The Mutations Page 6

  “You’re only three blocks from Avenida Insurgentes. You’re sitting on top of a gold mine! Look, we can talk to my pal from the country club who’s a big deal in the city government. He can get us a building permit for whatever you want—a high-rise, offices, commercial, a whorehouse. Construction companies would be lining up! They’ll pay you in cash, you can take care of your bills and find an apartment somewhere nearby, no sweat.”

  Ramón was astounded by his brother’s lack of tact. Was he really a talented businessman, or just a numbskull with a bit of luck? He remembered how, when they were boys, he would play with toy soldiers, masterminding complex battles commanded by famous historical generals, while Ernesto crawled around on the roof and cooed like a pigeon. “You’re such an idiot,” Ramón had said countless times to his younger brother. And now the brilliant military strategist owed the idiot more than a million pesos.

  During those months, Ramón’s only comfort was that Dr. Aldama, despite his aloof and unpleasant nature, had managed to get him admitted to the National Cancer Institute, where his chemotherapy and testing would be practically free of charge. To show his gratitude for this act of goodwill, Ramón wanted to get him a classy gift—perhaps a bottle of brandy, or better still, a case of Takemitsu knives. When she read his suggestion, Carmela reminded him that their credit cards were maxed out, and that with the meager income from his law firm, they could barely make it to the end of the month. Ramón’s token of appreciation would have to wait.

  * * *

  The first chemotherapy cycle took place at the end of February, with moderate doses of the vincristine-actinomycin-cyclophosphamide trio—a classic formula of the old guard. Aldama availed himself of a military metaphor to explain to Ramón and Carmela that he’d decided to stick with the foot soldiers of chemo, as long as it wasn’t necessary to call in the motorized infantry.

  The second cycle, which now included ifosfamide and interferon, began to lay waste to the battleground. Ramón lost clumps of hair and broke out in cold sweats, and every orifice in his body burned. He felt miserable and ashamed as he wrapped himself up in scarves and hats, squeezed drops in his eyes, rubbed balm on his lips and cream on his anus—things he deemed more appropriate for old ladies and homosexuals. He was crushed by the weight of his debts. There was no way to pay them without losing his principal asset: the house where he was now wilting and fading away. A thousand square feet of real estate in a residential neighborhood—the only thing that was his to leave to his children.

  With no villain to put on trial, he punished himself. I’m no use anymore, he would conclude as he struggled to read the documents Carmela submitted to him for approval, his mind clouded by the fog of chemotherapy. He would rather feign a headache than admit that he couldn’t remember which client or case she was talking about.

  He flirted with the idea of suicide. A bullet to the roof of the mouth—a surefire exit. Paulina would miss him most, his vulnerable, doting daughter, who sat with him watching TV and eating cookies. “Shall I put some cookies in the blender for you?” Her fond attentions served both as a comfort and a bitter reminder of his impotence. If he were to end his torment, he would have to make sure that Carmela didn’t sell the house to pay off their debts. But how? Their marriage gave them joint tenancy with right to survivorship. Ergo, he should divorce Carmela and sign his part of their property over to her, so that after his death, she wouldn’t be legally bound to the creditors of the deceased. At his miserly brother’s behest, Ramón had signed an IOU for a million pesos. That much was true. And after the debtor’s suicide, what would happen? Exactly what that ungrateful asshole had proposed all along: the house would be sold. But guess what? Unfortunately, before blowing his brains out, the deceased divorced the defendant and signed the title to the house at such and such address over to her. The debtor therefore died with no assets to be seized. Tough shit, asshole. You’re fucked.

  “And what are you grinning about?” Carmela asked him.

  We’re getting a divorce, thought Ramón, thrilled with his plan and determined to see it through. Carmela had bought a notebook for him to write down his messages, but Ramón could almost never remember where he’d left it and had to resort to random scraps of paper to communicate. He picked up an electricity bill, and wrote:

  I want to sign my part of the house over to you, to avoid any trouble. I want the title to be in your name.

  “Stop thinking about that. The doctor said this is an adjuvant treatment and there’s nothing to worry about right now. The house belongs to us, and we’re going to leave it to our children. Why do you want to worry about all of that?”

  I don’t want Ernesto to do anything to you. If something happens to me and I can’t pay him back, I don’t want him to bother you. I wouldn’t put it past him!

  “Please stop thinking about that. I’ve already told you, he said we don’t need to worry. It doesn’t matter, even if it takes us ten years. And we’ll have paid him back before you know it.”

  Ramón couldn’t think about anything else. He didn’t want to pay up. Since he’d been diagnosed with cancer, since he’d lost the use of his words, he also felt that he was no longer subject to the law, that the obligations it dictated no longer applied to him. He hadn’t accrued his debt voluntarily, nor had Ernesto amassed his fortune by honest means. The fairest solution, though it was impossible to say so, was for Ernesto to cover his brother’s medical bills. If he wasn’t willing to do so of his own accord, Ramón would force him to do so by killing himself. But it wasn’t his debts that would drive him to suicide, like so many cowards in the peso crisis of ’94; he was going to make his exit for the sake of his dignity, and for his family, who didn’t deserve the burden of living with an invalid.

  Promise me you won’t pay him back if I’m not here, Ramón pleaded.

  “You’re so stubborn,” said Carmela.

  The next evening, she summoned the children to the kitchen and said, “We need to keep an eye on your dad. He seems really depressed.”

  Mateo felt guilty for not spending more time with his father, but whereas before the cancer Ramón had been unpleasant, now he was insufferable. Since he took ill, his father’s expansive personality had become a black hole that sucked the energy out of everything around it. That was why Paulina ate so much, Mateo thought, to recover the strength sapped by her father’s company. Mateo had always suspected that Ramón despised him for being so different from him, so shy and sullen.

  “We should throw him a birthday party,” Paulina said excitedly.

  “He’s not going to like that idea,” said Mateo.

  “Then we’ll have to persuade him,” said Carmela, knowing that this celebration might be the last. “Good idea, Pau.”

  Carmela turned toward the fridge and looked San Peregrino in the eye. The saint looked pleased.

  10

  After two weeks without going to therapy, Eduardo arrived at Teresa’s house in a surgical mask. He’d come down with bronchitis.

  “It’s my mother’s fault. She brought a virus home from her office. That place is like a medieval orphanage—they’ve never even heard of soap. I’ve asked her a thousand times to wash her hands when she comes home, not to touch her face, and to use the hand sanitizer I bought her.” Eduardo had incorporated into his discourse the typical structures of a domineering mother. “As soon as she started coughing, I asked her to go to a hotel. She totally lost it. I tried to explain that if she stops touching her face with her hands, the probability of contagion is reduced by eighty percent. It’s so easy, and she won’t do it. So, obviously, she infected me. Oh, but she says she didn’t have the flu—she’s just allergic to the cold. I mean, where did she get the idea that the cold causes allergies? Allergies are a reaction to…”

  Teresa’s mind wandered from what Eduardo was saying. She felt a visceral urge to interrupt him, to confront him with his fundamental need to break free from his neurotic prison. But Eduardo kept talking incessantly, caressing the sq
ueaky-clean bars of his cell. And what about her? Wasn’t her house a prison, albeit outfitted with a psychoanalytic practice and a clandestine marijuana greenhouse? She’d found her life’s mission in providing psychoanalysis and psychotropic treatment to cancer patients, but it filled her days with a gruesome amount of suffering. Should she take a vacation? A break from her appointments could upset her psychological balance. She didn’t want to go back to the depression she’d suffered when young, chain-smoking and popping sleeping pills like they were candy. Somehow, cancer had saved her from her innate sorrow; it led her to try medical marijuana, join a support group, spend whole days in bed reading Yourcenar, Butler, and Roudinesco. Thanks to cancer she’d met her best friend Rebeca, and thanks to it, too, she’d discovered her true vocation.

  Meanwhile, Eduardo kept railing against his mother.

  “Every five minutes, she tells me not to exaggerate. She spent all week telling me nothing was wrong and I should go to class, but right now is exactly when it’s most dangerous to expose myself. Apart from that, I’m thinking of other people. Even though I’m almost better, I’m still a vector of disease. The illness has evolved to be contagious before and after the symptoms appear in the host.”

  Eduardo had a psychosomatic coughing fit.

  “When do you think you’ll go back to class?” Teresa asked him.

  “Monday. Maybe.”

  Teresa stayed silent. Eduardo continued.

  “I’m thinking of switching to online courses.”

  “You told me they weren’t as good.”

  “They aren’t, but what’s the point of being enrolled at the university, if I have to miss so many classes? I’m already behind on everything this semester.”

  “Can’t Emilia help you catch up?” Teresa realized at once that she’d spoken the words of an interfering mother. She was the analyst, but her unconscious refused to accept it.

  Eduardo paused for a long time before answering. Teresa couldn’t believe how clumsy she’d been. No wonder the Lacanian school still had its followers: it was the only one that prevented its adherents from giving away just how pedestrian the mind of the analyst was, how vulnerable to the patient’s influence, to the projection of its own fears and desires.

  “Am I that obvious?” said Eduardo, annoyed.

  “How so?” asked Teresa, regaining her professional demeanor.

  In an instant, Eduardo had been transformed into a normal young man with a crush on a classmate, a classmate he knew nothing about, aside from her appearance, her insightful comments in class, and the stiff manner in which she’d approached him three months earlier to ask for his notes. Oh, but there was one more detail, a psychological hook: Emilia never greeted anyone with a kiss. Eduardo watched her closely before and after class, in the corridors and classrooms, and in the literature department courtyard; whenever anyone tried to greet her with a kiss on the cheek, she held out her hand to stop them, polite and distant, with a glacial smile. Eduardo didn’t know if this admirable behavior was due to hygienic reasons—phobias, in fact, like his own—or if it was an expression of blunt rebellion, a way of communicating her contempt for social norms.

  Eduardo was flustered and squirmed on the couch as he spoke, tangling his sheet and dirtying it with the soles of his shoes. Teresa couldn’t decide whether to continue her psychoanalytic exploration of the recesses of his psyche, or to play Cupid and offer him practical tips for pursuing a girl. If Eduardo rushed into trying to attract her and failed, the setback could harden his neurotic defenses and activate the explosive misogyny lodged in the hearts of all unsatisfied men.

  “What do you think?” he asked Teresa.

  “What do you want to do?” she answered quickly. They were almost out of time.

  “I don’t know. It would suck to find out she’s a Mormon and doesn’t kiss because it’s a sin or she’s afraid she’ll get pregnant.”

  “Do you think that’s why?”

  “No, actually she’s really smart. I just don’t know how to talk to her.”

  “Shall we continue next week?”

  Eduardo got up from the couch, bundled his sheet into a plastic bag, put on his surgical mask, and went on his way.

  11

  When he awoke on the Friday morning of his birthday, Ramón didn’t suspect that by the end of the day he’d be involved in the perpetration of two federal crimes. The first was committed by Elodia, who arrived at work in the company of an Amazona oratrix, an endangered species of parrot whose trade was punishable under Article 420, Sections IV and V, of the Federal Criminal Code.

  “Happy birthday to yooouuu, happy birthday to yooouuu, happy birthday, Señor Handsome, happy birthday to yooouuu!”

  She burst into the study, where Ramón was watching TV, carrying a birdcage inside which, hunched on a thin perch, sat a half-bald parrot with a yellow head and grimy claws. “Look what I brought for your birthday!” she said, brandishing the cage like a war trophy.

  She set the cage down on the desk. The parrot was young and male, and looked like it’d had a tough time at the gritty Sonora Market. The poor creature was dazed from the stress of being jolted around on the hour-long bus ride with Elodia. It also looked sick and malnourished. Ramón took an immediate liking to the ungainly bird.

  Elodia was in high spirits.

  “They told me this one’s very chatty, that’s why I picked him.” A smell of soggy newspaper and rancid tomatoes wafted from the cage. “We’ll teach him to call me whenever you need anything.”

  It was a harebrained idea. Unlike dogs, parrots had never acted as service animals. A dog could guide its blind owner, but a parrot couldn’t possibly act as a mouthpiece for a mute. Yet, despite the gift’s absurd nature, Ramón was grateful. He didn’t care that parrot trafficking was illegal. As each day passed, he grew more indifferent to the law.

  “I’ve been teaching him my name,” Elodia said, turning to face the parrot. “Say Elodia! E! lo! dia! Elodia! Or shall we teach him to call me ‘Elo,’ like Paulina?”

  Ramón closed his eyes and shrugged to indicate that it didn’t matter.

  “Do you like him?” asked Elodia, who had blown all her savings on the bird.

  Ramón assured her sincerely that he did. The parrot seemed gifted with an intelligence far greater than should normally fit in such a small head. His wide eyes scrutinized his surroundings warily. Ramón felt flattered by the interest with which the bird contemplated him.

  “They told me he’s still young, that’s why he’s missing some feathers, and he’s hurt himself with all his playing. But he’ll get better.”

  Ramón was doubtful. Perhaps, like him, the parrot was suffering from a devastating illness. Its featherless chest and bloody toes might be the result of a nefarious dose of veterinary chemotherapy. Its cage was cramped like a hospital bed and its drinking trough was empty. Ramón was well acquainted with the untamed stallion of convalescent thirst. He opened the cage door and removed the plastic container. The parrot remained on its perch.

  “Look!” Elodia exclaimed in surprise. “He really likes you. I have to cover my hand so the little shrimp doesn’t bite me.”

  Ramón handed her the container so that Elodia could go to the kitchen and fill it with water. He was left alone with the parrot. To break the ice, he said in his mind: You look almost as lousy as I do.

  * * *

  When Carmela finished showering and came down to breakfast, she found a mangy bird in the study.

  “Where did that parrot come from?” she asked, scandalized, as she walked into the kitchen.

  “That’s the birthday present I brought for Señor Martínez,” Elodia said proudly.

  Ramón was in a celebratory mood, about to finish his second smoothie of the morning.

  “Oh, but Elodia, what a shame,” Carmela answered. “The doctor told us we can’t have pets in the house while Ramón is in treatment. He could get an infection. The poor thing doesn’t look very well, either,” she said, feigning pity. “
He looks like he’s been run over.”

  Ramón took his wife’s last comment personally, as if she were alluding to him. Furthermore, in his opinion, a parrot didn’t count as a pet. Pets were mammals that licked their own assholes and sniffed at the excrement of other pets; pets were cats that scratched the furniture and marked their territory with urine. A parrot was more of an ornamental bird, more closely related to houseplants than to dogs, cats, or hamsters, those frightful rodents that Paulina had insisted on keeping as a little girl, until one of them had babies and the other one gobbled them up.

  “If you like, I’ll take him to the vet,” Elodia answered defensively, “to see if he’s sick.”

  “It’s not a question of whether he’s sick. It’s just that Ramón’s immune system is weak right now, and anything like that could be bad for his health,” Carmela said. She turned to her husband. “Don’t go into the study until it’s been vacuumed and aired out.” Ramón gestured an emphatic “Bah,” and Carmela concluded with an order to the maid. “Will you please take it out to the patio right away?”