Carlos Fuentes - Hydra Head

“When he asked me to help him out, it seemed like a good thing. Climb into a taxi and come take care of a man who’d had facial surgery. That’s all Simon told me, and I know as much about it as you do, honey. It looked like an easy way to earn a little quick cash in no time at all. At the hospital where I work, they don’t pay too well, if you know what I mean. But it’s steady work, and I have insurance, and little by little you work up to pretty good overtime, and seniority. It’s not so bad, even if it’s a charity hospital and all you see are poor people, really a lot of beat-down people who go there to die because they don’t have the time or the money to get well. Well, I guess everybody has time for dying, you might say. It’s different here at this clinic. Just a few rooms, all private, with TV and everything. And security! You can’t get in without a special pass. They even have guards downstairs. It must cost an arm and a leg, and an eye as well. Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. You feeling okay?”

Felix nodded, helpless, his questions frustrated on the tip of an immobilized tongue.

“That’s good. Now don’t you worry, honey. I’m going to look after you, I won’t leave you for a minute. The fact is, they wouldn’t let me leave, anyway. The deal was that I’d sleep in as long as you’re sick.”

And now Licha went about her tasks happily, as if she’d justified her familiarity by confessing her affair with Simon Ayub, and then by being so professional in explaining their situation. “Honest, honey, I didn’t know you weren’t in on this deal,” she said as she busied herself rearranging a shelf full of bandages, cotton swabs, and rubbing alcohol. “I supposed you’d ordered the surgery yourself, though I did wonder why at the time. A cute fellow like you.”

She must have thought it was cowardly to say this without looking him straight in the face. She left her bottles and bandages and turned toward Felix. “No kidding, I liked you the minute I saw you in the taxi. I really went for you, the way you carry yourself, the way you look, everything.”

Felix took the opportunity to try to pantomime something with his hands. He held out his arms and Licha took the gesture as an invitation. She approached him with a combination of hesitancy and her version of allure, but stopped, disconcerted, as Felix’s hands imitated the motions of leafing through a newspaper. He repeated the pantomime of the reader unsuccessfully searching for a story, rapidly turning invisible pages, running his eyes up and down columns, and tracing imaginary headlines across the top of a page.

“What is it? What do you want? Didn’t you hear what I just told you?” said Licha, with another of her contradictory attitudes, curiosity now mixed with resentment. “You’re not interested? Hey, are you trying to put me down or something? Oh? You want me to read to you? You want to read something? No, that wouldn’t be good for you. Why don’t I read you something? A magazine?”

Licha giggled and her dark cheekbones flushed with the high color of her distant Indian forebears, the color of apples and cold early mornings in the sierra.

She went to the window to be sure it was closed, tried unsuccessfully to draw the curtains tighter still, and then sat on the bed beside Felix Maldonado. She slid her hands beneath his hips.

“You’re trying to find out something that isn’t going to be in the newspapers. Don’t worry about your face. I tell you it’s going to be okay. And I’m going to take good care of you. Real good care of you. Wouldn’t you like to find out whether you’re still a man?”

LATER THAT AFTERNOON, Licha removed Felix’s clamps and stitches. She alternated her professional attention with hugs and kisses, and surges of tenderness, cuddling Felix, afraid of hurting him, patting the sound parts of his body, everything except his face, asking, Wasn’t that good? Didn’t you think that was super?

She dozed awhile, lying as close to Felix as she dared. When she awakened, she raised her head and gazed at him with the eyes of a hobbled calf, strangely pleading for a love that would set her free. Felix saw in her Bunny’s gaze: Love me, or I’ll be a slave forever.

“You’ll be able to talk soon,” she told him. “I skipped your novocaine injection. Can’t you move your tongue a little better already? Look, before you can talk, I want you to listen to me a bit. I know you’ll say I was taking advantage of you when you couldn’t talk, but it’s easier for me if you listen and don’t say anything just now. Then later, if you say yes … great. And if you don’t say anything, I’ll understand.”

She hid her face against Felix’s chest, and idly played with one of his nipples. “Did you like me? Honest, wasn’t it pretty good?”

Felix stroked Licha’s bleached hair.

“Yes?” said the girl. “Are you listening? Look, I thought that now you’re a different person, like Simon said … and you don’t have anyone, and aren’t really anyone yourself … I thought that maybe you could love me a little … and live with me even if just a little while, while you get well … and if you like me, maybe…” She raised her head and looked at Felix with fear and desire. “I know I’m being pushy, but God, I’d do anything for you. I’ve never known anyone like you. What makes you tick? Why did you do it that way? Who taught you that?”

Felix moved a furry tongue, seemingly not related to the unhealed lips. “He-elp me-eee.”

“What is it you want?” Licha asked eagerly, pressing her nose to Felix’s neck. “Anything. Anything at all, sweetie.”

In desperation, Felix pushed her from him, seized her shoulders, and shook her. “You know,” he said, thick-tongued. “A newspaper.” Licha got up, unruffled, almost happy that Felix had treated her so familiarly, a little violently, patted her hair in place, and told him she had strict orders not to take anything into or out of Felix’s room. He was in isolation because his was a very special case.

“Look,” Licha said, pushing the button at the head of Felix’s bed. “It’s disconnected. And look here”—mimicking Felix’s violence, ripping aside the curtains and throwing open the windows. “This room is on the third floor. It’s the only one with bars at the windows. They keep it for special cases, for the nuts … oh, I’m sorry, the mentally ill patients.”

Licha removed a chiclet from her uniform pocket and stood for a moment, pensive. “I’ve got it,” she said suddenly. “The women come by at six to clean the rooms. They always leave the rubbish bins in the hall. I’m sure they throw the old newspapers in there.”

Again she lay down beside Felix, repeating over and over, “It was so good, who taught you that, no hands or anything, without touching me, just looking, honest to God, I never knew a man to come before just from seeing me naked, never. Who taught you? It makes me feel really good. I swear it makes me feel like something special.”

“You’re very sweet, and a very pretty girl,” said Felix, clearly enunciating the syllables, and Licha threw her arms around Felix’s neck, curled around him like a snake, and kissed his neck again and again.

About six-thirty she returned with a wrinkled, egg-stained copy of the noon edition of Últimas Noticias. Breathlessly, desperately, Felix scanned the headlines. Not a single reference to what he was looking for. Not a word about an attempt on the life of the President of the Republic, or its aftermath, no editorial comment, and nothing, less than nothing, about the fate of the presumed assassin Felix Maldonado. Nothing. Nothing!

He swallowed thickly, and desolately folded the newspaper. He remembered his conversation with Bernstein at Sanborns. The real political facts never appear in the Mexican press. But this was too much, absolutely incredible. No one could have such control of the press that they could prevent the printing of news of an attempt against the Chief of State in the Salón del Perdón in the National Palace of Mexico during an official ceremony before scores of witnesses, photographers, and television cameras.