The Mutations

by Jorge Comensal

  “How do you connect that obsession to what you’re going through?” the analyst asked.

  “Well, I think his silence, the tracheotomy, and now the metastasis they found on his lung all have something to do with it. The bad news about his lung doesn’t seem to have affected him on a conscious level. Maybe he’s repressing it, or displacing it onto the issue of his estate, but the other possibility is that he no longer identifies with his body, and that’s why it doesn’t matter to him. He hasn’t shown any emotional response.”

  “Do you identify with that?”

  “What?” asked Teresa.

  “His relationship to his body.”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t know. I probably identify with him because, since he can’t speak, I talk much more than I usually would, and I’ve told him personal stories about my treatment and what the chemo was like—losing my hair, the hot flashes, and everything else. At the same time, I’ve realized he doesn’t identify with me as a patient, even though his chemo has been horrific. It’s almost as if he doesn’t identify those things as happening to him, even though he’s obviously in pain. He’s really suffering a lot.”

  “You identify with him, but he doesn’t with you…”

  “I guess I identify with him because we’re both patients in his session, and because I’ve tried to achieve the same detachment he feels from his cancer. He has no interest in the disease, it doesn’t speak to him. He sees it as an accident, like having the flu, and in that sense he has a healthy attitude. Just think how much worse it would be for him if he were torturing himself with the question of what he’s done wrong, which emotions he’s repressing, and everything else. I think the loss of his tongue, along with the fact that he’s not a spiritual person, saved him from that identification between mind and body that can be so harmful, and which did me so much damage, despite the fact that my cancer was hereditary, and I was already high-risk. Even though I knew all that, I felt like it was my fault, that something was wrong with me. He doesn’t feel that way. His amputation spared him from all those narcissistic fictions that identify the self with the body. For me, it was the opposite: when they took away my breasts, I suffered a total loss of self. It’s been so many years, and I still don’t…”

  Teresa fell silent, assuming that her analyst would end the session there. She was wrong.

  “You describe him as wise and enlightened, but he also sounds like he’s full of fear. There’s something that doesn’t add up. Is it possible that his silence has somehow seduced you, and prevented you from being disappointed by what he might otherwise be saying? When someone’s quiet, they seem not to possess that excessive jouissance that torments us, that total otherness that prevents identification. And that’s why, as Lacanians, we aren’t supposed to speak during our sessions. But now I think we should explore your eagerness to leave analysis from both perspectives. It seems like having to talk more in your sessions with this patient is leading you to believe in the promise of desire again. His silence means you don’t have to face the void at its core.”

  “This is exactly what I think isn’t working.” Teresa emphasized the neutral pronoun to make the object of her dismissal more ambiguous. “Psychoanalysis is based on the supposed need to put the unconscious into words, to neutralize the metonymies of impossible desire. But what I’m seeing is that you can take a shortcut to hold on to the void, and cut off the need for small talk with a single stroke. We know talking alone won’t save us from the Real.”

  Teresa had gained the upper hand by challenging the validity of the theory that upheld their trade. Her analyst’s response was openly defensive.

  “Then why keep seeing him, if he doesn’t need psychoanalysis? Don’t you think you could be sabotaging his treatment, as you have with other patients?”

  She was alluding to the neurotic aversion to men that Teresa had developed after her mastectomy. According to her discoveries in analysis, this hatred was a defense mechanism: to preempt the possibility of a man spurning her incomplete body, she had banished men from her libidinal spectrum. But Teresa resisted this interpretation, instead favoring a classic Freudian reading: once the possibility of motherhood was lost to her, men, mere accessories of the penis, had lost their value. Unfortunately, her maternal feelings toward Eduardo didn’t fit neatly into this theory. Still, Teresa had never fully accepted that her difficulties with her male patients were the result of a psychological defense mechanism. There was another possibility, the simplest one: that men were more challenging patients due to their macho defenses against sharing their feelings with a woman. Not only could men not cry, they couldn’t accept that a woman should occupy a position of authority over them, not even in the intimacy of the psychoanalyst’s office.

  “My experience with Ramón is completely different from those I had with my patients back then. It’s not that he’s a macho and can’t express his feelings. I mean, certainly he’s a macho, that goes without saying, but his feelings are very raw, and they have less to do with the threat of his cancer than with a serious moral dilemma, and his grief for the person he used to be. And I keep seeing him because, although he may seem enlightened,” Teresa added reproachfully, “he does have a serious conflict, not with his cancer, but with the death drive itself. When someone loses the objects of his libido—in his case, language and professional success—the death drive can turn against the ego, and that’s exactly what I think’s happening in his case. He’s feeling at peace because he’s planning to kill himself as soon as he decides it’s time. I want to prevent that from happening. I’m not seeing him just for fun.”

  To ease the hostility that had arisen between them, the analyst changed the subject.

  “How have you handled the marijuana issue with him?”

  Teresa accepted the truce.

  “I suggested it gently and he didn’t want to hear anything about it. Partly because of the usual prejudices, and partly because he sublimates all of his physical discomfort, all the neuralgias, the bleeding, everything, into the fact that he doesn’t want to pay back his debt to his brother. He thinks of his own suffering as a kind of atonement that frees him from the moral obligation to pay up. If he hasn’t committed suicide yet, it’s only because he hasn’t met the quota of physical suffering that would let him rest easy over something that, deep down, he thinks is a scam. That’s why he’s accepting the pain. Thank God he doesn’t have the money to pay his brother, otherwise he’d already have killed himself.”

  “And how does marijuana come in to all this?”

  “The cancer has spread to his lung, and some marijuana could really help him, as much to relieve the pain as to eliminate the cells … I know you think I’m deluded, but it really works. I’m not crazy.”

  “If I thought you were crazy, I’d be betraying everything I believe about the human mind,” the analyst answered in a friendly tone.

  “I know. Pay no attention to me. It’s just that it infuriates me to be surrounded by so much hypocrisy.”

  “Which proves you’re not crazy,” the analyst joked. “We’ve gotten sidetracked from an important issue. You were thinking about only coming once a week. Would you also stop seeing new patients? It seems like you’re quite overbooked.”

  “My superego won’t let me. It’s tough for patients to find a therapist who understands them like I do, who can relate to their experience.”

  “You could invite them to the support groups you run, and maybe give up your Saturday sessions.”

  Teresa thought immediately of Eduardo, whose mother could only bring him to therapy on weekends. Teresa didn’t want to abandon him, even though it might be a good idea for her to pass him on to an analyst like Ruffatto, a man with an air of distinction whom Eduardo could see as an authority figure.

  “I don’t know,” she said after a long silence. “I’d rather take a vacation. It’s been years since I’ve gone anywhere. But who would water my plants? Seriously, they need more care than a husband.” The analyst for
ced a smile to acknowledge the joke. “What I really need,” Teresa went on, “is a vacation from myself, from myself as an analyst and a patient, coordinator, gardener, everything. I’d like to go to the beach and just sleep for a while.”

  The analyst remained silent. Teresa resorted to an existentialist cliché.

  “Sartre says that hell is other people, and he’s right. The problem is that sometimes I’m somebody else, and that makes me my own personal hell, all to myself.”

  Again, the analyst didn’t answer.

  “Now I feel like you’re not ending the session because I said I didn’t want to come twice a week anymore. The question, of course, is whether I no longer should come twice a week,” Teresa said lightly.

  Teresa was determined to put her analyst in the mythical “place of truth” regarding the question of the frequency of her sessions. All analysts must refuse to adopt that symbolic role: the truth lies not in them, but in the analysand’s unconscious. So the analyst shifted the focus to one of Teresa’s verbal tics.

  “You’ve said the word ‘obviously’ several times today. What do you think it means?”

  “That’s obvious,” Teresa said with a wry smile.

  Nothing could be obvious for a psychoanalyst, but she needed someone for whom it was, someone who didn’t analyze her every word, who didn’t question every single thing she said, but accepted it as a transparent window into her soul. Teresa also wanted to listen to someone, not out of professional duty, but out of affection and curiosity. It wasn’t the excess of analysis that wearied her, but the absence of its opposite—words that were friendly and honest, spoken for their own sake.

  “When shall we meet again?” the analyst asked.

  “Tuesday, as usual.”

  19

  Carmela arrived home after two hours in heavy traffic. It was already late. She found Paulina in the kitchen doing her homework and scolded her for not being in bed. She ate a bowl of cereal for dinner, washed the dish slowly, and climbed the stairs at the pace of an exhausted mountaineer. When she reached the top, she rested one side of her head against Mateo’s door, to hear if he was still awake. She found Ramón in the bedroom watching the news, asked how he was feeling, told him to turn off the TV, removed the gold watch from her purse, and placed it undramatically on the bed.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Ramón stared at the watch as if it were a used condom found between his daughter’s sheets. He demanded an explanation.

  “I asked Leonardo why he came to see you the other day. The poor guy’s a terrible liar. He’s never going to make it as a lawyer.” She sat down on the bed, resting a hand on her husband’s left foot. “Why did you want to sell it? That’s not going to solve anything.”

  Ramón picked up his notebook, opened it to a new page, and wrote: You shouldn’t be meddling in my affairs.

  “I don’t have any choice, do I? I’m not going to sell off my jewelry until the day we have nothing to eat. Until then, I’d rather know it’s still there”—she gestured toward the closet—“and could help us get out of a tight spot. And you still haven’t told me why you wanted the money.”

  For the notary fee and the deed. I’m signing the house over to you before the other thing.

  “Are you still going on about that? I’m not divorcing you even if you cheat on me with Elodia, okay? And why do you need to sign the house over to me? You have a will. And anyway, nothing’s going to happen!”

  Ramón urged her to give back his notebook.

  In case I’m not around anymore, I don’t want to leave you in a bind. You have no idea what Ernesto’s capable of.

  “We’ll pay him back in installments. You’re not signing your half of the house over to me, and we’re not getting divorced, okay? You’re going to finish your chemo and keep getting better. You just have to make up your mind: I’m going to beat this. And one day you’ll be able to leave that watch to your son.”

  Slob’ll just sell it. He’s such a dumbass.

  “And we’ll tell him all about the day we bought it, and how happy we were. Remember?”

  Ramón nodded.

  “Then don’t go selling off our memories. And certainly not behind my back. I have enough on my plate with everyone out there treating me like a moron. ‘Poor thing,’ the boss’s wife who can’t handle a lawsuit. Everyone’s against me, even your secretary, who by the way is a fucking misogynist.” Ramón was taken aback to hear her swear. “That’s right. I can’t stand that bitch, but since I don’t have the luxury of being able to pay her off, I have to put up with her. And then Leonardo shows up with his tail between his legs, and I have to force him to confess.”

  I’ll send him a message: Thanks for your loyalty, you pussy.

  “How do you expect me to feel? Put yourself in my shoes.”

  Ramón seemed genuinely remorseful. He tried to make peace with a joke.

  Don’t be mad. I get it. I’ll put myself in your shoes. Hell, I’ll even put myself in your high heels, but we’ve got to go to the courthouse. It’s for our own good.

  “We’re not going, and you’d better not put my heels on. Remember what happened the day I did your makeup.”

  * * *

  Elodia crossed herself with unusual fervor as she ventured out of the Martínezes’ house with a gold watch hidden between her breasts. Ramón had convinced her to help him out by telling her that with part of the money from the sale of the watch, he would pay her overdue wages and buy Benito a respectable cage.

  Elodia’s mission was to go downtown by public transport—Ramón didn’t have enough cash to send her by taxi—and get back before the children arrived home from school.

  She hurried toward the bus stop, the cold metal rubbing against the warm skin beneath her bra. The gold filled her with paranoia. Everyone was staring at her, everyone knew there was a dazzling solid gold treasure tucked inside her blouse. When she tried to pay the bus driver, she dropped the coins. She crouched down to pick them up, taking care not to lean forward so the watch wouldn’t slither out of its hiding place. She sat down by the window and pretended to drift off to sleep, disguising her nerves about the thieves she imagined were lying in wait.

  She arrived safe and sound at the metro station and crept gingerly down the steps, fearing an accident that might imperil the integrity of the watch. She felt anxious and unprotected, but also prettier, younger, and whiter, as if the gold in her bosom brought her closer to the ideal of beauty imposed and coveted by the conquistadors. Gold was the adornment of choice for kings, bishops, and cartel bosses; it was a material of extremes, beloved as much by God as by Satan.

  She got off the metro at the Zócalo. Watch out for pickpockets in the city center, Ramón had warned her. She stepped out into the street in front of the cathedral, quaking with fear. She crossed herself again, took out the directions Ramón had given her to the jewelry store, studied the map, and set out decisively in the wrong direction. At the corner of Correo Mayor and República de Guatemala, she realized she was lost. She saw a gang of drug addicts coming toward her. They were probably devotees of the skeletal Santa Muerte. A shiver ran down her spine. If I run, she thought, they’ll catch up with me. She froze in terror. She felt as if the gold were crying out, “Here I am!” from between her breasts. She was afraid her pounding heart would dislodge the watch from its place. She stood rigidly to attention and waited for the miscreants to pass by. They didn’t turn back to look at her.

  She wandered for two more blocks trying to find her bearings and asked for directions from a street vendor, who sent her back to the Zócalo down a dismal side street, where a roving popsicle salesman almost frightened her to death. Back at the main square, she spotted a fair-haired man who looked very friendly, and asked him for help.

  “Excuse me,” she said to the fellow, who turned out to be a Dutch tourist. “Which way is Madero?”

  Despite his broken Spanish, he managed to point her in the right direction, thanks to his trusty compass
and an enormous map of the city center.

  She arrived at the jeweler’s in one piece and asked to speak to the manager. She explained that she’d come on behalf of Señor Martínez and gave him a card where Ramón described in detail the history of his relationship with the owners of Tepeyac Jewelry and expressed his desire to sell them the watch.

  “I’ve hidden it,” Elodia whispered. “Can I use your bathroom?”

  Once she was alone in the tiny cubicle, Elodia sat down on the toilet, unbuttoned her blouse, and removed the watch, which she’d wrapped in a grocery bag to prevent it from getting soaked in sweat.

  The jeweler asked her to wait at the counter while he tested the gold’s purity.

  “Where are you going?” she asked suspiciously.

  “To appraise the watch.”

  Ramón hadn’t warned her that this would happen.

  “Can’t you do it here?”