The three drops form a little triangle on the floor. Mariana looks at them and then goes in search of more drops, until she finds a longer trail, a path.
“Javier!” she calls.
She goes along the corridor toward the room where the children are slaughtering small galactic monsters on the TV screen.
“Children!” she shouts. “Is Grandpa with you?”
She walks on, her head bent lower to the floor. She bumps into a small table. Something falls off.
“Javier! Children!”
Finally, ashen-faced, she reaches the room: the volume on the TV is deafening. Her children are alone. Without asking or saying anything, Mariana immediately turns and hurries to the bathroom, where she knocks twice on the door.
“Grandpa!” she says, still trying to appear calm.
No answer. She sighs, hesitates, looks at the floor. Another blood stain. She doesn't knock this time, she grips the handle and pushes. The door won't open. It bumps against the unconscious body of Javier Miranda. Mariana pushes harder, crying now and desperate. One of her children says something to her as he comes down the corridor.
“Don't come near. Go away!”
The boy freezes. Mariana tries to slip a hand through the crack and push her father-in-law's body out of the way.
“Phone your dad!” screams Mariana. “Phone your dad! Now!”
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Andrés has turned off his cell phone and, still undecided, is once more standing outside Inés Pacheco's apartment. Overwhelmed as he is by a sense of powerlessness, he feels that perhaps this is something he can do for his father: although he does not know her, this woman is his father's other love, the one other experience of love that's
left to him. Why isn't she with him now of all times? Why isn't she there for him? Why will neither of them talk to him? Andrés thinks that perhaps this is a gift he could give his father: a visit from Inés Pacheco. But all he has is that vague presentiment. He rings the bell.
After a matter of moments, he again hears that shadowy whisper and then the door opens. It's her. However, this time, when she sees him, she immediately tenses up. She looks uncomfortable and stares at him with a kind of impotent melancholy.
“Why have you come back?” she asks.
“Forgive me,” Andrés says, feeling nervous and awkward. “May I come in?”
“No,” says the woman, glancing behind her and leaning against the doorframe.
“It's important.”
Andrés looks at her almost pleadingly. Her discomfort grows. But she says nothing.
“He's very ill,” Andrés explains. “My father is dying.”
The woman takes in a great gulp of air, lowers her head, and when she raises it again, her eyes are bright with tears.
“Did you know?”
She doesn't answer. She just gazes at him in utter desperation. Andrés doesn't know how to contain his own anxiety. He wishes he could simply spirit her away. Then, just when she seems about to say something, a voice comes from inside.
“Inés.”
A tall, gray-haired man appears; he's rather frail-looking, but has a pleasant, kindly face.
“Who is it?” he asks, joining them at the door.
“This young man is looking for . . .” Inés stops, uncertain how to continue. “He's looking for someone.” Then she, with a particularly emphatic gesture, explains: “This is my husband.”
The man remains at her side, studying Andrés with curious eyes. He smiles politely.
“Who are you looking for?”
“Oh, no one,” stammers Andrés. “I was given the wrong information. I'm so sorry. But thank you, thank you very much,” he says.
“That's alright.”
The door closes almost noiselessly. The voices of the man and the woman linger on the other side. The man asks something. The woman answers. Then all is silence.
When Andrés turns on his cell phone again, all he hears is a howl. The ambulance siren is already opening up a wound of sound in the late afternoon.
Dear Ernesto,
How can I begin to explain everything that I have to explain to you now? Where to begin? I had better begin with my name: Karina Sánchez. I'm Dr. Andrés Miranda's secretary. I don't know if you remember me, we've met occasionally at the consulting room, and we've spoken on the phone as well. We only ever talked about appointments, as part of my work, nothing else.
And yet, although you may not believe it, we know each other far better than that, we have had much closer dealings.
Let me explain: among the tasks Dr. Miranda assigned to me is that of dealing with any correspondence sent to his e-mail address, which he uses to receive social invitations, promotional material from pharmaceutical companies, and as a place to divert messages from certain patients, patients like you. Forgive my frankness, but when I decided to write to you this morning, I was determined to be completely honest with you, to tell you the whole truth, whatever the cost to myself.
Your first letter came to this address. I read it, told the doctor about it and he gave me instructions not to reply. When the second letter arrived, I said nothing. I assumed that the order he had given still held, no matter how many e-mails you sent. However, when I read your e-mail saying that you were following the doctor, I felt frightened. It seemed to me that things were getting serious, even dangerous. That was when, on the bad advice of a friend, I decided to reply to your letters myself.
Now in the midst of your surprise and indignation, you may find it hard to understand why I did that. I ask myself the same question all the time. At first, I thought it would be an innocent, amusing game, but gradually came to realize
that I was wrong. You may not believe me, but I swear that it was you and what you said, the sincerity with which you wrote, that revealed to me the monstrous nature of what I was doing. I know my actions are unforgivable, because I now feel that what I did wasn't just an error, it was a crime. I stole the doctor's identity, I passed myself off as him, and, worst of all, I deceived you, I used and abused your privacy without your permission.
I can assure you that I will quite understand if, from now on, you hate and despise me. It will be painful to me, but I know that you would be absolutely within your rights to do so and I will try to accept it. I have no excuses.
I must confess one other thing. You changed my life, Señor Durán. I now understand perfectly what you feel, I know what it is to feel as you do, to experience those same symptoms. In some way you infected me. You and your words. And so, when you stopped writing, I began to grow anxious, to feel worse and worse. I'm not saying this to flatter you or to excuse my errors. I'm saying it because it's true.
In the hope that this finds you well and that you will, one day, feel able to forgive me, I remain,
Yours sincerely,
Karina Sánchez
He's in room 508. The emergency room treated him and cleaned him up, but decided there was no point in sending him to intensive care. There wasn't much more they could do. He was weak and in terrible pain. They've put him on a saline drip. They're keeping an eye on his blood pressure and his pulse. He's been given morphine.
Mariana is outside in the corridor with the kids. Andrés has just arrived. He goes over to the bed and looks at his father. He's rapidly becoming just a bony structure, as if his skin were also slowly bidding farewell and clinging to the bone; as if the clear outline of the skeleton were rising to the surface. Andrés bends over and kisses him on the forehead. His father opens his eyes. They look at each other and exchange sadly knowing smiles: there's no need for any fuss, they both know perfectly well what's happening.
“What a shame I was at your apartment,” murmurs Javier. “I hope the kids weren't upset.”
“Don't worry. If it had been at your place, you would have been all alone.”
Javier Miranda thinks about this for a second. He tries to speak, but it's very hard. Everything is getting harder and harder, everything is an effort.
“You shouldn't have let Merny take all that time off to go to Mérida.”
“It was a deal we made,” he murmurs.
Andrés nods. His father closes his eyes again. He's breathing with difficulty. Andrés looks for something to do: he checks the flow of saline solution, checks the information on the medical records left on the bedside
table. None of those facts and figures mean much now. Every patient writes his own history. The stories told by illnesses each follow a different order, a different rhythm. They never repeat themselves, even though all have the same ending.
Andrés goes back to his father's side. He takes his pulse, places his other hand on his forehead. The cold is edging nearer. Andrés wishes he could lie down beside him as he had before, embrace him and weep. His father again tries to say something, but can't; he opens his mouth, clears his throat, attempts a sound and can manage only silence; his tongue is dry; the words he can no longer speak, that he no longer has, hurt him.
“Don't try to speak,” Andrés says. “Don't say anything.”
He feels tears burning beneath his eyelids. They sting. He doesn't know what to do. He once more places his hand on his father's forehead. Suddenly they look at each other. Andrés sees that his father is quietly crying too. He kisses him again and squeezes his hand.
“Everything changed,” Andrés sobs. “Ever since I told you that you were ill. Ever since we knew.”
His father shakes his head, as if to stop him speaking. Andrés won't be silenced.
“No, it's true, we both changed. We didn't know how to handle it. We got angry, it freaked us out . . . We should have talked moreâI don't knowâtried to have a better time together.”
His father looks at him and smiles fondly. He swallows hard and makes as if to touch his son's face, but that
feeble gesture quickly fades. Andrés wipes the tears from his father's cheek.
“This isn't something you can rehearse for,” his father murmurs, jokingly, as if trying to make light of the situation. “No one told us it would be like this.”
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Three floors up, in the office, Karina is still phoning relatives and friends, as Mariana had asked her to do. Call the people closest to him and explain the situation. The inevitable has happened. She has done this, feeling rather awkward and nervous. She doesn't quite know how to explain. What can she say? That the inevitable has happened and they should come quickly because his life is nearly at an end? Just as she's about to make another call, a little icon appears on her screen: a new e-mail has arrived in her inbox. She immediately puts the phone down and turns to the computer. She feels even more excited when she sees the name of the sender: Ernesto Durán.
Dear Dr. Miranda,
I hesitated for a long time before writing to you again. I finally decided that I would and I'm going to explain why. I haven't heard from you for a while now. The last time I wrote, I was in the middle of a crisis, I asked you for help and you failed me. You never phoned. I was in urgent need of help, and you didn't come.
It wasn't easy. It took me weeks to recover, but fortunately my body slowly pulled itself together and, eventually, my condition stabilized.
All this has had its consequences, of course. Among other things, let me just say that I lost my job. Gradually, though, I'm returning to normality. I can't deny that, at first, I felt very bitter toward you. I determined that I wouldn't write to you again. And I didn't. I never again sent you an e-mail. I didn't follow you either. I didn't come to the hospital looking for you. I wanted to erase you from my life, Doctor.
“Has he finally replied?” Adelaida is standing in the doorway, watching her. “I know your face, Karina. It's from him, isn't it?”
Karina nods, rather put out by the interruption.
“So what does he say?”
“It isn't for me. It's for Dr. Miranda.”
“I don't believe you,” exclaims Adelaida, coming to peer at the screen over Karina's shoulder.
But I couldn't do it, Doctor. Every day, I woke up with the same feeling of emptiness in my hands, as if something was missing. I went to bed with the same anxiety. This wasn't just a repetition of my old symptoms, it was something else, something much deeper. Then, this morning when I woke up, I saw everything so clearly. I need to write to you, Doctor. Even though you've let me down, even though you don't read my letters, despite all that, I need to write to you.
If you answer me, that's fine. If you don't, it doesn't matter. But writing is the one thing that makes me feel better, the only thing I really need. Before, I always thought that one wrote for other people, for the other person to read what one had written. Now I'm not so sure.
“The guy's nuts!” mutters Adelaida. “Doesn't he say anything about that time he came to see the doctor? Or about the letter you wrote him? Doesn't he say anything about that?”
“Exactly,” says Karina.
“What do you mean âexactly'?” Adelaida stares at her in bewilderment. “Don't you see? That's his only sickness.”
Karina nods, a strange, glad smile on her lips. And tapping lightly on the keyboard, she begins writing her response.
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In the corridor on floor five, outside room 508, Mariana and her children are waiting in silence. Inside, Andrés, for how long he doesn't know, has been sitting bent over his father, an uncomfortable position, but it's the only way he can get close to him. Everything is so ephemeral. They are the only solid thing in that room. When he hears his father cough, he sits up. They look at each other again.