Tender Is the Flesh

by Agustina Bazterrica

  He says nothing because he doesn’t care to see them. She serves him lemonade with mint in it and puts a plate below the glass. He takes a sip and puts it back down. The lemonade has an artificial taste.

  “How are you, Marquitos? The truth.”

  She barely touches his hand and tilts her head, holding back the pity she feels, though not entirely, because she wants him to notice it. He looks at the fingers she’s placed over his hand and thinks that not long ago, that hand grabbed hold of Spanel by the nape of her neck.

  “I’m fine.”

  “How is it possible that you don’t have an umbrella?”

  He sighs a little and thinks that yet again they’re going to have the argument they do every year.

  “I don’t need one. Nobody needs one.”

  “Everyone needs one. There are areas that don’t have protective roofs. Do you want to get yourself killed?”

  “Marisa, do you seriously think that if a bird shits on your head, you’re going to die?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll say it again, Marisa, in the country, at the plant, no one uses an umbrella, no one would even think of using one. Wouldn’t it make more sense to believe that if you get bitten by a mosquito, which could have bitten an animal before you, you might get the virus?”

  “No, because the government says there’s no risk with mosquitoes.”

  “The government wants to manipulate you, that’s the only reason it exists.”

  “Here everyone uses an umbrella when they go out. It’s only logical.”

  “Have you ever stopped to think that maybe the umbrella industry saw an opportunity and the government got in on it?”

  “You always think there’s some conspiracy when there isn’t.”

  He can hear her tapping the floor with her foot. Slowly, almost without making a sound, but he knows his sister has reached her limit, that she’s incapable of discussing the subject further, more than anything because she doesn’t think for herself. That’s why she can’t back up her point of view for very long.

  “Let’s not argue, Marquitos.”

  “Fine by me.”

  She uses her fingers to display the virtual screen on the kitchen table. In the menu, a photo of her children appears. She touches it and a window pops up. It shows her two kids, who are almost teenagers, walking down the street with air umbrellas.

  “How much longer will you be?”

  “We’re almost there.”

  She closes the virtual screen and looks nervously at her brother. She doesn’t know what to talk about.

  “Those umbrellas were gifts from their grandparents, you have no idea how much they spoil the kids. They’d been asking for them for years, but they’re so expensive. Who would think of making an umbrella with an air propeller? But the kids are happy, they’re the envy of all their classmates.”

  He doesn’t say anything and looks at a picture frame on the kitchen wall. The frame projects images of cheap still-life compositions. Fruits in baskets, oranges on a table, a series of unsigned drawings. Close to the frame he sees a cockroach on the wall. The cockroach crawls down to the countertop and disappears behind a plate of bread.

  “The kids just love this virtual game their grandparents got them. It’s called My Real Pet.”

  He doesn’t ask her anything. His sister’s words smell of detained humidity, of confinement, of intense cold. She keeps talking.

  “You create your own animal and you can actually pet it, play with it, feed it. Mine’s a white angora cat called Mishi. But she’s just a kitten because I don’t want her to get any bigger. I prefer baby cats, like everyone does.”

  He never liked cats. Or baby cats. He takes a sip of lemonade, hides his disgust, and watches the images change in the picture frame. A still life flickers and then becomes pixelated. The frame goes black.

  “The kids created a dragon and a unicorn. But we know they’re going to get bored soon, just like they did with Boby, he was a robot dog we bought them. We saved up for so long and after a few months they got tired of him. Boby’s in the garage, turned off. He’s really well made, but it’s not the same thing as a real dog.”

  His sister always makes sure he understands that they don’t have a lot of money, that theirs is an austere life. He knows this isn’t true, though he doesn’t care either way, and doesn’t hold a grudge against her because she contributes nothing, not even a penny, toward their father’s care.

  “I put together a warm salad with vegetables and rice for you. Does that sound okay?”

  “Yes.”

  He notices a door near the sink that he doesn’t remember. It’s the kind of door found in households that raise head. He can tell it’s new and hasn’t been used. Behind the door is a cold room. Now he understands why his sister invited him over. She’s going to ask for head at a good price so she can raise them.

  They hear sounds from the street and the kids come in.

  20

  The kids are twins. A girl and a boy. They barely speak, and when they do, it’s to each other in whispers, using secret codes and words with meanings that are only implied. He looks at them as though they were a strange animal made up of two separate parts activated by a single mind. His sister insists on calling them “the kids,” when everyone else refers to them as “the twins.” His sister and her idiotic rules.

  The twins sit down at the dining room table without saying hello.

  “You didn’t say hi to Uncle Marquitos.”

  He gets up from the kitchen table and walks slowly to the dining room. What he wants is for the formality to be over, to end this obligatory visit as soon as possible.

  “Hi, Uncle Marquitos.”

  They say this in unison, mechanically, imitating a robot. They hold in their laughter, which shows in their eyes. They stare at him without blinking, waiting for a reaction. But he sits down on a chair and pours himself some water, doesn’t pay them any attention.

  His sister serves the meal without noticing anything. She takes away his glass of water and replaces it with lemonade. “You forgot this in the kitchen, Marquitos. I made it just for you.”

  Though the twins aren’t identical, their sealed and unwavering bond gives them an ominous air. The unconscious gestures that are duplicated, the identical gaze, the pacts of silence, make others uncomfortable. He knows they have a secret language, one it’s unlikely even his sister can decipher. The words that only the two of them understand turn others into foreigners, strangers, make them illiterate. His sister’s children are also a cliché: the evil twins.

  His sister serves him the meatless food. It’s cold. Flavorless.

  “Is it good?”

  “Yes.”

  The twins eat the special kidneys prepared with lemon and herbs, the potatoes à la provençale, and the peas. They savor the meat while they look at him with curiosity. He sees the boy, Estebancito, gesture to the girl, Maru. He always laughs at the thought of the catastrophic dilemma his sister would have found herself in if she’d had two girls or two boys. Parents who name their children after themselves are stripping them of an identity, reminding them who they belong to.

  The twins laugh, give each other signs, whisper. The hair on both of their heads is dirty, or oily.

  “Kids, we’re having lunch with your uncle. Don’t be rude. Your father and I talked to you about this. At the table we don’t whisper, we talk like adults, understood?”

  Estebancito looks at him with a sparkle in his eyes, a sparkle full of words like splintered trees and silent tornadoes. But it’s Maru who speaks. “We’re trying to guess what Uncle Marquitos tastes like.”

  His sister takes her knife and stabs it into the table. The sound is furious, swift. “Enough,” she says slowly, weighing the word, controlling it. The twins look at her with surprise. He’s never seen his sister react this way. He looks at her silently and chews a bit more of his cold rice, feeling sad about the whole scene.

  “I’ve had it with this game. We d
on’t eat people. Or are the two of you savages?”

  She shouts the question. Then she looks at the knife stuck in the table and runs to the bathroom, as though awaking from a trance.

  Maru, or Marisita, as his sister calls her, looks at the piece of special kidney she’s about to put in her mouth, and with a hint of a smile, winks at her brother. His niece’s words are like pieces of glass melting in extreme heat, like ravens pecking out eyes in slow motion.

  “Mom’s crazy.”

  She says this in the voice of a little girl, pouting and moving her index finger in circles near her temple.

  Estebancito looks at her and laughs. He appears to find everything highly comical. He says, “The game’s called Exquisite Corpse. Want to play?”

  His sister comes back. She looks at him, embarrassed, somewhat resigned. “I apologize,” she says. “It’s a game that’s popular now and they don’t understand they’re not allowed to play it.”

  He drinks some water. She keeps talking and it’s like she figures he wants an explanation he hasn’t asked for.

  “The problem is social media and those little virtual groups they’re part of, that’s where these things get started. You have no idea because you’re never online.”

  She notices the knife is still stuck in the table and yanks it out quickly as if nothing had happened, as if she hadn’t overreacted.

  He knows that if he gets up and leaves as though he’s been offended, he’ll have to go through the whole thing again soon, because his sister will ask him over as many times as are needed to apologize. Instead, he restricts himself to saying, “I think Estebancito must taste a bit rancid, like a pig that’s been fattened for too long, and Maru not unlike pink salmon, a bit on the strong side, but delicious.”

  At first the twins look at him without understanding. They’ve never had pork or salmon. Then they smile, amused. His sister looks at him and doesn’t say anything. She’s only able to take another sip of water and eat. Her words get stuck inside her as though trapped in vacuum-packed plastic bags.

  “So tell me, Marquitos, does the plant sell head to individual households, to someone like myself?”

  He swallows what he believes to be vegetables. He can’t tell what he’s eating, not by its color nor its flavor. There’s a sour smell in the air. It could be his food or the house.

  “Are you listening to me?”

  He looks at her for a few seconds without answering. It occurs to him that since he got there, she hasn’t asked him about their father.

  “No.”

  “That’s not what the secretary at the plant said.”

  He decides it’s time to end the visit.

  “Dad’s fine, Marisa, in case you were wondering.”

  She lowers her eyes and recognizes the sign that her brother has had enough.

  “That’s wonderful.”

  “Yes, it is wonderful.”

  But he decides to take it further, because she crossed a line when she called the plant to ask about things she shouldn’t have.

  “He had an episode a little while ago.”

  His sister leaves her fork suspended in the air halfway to her mouth, as though she were genuinely surprised.

  “He did?”

  “Yes. He’s doing fine, but it does happen from time to time.”

  “Right, of course.”

  He points to his niece and nephew with his fork and, raising his voice a little, says, “Have the kids, his grandchildren, gone to visit him?”

  His sister looks at him with surprise and contained fury. Their tacit contract implies not humiliating her, and he’s always respected it. Until today.

  “Between school, homework, how far away he is, it’s really tough. And then there’s the curfew.”

  Maru is about to say something, but her mother touches her hand and keeps talking.

  “You have to understand that they’re enrolled in the best school—it’s an excellent school, a state school, of course, because private schools are terribly expensive. But if they don’t keep up, they’ll have to transfer to one with a fee, and that’s not something we can take on.”

  His sister’s words are like dry leaves piled up in a corner, rotting.

  “Of course, Marisa. I’ll send Dad regards from everyone, okay?”

  He gets up and smiles at his niece and nephew, but doesn’t say goodbye.

  Maru gives him a defiant look. She takes a bite of special kidney and says, her mouth open, almost shouting: “I wanna go visit Grandpa, Mom.”

  Estebancito looks at her, amused, and follows this up with: “Come on, Mom, let’s go visit, can’t we go visit?”

  His sister looks at them with confusion; she doesn’t pick up on the cruelty of the request, doesn’t see the suppressed laughter.

  “All right, all right, I guess we can go.”

  He knows he won’t see the twins for a long time, and he knows that if he were to cut an arm off each of his sister’s children and eat them at this very moment on the wooden table, they would taste exactly like he predicted. He looks them right in the eye. First Maru and then Estebancito. He looks at his niece and nephew as though he were savoring the taste of them. It startles them and they lower their eyes.

  He walks straight to the door. His sister opens it and gives him a quick kiss goodbye.

  “So great to see you, Marquitos. Take this umbrella, do me a favor.”

  He opens the umbrella and leaves without answering. Before he gets into his car he sees a trash can. He tosses the open umbrella into it. His sister is watching from the door. She closes it slowly while lowering her head.

  21

  He drives to the abandoned zoo.

  Lunch with his sister always puts him on edge. Not to such an extent that he stops going, but he feels the need to collect himself afterward, in order to understand why this person who’s part of his family is the way she is, why she has the children she does, why she’s never cared about him or their father.

  He walks slowly past the monkey cages. They’re broken. The trees that were planted inside them have dried up. He reads one of the signs, its letters discolored:

  Howler monkey

  Alouatta caraya

  Class: Mammals

  Next to the word “Mammals,” there’s an obscene drawing.

  Order: Primates

  Family: Atelidae

  Habitat: Woods

  Adaptations: The females have golden or yellowish fur, while that of the male

  The words that follow are worn away.

  They have special features that enable them to produce sounds. Their larynx and hyoid bone in particular are highly developed, the latter forming a large capsule that amplifies their vocalizations.

  Diet: Plants, insects, and fruits

  Conservation status: Out of danger

  The words “Out of danger” are crossed out.

  Distribution: Central zone of South America, from eastern Bolivia and southern Brazil to northern Argentina and Paraguay

  There’s a photo of a male howler monkey. The monkey’s face is contorted, as though the camera captured the moment it was caught. Someone has drawn a red circle with a cross in the center.

  He goes into one of the cages. There’s grass growing up between cracks in the cement, cigarettes and needles on the floor. He finds bones, thinks they could be one of the monkeys’. Or not. They could be anything.

  There are trees outside the cage, and he leaves it to walk beneath them. It’s a hot day and the sky is clear. The trees provide a bit of shade. He’s sweating.

  He comes across a sales booth. When he sticks his head through the empty doorframe, he finds cans, papers, filth. Inside, he reads the list of products painted on the wall: Simba the stuffed lion, Rita the stuffed giraffe, Dumbo the stuffed elephant, animal kingdom cup, squirrel monkey pencil case. The white walls are covered with graffiti, sentences, drawings. Someone has written, “I miss the animals,” in small, restrained letters. Someone else crossed the words out an
d added, “I hope you die for being so dumb.”

  When he leaves the sales booth, he lights a cigarette. He never wanders around the zoo, but instead always goes straight to the lion’s den and sits there. He knows the zoo is large, because he remembers spending hours exploring it with his father.

  He steps down into some empty swimming pools. The pools are small. They could have held otters, or seals, he thinks, but can’t remember. The signs have been torn off.

  As he walks, he rolls up his sleeves. He undoes the buttons on his shirt and leaves it open, loose.

  In the distance he sees huge cages, they’re tall, topped with cupolas. He remembers the aviary. The colorful birds flying, the burst of feathers, the smell both dense and fragile. When he reaches the cages, he sees it’s actually one cage, split into sections. Inside there’s a large hanging bridge covered by a glass cupola, which once allowed visitors to walk among the birds. The doors are broken. The trees that were planted inside the cage grew up and broke through parts of the glass cupolas over the roof and bridge. He steps on leaves and shards of glass, feels them crunch beneath his boots. There’s a staircase up to the hanging bridge. He climbs it and decides to cross the bridge. He walks through branches, steps over them, pushes them out of his way. In a clearing, he looks up to the roof and sees the treetops and one of the cupolas, the one in the center. It’s the only one made of stained glass and has an image of a man with wings flying close to the sun. He recognizes Icarus, knows of his fate. The wings are made of different colors and Icarus is flying through a sky that’s full of birds, as though they were keeping him company, as though this human were one of them. He picks up a branch with leaves on it and cleans the floor of the bridge a little so he can lie down without cutting himself on the glass. Some parts of the cupola are broken, but it’s the least damaged of them all because it’s the highest and farthest from the branches of the trees, which haven’t yet reached it.

  He wishes he could spend the whole day lying there looking up at the multicolored sky. He would have liked to show this aviary to his son, just as it is, empty, broken. A memory strikes him of his sister’s phone calls when Leo died. She only spoke to Cecilia, as though his wife were the only one who needed to be consoled. At the funeral, crying, she held on to her children as though she feared they too would die a sudden death, as though the baby in the casket had the ability to infect others with its fate. He looked at everyone as though the world had distanced itself a few meters; it was as though the people embracing him were behind frosted glass. He wasn’t able to cry, not once, not even when he saw the small white coffin being lowered into the ground. What he was thinking was that he wished the coffin were less conspicuous; he knew it was white because of the purity of the child inside, but are we really that pure when we arrive in this world? he wondered. He thought of other lives, thought that maybe in another dimension, on another planet, in another era, he might find himself with his son and watch him grow. And while he was thinking about all this and people were throwing roses onto the coffin, his sister cried as though this child were her own.