. He was not a bad man, she knew this too: it was easy to tell a bad man from a hungry one. She thought for days about his gaze, his hunger. She thought of her own tongue, a wet soft muscle in her mouth that made him shake. For all his fame and eminence, she made him shake.
On the last day—after watching her tongue jut from her mouth, placing his pink pill in silence, leaving that trace of salt from two thick fingers—he said, “This is your last dose.”
She swallowed without water and watched him rifle through her chart.
“Everything has stabilized. You’ve recovered all your ambulatory capacities. You’ll be released tomorrow morning.” He gestured toward the window. “You can return to your normal life.”
Eva looked at the window, which had not changed. “I see.”
“Are you glad?”
It was too small, the window, and too square. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Well—Eva.” He leaned across the bed, and she smelled his soapy aftershave. “I must ask you. Do you have a home to return to?”
She laced her hands together as if in prayer. “In a way.”
“I presume—if I may be so bold—that it isn’t much?”
“Perhaps not.”
“Well. I have a suggestion. A proposal, you might say.”
She stared at her hands and waited.
“I’ll arrange an apartment for you.”
“I had no idea your hospital had such programs!”
“Ah, no, Eva. I’m not speaking for the hospital.” He coughed. “I, personally, would arrange it.”
All silences, Eva knew, were not alike. Some were empty, some were not. This one hung between them, writhed with unsaid things. Dr. Santos adjusted his collar. He glanced at the door, which was still closed, then back at her. She spoke slowly, as if piecing together a puzzle with each word. “Are you asking me to compromise my virtue?”
He blinked. “Of course not. I simply … appreciate you, as a patient. Your welfare is of the utmost concern to me.”
“I see.”
“Let me help you, Eva.” His voice dropped. “I would simply, should you not mind it, come to visit, to see you, make sure all is well.” He paused. “I want you to be well.”
His face was naked. She smiled. “I want to be well too.”
Dr. Santos studied her eyes, her mouth, her neck, her hair, her eyes again. He closed her chart. “All right.” His lab coat rustled as he stood. “Consider it arranged.”
The next morning, Eva’s final breakfast tray held a white envelope. Inside, she found a key, two hundred pesos, and an unsigned note:
657 Avenida Magenta #10. Take a taxi. See you tomorrow
.
She felt like a newly minted princess as she packed her bag (two dresses, Mamá’s bundle, panties, lipstick, one brassiere, a crush of pages), stepped out to call a taxi, and pressed her nose against the car window as
glossy streets sped by. The driver stopped in front of a bronze-colored building. She glided past the gold-buttoned guard in the lobby, terrified that he would shout at her,
Where do you think you’re going?
He merely smiled. In the elevator, she wondered what she’d do if the key did not fit. She imagined herself wandering the streets with her bags, a lost woman, abandoned, breakable, with no man or coat to keep her from the cold.
The key fit the lock. The door opened without resistance. The apartment reared up to meet her: wallpaper full of mauve roses and golden lattice, a burgundy sofa, the smooth feel of mahogany under her palm, cream-colored sheets drawn over a wide mattress in the bedroom. She loved the smell of this place, like lavender soap on freshly cut wood, and the sienna-tiled kitchenette, with one cabinet, two, well stocked with tumblers, teacups, delicate plates. Everything accounted for, everything in its place. No roaches, no thin walls, no holes in the ceiling. A little balcony beckoned to her from the bedroom, just large enough for one person (or two, if pressed together). She stepped out, taking in the tall sky, the polished cars, the sculpted laughter of high-society women, the stone pillars and carved angels on the mansion across the street. Its door opened, vaultlike, and a widow stepped out, her veiled hat at a slant. She formed a tight black line against the pavement. At the end of the block stood a bakery, its sign hanging from a carved wooden pole.
LA PARISIENNE
. She’d have croissants for dinner tonight. Croissants and wine and cigarettes, here in this new lair. She thought of Dr. Santos, with his serious brow, his salt-tipped fingers, his swarm of protégés. Dr. Santos with his blue-blooded fiancée and his secret key. He had given her the sleek side of the city. He had given her a home with many cups. He had given her his word that, tomorrow, he would come. She had these things today but for tomorrow she had nothing if he tired of her. Mistresses get dropped into gutters and no one ever hears of them again. Only wives can keep their silky rooms. She had known too many gutters, and, Andrés, wherever you are, out in this broad city I am scanning from this height, this balcony, looking toward the south side where we used to crawl, you can go to hell and burn up over and over. You can shrivel into a charred husk of yourself and I would step and crush you into dust. I won’t think of you. I’m not going to collapse, I’m going to climb and
climb, just wait, just watch, I’m going to unfold what I really am. A phonograph struck up on a nearby balcony.
Alma mía, ¿con quién soñas?
She swayed her hips, lightly, in time to the tango.
He venido a turbar tu paz
. A car pulled up in front of the widow’s doorstep. The chauffeur walked around the car to open the back door. The widow looked up and Eva felt the stranger’s glare through the black net of her veil. A beam of accusation. Eva stopped swaying. Then she started again, swinging farther than before, holding the widow’s concealed eyes.
La noche porteña te quiere besar
. The widow stood frozen, a straight-backed thing in fine dark fabric. Then she brushed her hat, as if swatting a fly, and bent to the car’s interior. Eva watched as the car sealed its doors, growled awake, and rumbled down the avenue, out of sight.
He arrived for his first visit at three o’clock, right at the start of siesta. He placed a discreet envelope on the end table by the door. He held his hat with both hands; one thumb fidgeted with the rim.
“Please, Dr. Santos, won’t you sit?”
They sat together on the wine-colored sofa. He seemed emptied of things to say. She had not seen him this way before, outside the hospital halls, unsure, nervous, a boy on unfamiliar hunting grounds.
“
Este
. You like the apartment?”
“It’s wonderful. Thank you again.”
“You are finding everything you need?”
“Yes. Only I’m exhausted.”
“Ah. Exhausted.”
“
Claro
. It’s just my second day out. Quite a transition.”
“
Sí, claro
. Well.” Sweat glazed his hairline. “Should I leave you to rest?”
She was vivid; more than vivid; she was given substance by his gaze. He was ready to eat her, clothes and all. She pretended not to notice. “Thank you, Dr. Santos. If you don’t mind.”
He was silent.
“I’m sure I’ll feel differently soon.”
“Of course.”