Mouthful of Birds

by Samanta Schweblin

  We’ve missed only one weekend so far, because Walter had the flu and refused to get into the car. I felt like I should let the others know he wasn’t going, and then everyone started calling everyone else, wondering if it was worth meeting up without him. By the time Galdós was serving up the barbecue, we had all backed out of the event.

  Now Aunt Claris is dating the foreman at the farm and we’re all couples in the family, except for Walter, of course. There’s a chair near the grill that he claimed the first day we brought him, and he doesn’t get up from it. Maybe he likes it because it’s always in the shade. We try to stay around him, to cheer him up or keep him company. We take pains to talk about more or less superficial subjects, and always optimistically. My sister and my wife, who get along marvelously, comment on the week’s news. And there is always occasion to raise a glass to Kito for the encouraging results of his cancer treatment, or Galdós for the profit his farm is making, or my mother because, quite simply, we adore her.

  But time passes, and Walter’s still depressed. He wears a baleful expression, sadder and sadder all the time. Galdós brings a well-known rural doctor to the farm, and right away he takes an interest in Walter’s case. He asks for a chair and sits down facing Walter. He wants privacy, so we leave them alone for a while. We wait on the covered porch of the house. We chat surreptitiously, appetizers in hand, until the doctor comes back from the shade. He looks confident. I tell him he looks young, stupendously healthy, and he tells me the same. He says that Walter needs time, but that he has faith things will work out. So, we all like the doctor. We consult one another on the phone during the week and everyone agrees he seems like a great guy, and we invite him to the farm more often to refine Walter’s treatment. He doesn’t charge us anything. His wife comes along, too, and she chats with my wife and my sister, and they all agree to meet downtown to go to the movies or the theater together. Then it happens that the rural doctor, Kito, and Galdós get to chatting pleasantly around Walter, smoking and making silly comments to cheer him up a little, and they end up having a long conversation about business. The three of them start a new line of cereals at Kito’s company but through Galdós’s farm, with a healthier recipe the doctor develops with great success, over the following weeks. I join the project as well and I have to be at the farm almost every day, so when my wife gets pregnant, we move out to the farm, too. We bring Walter, who voices practically no opinion about the changes. We’re relieved to have him here with us, relieved to see him sitting in his chair, to know he’s close by.

  The new cereals sell very well, and the farm fills up with workers and wholesale buyers. The people are friendly. They seem to be very pleased with how we do things and the prices we charge. We’re spurred by an optimistic energy that continues to have its most glorious moments on the weekends, when the meat starts to brown on the grill at Galdós’s ever more crowded barbecue, as we all eagerly await the food with our wineglasses in hand. We’re doing things well. And by now there are so many of us that Walter is almost never alone for a second. We’re comforted to know that there’s always someone vying for the seat the doctor left beside him in the shade, always someone eager to cheer him up, eager to tell him good news, to make him see how happy a person can come to be if they really put their mind to it.

  The business grows. Kito’s cancer is finally cured, and my son turns two years old. When I put him in Walter’s arms, my son smiles and claps and says, “I’m happy, I’m so happy.” Aunt Claris travels with the foreman. A tour of the European Mediterranean keeps them entertained for two months. When they come back they feel even closer to my sister and to Galdós, who are coming back from the Mexican coast, and the four of them spend afternoons exchanging photos. Some nights they go to the casino, and every time they go they win a lot of money. That’s how we do things. With the money and some advice from the foreman, they form a company and buy out the cereal lines of the competition. For New Year’s, the company invites almost the entire town surrounding the farm—because by now almost everybody works here—and the wholesale purchasers, friends, and neighbors. The barbecue happens at night. No one needs to bring anything; we have everything to give. A live band plays that kind of jazz from the thirties that makes you dance even sitting down. The kids play with garlands, winding them around the chairs and tables, laughing at everything.

  For a while now I’ve been taking my brother aside every so often, when I can find a calm moment, to ask him what’s wrong. He stays quiet as always, but he automatically stops looking me in the eyes. I think it’ll be hard to ask him right now, because it’s midnight on the dot and we’re setting off fireworks as we toast, the kind that light up the whole sky, and people shout and clap and ask for more. I see Walter sitting in his chair, Walter’s back, and I see my son run past him, dragging his garland. But he lets go and it falls. He notices right away, and he turns around to look for it. Then something new happens: Walter leans over and picks it up. His motion strikes me as uncanny, and I can’t move or say anything. Walter looks at the garland, seeming to study it with too much attention, and for a moment everything seems confused to me. Gray. Paralyzed. It’s only a moment, because then my son takes the garland from Walter and goes running back to his mother. Although I recognize the relief, my legs are shaking. I almost feel like we could die, all of us, for some reason, and I can’t stop thinking about what’s wrong with Walter, what it is that could be so terrible.

  THE MERMAN

  I’m sitting at the bar in the port, waiting for Daniel, when I see the merman look at me from the pier. He’s sitting on the first concrete column, where the water is deeper and the beach hasn’t begun, some fifty yards out. It takes me a minute to realize what I’m seeing, what he is exactly: such a man from the waist up, such a sea creature from the waist down. He looks to one side, then calmly to the other, and finally his eyes turn back to me.

  My first impulse is to stand up. But I know that the Italian, the owner of the place, is a friend of Daniel’s, and he’s watching me from the bar. So instead I shift the things on the table around, looking for the bill for my coffee, as if from one moment to the next I’d decided to leave. The Italian comes over to see if everything is okay, he insists I stay, that Daniel must be almost here and I have to wait. I tell him to take it easy, I’ll be right back. I leave five pesos on the table, pick up my purse, and leave. I don’t have a plan for the merman, I just leave the bar and walk in his direction. Contrary to the idea people have of mermaids, beautiful and tanned, not only is this one of the opposite sex, he’s also quite pale. But he’s solid, muscular. When he sees me, he crosses his arms—his hands under his armpits, thumbs up—and smiles. It strikes me as too much swagger for a merman, and I regret that I’m walking toward him so confidently, with such a desire to talk to him, and I feel stupid. He waits for me to get closer—it’s too late to go back—and he says:

  “Hi.”

  I stop.

  “What’s a babe like you doing alone on this dock?”

  “I thought maybe . . .” I don’t know what to say. I let my purse fall from my shoulder and hold it with both hands so it hangs in front of my knees. “I thought maybe you needed something, since you . . .”

  “Come join me, beautiful,” he says, and he reaches out a hand to invite me up.

  I look at his legs, or more like his shining tail that hangs down over the concrete. I pass him my purse; he takes it, places it next to him. I put one foot against the pier and take the hand he offers me again. His skin is cold, like a fish from the freezer. But the sun is high and strong, and the sky an intense blue, and the air smells clean, and when I settle in next to him I feel the coolness of his body fill me with a vital happiness. I’m embarrassed, and I let go of him. I don’t know what to do with my hands. I smile. He smooths his hair—he has a pompadour, very American—and asks if I have a cigarette. I tell him I don’t smoke. His skin is silky, not a single hair on his whole body, and it’s covered in litt
le halos of white dust, barely visible, maybe left by the sea salt. He sees me looking at him and he brushes a little from his arms. He has very defined ab muscles. I’ve never seen a belly like his.

  “You can touch me,” he says, caressing his abs. “You don’t see these downtown, now do you?”

  I put out my hand; he catches it and presses it against his abs, also cold. He holds me like that a few seconds, then says:

  “Tell me about yourself.” And he lets me go, gently. “How is everything?”

  “Mom is sick, the doctors don’t think she’ll hold on much longer.”

  We look out at the ocean together.

  “How terrible . . .” he says.

  “But that’s not the problem,” I say. “It’s Daniel I’m worried about. Daniel’s in bad shape and that doesn’t help.”

  “He can’t accept what’s happening with your mother?”

  I nod.

  “Just the two siblings?”

  “Yes.”

  “At least you can divide things between you. I’m an only child and my mother is very demanding.”

  “There are two of us, but he does everything. I need to stay rested. I can’t allow myself strong emotions. I have a problem here, in my heart; I think it’s my heart. So I keep my distance. For my health . . .”

  “And where is Daniel now?”

  “He’s always late. He spends all day running around. He has a big problem with time management.”

  “What sign is he? Pisces?”

  “Taurus.”

  “Oh! Tough sign.”

  “I have some mints,” I say. “Want one?”

  He says yes and hands me my purse.

  “He spends all day thinking about where he’s going to get money to pay for this thing and where for that one. All the time wanting to know what I’m doing, where I’m going to be, who I’m with . . .”

  “Does he live with your mother?”

  “No. Mom is like me, we’re independent women and we need our space. He thinks it’s dangerous for me to live alone. He says it just like that: ‘I think it’s dangerous for a girl like you to live alone.’ He wants to pay a woman to follow me around all day. Of course, I never agreed to that.”

  I hand him a mint and take one for myself.

  “You live around here?”

  “He rents a house for me a few blocks away: he thinks this neighborhood is much safer. And he makes friends around here, talks to the neighbors, the Italian. He wants to know everything, control everything—he’s really unbearable.”

  “My father was like that.”

  “Yeah, but he’s not Dad. Dad is dead. Why do I have to deal with a father-brother, when Dad’s dead?”

  “Well, maybe he’s just trying to look out for you.”

  I laugh sarcastically. Really, the comment almost ruins my mood, and I think he realizes it.

  “No, no. It’s not about looking out for me, it’s more complicated than you think.”

  He sits looking at me. His eyes are very light, sky blue.

  “Tell me.”

  “Ah, no. Believe me, it’s not worth it: it’s a beautiful day.”

  “Please.”

  He presses his hands together, begs me with a funny face, like an angel about to cry. Sometimes, when he talks to me, the fin at the tip of his silvered tail waves a little and brushes against my ankles. The scales are rough, but they don’t hurt, it’s a pleasant feeling. I don’t say anything, and the fin gets closer.

  “Tell me . . .”

  “It’s just that Mom . . . She’s not just sick: the truth is, the poor woman is totally crazy . . .”

  I sigh and look up at the sky. The light-blue, absolute sky. Then we look at each other. For the first time I look at his lips. Are they cold, too? He takes my hands, kisses them, and says:

  “Do you think we could go out? You and me, one of these days . . . We could go to dinner, or the movies. I love movies.”

  I kiss him, and I feel the cold of his mouth awaken every cell in my body, like a cool drink in the middle of summer. It’s not just a sensation, it’s a revelatory experience, because I feel like nothing can ever be the same again. But I can’t tell him I love him: not yet, more time has to pass, we have to take things step-by-step. First he comes to the movies, then I go to the bottom of the sea. But I already made a decision, irrevocable, and now nothing will separate me from him. Me, who my whole life believed one lives for a single love—I found mine on the pier, beside the sea. And now he takes me frankly by the hand, and he looks at me with his transparent eyes, and he tells me:

  “Stop suffering, baby, no one’s going to hurt you anymore.”

  A car horn honks in the distance, from the street. I recognize it right away: it’s Daniel’s car. I look over my merman’s shoulder. Daniel gets out in a hurry and goes straight toward the bar. Apparently he hasn’t seen me.

  “I’ll be right back,” I say.

  He hugs me, kisses me again. “I’ll wait for you,” he says. He lets me use his arm as a rope to climb down more easily, and he hands me my purse.

  I run to the bar. Daniel is talking to the Italian when he sees me.

  “Where were you? We said we’d meet at your house, not at the bar.”

  It’s not true, but I don’t say anything. It’s not important now.

  “I need to talk to you,” I say.

  “Let’s go to the car, we’ll talk in the car.”

  He takes my arm, gently, but with that paternal attitude that irritates me so much, and we leave. The car is a few yards away, but I stop.

  “Let go of me.”

  He lets go but keeps walking to the car, and he opens the door.

  “Let’s go, it’s late. The doctor’s going to kill us.”

  “I’m not going anywhere, Daniel.”

  Daniel stops.

  “I’m going to stay here,” I say, “with the merman.”

  He stands looking at me for a second. I turn back toward the ocean. He, beautiful and silver on the pier, raises an arm and waves at us. And even so, Daniel gets into the car and opens the door on my side. Then I don’t know what to do, and when I don’t know what to do, the world seems like a terrible place for someone like me, and I feel very sad. That’s why I think, He’s just a merman, he’s just a merman, as I get into the car and try to calm down. He could be there tomorrow, waiting for me.

  RAGE OF PESTILENCE

  Gismondi found it odd that the children and the dogs didn’t run out to greet him when he arrived. Disturbed, he looked out over the plain at the car, now tiny, that wouldn’t be back for him until the next day.

  He had been visiting border places for years, poor communities that he added to the census and remunerated with food. But for the first time, facing that little town sunken in the valley, Gismondi perceived an absolute stillness. He saw only a few houses. Three or four motionless figures, and a few dogs stretched out on the ground. He advanced under the noonday sun. He was carrying two big bags on his shoulders, and as the bags slid down, they dug into his arms and forced him to stop. A dog lifted its head to watch him, but didn’t get up from the ground. The buildings, a strange mix of mud, stone, and tin, were arranged in no particular order, leaving an empty street in the middle of the town. The place seemed uninhabited, but he could sense the townspeople behind the windows and doors. They didn’t move; they weren’t watching him; they were just there, and Gismondi saw, next to a door, a man sitting down; the back of a little boy leaning against a post; a dog’s tail poking out from the doorway of a house.

  Dizzy from the heat, he dropped the bags and wiped the sweat from his forehead with one hand. He contemplated the buildings. There was no one to talk to, so he chose a house without a door and asked permission to enter before peering in. Inside, an old man was looking at the sky through a hole in the tin roof.


  “Excuse me,” said Gismondi.

  At the other end of the room, two women were facing each other at a table and, behind them, on an old cot, two children and a dog were dozing, their heads and limbs resting on one another.

  “Excuse me . . .” he repeated.

  The man didn’t move. When Gismondi got used to the darkness, he found that one of the women, the younger one, was looking at him.

  “Hello there,” he said, recovering his spirits. “I work for the government and . . . Whom should I be talking to?” Gismondi leaned slightly forward.

  The woman didn’t answer, and her expression was indifferent. Gismondi leaned against the empty doorframe, feeling dizzy.

  “You must know someone . . . some kind of leader. Do you know whom I should talk to?”

  “Talk?” said the woman in a dry, tired voice.

  Gismondi didn’t answer; he was afraid of finding that she hadn’t uttered a word at all and that the noontime heat was affecting him. The woman seemed to lose interest, and she looked away from him.

  Gismondi thought he could estimate the population and complete the record on his own, since no agent would ever bother to check the information in a place like this. But in any case, the car wouldn’t be back for him until the next day. He went over to the children, thinking he could at least make them talk. The dog, whose snout was resting on one boy’s leg, didn’t even move. Gismondi greeted them. Only one of the boys, slowly, looked him in the eyes and made a minimal gesture with his lips, almost a smile. His feet hung from the cot barefoot but clean, as if they had never touched the ground. Gismondi knelt down and brushed one of the feet with his hand. He didn’t know what led him to do this; maybe he just needed to know that the boy was capable of movement, that he was alive. The boy looked at him fearfully. Gismondi stood up. His eyes as he looked at the boy also held fear. But it wasn’t that face he was afraid of, or the silence, or the lethargy. Then he saw the dust, on the shelves and the empty countertops. He went over to the only container in sight, picked it up, and emptied its contents on the table. He stood there absorbed for some seconds. Then he traced a finger through the spilled powder without understanding what he was seeing. He went through the drawers and the shelves. Opened cans, boxes, bottles. There was nothing. Nothing to eat or to drink. No blankets, no tools, no clothes. Just some useless utensils. Vestiges of jars that had once held something. Without looking at the boys, as if he were talking only to himself, he asked them if they were hungry. No one answered.