Carlos Gamerro - An Open Secret

I open it. The title page reads: A Record of Iniquities in Malihuel . Then came the dossiers in alphabetical order, by inhabitant. One of the first was Dr Alexander’s, running to page after page, covered from margin to margin in handwriting tiny and tight at first, but becoming progressively more expansive over the years, with its anarchic variations of ink type and colour. I start reading, taking advantage of the professor excusing himself to go to the bathroom.

Alexander, Albino. Self-styled doctor, though, to my knowledge, no one has ever examined his original certificate. Visits town sporadically until 1964, when his predecessor, Dr Arturo Rocamora, decides to retire and sells him the practice and telephone line. The first measure Malihuel’s brand-new principal medic introduces is to remove the two afternoons of free care that Dr Rocamora had instituted for the less-well-off members of our community; “I don’t want to take customers away from my esteemed colleague, Dr Lugozzi,” he has been heard to comment cynically on the matter in the Yacht Club bar. He also puts up the percentage that specialists will have to pay for the use of his surgery from twenty per cent to thirty per cent, driving several of them to discontinue their visits and forcing the townspeople to travel to neighbouring towns for care. In collusion with the pharmacist, Mauro Mendonca, for a percentage cut, he devotes himself to overmedicating and/or always prescribing the most expensive medication in the vade mecum, a procedure known in medical and pharmacological circles as “ana-ana”, or “fifty-fifty”; the samples he receives from medical reps also end up on Mendonca’s shelves, after the “free-sample” stamp has been erased (see File № 1,002—Mendonca, Mauro). Subsequent disagreements over the actual amounts owed eventually bring about the breakdown of the incipient partnership and lead to the current situation, in which the pharmacist diagnoses and prescribes independently and Dr Alexander almost exclusively prescribes drugs that are only available in Toro Mocho or Fuguet. In the first decade of his practice, he is directly or indirectly responsible for the following cases of malpractice: 1965—Don Timoteo Fernandes, deceased as a result of the administration of corticosteroids for the treatment of what at the second autopsy (conducted in Rosario at the family’s request) was diagnosed as herpes zoster (shingles) of the trigeminal nerve, an ailment that our local healer, Doña Agripina Morales, is in the habit of curing by the simple application of Chinese ink on a brush. Don Timoteo’s family chose, on completion of the due process, to come to an out-of-court settlement, reached on 15/3/66, making them moral accessories to any deaths or disabilities suffered by Dr Alexander’s patients after that date (see Files Nos 782 & 783—Fernandes, Diego Hermes; and Fernandes, Dora Zalaberry de). 1966—Don César Enciso Vera, total loss of vision in left eye and partial loss in right, due to the administration of free samples of insulin with adulterated expiry dates; 1967 …

In 1974, upon Dr Armendáriz’s resignation (apparently after threats made by a purported parapolice group relating to his ruling on the case of some so-called guerrillas gunned down by the police; the absence of any such groups in the area around that date leads us to the conjecture that the calls were made by Dr Alexander himself, or at least at his instigation) he takes over as police doctor; years later he does likewise with the judiciary (a marriage of convenience that does little to favour the transparency of trials). Dr Alexander’s methods in his dual role are characterised by his unusual consistency — in twenty-two years not one of his reports has ever even partially questioned the official version of events. It goes without saying that Dr Alexander has always tailored his reports to the needs of the police or the judicial authorities (a procedure with a whiff of scandal about it during Superintendent Major Ariel Greco’s infamous leadership—1977–1983—who directly dictated to Dr Alexander the contents of autopsies that were never even performed), or to the litigant favoured by them, eg the trial over the death of two farm workers in a collapsed silo on the La Primera Argentina Estancia in the vicinity of Elordi — his ‘providential’ discovery of traces of alcohol in their blood deprived the families of due compensation.

Kidnapping and subsequent death and disappearance of Darío Z Ezcurra — On 25th February 1977, in circumstances known to all — and I mean all — in this town of Malihuel, the abduction of the young journalist and respected inhabitant took place (see Files Nos 271 & 272, Ezcurra, Darío Z; and Ezcurra, Delia Alvarado de). From the start of the ‘general inquiry’ by chief of police Armando J Neri, Dr Alexander proved to be one of the most enthusiastic …

Illegal abortions — During the 1980s he practised illegal abortions on the following young ladies (and ladies) of Malihuel: 1) Valle, Ana Obregón; a maid in the household and commercial establishment of the Sacamata family, any male members of said family being held responsible; operation paid for with money from said family, later deducted monthly from wages of said maid (see Sacamata, Alfredo senior and Sacamata, Alfredo junior; Files Nos 2017 & 2018 respectively; and Valle, Ana Obregón, File № 2126); 2) Anunciata, Herminia; high-school student …

Its being midnight 27th April … glaucoma … refusing to tend Gervasio Lafalla, temporary farmhand (see File No …) … clearly unnecessary Caesarean section … septicaemia … reuse of disposable material … refusal to tend a patient contaminated with the virus … premature birth … chronic medicamentosa … difference in the calibre of the bullet … alleged indecent assault case dismissed … amphetamines … diuretics … antidepressants …

I snap the folder shut when I hear him coming back.

“THAT ONE, the one in the window,” Nene Larrieu had pointed out on one of my first evenings. “That’s where they’d play their famous games of chess. Used to spend the time talking actually, and when they remembered, one of them would move a piece now and again.”

“That’s what I mean,” Batata Sacamata had rudely interrupted. “I don’t know what the professor’s playing at, ’cause Neri and him they was always thick as thieves.”

“Sometimes when they put the board away they hadn’t moved a piece”—ignoring him, the waiter of Los Tocayos had gone on. “Someone once suggested they should be in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s slowest players.”

“That’d’ve been you,” Iturraspe had cheerfully peached on him.

“The games could last for weeks. Tuesdays and Fridays, they’d get together. Religiously. Unless the Superintendent couldn’t make it. That Friday — the dog’s day as they call it — the professor waited in vain, with the board open and the pieces the way they’d left them at their last meeting. He said something to me but I can’t remember what. I wasn’t paying much attention ’cause it was only a few minutes since Ezcurrita’d left — they almost ran into each other. He confided to me that in three moves, four at most, he’d have the Superintendent in checkmate. But they never got to finish the game.”

“He could never forgive himself for that friendship,” Iturraspe’d said.

“I’M TIRED OF IT,” the professor says to me when I look up. “I don’t want to go on. It’s extraordinary what something like this can take out of you. I’d rather you have it and keep no copy myself, I don’t want to be tempted. You’ll be taking a weight off me if you take it with you, and at the same time you’ll make me feel that all that effort was worth something. There’s only one file that I’m afraid you’ll search for in vain — your grandfather’s. I hope you’ll understand.”