Alberto Barrera Tyszka - The Sickness

But Merny had her own crisis. She vomited up her existence in another way. She exploded. She screamed. She’d had enough. She took off her apron and flung it down. She couldn’t help it. There she was, just about to leave, having left everything spotless. She had her own dirt, in her own house, far away, in another world. She didn’t want any more work to do. For a moment, the scene seemed utterly incomprehensible. The old man hugging the toilet bowl, coughing and groaning, and Merny standing nearby, beating the wall with her fist, shouting and crying. They remained like that for a while, two bodies furiously flailing and protesting, until gradually they calmed down, not looking at each other, not touching, each in their own place, letting their breathing return to normal.

Between them, they cleaned it all up. They had to put bleach on the floor and the tiles. The fetid smell had invaded the apartment. It was like a second skin tattooed on every object. The apartment was like the belly of some infected animal. Javier invited her to go out somewhere for a drink. Merny declined, embarrassed, saying she really should go straight home. In the end, he made her go with him. They went to a nearby café. She didn’t want to order anything, so he ordered them each a coffee. When they finally felt able to talk, the first thing Merny did was to apologize. The old man had a hard time convincing her that it wasn’t necessary. It was even harder to get her to open up and tell him what was going on in her life. That was when they made their pact. Javier Miranda offered to give her all the money she needed to send Willmer off to Los Andes, where one of Merny’s sisters lived. In exchange, they would have a private agreement, behind Andrés’s back.

“No more special diets, alright? No more of that disgusting grilled chicken with no salt. I want olive oil, I want butter, I want sweet things.”

“But Dr. Andrés says that. .”

“It doesn’t matter what my son says. Merny, look at me. Do you really think I don’t know I’m going to die?”

“We’re all going to die, Señor Javier,” she said, lowering her voice and looking away.

“Yes, we’re all going to die. But I’m going first. I’m dying already.”

The name of the dry cleaner’s is De Luxe. This was all Andrés could make out on the half ticket he found in his father’s bedroom. Then it was simply a matter of calling information, getting the telephone number, phoning and asking for their address. Now he’s standing outside the shop. He’s spent days pondering that woman’s voice. On at least two occasions, he’s tried to have a conversation with his father about love and marriage. Once, he even attempted to probe deeper into his private life.

“I can understand you not marrying again, but have you never even had an affair?”

“I’ve never been one for affairs,” his father replied vaguely.

“Didn’t you even occasionally go with a prostitute? What did you do with your sex life all those years?”

This line of questioning got him nowhere. Javier Miranda merely smiled faintly, almost ingenuously, a mere gesture, barely completed, and said nothing more. As the days passed, the voice of that woman on the phone kept gnawing away at Andrés. He began to hear it more and more often, to stumble over the sound of it again and again. It was the only clue he had. That voice. And a dry cleaner’s.

He’d done his research almost innocently, without giving it much importance, but now that he’s actually outside the shop, he can’t help feeling a certain unease again. He’s thought it all through, but is unsure quite how to proceed. There’s a number written in red ink on the left-hand corner of the ticket, presumably the customer reference number. That should be more than enough to track down the woman he’s looking for. All he has to do is come up with a plan, carry it out and get what he wants. That’s the next step. For example: Andrés could go in, looking around him with a crazy, hesitant expression on his face.

“Good morning,” he could say, smiling shyly and going over to the young woman at the till.

“Good morning.”

“I have a bit of a problem.” Initially, Andrés would linger over the pauses, then babble furiously, trying to confuse the woman. He would heap her with words and endless stories, creating an overwhelming sense of confusion. “And all I have is this,” he would say at last, showing her the half ticket. “Could you possibly help me?”

Or he could enter the shop, go straight up to the woman and propose a bribe. Or else, frankly, without further ado, with no cutesy preambles, he could adopt a straightforward approach and pour out his troubles, tell her all about his father’s secret affair and the enigma of the woman’s voice that has brought him to this place smelling of lavender and steam. Whichever ploy he finally chose, Andrés emerged from the dry cleaner’s with a name, address, and phone number. The woman is called Inés. Inés Pacheco.

One day, when he was a boy, he followed his father. He was fifteen at the time. Well, everyone has been fifteen once. He can’t remember why he did it, there are no clues, no explanations. His memory offers him only a feeling, something resembling rancor, an aggressive, piercing pain. Andrés is crouched down in the shelter of the dusk, spying. He’s hiding behind a truck being loaded up with crates of vegetables. There are carrots, celery, zucchini, and two crates full of red onions. In the crate at the back he can see only the green fingers of some leeks. His eyes take in this landscape, peer through the windshield, and finally reach the other side of the sidewalk. That’s where his father is. He’s talking to a couple of men. Andrés is a little disappointed. He has a fantasy about his father having a secret affair with another woman, who has at last replaced the memory of his mother.

He had waited patiently near the building where his father worked and then followed him, just like in the films, always keeping a few yards behind, occasionally changing sidewalks to avoid being seen. His father went to have a coffee with his usual friends, then made his way to that alleyway and those two men. He took some bills out of his wallet and offered them to the men. They exchanged glances. They didn’t seem at all pleased. One of the men, the taller one, shook his head. The three of them talked briefly. Andrés was getting more and more tense. He was afraid something would happen. Suddenly, with no warning, one of the men punched his father in the stomach. A short, sharp blow. Javier Miranda doubled up, the breath knocked out of him. The other man, almost in the same movement, as if they were working in tandem, swiftly brought up his knee and struck Javier Miranda in the face. Andrés couldn’t move. He didn’t know what to do. He wanted to do too many things at once. He wanted to race over and punch those two men, he wanted to run away, he wanted to cry out, to call for help, he wished he’d never followed his father. The two men took his father’s wallet and watch and walked quickly away. Andrés stayed where he was, stock still and frozen behind the truck, while his father struggled to his feet, moaning and wiping the blood from his mouth. Not even then did Andrés dare to go over and help him. His fear of giving himself away, of revealing that he’d been following him and why, was too strong. His father limped away. In his memory, Andrés’s eyes are red. The memory smells of red onions.

That night, his father came home late. Andrés pretended to be asleep. The following morning, he told Andrés some silly story about tripping and colliding with a door in the office. That’s how he explained the cuts to his eyebrow and mouth. They never talked about it again.

Nevertheless, Andrés remembers it now, on the fourth floor of a small building in the old part of Chacao. He’s standing outside the door to apartment 4C. He has just rung the bell. After a few moments, he hears or thinks he hears the sound of footsteps. He could almost swear it’s the sound of sandals approaching. The door opens gently and there she is. Or so Andrés thinks. She must be Inés. She’s a woman of about sixty. She was obviously very beautiful once and still has all the elegance of a once-beautiful woman. She has very dark shiny hair. She looks at him without saying a word, she doesn’t even seem surprised. She merely waits.