The Mutations

by Jorge Comensal

  “No, I asked her to take it away yesterday afternoon.”

  “All right,” he said. “If you think that it’ll make him agree to see the psychologist, let him keep it. But take it to the vet for a checkup, and make sure it stays outside the house.”

  “Isn’t it too risky for him?”

  “The most important thing right now is to make sure he’s happy. We’ll keep an eye on the situation.”

  “Thank you so much, Dr. Aldama. That really puts my mind at rest.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  They said goodbye. When he went back into the church, Esther had come back from taking Communion and was kneeling in front of the pew, dissolving the body of Christ on her tongue. He sat down beside her and thought about Mr. Martínez’s case. He’d just read a study in the Lancet about the effects of mood on disease progression in patients undergoing chemotherapy. A diagnosis of depression significantly lowered the chances of recovery. The most important thing was for him to keep his spirits up; if giving him a parrot achieved that, then so be it.

  The ceremony ended with a piece by Handel—“The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba,” a selection symptomatic of the megalomaniacal enthusiasm afflicting the newlyweds. As they played, the orchestra reached a level of cacophony more befitting of a mariachi ensemble. Aldama imagined the great Baroque composer spinning furiously in his grave at Westminster Abbey. If he’d had a champagne bottle at hand, Joaquín would have used it to clobber the musicians over the head and deliver the world from that musical horror.

  13

  Beneath a fake four-thousand-watt sun, the marijuana plants were putting in extra hours of photosynthesis. It was Monday night. Teresa was calmly tending the plants with ripened buds. Her body was soaked in sweat and her hands were coated in sticky, psychoactive resin. She smiled. The scent alone was enough to induce a profound state of calm. She’d had an intense day of group therapy and individual sessions. She had met Ramón, whose involuntary silence was going to prevent her from treating him in an orthodox manner.

  Their first meeting was taken up with Carmela’s account of the particulars of her husband’s case, from his paralyzed tongue to his vicious attack on his brother three nights earlier. According to Carmela’s sketch of his character, Ramón was impatient, domineering, and narcissistic, had immense confidence in his own intellect, and was woefully out of touch with his emotions.

  Ramón had contributed only a few curt phrases, which he wrote down in his notebook with annoyance. It was a tiresome way to communicate: first he had to write down what he wanted to say, then pass the notebook and wait for his interlocutor to read it. Since the free association of ideas, a pillar of the psychoanalytic method, was impossible under those conditions, Teresa suggested an unusual strategy: they would conduct their sessions online via chat, but in her office. The dynamic would involve each of them using a laptop; that way, Ramón could type his messages and she could read them as soon as he sent them, almost simultaneously. Though it might seem absurd to chat online while in the same room, Teresa wanted to be face-to-face with Ramón, to observe the nonverbal expressions of his subconscious, and respond to them in person, paying close attention to his body language.

  Ramón didn’t seem keen on the suggestion. Carmela, on the other hand, was enthusiastic, and immediately thought of asking their son to lend them his laptop and teach them to use it. She seemed convinced that they would be going to therapy as a couple, but Teresa soon clarified that she needed to work with Ramón alone, at least at first.

  The only thing Ramón had written without being prompted was the question, How much will it cost? When he learned what she usually charged, he could hardly disguise his dismay. Carmela explained that they were in a tricky financial situation, and Teresa offered to charge them on a sliding scale. Once they had settled the price of the sessions, they agreed to meet at the same time the following Monday.

  When she finished pruning the leaves, Teresa cut the stems already bearing ripened buds and gathered them into a bunch, taking care not to graze the parts that were richest in psychotropic resin. These buds would spend a couple of weeks drying in an adjacent storage closet, hanging upside down from a clothesline. Once dehydrated, the buds would be set to cure in glass containers, a process that would take six months and result in a potent and delicately flavored herb.

  To provide marijuana to the many patients who sought her help, moved by the stories of others to seek an alternative remedy, Teresa needed to grow increasingly large amounts. The demand had almost outpaced her supplies, and also those of the hippie biologist in Tepoztlán who provided her with specialized soil and cannabis fertilizer.

  She was convinced that marijuana would be legalized before long, and she trusted that then she could be open about her work and leave this worthy social endeavor in the hands of others. Until then, she would be forced to turn away more and more patients, telling them that they would have to obtain it by their own means, though this meant they would end up buying an inferior product in a market controlled by criminals.

  For months, she’d been thinking about finding a business partner, but she didn’t know anyone with the privacy, space, or commitment to service required for that work, which on top of everything was punishable with jail time. For the moment, she would have to keep working alone.

  After her strenuous labor, she went down to bathe. The moment she stepped into the shower and felt the warm water’s embrace was her favorite part of the day. She lathered herself with an ultra-soft sponge, beginning at the nape of her neck and working her way down her sagging flesh; she circled the scars on her chest, two blind smiles where her nipples had been. The suds amassed in her pubic hair, which grew thinner by the day. Teresa sat down on a plastic bench to wash her legs. She wasn’t in any hurry. She treated her aging body with motherly care.

  Her thoughts returned to Eduardo, the youngest of her psychoanalytic children. On Saturday, after several weeks of not mentioning the subject, Teresa had decided to ask if he’d heard from his classmate Emilia. Irritated by the question, Eduardo told her that they’d studied Latin together, and that he hadn’t enjoyed it. Why? Because Emilia chewed the cap of her pen. That innocent oral fixation was a deal-breaker for Eduardo. How many bacteria must there have been on that chunk of plastic that Emilia removed with her hands from her pencil case, placed on the desk, then raised to her mouth? He hadn’t spoken to her since.

  Teresa decided to confront Eduardo with the roots of his phobia. She asked him if he’d had any dreams about Emilia.

  “What?” he said defensively.

  “What did you dream about?” she insisted, betraying the most sacred principles of her school of analysis.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said, alarmed.

  Teresa nodded respectfully, but she knew Eduardo wouldn’t be able to stand his lack of control over what she might imagine. In the end, he told her.

  He dreamed about her all the time. Emilia wanted to kill him, but whenever she tried to, she was the one who died. He nearly always lay in a hospital bed. She would cut off his oxygen, and then she would suffocate. That was the strange thing. Whenever she tied the cord around his neck, she was the one who turned blue in the face; her eyes bulged and then she lost consciousness. He tried to save her, but it was impossible; she kept strangling him until she killed herself. “Please don’t kill me,” he would beg her, though she was always the one who died.

  Teresa considered the possibility that the dreams had an erotic component and might even result in ejaculation. She didn’t dare ask. Their sadomasochistic duality intrigued her. It was rare for both drives to be satisfied in the same fantasy. What tipped the balance in favor of the masochistic interpretation was the fear, the begging, the attempt to save Emilia. But what did she represent in the dream?

  Eduardo had come up with a reasonable explanation for the manifest content of his nightmares. According to him, her attempt to kill him had to do with his fear of contagion. “If she tried t
o kiss me, I’d be so disgusted,” he admitted. On the other hand, he was in love with her. She was brilliant, shy, and very pretty. She would make a wonderful partner, but Eduardo would not. He could have a relapse at any moment. “If we got married, she could hurt me, but I would do her a lot more harm. That’s why she’s the one who dies in the dream. I’m a ticking time bomb. I know I’m going to get cancer again, and I don’t want anyone else to have to suffer because of me.” Eduardo’s noble feelings toward Emilia had confirmed his decision to stay single and celibate for the rest of his life, for the good of others.

  The dream’s latent content represented the paradox of the jouissance of the Other. From a man’s perspective, a female object of desire was the perfect embodiment of Lacan’s nonexistent Other. Elsewhere, the enigmatic psychoanalyst stated that the body was made to seek enjoyment in itself. Cancer’s body: its jouissance would kill Eduardo, and at the same time self-destruct. He begged it not to kill him, but he couldn’t live without it. A return to the years of leukemia, that perverse idyll: once again, that was the thrust of Eduardo’s fantasy. The novelty was that cancer returned in the guise of a woman. The chest of a masochist, Teresa thought, always concealed a misogynist’s heart.

  The recurring dreams functioned as an unconscious defense against the threat Emilia brought into Eduardo’s life. To be happy, to surrender to his infatuation and to the risk of a successful seduction, meant relinquishing the symbolic order that, though rife with neuroses and phobias, gave his life meaning. It was too dangerous to let go: if he failed to win Emilia’s heart, to find in her an object that would fill the void of desire, he would be left alone facing the abyss, and then he would suffer a psychotic break—the psyche’s desperate strategy for regaining its grip on reality. Eduardo’s terrifying nightmares were his mind’s attempt to shield itself from a devastating madness.

  Teresa had to resign herself to the fact that it would be a long time before Eduardo could have a normal emotional or sexual relationship. Simply put, he would remain alone, completely alone, just like her. She thought also of herself and her own projected desire, her fantasy of one day bathing at night, in the knowledge that someone would be there to have dinner with her, climb into bed and embrace her, accepting the absence of her breasts. Good night, my love, said the silence, when Teresa turned out the light.

  14

  “What the fuck?” said Benito when he saw Ramón walk in wrapped in a colorful, fringed wool poncho.

  Yeah, I know. I look like Chavela Vargas, thought Ramón. Look, it might be gay, but it keeps my legs warm, so knock it off. I found it sorting through some old clothes in the closet. My mother-in-law gave it to me for Christmas about fifteen years ago. She did it to fuck with me, obviously, to let me know she thinks I’m an Indian or a faggot or both. But I don’t give a damn. The chemo’s screwed up my temperature, my digestion, my dick … and all for nothing. Now they tell me it’s spread to my lung. A couple of gray spots showed up on the X-ray. See what happens when you smoke two packs a day, jackass? I could tell that’s what they were thinking, but I haven’t smoked in twenty years, Benito. And anyway, smoking has nothing to do with it. The doctor told me that more than once. What happened to me is like getting hit by a stray bullet, or more like a natural disaster, because it’s not even a case of negligence or misconduct. That’s right, a natural disaster. But look what it’s cost me. Look at the fucking ordeal it’s putting me through. It came out of nowhere. And now they want to blast these spots on my lung with radiation. What do I tell them? “No, that’s okay, thanks, I’ve decided to end it all”? Imagine the fuss they’d make. Carmela would send me to the loony bin—I wouldn’t put it past her. No, Benito, I’m not afraid to die. What I’m afraid of is the shame of leaving my children out on the street. Say they cure this metastasis, then what am I supposed to do? Nobody gets how degrading this is for me. I make a living from words, from giving people a voice in front of the authorities so they can protect their rights, demand accountability, resolve conflicts … I represent my clients. I speak for them. If I’m mute, I’m not worth shit. I can’t do my job, it’s that simple. If you can’t do your job anymore, step aside. There are people waiting for a space at the table, so they can eat. But me, the waiter brought me the check before I was done. It hurts, that’s for fucking sure. Don’t think I’m made of stone. I’ve done my share of crying when no one was around. But right now, I’m focusing on what comes next. Leaving a legacy, even if it’s humble, even if it’s not much, so I can go in peace. And that includes you, Benito. I’m going to get you an awesome cage. I don’t have a cent to my name, but I’ve been figuring out how to make it happen. I’ve got a solid gold watch, Benito. A little reward I got myself when I won a big case. I have it upstairs, locked up in a drawer with my gun. It’s a beaut, Benito, .32-caliber—more than enough to do the job. First gold, then lead. I’ll send a message to a guy at the office and have him come over without telling Carmela. Go get this watch valued and sell it for me. It’ll bring in a tidy sum. And with that in my pocket, I can get going. Three things: one, pay the registry and notary fees. I sign over the house, we seal the divorce, and it’s a done deal. Two, your cage, obviously—extra-large, so you can live it up. And three, pay for my funeral. I want to leave everything in order. Hell, I’d pick out the coffin myself if I could. I’ll take that one, the mahogany. Then I’ll get my suit ironed. Hell, if I have enough left over, I’ll even buy a set of those knives on TV for Elodia, just for kicks. And you know what else? I’ll leave that asshole Ernesto a letter he’ll never forget. You’re a fucking loan shark. But I’m not killing myself to get out of paying you, I’m doing it because I won’t stand for being treated like an invisible lump. I’m doing it for my dignity. If you had any idea what dignity was, you’d have said, “You know what, Ramón? Forget about paying me back. You did a lot for us. That money’s yours—I owed it to you.” But no, you don’t have the basic decency. So tough shit. You’ve swindled a bunch of people, now it’s your turn to get fucked. I witnessed your scams firsthand, remember. And it’s no crime to steal from a thief, isn’t that what they say? I’ll leave the letter right there. What do you say, Benito? Even if he wants to use it as evidence, if I’m gone and there are no assets left to be seized, then he’s completely fucked.

  * * *

  Elodia came out to mop the patio and enjoy Ramón’s company. Benito welcomed her with a hearty, “Lick my balls!”—a phrase he’d been taught to squawk when there were women around.

  “Keep it down, baldy,” Elodia said.

  Ramón was tired of hearing Elodia refer to Benito indiscriminately as “parrot,” “bird,” “blondie,” “baldy,” or “foulmouth.” He took this opportunity to write her a note.

  The parrot’s name is Benito, like President Juárez. That’s what you call him.

  “What a pretty name, Señor Martínez. Hello, Benito! Your name’s Benito, that’s what your daddy called you. All right, Benito, now stop cussing and tell me your name: BE-NI-TO! BE-NI-TO!”

  Not again, Elodia. Leave him alone.

  “I have a cousin called BE-NI-TO! He was a real gem. He left the village years ago. You have no idea how much he did for my dear mother when she was sick, before you helped us bring her here. He’d take water over to her house and deliver her flour, eggs, and milk. I called him my guardian angel, that’s what he was.”

  There are still good people in the world, Ramón thought with unwarranted nostalgia. Elodia started mopping the terrace.

  “But his sister Fidelia, God rest her soul. She was my youngest cousin, and the poor thing had a nasty end. The devil did his work on her daddy. That’s what Benito told me one time when he was drunk and got all upset. He told me that when his daddy got frisky, he’d do things to her. Never mind that she was his daughter, she was a little girl. He liked his liquor, just like my children’s father. Remember?”

  How could I not remember, he almost killed you.

  “And he was always lying in the street or passed
out somewhere near his house a ways out of town, just behind some cornfields. And then one day, a few people saw him lying there taking a nap, and they left him right where he was, ’cause he’d get stubborn as a mule if they tried to drag him home. Well, the next morning, the sun comes up…” At this point in her story, Elodia stopped mopping and lowered her voice to a scandalized whisper. “And there he was, lying on the ground, but without a head! Back in those days, you never heard anything about narcos or cartels. It was a quiet village. So where was his head? Well, after a while someone said that a dog was guarding it and chewing on it. Can you believe that? So, they were about to kill the dog they said had ripped his head off, but just then a friend of my uncle’s who lived next door said that the night before, he’d seen my cousin Benito go out holding a machete, and he said to himself, Where’s he off to at this time of night? And then a little bit later he saw him come back by himself…”

  A ballsy young man. I salute him.

  “So, they went and rounded Benito up, and he didn’t say a thing.”

  In these cases, thought Ramón, it’s best not to make any statement at all.

  “And what do you think happened next? His sister went to the authorities and said that she’d done it and she had the machete right there in a sack, all covered in blood. And then my cousin finally piped up and said that it wasn’t true, that it had been him. And she said no, that she was the guilty one, and if not, then how come she had the machete, not him?”

  It was just a matter of comparing their statements to identify the inconsistencies, thought Ramón.

  “Why am I telling you all this, again?”

  Ramón pointed at Benito’s cage.

  “Oh, right, my cousin. Well, they had them both in custody in the village, and before they called the police, the local authorities asked the priest to try and get the truth out of them. Well, heaven knows what the priest said, but it turned out to be Fidelia who’d done it, and they took her away. My poor aunt was all by herself for the funeral. I was right there with her. And just when they were lowering the coffin into the ground, we start hearing a muffled knock, like on a door, and my aunt starts screaming, ‘He’s alive! Let him out! Let him out! He’s alive!’” Elodia’s cries ruffled Benito. “And she wanted them to open the coffin, but they refused. Somebody figured out that the head was loose, rolling around in there and smacking against the wood. They had to keep a close eye on my aunt, she wanted to go to the cemetery and dig up the grave, because she was convinced they’d buried my uncle alive. And my cousin, when he was released from custody, he was like a recluse, and then soon after that he disappeared. I figure he went north. And poor Fidelia, who knows what it was she got hooked on in jail, but one day she overdosed. The poor thing died in a prison in San Luis Potosí. Would you lift your feet just a bit, so I can mop underneath? There you go. Thanks.”