Evelio Rosero - Feast of the Innocents

“General Aipe,” Doctor Proceso said.

“He can’t speak,” Primavera interrupted, “didn’t I say he’d got a fish bone stuck in his throat?”

“You did,” the doctor said.

“That fish from Tumaco that Yolandita, Gerardo’s niece, sent.”

“Yes.”

The doctor headed for the bathroom, while the moustached head remained sticking out, waiting for him without saying a word, unable to say a word, according to what Primavera herself had decreed — the doctor thought — the general must be furious, unable to speak, Primavera let slip something about a fish bone, isn’t that ingenious? Ah, bountiful Primavera — he carried on talking to himself as he made his way very slowly down the corridor, too slowly, gloomy and chill, like a ghost ship.

And how repulsive, how absurd this General Aipe seemed to him compared to the graceful savages at the finca , what a sorry, unfortunate transformation Primavera’s taste had undergone, he thought.

Primavera managed to flash her blue eyes at the doctor, dark with bitterness, as though saying to him: “If you already know what’s going on here, why don’t you leave? I’ve left you in peace plenty of times, now you leave me in peace.”

With your boy? — the doctor said to himself, and he seemed to hear Primavera reply: “With my boy.”

But that isn’t a boy — the doctor went on thoughtfully — it’s General Lorenzo Aipe.

“Let me see,” he said out loud, clapping one of his hands on the general’s shoulder, gently pushing him into the bathroom. “Supposedly, I’m a doctor.”

The general spluttered something.

“Don’t speak,” the doctor said, “it’s not a good idea for you to talk.”

General Aipe sought Primavera’s eyes, but she had lowered her head, in a confusing gesture, which could signify anger or resignation. The general was a bald man, robust and very tall, though not as tall as the doctor, and gave off a strong whiff of armpit. The doctor wondered whether Primavera, like other women, was fond of that smell. The general, embarrassed at having to submit to Primavera’s extraordinary inventiveness, the fish bone, decided to accept the situation and allowed his tongue and throat to be examined in front of the large mirror in the guest bathroom; the room was dark when the doctor approached: they had to turn the light on as they went in; all that time, the only weak light came from the bulb that illuminated the corridor, so that it seemed impossible to the general that this giant of a doctor should suspect nothing untoward, or was he pretending? The general and Primavera had been in the kitchen first, and after concluding the whirlwind of an inopportune embrace — standing up, semi-naked against the wobbling fridge — they went to the bathroom simply to adjust their clothing in front of the mirror, as they would be going off in Primavera’s Volkswagen to eat guinea pig in Catambuco; and they had just entered the bathroom, without yet switching on the light, when Primavera heard the front door open and went to have a look.

Now the general heard, inexplicably, the unbelievable doctor’s earnest voice:

“Yes, yes,” he said.

And he felt him place one of his great big fingers, overly confidently, on the top of his tongue, at the back.

“I can feel something here, General. Luckily, the bone hasn’t gone into the throat, good, very good, it’s buried itself almost completely; the tongue is a fleshy organ, making it very difficult to find a fish bone, but never fear, General, we’ll extract it, if it turns out there is, in the end, a bone there, because the body itself is capable of assimilating it, do you see? It’s quite possible your system has already absorbed it. Come with me to the consulting room, General, just for five minutes.”

The general seemed to assent with a sigh.

And this time he did exchange a reassuring look with Primavera Pinzón.

“Alright,” the general agreed unexpectedly, in his normal voice, “it’s best you help me.” And he enunciated it perfectly, the doctor discovered — a grave mistake for a general well versed in strategy, he thought, to speak so clearly with a fish bone stuck in his throat.

“Best not make the effort to talk,” the doctor said to him, affably. “Stay calm and come with me. If you had that bone in your actual throat I’d have to give you a few hard thumps on the back, or compress your thorax; I’d have to get behind you and hug and squeeze you, squeeze to fainting point. Fortunately, there’s no need. The procedure is different for a fish bone in the tongue, if you still have the fish bone in your tongue. It’ll be a simple, yet delicate matter: the fish bone can splinter and go into the jaw, and then take up residency beside the carotid artery on its way to the heart, no less. But we’re going to check it out.”

And they headed for the private consulting room, right there, on the ground floor, through a discreet oak door on one side of the living room. Primavera followed behind, bewildered: she had thought the matter would not go on for long, that they would all, formally, say goodbye to one another, and that her husband would go on being the man she knew. But to see him so composed and obliging, leading General Aipe along, intrigued her as much as it irritated her. Her Doctor Donkey was so naive — she calmed down at last — he really must believe the general was suffering from a stuck fish bone. Then, going along behind her husband’s tall figure, glancing at his affable profile, she suddenly wondered, very surprised at herself, why she was not in love with him, or why she did not accept, after all, that this was her husband and she loved him; there are so many ways to love with resignation, she told herself, why, simply, did she not love him or try to love him and stop, frankly, fucking about? Primavera Pinzón asked herself this, engrossed in her own moment of truth, and now — she suddenly cried out — what will happen? Why did I think of a fish bone? All this is through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault, amen, and for a second she believed, unable to credit it, that she was laughing, that she was roaring with laughter at herself and the two men by her side.

Had he made a mistake in returning home, the doctor wondered, meanwhile.

For years a sort of tacit agreement had been established between him and his wife regarding their private wishes to be “alone.” The doctor himself sometimes went out to the finca “alone,” for a weekend, and Primavera did not object. No doubt about it — the doctor thought — he had neglected to remember the agreement in time or, remembering it too keenly, he had found himself there, besieging Primavera. The fact was, they both knew what to expect from one other: the reckless female patients, for example, who from time to time, and so thriftily, became the doctor’s lovers, did not pass unnoticed by Primavera, who smiled patronizingly — stronger than he was. As for him, why did he resort to these affairs? Simple repayment — he told himself — generosity towards the generosity of certain women exhausted with their husbands, women who were starting to grow old, like him, who admired their doctor and found an occasional diversion in him. The doctor did not feel one iota of tenderness for these tormented patients who invented a whole range of illnesses in order to visit his practice; he just proved to himself that he was alive, and that he was more alive if he managed to make them happy, but — he recognized — while the hospitable embrace occurred, his memory took refuge in the flesh and eyes of Primavera Pinzón: he did not succeed in ridding himself of her.

And now — he wondered — what was he doing leading the general towards his consulting room? If it were only a matter of another of Primavera’s boys, he thought, he would let him go, unscathed, but it was this horrible General Aipe. And something at the doctor’s core inflamed and — conversely — pleased him: the irritation on Primavera’s face pleased him to the point of anguish.