“Oh, nobody you know,” I say, trying to appear nonchalant. “Not even a close friend, just an acquaintance from my English classes.”
“Why was she tested? She must have had some symptoms.”
I shake my head. “No symptoms at all that I know of.”
“Be careful,” she says with her finger in the air. “You don’t want friends who test positive for that kind of illness.”
There it is again, the same reaction of repulsion, of fear. I’m sorry I told her and try to change the conversation but she keeps referring to it.
“She’s going to get retested,” I say, irritated. “She doesn’t think the test was accurate.”
“Has she been sleeping around? You only get that through sexual contact.”
“No, she’s a decent person; in fact she is a virgin.”
“How do you know that?”
“She told me, she doesn’t even have a boyfriend.”
“Stay away from her till you know it’s really a mistake.”
“Could it be a mistake though? Are these tests one hundred percent accurate?”
“In our clinics nothing is one hundred percent accurate. People make mistakes all the time, they switch babies, they misdiagnose patients, they operate on the wrong parts; you think they’re not going to switch results too? The test might belong to a whore and they’re telling the poor girl she has syphilis. Please darling, in our country, anything is possible.”
I felt like hugging her, her words had comforted me more than she’ll ever know.
~~~
I go for a retest with a happy, positive attitude three days later. I’m certain someone has switched the results on me and the second test will vindicate me. I watch the thin, small nurse draw blood, and nonchalantly ask how clinics go about ensuring results don’t get mixed up along the way. “It could happen, I suppose,” she says matter of fact. “But it would be really hard. We label everything right away and the lab does the same.”
I must have looked crushed because she tells me that sometimes mix ups do happen despite all the precautions people take to prevent them. “But don’t worry,” she says showing me the vial of blood. “Yours won’t get mixed up. I’ll personally see to that.”
I don’t know whether to hate her or thank her. If the blood results are positive again, I want her to mix them up with the blood of someone normal. Normal! The word itself conjures up such different connotations to me now; it’s something I have always taken for granted, but it has suddenly become the most precious thing in the world. Normalcy now means being free, average and clean, without problems or shameful diseases. I stop by a church on my way back home and pray as hard as I can for my test to be normal. I feel ashamed I’m only praying now that I’m in desperate trouble, but I know that God will forgive me. I light a candle and pray to my dead uncle, Mario; surely he can do something to help me if he was as wonderful as mother says he was. I close my eyes and say “Alma bendita, ayúdame desde el cielo,” [“Blessed soul, help me from heaven”] the way I’ve heard mother pray to him a million times before.
My aunt has prepared a delicious lunch, and in a more peaceful mood, I thoroughly enjoy it. My uncle retires for his daily nap and my aunt calls me to the terrace.
“How are you feeling,” she asks, putting baby oil on her arms and legs to take advantage of the sun.
“I’m feeling better. I think this new test is going to be fine.”
“I think so too. These are crucial moments in a person’s life, but some day we’ll laugh about this too, you’ll see.”
She starts putting baby oil on my face also, the way she did when I was a little girl.
“I remember how I felt when I had that awful infection,” she pauses. “It took such a long time to go away that I thought I would never get rid of it, but I did and Eli and I had a good laugh about it afterwards.”
My situation is quite different but I don’t tell her that. She had done everything to deserve that punishment by being promiscuous while I had done nothing.
~~~
At last the results are in three days later, and she sends me to pick them up. The nurse hands me the envelope and I keep trying to peek at it through the morning sun, but I can’t see a thing. I want to open it so badly I’m shaking, but I resist the temptation and casually give it to my aunt who makes an appointment to see the doctor in the afternoon.
“We’ll know soon enough,” she says putting it in her purse before the cab comes.
The anxiety I’m feeling must be reflected on my face because she pats me on the head and says to think of other things, to make believe it’s just another day.
“It is mind over matter,” she says firmly. “We can control our thoughts if we try hard enough.”
Once at the embassy, the same scenario repeats itself with the doctor conferring with my aunt behind closed doors, and me waiting outside chewing my nails. They don’t have to tell me the test is positive again this time, I know, I can tell by the time they take to come out and by the somber look on my aunt’s face.
“It’s positive as hell again,” she says taking a deep breath in the chilly air. “He’ll send you for a retest but if that is positive again, you have to start taking penicillin right away. You won’t be able to get the visa with results like that.”
I feel numb, my world as I have known it has collapsed, and a new reality is taking over, it’s the reality of pain, sickness, needles, doctors, medications, closed doors, hushed whispers and secretive meetings. Everyone in the house is treating me differently, with fear, apprehension and discomfort. Are they afraid I’m contagious? I feel like a leper when my aunt hands me a brand new set of towels for my personal use. She instructs the maid to wash my dishes with boiling water; she separates my plate, utensils and glasses. I was given a death sentence but the shock of the diagnosis now that there is no hope has anesthetized me, dulling the pain, blunting my emotions. I’m afraid the numbness will give way to hysteria – fearing that once I start crying I won’t be able to stop.
“We won’t abandon you,” says my aunt fiercely. “We’ll never abandon you. I don’t know how or when but you are going to go to America.”
I lower my head to stifle my tears, and she stomps her foot forcefully. “We are going to fight this and we are going to win. I’m not going to let life put barriers on you, not you who want to succeed, not you who have shown great courage.”
I try to smile but I can’t, my face is frozen in place and none of my muscles will obey me.
“Walk me to my office, Vicky,” says my uncle calmly. “I want to talk to you.”
I follow him quietly, and he insists I take his arm they way I did so many times spontaneously.
“It’s nobody’s fault,” he says gently. “Don’t blame anybody and most of all, don’t blame your poor mother. Please get sick but they get well. So long as we are alive we have to accept that good and bad things are going to happen to us.”
I begin to cry and understanding that I want to hide my tears, he keeps silent. We go to his office and he gives me a big hug before disappearing behind the big glass doors. It seems a year ago since we’ve taken these walks yet it was only yesterday. I walk back like a zombie, everything is different and everything is uglier. I know in my gut that this is a terrible mistake but nobody believes me, they go by my blood and my blood has betrayed me. Despite the overwhelming evidence, I still think I’m healthy and I can’t get over the feeling of wrongness, of fatality.
~~~
We take the third test but I’m no longer hopeful, the eventuality that two tests will be mixed up is too great, and even I have to realize that they could take a million tests of my blood and they will all come back positive. Yet I still feel a terrible injustice is being committed against me, like an innocent person accused and condemned for a crime that was entirely based on false evidence. I share my feelings with nobody and feel very lonely. Illness is a frightening, sobering experience.
I avoid visiting mother till th
e results come back, fearful that I won’t be able to keep this nightmare to myself. She has enough tragedy in her life and I’ll have to find a way to break the news to her gently when the time comes. I beg my aunt not to tell her the news till the results from the third and final test come back and she promises, so it’s a shock to me when there is a knock on the door in the afternoon, and when I open it I come across my mother standing there with a look of such pain and despondency in her eyes that I know right away Aunt Sonia has told her the terrible news despite my wishes.
As long as I live, I will never forget that look of pure devastation and grief. It is the look of agony; her eyes are haunted, wounded. She embraces me in silence and cries on my shoulder, she feels so small and broken against my chest that I hate my aunt for inflicting this new injury on her so mercilessly. She has taken the trouble of going to a neighborhood she hates to deliver the devastating news personally and watch her crumble. Why? I will never be able to understand her motives, her cruelty and lack of compassion when it comes to my mother.
“I couldn’t sleep all night. I kept wracking my brains trying to understand how this could have happened,” she whispers hoarsely still clinging to me with her face wet with tears. “And have come up with the conclusion that it’s a mistake, a dreadful, horrible mistake. We never had this illness in the family. I promised God and the Virgin Mary that I will go to Copacabana on my knees in gratitude if it turns out to be false.”
Copacabana is the holiest place in Bolivia; it was built on Calvary Hill and is situated at the edge of Lake Titicaca. [“Titi means Puma and Caca means Rock in Aymara”]. It derives its name from the fact that the Incas, who considered this lake sacred because of its blue, ultra serene waters, also thought the lake looked like a mountain lion. Titicaca is the highest lake in the world, and it’s located a few hours away from La Paz. It’s a place of pilgrimage for natives and people of faith who can be seen wailing and climbing the steep mountain to the huge cathedral at the top of the mountain on their hands and knees, as atonement for their sins. Legend has it that the Virgin has performed many miracles for the sick and dying in this sacred place, and peoples from all over Bolivia make this pilgrimage regularly.
“I need a miracle, ma,” I tell her softly. “If it turns out to be untrue I will climb the mountain with you.”
Mom dries her tears, and we hear my aunt’s voice calling. She comes in tremulously, and my aunt offers her a cup of tea and pastries which she declines.
“I couldn’t swallow a thing, Sonia,” she says taking off her coat and sinking in the couch like an old lady. “The thought of food makes me ill.”
We spend an uneasy afternoon, trying hard not to dwell on the bad news, feigning an optimism and hope we are far from feeling. Witnessing mother’s misery, my aunt seems repentant; she is unusually attentive and kind to her, giving her some money for groceries and insisting she take some of her used winter clothes. It’s May and winter is setting in, promising to be unusually cruel and raw, with strong winds blowing especially hard from the mountains where mom lives, and where they have already seen frozen rain and snow.
“I’ll have you over for lunch soon, María,” says my aunt, seeing mother to the door. “And I’m sure we’ll have better news by then.”
I walk her to the bus in silence because I know she is crying. She’s been holding her tears in front of my aunt, but now they run copiously down her cheeks. Her back is stooped as though the weight of the news had aged her overnight, and she is clutching the bag my aunt gave her firmly with her other hand. Words can’t express what I feel so I press her arm gently, trying to give her comfort.
“Do you blame me for this too the way she does?” she asks, meeting my eyes.
“I wouldn’t have the heart to blame you, mom, and I begged her not to tell you. I never wanted you to find out this way.”
She lowers her head to stifle the sobs that threaten to shake her body. “She was particularly brutal. You wouldn’t believe the things she told me.”
“I can only imagine, but she was kind to you today.”
“It’s her guilty conscience, she knows what she said.”
“At least you got some extra money and clothes from her today,” I say, trying to lighten her mood.
She smiles sadly for the first time. “I can use the money, but I wish it hadn’t come about the way it did.”
“The heavy sweaters and socks will come in handy too, ma. It’s so cold up there.”
“Yes, we wrap ourselves in layers and layers like Egyptian mummies, but the cold still goes through our bodies. It’s really a losing battle.”
“I want you to go home and forget all about this, I’m going to be alright.”
“It’s always the same. I should be consoling you and here you are consoling me.”
“Even if it’s true and I’m really sick,” I say, giving her a tight hug. “I’ll never blame you, do you understand? Forget all the horrible things she said to you.”
“Oh my child,” she says beginning to cry again. “I’m so glad that despite all her efforts she hasn’t been able to turn you against me.”
She gets on her bus and through the window I see that she has begun crying again. I blow her a kiss and she blows one back, and the last thing I see is her tear stained face against the window. With a heavy heart I come back home. I have shown her a serenity and aplomb I’m far from feeling, but inside, I’m terrified. I’m not sure I’ll have the strength to face the darkness that looms ahead of me.
~~~
The third test comes back positive but it’s no longer a let down because at this point I was expecting it. A sense of lassitude and inertia takes hold of me. I’m to begin treatment in a very short time, and nothing makes any sense. I always felt my life would be different, that I would be the one able to cut the chain of misfortune and tragedy that has plagued my family for so long, but I no longer feel that way. This illness had brought me to my knees making me realize that I’m not immune to tragedy and that despite my best efforts; I too, could become a victim of fate. We didn’t make our own luck, as my aunt had said so many times; rather events dictated the outcome of our lives.
Everything I had learned, everything I had thought up to this point, was shattered with three positive blood tests. I was sure that youth would prove to be a buffer against illness, but my new vulnerability showed me that youth is no barrier against anything. Laura’s illness has affected me deeply too, it has shown me that anything could happen to anybody, anytime. Our lives hang by a thread, and we are nothing but puppets against the many vagaries and adversities of life, as mother always said. I have tried to live with optimism, I have dared to dream, but this illness had shown me that God has other plans for me. Does he want to take me young? Would I eventually die of this illness? My aunt had said it would take many decades to kill me, but there are many ways of dying, and I already know that no matter what happens to me in the long run, I will not emerge from this unscathed.
Something in me has changed forever - my innocence and smugness about making my own chances has died - but something new has taken over, the fierce realization that life is brief, that it’s not to be wasted, that what little time we have on this earth is precious because it can be taken away in a second.
~~~
The doctor orders new tests before beginning treatment, and I submit to them obediently. First he gives me a complete physical which includes an internal examination to make sure I am still intact, which I am, adding to the puzzle of this illness which is contacted primarily by sexual contact.
“I’m surprised,” says my aunt at the news. “I thought you had done something with Fernando for sure.”
“Please, Aunt Sonia,” I say wearily, after having endured the humiliating exam. “I told you nothing happened.”
“For once I’m glad you’re a cold fish,” she says leaning on me with her high heels. “Not me, I wouldn’t have let him get away.”
We go back to the hospital for the next t
est a few days later, and mom comes with us reluctantly, her face full of anxiety. The purpose of the test is to find out if the infection has spread to my brain, and the risks are enormous. She hesitates to sign the consent form because she is aware that I could suffer permanent damage to my spine if the technician’s hands shake, or if I involuntarily move a muscle during the procedure. There is also an additional risk of damage to the brainstem or brain tissue, and a risk of bleeding within the brain that could result in disability or death itself. Reading the dire warnings, she turns to my aunt in tears.
“This is extreme, Sonia. I don’t think we should put her through this. She doesn’t need it. Frankly, I don’t think this doctor of yours knows what the hell he’s doing.”
“Everything has its risks,” says with aunt with impatience. “You could die from pulling a tooth too, but people do it all the time. Sign the form at once and stop wasting my time.”
“They are torturing this child needlessly,” she cries, but the icy look of my aunt, bullies her into signing the form before the doctor enters the room.
Mom crosses herself, prays loudly and looks at me guiltily. I’m positioned carefully on my side with my knees curled up high against my stomach, and my chin tightly tucked into my chest. My aunt is the only one who stays in the room with me because mother, terrified, leaves the cold place in tears.
“Good,” mutters my aunt under her breath. “We don’t need her martyr scenes right now.”
The anesthetic burns me upon injection, but I shut my eyes and bite my lower lip in order not to move a muscle. I feel pressure and pain but control the urge to scream, knowing that I can be risking permanent injury. The whole thing seems to take forever, but it is only a few agonizing minutes. Once the sample is collected, the needle removed and the area cleaned and disinfected, they apply a bandage and tell me to lie still and flat on my side for at least six hours. The doctor reassures my aunt that everything has gone well and shows us a clear, colorless liquid with a twinge of yellow. I am amazed how much has been taken, I was under the impression that they only needed a small amount, and wonder if the precious liquid will ever be replaced from my spine. They support me with two pillows and give me a sedative so I can go to sleep undisturbed. I complain of cold so they bring some blankets and turn off the lights.
Beyond the Snows of the Andes Page 31