“Can you go on ahead and give these results to Dr. Sananes?”
She says she will, of course, naturally, she nods, takes the pieces of paper, again says, yes, of course, drops the papers, again says yes, while all three of them bend down to pick up the wretched results. She feels closer to the shoes now. And it seems to her absurd to think such a thing. It bothers her, irritates her. Almost as much as it does to find herself in this ridiculous situation. As she moves off, her pulse is ahead of her, beating much faster than she can walk. When she turns a corner in the corridor, she stops to catch her breath, to try and calm herself, to think. She peers round the corner and watches the two men in the distance. Ernesto Durán is wearing blue pants and a white cotton shirt. He’s the one doing the talking. He is making small gestures with his hands. What on earth can he be saying? Karina senses that it will all end in disaster. The idea that everything will finally be revealed, the fear of being discovered, weighs on her far more than knowing that Ernesto Durán is alive and well. What will happen now?
In Chekhov’s story “Ward 6,” the doctor says to the patient: “There is neither morality nor logic in my being a doctor and your being a mental patient, there is nothing more to it than idle chance.” Perhaps Karina is thinking something not dissimilar as she watches them. Perhaps she even believes that she is the “idle chance” that has brought these two men together as doctor and patient. Shouldn’t she go over and explain everything to them right now? Shouldn’t she go and tell them that she alone is the hinge that allows them to look at each other and share in the same movement? But Karina is paralyzed, frozen. She cannot even breathe very deeply. She stands there, stunned, watching Durán and Miranda. This only lasts a moment though.
What’s going on? As soon as they’re alone, Ernesto Durán makes a brief gesture in the air as if he were giving a turn to an invisible screw. He attempts a smile too.
“Thank you,” he says.
And then he looks at the doctor and gives him a knowing nod. Andrés Miranda just stares at him, perplexed, still waiting.
“It’s been a long time, eh?” Durán adds, after a pause.
Andrés is growing more bewildered by the minute. Durán finds this attitude rather intimidating. Or so it would seem. He was apparently expecting something else, some other reaction. He had probably imagined this meeting quite differently.
“If you say so.”
Ernesto Durán nods more energetically this time, like someone obliged to get to the point and to stop beating about the bush. He clears his throat, then looks straight into Andrés’s eyes:
“The illness, doctor,” he says gravely. “It’s killing me.”
Andrés feels that something inside him is deflating. He suddenly has no idea what he’s doing here with this man he doesn’t know. There must be some mistake, some terrible mistake, this morning, in the middle of a hospital corridor, some ghastly error, some absurd misunderstanding. Andrés looks behind him, looks around, instinctively repeating the gestures of someone who feels he has been mistaken for someone else.
“I’m serious. .”
Serious? He’s serious. The illness is killing him. For a moment, Andrés considers brushing him off with a curt response, for example: “Well, it’s the same for us all, isn’t it?” Yes, he could say something like that, then just turn and leave. He could also slap him on the back and cheer him up a little: “Don’t be so solemn about it, it’s not so bad. That’s why we live, in order to get ill.” He would accompany him a little way down the corridor and then escape to his office. Another possibility would be to talk to him about his father. To show him the latest test results. To say to this stranger what he finds so hard to say to his own father. To tell him that he’s terrified. That he doesn’t know how to get through the next moment. That he can’t imagine himself alone, so alone, when Javier Miranda is no longer Javier Miranda, when he no longer exists. The illness is killing us.
“I’m sorry,” he says at last, trying to control his voice as he speaks. “I think there’s been some mistake. I don’t know why you’re telling me this.”
The man then moves his head twice from side to side, as if he had water in his ears.
“Don’t you recognize me, Andrés?” he asks suddenly, looking at him hard and addressing him by his first name.
“No, I’m sorry, but I don’t think we’ve even met.”
“I’m Ernesto Durán.”
Andrés Miranda moistens his lips with his tongue. For a few seconds, he seems to be thinking hard. Ernesto follows with his eyes that imaginary journey, that invisible search.
“I’m sorry,” Andrés says again after a pause.
Then he makes a gesture intended to bring the conversation to a close.
“Wait.” Ernesto stops him. He squeezes his arm hard. “The letters.”
“What letters?” Andrés asks in bewilderment.
“The e-mails we’ve written to each other.”
“I’m sorry, but now I know you’re mistaken.”
“But. .”
“I don’t use e-mail. I don’t think I’ve ever replied to an e-mail in my life. You’re mistaking me for someone else. If you look in the directory, you’ll see that there’s a gastroenterologist who has a surname similar to mine, perhaps that’s what happened.”
And before Ernesto can say or do anything else, Andrés has walked off, hurriedly, without turning around, without even saying goodbye, as if the meeting had been a slip, a blunder, to be dismissed with cordial excuses, in the middle of a hospital corridor.
When Mariana sees the three drops of blood on the floor, she realizes the moment has come. She’s known for days now that this is a symptom that could appear at any time. It’s not a symptom but the symptom, the one they’ve all been expecting. She immediately regrets that it should have happened on a Wednesday, at four in the afternoon, when her father-in-law has come to spend a few hours with his grandchildren in their apartment. Andrés has gone out. Relations between them grow sourer every day; he’s permanently in the blackest of moods, which Mariana can understand, but she simply can’t bear it anymore. She, too, wishes it would just end once and for all.
The three drops form a little triangle on the floor. Mariana looks at them and then goes in search of more drops, until she finds a longer trail, a path.
“Javier!” she calls.
She goes along the corridor toward the room where the children are slaughtering small galactic monsters on the TV screen.
“Children!” she shouts. “Is Grandpa with you?”
She walks on, her head bent lower to the floor. She bumps into a small table. Something falls off.
“Javier! Children!”
Finally, ashen-faced, she reaches the room: the volume on the TV is deafening. Her children are alone. Without asking or saying anything, Mariana immediately turns and hurries to the bathroom, where she knocks twice on the door.
“Grandpa!” she says, still trying to appear calm.
No answer. She sighs, hesitates, looks at the floor. Another blood stain. She doesn’t knock this time, she grips the handle and pushes. The door won’t open. It bumps against the unconscious body of Javier Miranda. Mariana pushes harder, crying now and desperate. One of her children says something to her as he comes down the corridor.
“Don’t come near. Go away!”
The boy freezes. Mariana tries to slip a hand through the crack and push her father-in-law’s body out of the way.
“Phone your dad!” screams Mariana. “Phone your dad! Now!”
Andrés has turned off his cell phone and, still undecided, is once more standing outside Inés Pacheco’s apartment. Overwhelmed as he is by a sense of powerlessness, he feels that perhaps this is something he can do for his father: although he does not know her, this woman is his father’s other love, the one other experience of love that’s left to him. Why isn’t she with him now of all times? Why isn’t she there for him? Why will neither of them talk to him? Andrés thinks that perhaps this is a gift he could give his father: a visit from Inés Pacheco. But all he has is that vague presentiment. He rings the bell.