Tender Is the Flesh

by Agustina Bazterrica

  He’s in the aviary. It’s before the Transition, he knows because nothing has been broken yet. He’s standing on the hanging bridge but there’s no glass directly above to protect him. He looks up at the roof and sees the image of the man flying in the stained glass. The man looks at him and he lowers his eyes, not because he’s surprised that the image is alive, but because he hears the deafening sound of millions of wings flapping. Only there are no birds. The aviary is empty. He looks at the man again, at Icarus, who’s no longer in the stained glass. Icarus has fallen, he thinks, he’s come crashing down, but he’s flown. Then he looks around, and in the air on both sides of the bridge he sees hummingbirds, ravens, robins, goldfinches, eagles, blackbirds, nightingales, bats. There are also butterflies. But they’re all static. It’s as though they were vitrified, like Urlet’s words. As though they were inside a block of transparent amber. He feels the air becoming lighter, but the birds don’t move. They all watch him, their wings open. The birds are very close, but he sees them in the distance, occupying all the space, all the air he breathes. He goes up to a hummingbird and touches it. The bird falls to the floor and shatters as though it were made of crystal. He goes up to a butterfly, its wings a light, almost phosphorescent blue. The wings tremble, vibrate, but the butterfly is still. He picks it up with both his hands, takes great care not to cause it harm. The butterfly turns to dust. He goes up to a nightingale, is about to touch it, but doesn’t, his finger hovering right next to the bird because he thinks it’s just beautiful and doesn’t want to destroy it. The nightingale moves, flaps its wings a little, and opens its beak. It doesn’t sing, but lets out a cry. Its cries become piercing and desperate. They’re full of hatred. He takes off, runs, flees. He leaves the aviary and finds the zoo in darkness. But he can make out the shapes of men. He realizes that the men are him, repeated infinitely. All of them have their mouths open and are naked. Though he knows they’re saying something, the silence is complete. He goes up to one of the men and shakes him. He needs the man to speak, to move. The man—himself—walks so slowly it’s exasperating. As he does, he goes about killing the rest of them. He doesn’t hit them with a club, or strangle them, or stab them. The only thing he does is speak to them, and one by one, each man—himself—falls to the ground. Then one man—himself—comes over and hugs him. This man hugs him so tightly that he can’t breathe and he struggles until he breaks free. But the man—himself—tries again, and comes over to say something into his ear. He runs away because he doesn’t want to die. While he’s running, he feels the stone in his chest roll around and it strikes his heart. The zoo becomes a forest. Hanging from the trees are eyes, hands, human ears, and babies. He climbs one of the trees to get a baby, but when he reaches it and has it in his arms, the baby disappears. He climbs another tree and that baby turns into black smoke. He climbs another tree and the ears stick to his body. When he tries to pick them off, as though they were leeches, they rip up his skin. When he reaches the baby, he sees it’s covered in human ears and is no longer breathing. Then he roars, howls, croaks, bellows, barks, meows, crows, whinnies, brays, caws, moos, cries.

  When he opens his eyes, all he sees is the dazzling blue. It’s then that he really does scream.

  15

  He needs to get going. But first he brings Jasmine food and water. As soon as he opens the door, she gives him a big hug. It’s been a while since he left her alone for so many hours. He gives her a quick kiss, sits her down on the mattresses carefully, and locks the door.

  Today he has to go the Valka Laboratory. But before he starts the car, he dials Krieg’s number.

  “Hi, Marcos. Mari told me. Your sister called to let her know. I’m very sorry.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You don’t have to go to the laboratory. I can tell them you’ll stop by at a later date.”

  “I’ll go, but it’s the last time.”

  There’s a heavy silence on Krieg’s end. He’s not used to being talked to in this tone of voice.

  “That’s not an option. I need you to go.”

  “I’ll go today. But then I’m going to train someone else to do it.”

  “You’re not understanding me. The laboratory is one of our highest-paying clients, I need to send the best.”

  “I understand you perfectly. I’m not going anymore.”

  For a few seconds, Krieg says nothing. “All right, maybe now is not the best time to talk about this, given the circumstances.”

  “This is the time to talk about this and I’m not going again, or tomorrow I resign.”

  “What did you say? Absolutely not, Marcos. You can train someone else whenever you like. Consider the matter closed. Take as long as you need off to rest. We’ll talk again later.”

  He hangs up without saying goodbye to Krieg. He detests Dr. Valka and her laboratory of horrors.

  To enter the laboratory he has to hand over his ID, undergo a retinal scan, sign several forms, and be examined in a special room to ensure he has no cameras or anything else on him that could compromise the confidentiality of the experiments carried out on the premises.

  A security guard takes him to the floor where the doctor is waiting for him. It’s not her job to speak to processing-plant employees to ensure they bring her the best specimens, but Dr. Valka is obsessive, and a perfectionist, and as she always tells him, “The specimens are everything, I need precision if I’m going to be successful.” She requires them to be FGP, the most difficult to obtain. If they’re modified, she has no scruples about discarding them. She places ridiculous orders, requesting extremities with precise measures—eyes close together or far apart, a sloping forehead, a large orbital capacity, specimens that heal quickly or slowly, have large or small ears—and the list of unimaginable requests changes every time he goes to the laboratory. If a specimen doesn’t meet Dr. Valka’s requirements, she returns it and requests a general discount for having wasted her time and money. Of course, he no longer makes mistakes.

  They inevitably greet each other coolly. He holds out his hand, but without fail she looks at him as though she doesn’t understand and moves her head in a way that could be a greeting.

  “How are you, Dr. Valka?”

  “I’ve just been awarded one of the most prestigious prizes for research and innovation. As such, I’m very well.”

  He looks at her without answering. His only thought is that this is the last time he’s going to see her, the last time he’s going to hear her voice, the last time he’s going to set foot in this place.

  Since he doesn’t congratulate her, and she’s waiting for his congratulations, she says, “What was that?”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  She looks at him, disconcerted. There was a time when he would have congratulated her.

  “The work we do here at the Valka Laboratory is of vital importance, as it’s through experimentation with these specimens that we’re able to obtain good results. We’ve made significant advances that would never have been possible with animals. Our approach to specimen handling is unique and advanced, and our work protocols are strictly followed.”

  She keeps talking, as she always does, giving him the same marketing team speech, using words that flow like lava from a volcano that doesn’t stop erupting, only it’s lava that’s cold and viscous. They’re words that stick to one’s body and all he feels is repulsion.

  “What was that?” the doctor says. At some point during her monologue, she was expecting a response. She never got it because he’d stopped listening.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  Dr. Valka looks at him with surprise. He’s always been attentive, always listened to her and said what needed to be said, no more, no less, so that she felt he was interested. Dr. Valka never asks him how he’s doing or if everything is okay, because she only sees him as a reflection of herself, a mirror into which she can keep talking about her achievements.

  She stands up. Now is when she takes him on a tour of the labora
tory, like she always does. The first few times he heaved, got stomachaches, had nightmares. The tour is useless because all he needs is the list with her order and for her to explain the requests that are most difficult to obtain. But she likes him to understand precisely what each experiment entails so that he can acquire the most suitable specimens.

  Dr. Valka grabs her cane and starts off. A few years back, she had an accident with a specimen. What is known is that the accident occurred after a careless assistant left the door to a cage ajar. When the doctor, who works late into the night, did a final run through the laboratory, the specimen attacked her and bit off part of her leg. He’s of the opinion that it wasn’t an act of carelessness on the assistant’s part but of revenge, because Valka is notorious for being demanding and mistreating her employees, and for her cutting comments. But her laboratory is the largest and most prestigious of its kind, so people put up with her, until one day they don’t. He knows that at first they called her “Dr. Mengele” behind her back, but then experimenting on humans was normalized and she went on to win prizes.

  As she walks, she sways from side to side and speaks. It’s as though she needs to support herself with the words that leave her mouth without stopping. She gives him the same speech every time, tells him how difficult it is even in this day and age to be a woman and have a career, says that people continue to hold prejudices against her, that only recently have they started greeting her and not her assistant who’s a man, because they think he’s the one who’s head of the laboratory, it was her choice not to have a family, and socially she has to pay for it, because people continue to think that women have to fulfill some biological plan, when her great accomplishment in life has been to press ahead, to never give in; being a man is so much easier, she says, this is her family—the laboratory—but no one understands, not really, she’s revolutionizing medicine, she tells him, and people continue to care whether her shoes are feminine, or that her roots are showing because she didn’t have time to go to the hairdresser, or that she’s gained weight.

  He agrees with everything she says, but he can’t bear her words, which are like tiny tadpoles dragging themselves along, leaving behind a sticky trail, slithering until they pile up, one on top of the other, and rot, vitiating the air with their rancid smell. He doesn’t answer because he also knows that she has few female employees working for her. And if one of them were to get pregnant, she’d look down on her, disregard her.

  She shows him a cage and tells him that the specimen is a heroin addict. They’ve been supplying him with the drug for years to understand why addiction occurs. “When we nullify him, we’ll study his brain,” she says. Nullify, he thinks, another word that silences the horror.

  Dr. Valka keeps talking, but again he’s no longer listening. He sees specimens without eyes, others hooked up to tubes, breathing in nicotine all day long, other specimens have apparatuses on their heads, stuck to their skulls, some look like they’re being starved, some have wires sticking out of every part of their body; he sees assistants performing vivisections, others pulling pieces of skin off the arms of specimens who haven’t been given anesthesia, and head in cages that he knows have electrified floors. He thinks that the processing plant is better than this place, at least there death comes quickly.

  They walk past a room with a specimen on a table. The specimen’s chest has been cut open and his heart is beating. Several people stand around the table studying him. Dr. Valka stops to look through the window. She says that it’s wonderful to be able to record organ function when the specimen is alive and conscious. They gave him a mild sedative, she says, so he wouldn’t faint from the pain. Excitedly she adds, “What a beautiful, beating heart! Isn’t it incredible?”

  He doesn’t say anything.

  “What was that?” she says.

  “I didn’t say anything,” he tells her, but this time he looks her in the eye in a way that shows he’s had enough and is impatient.

  She regards him silently, her eyes moving from top to bottom, as though she were scanning him. It’s a look intended to demonstrate her authority, but he ignores it. It’s as though she doesn’t know what to do with his indifference, and she takes him to a new room, one he’s never been in. There are females in cages with their babies. They go up to a cage where a female appears to be dead and a baby that’s two or three years old doesn’t stop crying. She explains that they’ve sedated the mother to study the infant’s reactions. “What’s the point? Isn’t it obvious how the infant is going to react?” he asks her.

  She doesn’t answer and keeps walking, striking her cane against the floor, marking each step, containing her rage. She doesn’t know how to react to his disinterest and he couldn’t care less that she’s growing impatient. The prospect of her complaining to Krieg doesn’t bother him either. Better if she complains, he thinks, that way I can be sure I won’t ever have to come back.

  They walk past another room he can’t recall having seen. But they don’t go in. Through the windows he sees animals in cages. He can make out dogs, rabbits, a few cats. “Are you trying to find a cure for the virus? I ask because you have animals in there. Isn’t that dangerous?” he says to Valka.

  “Everything we do here is confidential. That’s why any visitor who sets foot in this laboratory signs a confidentiality agreement.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’m only interested in discussing experiments for which I require specimens you can obtain.”

  Dr. Valka never calls him by his name because she can’t be bothered to memorize it. He suspects that the caged animals are a front. As long as someone is studying them and trying to find a cure, the virus is real.

  “Isn’t it strange that no one’s found a cure? What with laboratories that are so advanced they’re able to carry out cutting-edge experiments…”

  The doctor doesn’t look at him, or answer, but he feels that the little tadpoles in her throat are on the verge of bursting.

  “I need strong specimens. Let me show you.”

  She takes him to a room on another floor where the specimens, all males, are sitting on seats similar to those found in cars. They’ve been immobilized and their heads are inside what look like square helmets made of metal bars. An assistant pushes a button and the helmet-like structure moves very fast, striking the specimen’s head against a board that senses and registers the quantity, velocity, and impact of the strikes. Some of the specimens appear to be dead because they don’t react when the assistants try to revive them. Others look around disoriented, and have pained expressions on their faces. Valka says, “We simulate automobile accidents and collect data so that safer cars can be built. That’s why we need more male specimens, strong ones, so that they can withstand several trials.”

  He knows that she expects him to say something about the wonderful work they’re doing, work that could save lives, but the only thing he feels is the stone pressing against his chest.

  An assistant approaches them and hands the doctor something to sign.

  “What is this? Why am I only being asked to sign this now? Why didn’t you give it to me earlier?”

  “I did give it to you, Doctor, but you told me to come back later.”

  “That’s not an acceptable answer. If I say later it means now, especially if it’s something this important. I’m paying you to think. Now leave.”

  Though he’s not looking at her, she says, “The incompetence of these people is beyond words.”

  He doesn’t say anything because he thinks that working for this woman must be utterly maddening. What he would like to do is tell her that “later” means later and that when she insults her employees, she just comes across as a disloyal boss. But he thinks better of it, and says, “Incompetence? Aren’t you the one who hires them, Doctor?”

  She looks at him furiously.

  He feels that the volcanic lava, cold and viscous, is on the verge of erupting. But she breathes deeply and says, “Please leave. I’ll send the list direc
tly to Krieg.”

  She says this like it’s a threat, but he ignores her. There are so many more things he wants to tell her, but he says goodbye with a smile, puts his hands in his trouser pockets, and turns around. He walks through the hallway whistling and hears the indignant strikes of her cane against the floor slowly grow distant.

  16

  He’s getting into his car when Cecilia calls.

  “Hi, Marcos. You’re pixelated. Hello? Can you hear me? Can you see me?”

  “Hi, Cecilia. Hello. Yes, I can hear you, but not well.”

  “Marc—”

  The call cuts out. He drives for a while, pulls over, and then dials her number.

  “Hi, Cecilia. The signal was bad back there.”

  “I heard about your father. Nelly called to tell me. How are you doing? Do you want some company?”

  “I’m fine. Thanks, but I’d rather be alone.”

  “I understand. Are you having a farewell service?”

  “Marisa’s going to do it.”

  “Of course, that’s to be expected. Do you want me to go?”

  “No, but thanks. I don’t even know if I’ll go.”

  “I miss you, do you know that?”

  He’s silent. It’s the first time she’s said she misses him since she left.

  She continues, “You look different, strange.”

  “I’m the same.”

  “It’s just that for a while now you’ve seemed more distant.”

  “You don’t want to come home. Do you expect me to spend my whole life waiting for you?”

  “No, but it’s just… I’d like us to talk.”

  “When I’m doing better, I’ll call you, okay?”

  She looks at him in the way she always has when she doesn’t understand a situation or there’s something that’s beyond her. It’s a look that’s alert but sad, a look like in an old sepia-colored photograph.

  “That’s fine, whatever you prefer. Let me know if there’s anything you need, Marcos.”