“Are you going to show him the latest e-mails?”
“Certainly not.”
Karina knew her boss well. He had been absolutely clear on the matter: “If he phones, I’m not in.”
Karina prints out the third e-mail and takes it with her to the small restaurant where the two friends have lunch together at least once a week. As well as the paella — which usually contains more onion and peppers than creatures of the sea — any new snippet of news from Durán always lights up the meal. They had both tried to imagine what life must be like for a man in the grip of such a vast, corrosive, potent fear. The two women felt moved when they read about the terrible sensations that assailed Durán whenever he felt he was about to faint. They also followed with great interest the tale of his failed encounter with the therapist Dr. Miranda had recommended. But they want more. Adelaida wonders what he does for a job.
“He sounds to me like some sort of administrator.”
“No, I don’t think he’s studied at all, he just works for the phone company as some kind of assistant.”
Karina would also like to know more about his family life. When he got married and when he got divorced, for example. She finds it odd that he says nothing about his private life. What really happened with his ex-wife? Does he have a girlfriend now?
On this occasion, however, Karina seems less enthusiastic. She suspects that the new letter will answer none of these questions. Adelaida cannot contain her curiosity. Nor can she understand why the look on Karina’s face has been one of fear and alarm ever since they set off for lunch together, ever since her friend announced the arrival of another e-mail.
“What’s wrong? Tell me.”
“I’m afraid, that’s what’s wrong.”
“Why? What does the letter say?”
“I only read the first sentence.”
“And one sentence was enough to give you a face like that?” asks Adelaida, astonished.
It isn’t just fear that Karina feels, she feels disappointed too. Up until now, Durán has been a gentle mystery, not threatening in the least. He could even be seen as picturesque or slightly eccentric, but never dangerous. The opening sentence of this third e-mail was a wakeup call, alarm bells had suddenly started ringing inside her. She felt unsure now; perhaps everything was far less romantic than she imagined. Perhaps Ernesto Durán wasn’t just a lonely man with a fear of fainting and a desperate need to relate to someone. Perhaps he’s a madman, someone with serious mental problems. Karina takes the letter out of her handbag and shows it to Adelaida.
“Read the opening sentence,” she says, holding it out for her friend to see.
Dr. Miranda,
I have a confession to make: I’m following you.
Andrés ought to go to his father, show him the X-rays, tell him the truth, tell him exactly what’s happening; he should, moreover, explain that further tests are needed, that from now on, his relationship with medicine will become uncomfortably close, so close he’ll grow to loathe it; he should go to his father and tell him that it’s hopeless, that there’s not a thing they can do about it, that he has cancer and doesn’t have much longer to live. How long exactly? Medical calendars tend to be vague: not much longer. Which always means less.
But he doesn’t do any of these things. Postponing duties, especially when those duties are painful ones, is also a temporary way of surviving. The poet William Carlos Williams was also a doctor. He wrote: “Many a time a man must watch the patient’s mind as it watches him, distrusting him. .” Andrés didn’t know how his father would react when he found out the truth. He distrusted both his and his father’s minds because he wasn’t at all sure about himself, about how he would react once he’d told his father the truth. He’d decided to confront the situation, however tragic, head on and talk to his father; but when the moment came, he didn’t know how to, he felt invaded by thousands of tiny fears that raced around in his mind like trapped lizards and always led him to postpone that duty yet again: he should talk to his father, but not just then, later.
This morning, he again manages to distract himself from the task in hand. He has spent whole days using the same method. In order to ease his feelings of guilt, for he knows he doesn’t have much time, he keeps himself busy with matters related to his father’s illness, but which help him to avoid speaking to him directly. Now he’s trying to negotiate with Merny. She’s the woman who cleans Javier Miranda’s apartment twice a week. On Thursdays, she cleans the place thoroughly, and on Tuesdays she merely tidies up a little and does any ironing. Andrés has left his father at the movies with the children so that he can come and talk to her. He tells her everything, sparing her no detail, but warns that his father doesn’t yet know, that he knows nothing. When Merny hears this, she seems slightly surprised, but she’s never been one to show her feelings. She’s a reserved woman. She doesn’t ask many questions. Sometimes, it’s not easy to guess what she’s thinking, not, at least, for Andrés. When he suggests that she starts coming to the apartment every day, from Monday to Friday, Merny doesn’t answer, she looks uncomfortable and eyes him rather warily. Andrés makes it clear that he’s not asking her to be his father’s nurse. He’ll hire a nurse himself. He just wants her support, to know that she’ll be there all the time to do the cooking every day and pop out to the pharmacy or the market if necessary. “What do you think, Merny?” he asks.
She’s thirty years old, a beautiful, dark-haired woman with ample hips and good legs. Her name, Merny, is a combination of two names. Her mother is called Mercedes and her father Nicolás. They put together the first syllables of their respective names to create a new one, Mer from Mercedes and Ni from Nicolás, Merni. It was the clerk at the registry office who made the i into a y. Merny lives with a man called Jofre. Andrés has seen him a couple of times, but knows little about him. He knows he works as a bricklayer, but nothing more. Merny doesn’t often talk about him either. She lives with him, but he isn’t the father of her two sons; they’re from her first man, a Colombian who went off to Barranquilla and never came back. Her oldest son is called Willmer and he’s eleven years old. He’s thin and gangly and is growing his hair long so that he can get some rasta braids. He likes rap and basketball. The youngest is called Yurber and he’s only four. He’s a chubby, smiley little fellow. In the morning, he goes to the school nearest where they live and in the afternoon, a girlfriend of Merny’s looks after him. Willmer, on the other hand, is old enough to be out on the street by himself.
“The street’s a dangerous place,” says Merny. “There are a lot of bad people in the street. Just in the barrio next to ours you get kids of ten drinking and getting high on crack and carrying guns. Everyone knows about it, even the police, but they don’t do anything. Perhaps just as well. They might make things worse.” Then she adds: “Fortunately, Willmer’s really into sports. So far, thank God, my son has turned out well.”
Merny, Jofre, Willmer, and Yurber. Andrés finds it odd that poor people should like such names. Why do they choose them? What’s wrong with Juana or Gerardo? Why not Elena or Luis or Inés or Ramón? Or do they perhaps find those names too ordinary, too dull and insipid, with no particular spark of their own? Perhaps that’s why, when it comes to choosing a name, they turn to characters in films, baseball players, famous foreigners. Always in English, of course. He also doesn’t understand parents who like to make up those strange combinations and burden their children with almost unpronounceable first names. That’s very popular too. Like Merny. A son born to Jason and Mildred becomes Jamil. But then, when they go to the registry office, the same thing happens as happened with Merny. The clerk writes the name as he thinks fit: Yaimil. Yaimil Rodríguez. That’s the name of one of the nurses who works nights at the hospital’s emergency room. Other people might well think that it gets a child off to a bad start, that, for some, their first name is their very first disadvantage in life.