Ramifications

living room before my father leaped to answer it. I imagined his surprise on hearing Mariconchi’s kindly voice, her speech peppered with diminutives, the tale of our bus journey, the revelation that I was safe in her house, taking a shower, and, perhaps, the treacherous accusation that I’d wet my pants. I imagined the haste with which my sister would try to grab the handset from him, the police officer advising caution as his team traced the call. But what I couldn’t imagine was any possible ending to that conversation. What plan would be agreed on? Would my father take a plane to Villahermosa, Tabasco State, before noon to personally drag me back home? Would they arrange for Mariconchi herself to put me on a bus back to the capital, thus exposing me to the risk of the adolescent soldier with chemical breath humiliating me again that night? Would Mariana attempt to assuage her guilt by offering to come to Villahermosa to fetch me? After all, she’d supposedly been looking after me when I disappeared. And the most important question of all: Would they ask Mariconchi to tell me that Teresa had come home?

I stood for quite a while under the tepid stream, stronger than in Educación, without soaping myself down, feeling the water massage my back.

I recalled an occasion when I’d woken up feeling ill, with a cough, difficulty breathing, and an indefinite pain in my chest. The pediatrician I usually saw was on vacation, so Teresa took me to another, recommended by someone who worked with my father at the bank.

The doctor was an elderly man with a military bearing and brusque manner. After examining me and scrawling a prescription for cough syrup, he turned to Teresa and, in a grave tone, said: “What this child needs is for his father to wake him up at six in the morning and put him under a cold shower. If he gets into that habit early in life, he’ll never fall ill and will be a stronger, more hard-working boy.” Teresa smiled, thanked the doctor for his advice, and left his office. I was pretty surprised by the proposed regimen, which had very little resemblance to the remedies prescribed by my usual pediatrician.

Once we were in the car, Teresa looked solemnly into my eyes and, imitating the doctor’s voice, said, “What this child needs is to shower in ice-cold water.” Then she let loose a laugh that she appeared to have been holding back for some time. I’d never before seen her do anything like that; imitating someone and then laughing, I mean. It was in complete contrast to the absolute seriousness she normally projected. I laughed too; nervous rather than genuinely amused.

When Teresa had pulled into traffic, changing the mood, I asked why the doctor had said that I ought to shower in cold water, and Teresa’s answer only served to further disconcert me: “Because he believes that if we get you out of bed early and put you under a cold shower, you won’t deplete your energy levels masturbating. He must be a religious fanatic.” I made no reply. What could I have said? I was ashamed by the doctor’s insinuation and annoyed with my mother for having explicitly voiced it.

8

A PART OF ME KNOWS that my situation is unsustainable. After two years of living on the inheritance I received after my father’s death (or at least what was left of it when I bought the place where I now live), it’s beginning to be clear that I’ll have to look for a job, go out into the world, and take up my life where I left off when, in the uninhabited house in Educación, surrounded by cardboard boxes, I searched through my father’s papers and read Teresa’s two letters. But for the moment there’s no way I can even think of facing up to the frenzied activity of the city’s streets. The very idea makes me feel more ungrounded than usual.

My father’s phone call, two and a half years ago, had taken me by surprise. We’d gotten into the habit of exchanging text messages approximately one Sunday a month, using only the innocuous formulas that rule fleshless father-son relationships: “How are things?” “Just chilling out over here.” “Are you going to watch the game?” “No, I don’t even know who’s playing,” and so on.

A call from him, at ten in the evening, and to top it all on a Thursday, was an anomaly that presaged problems.

After a little beating about the bush, he told me that for months he’d been feeling unwell, constantly tired. His condition had gotten much worse in recent weeks: he no longer had the energy to go for a morning run before his eight-hour shift at the office. I made no response, sensing that his news hadn’t finished there: my proud father wouldn’t have called to tell me that he was getting old, weak, and sickly.

There followed further digressions—the farce that was left-wing politics in Mexico City and the price of gas—until he worked himself up to continuing his confession. A few weeks before, he’d visited the doctor and had been sent to have several tests done. That very morning he’d gone back with the results and had been told that he had cancer.

He didn’t say “a tumor,” he said “cancer.” His tone in pronouncing that word sounded deeply strange, as if he’d been repeating it aloud for hours, until he’d emptied it of all meaning.

I was standing in the kitchen of the rented apartment where I lived at that time, when I still had a job, personal projects, and ambitions. I asked my father to give me a moment and went to my bedroom. My roommate wasn’t home; in fact there was no one else in the whole house, but I felt the need for greater privacy, so I closed the door behind me and sat on the bed.

I asked my father if they were going