The Sickness (15 page)

Once he dreamed that all his dead patients got together, that they were members of some kind of club: Dr. Andrés Miranda's lost patients. He doesn't like that word “lost.” It seems unfair. Perhaps because he knows that, sooner or later, doctors always lose. They are never going to have a good average. Defeat is their destiny. In that dream, his patients looked as ill as when he knew them, as if time had frozen them in that particular passage of their life. They were all very pale, or, rather, gray, but they were all almost exactly as he remembers them. Don Agustín Mejías was stumbling along, dragging with him a stand from which hung a saline drip. Señora Arreaza was in a wheelchair. Tomás Hernández still had a bandage round his head. Silvina Rossini was wearing a printed scarf over her bald head and was coughing loudly. Old Pimentel was lying naked on a stretcher, eyes glazed and lips parched. They all looked just as they had the last time he had seen them. His unconscious mind had gone no further, but had simply made do with the first images it came across. In the dream, none of his patients were looking at him. They were just walking about. Occasionally, they would exchange brief greetings, but they never turned round to see him; they acted as if he didn't exist. “The next time I have this dream,” thinks Andrés, “my father might be in it. Perhaps he'll pass me by too, without noticing me, without looking.”

Mariana finds him lying on the bed, alongside the scan results. It's five o'clock on a Saturday afternoon.

“Are you alright?”

Andrés doesn't answer. His eyes are closed, but he's obviously not asleep. Mariana goes over to him, sits down beside him, runs her fingers through his hair and gently scratches his scalp.

“Come on, let's go to the movies with the kids,” she says.

Andrés emits a low groan, then slowly shakes his head.

“You've pretty much ignored them for three weeks now. They know you're looking after Grandpa, but they still need you. They miss you,” she adds, placing a slight emphasis on the last three words.

Andrés opens his eyes.

When his father and Mariana first met, Mariana was naked. Andrés and Mariana had been going out together for a month. Taking advantage of a weekend when his father had gone off with some friends to Barquisimeto, Andrés had invited her over to spend the night at the apartment. They cooked seafood risotto—the squid was hard and chewy and they'd used too much saffron—drank white wine and made love into the small hours. On Sunday morning, they took a shower together. There they were, under the shower, arms around each other, kissing, when they heard the front door open.

“Andrés,” called his father. “Are you home?”

It was eleven in the morning. The sound of water bouncing off the tiles filled the whole apartment, as if thousands of needles were hurling themselves to their deaths on the floor. Mariana instinctively sought shelter
in his arms. Andrés tried to wrap the plastic shower curtain around them, meanwhile frantically thinking what to do next. He didn't have much time. His father was already in the bathroom.

“Didn't you hear me?”

“Yes, yes, of course. I just wasn't expecting you.” Andrés tried to sound natural, pressing Mariana to him. “I thought you weren't due home until tonight?”

“Oh, the whole thing was a disaster. The axle shaft on the car we were traveling in broke before we even got as far as Chivacoa. We wasted the whole afternoon getting it fixed and had to spend the night in Urachiche. That's why we came home this morning.”

Then Mariana and Andrés heard the familiar sound of pee falling into the toilet bowl. His father was standing right next to them, peeing. Andrés imagined him pointing his penis at the water; Mariana inadvertently let out a nervous giggle. It was a strange sound, like an elongated squeak, a stifled exclamation. Andrés gave her a warning squeeze, but it was too late. Surprised and concerned, his father pulled back the shower curtain. He stared in astonishment at the sight of a completely naked Mariana clinging to Andrés's body.

“Hi, Dad,” Andrés said, making an attempt at a smile.

His father left the apartment and didn't come back for two hours. He returned bearing a pizza and behaved as if the scene in the bathroom had never taken place. Even when Andrés tried to talk about it, he quickly changed the subject. Two weeks later, when Andrés introduced
him formally to Mariana, his father held out his hand and said hello with just a hint of mischief in his eyes. And that was that.

“What are you thinking about?” asks Mariana.

Andrés didn't reply at once. For some time now, he's had the feeling that his memory has become part of a new privacy, of a space he can't share. He even remembers things differently, in more detail, storing up different sensations; he feels that the past has become too lively a corpse.

“What are you thinking about?” Mariana asks again.

“About Inés Pacheco,” he says.

It's true that she does still occupy his thoughts. Or perhaps she's simply part of that past of which he knew nothing, a past that was lost and now suddenly appears in this emphatic, obsessive way. Señora Pacheco has taken up residence in his mind. She lives there now. Several days have passed and his father still hasn't said anything to him about her. He can't understand why. He assumed she would tell his father, that she would have phoned him up at once: “Your son has just come to see me. You might have warned me.” Why, then, has his father said nothing? Why did he never mention this woman? Why does he still keep her hidden away, why does he hide this part of his life? Andrés cannot help but feel hurt. This is hardly the moment for him to be feeling that his father is a stranger too.

“Perhaps they don't see each other anymore,” says Mariana. “Perhaps they're not even friends,” she adds after a pause. “Perhaps they even hate each other.”

“You're forgetting that she phoned his apartment just two weeks ago. I answered her call,” Andrés counters.

“You think it was her, but you don't actually know that for sure. You're playing the detective, but you could be wrong. The woman who phoned your father wasn't necessarily Inés Pacheco.”

“Okay,” agrees Andrés, “you're right, but Inés Pacheco does exist. And something went on between her and my father.”

“Is that what bothers you?”

“No, of course not.”

“Like I said some days ago, everyone has a private life. Even your father.”

Andrés suddenly picks up the image of his father's brain and shows it to his wife.

“What the hell is this, then, Mariana? Isn't
this
someone's private life?”

She looks at him slightly reproachfully and tensely. Andrés calms down and bows his head. She leaves the room, saying that she'll go to the movies with the kids on her own. Andrés falls back on the bed again. For the first time, it occurs to him that the illness might take away from himself and his father something he had never thought it would: conversation, the ability to talk to each other. The illness is destroying their words as well.

 

The pact between Javier Miranda and Merny also includes going together to the workshop. Merny accepts it as another of her duties, as another contribution to the bus ticket that will save her son. They always go in the
mornings, behind Andrés's back. Javier Miranda found out about it from a nurse.

“The workshop has helped a lot of people,” she told him.

At first, he wasn't interested, but after the third session of chemotherapy, he asked the nurse for more information. Now here they are, for the first time. Merny seems uncomfortable and keeps looking uneasily about her. He seems almost distracted, as if he'd ended up there by mistake. They're in a large room on the ground floor, where a couple of dozen plastic chairs are arranged in a circle. There's also a small table with a pile of papers on it and a thermos of coffee. A very pleasant lady welcomed them and took their enrollment money. When told that companions were not allowed, Javier paid for Merny to enroll as well. The other participants look as glum as he and Merny do. A kind of lukewarm sadness seems to circulate among them. There's one lady with a walker, a very thin, pale young man, another man with only one leg, a woman who keeps rubbing her hands together and staring at the floor. I wonder how I seem to them? thinks Javier Miranda. What will they make of me? Merny is asking her own questions. Will one look tell them she's the servant, the help? Or will someone assume she's Javier Miranda's partner? Or will they think there's no connection between them at all, and that she's there because she's ill too, because she, too, needs to negotiate with death?

“Good morning. My name's Roger Picón Heredia and I want to welcome you all to the first session of this new workshop.”

He's a tall, dark, well-built man, although he moves with great agility, as if he weighed nothing. He doesn't have to try very hard to make people like him. He has a natural charm and a brilliant smile. While he talks, he walks among the participants, looking at each person and smiling at them.

“Before we start,” he says, “I want you all to get rid of those resigned expressions, as if you'd been forced to come here, as if this were a club for the sad and the hopeless. Well, it's not. On the contrary. Make no mistake, this workshop may be called ‘Learning to die,' but it's not an undertaker's. We come here to learn and to value how wonderful our life has been and still is. That's why you're here. Because you still want to squeeze a bit more out of your life and to celebrate it. Okay, everyone on their feet. That's right, everyone. We're all going to stand up. Now hold hands. That's it. Ready? Okay.”

At this point, Merny wishes she had waited outside in the street. Now she's hand-in-hand with old Señor Miranda and the very thin, very pale young man. The young man's hand is sweating. The old man's hand is cold. It suddenly occurs to her that the young man might have some terrible, contagious disease. She immediately lets go of his hand. The young man looks at her, and Merny, embarrassed, takes his hand again.

“How are you feeling?” The leader of the group walks slowly past them all. He stops next to Merny. “Are you feeling nervous?”

“A bit,” she whispers awkwardly.

“Don't worry. Nothing bad is going to happen.”

Then he moves on. Merny feels a slight pressure on her right hand. She assumes it was an involuntary movement, but then Javier Miranda's hand sends her another signal, another brief squeeze. She looks at him. He's smiling mischievously at her, as if the whole situation were highly amusing, as if he were a child in need of someone to share the joke with.

“Now close your eyes. Breathe deeply. That's it. One, two. One, two. And again. Very gently. Excellent. Now I want you to go on a journey into your memory and visit all those wonderful places and wonderful moments you've known. Moments of love, joy, triumph. With your loved ones, with your family, with your friends. Keep your eyes closed and experience those moments again. Keep breathing deeply. One, two. And now, say with me: I'm alive.”

The group finds it hard to get in the mood. They shoot sidelong glances at each other, uncertain what to do. They don't so much follow the facilitator's instructions as trail reluctantly after them.

“No, not like that. No one's going to believe you if you say it like that. Come on, loudly: I'm alive!” The man moves round the circle, touching them, patting them on the back, encouraging them. “Come on! I'm alive!” He reaches Javier Miranda, puts his arm around him and says: “Come on, maestro! Louder. I'm alive!”

Until, finally, they manage to form an enthusiastic, or at least reasonably enthusiastic, chorus. Merny is reminded of the evangelical Christians who live in her barrio. They shout too. They hold hands and shout. And
sing. They don't smoke or drink, which is good, but the women aren't allowed to wear trousers. And that's bad. Merny feels the very thin, very pale young man's hand growing sweatier.

“Now say with me. I'm alive. And my life has been good. When I think about my life, about what I am, only one word comes into my mind: thank you. Yes. Thank you. Because my life is a miracle. Because my life is a gift. Thank you. Thank you, life.”

They all rhythmically repeat the same words. Then they sit for a few seconds in silence. They're all waiting for the facilitator to say something, to tell them what to do next. They don't dare open their eyes. Javier Miranda starts to think that the workshop is a bit of a con, a small circus for those wounded in combat, for those who cannot return to the battlefield. And so they're offered several sessions with this determinedly cheerful preacher, intent on convincing them that you can also be joyful in defeat.

“Right, you can open your eyes now,” the man says at last.

And he again welcomes them back with a smile. He asks them all how they feel. He makes them see that they're feeling better, that this exercise has given them a new glow, that their initial mood of despondency has lifted. Then he makes them all say their name out loud. Just their name. Merny is terrified. She's never done anything like this before. She's never had to tell so many people her name. When her turn comes, she hesitates, she almost feels as if the word will lose its way in her throat,
that when she tries to say it, her name will run away, will get lost inside her body. Then she discovers that it's all much easier than she thought. She says “Merny.” Out loud. And then she experiences a sense of relief. And pride. Yes, when she says her name and finds that nothing terrible happens, that she's alright, that her name is just as much a name as anyone else's, Merny feels pride, a strange peace, the satisfaction of having passed a test.