A Long Petal of the Sea(86)

He felt twenty years younger and was euphoric. After suffering punishment and ostracism in Chile and having been a foreigner for many years, overnight his luck had changed: now he was Professor Dalmau, head of cardiology, the most admired specialist in the country, capable of carrying out feats with his scalpel that others wouldn’t dare attempt, and a noted public speaker. Even his enemies turned to him, as he discovered on more than one occasion when he found himself operating on two high-ranking members of the still-powerful armed forces, and one of the most passionate strategists of repression during the dictatorship. When it was a question of saving their own lives, these men came to consult him with their tails between their legs: fear has no shame, as Roser liked to say.

This was Victor’s moment: he was at the pinnacle of his career. He felt that in some mysterious way he embodied Chile’s transformation; the shadows had been dispelled, freedom was dawning, and so he too was living a glorious dawn. He devoted himself to his work, and for the first time in his introverted life sought attention and enjoyed whatever opportunities he had to shine in public.

“Be careful, Victor, success is intoxicating you. Remember life has many peaks and troughs,” Roser warned him. She had been observing him with some concern, thinking he was growing conceited, noticing his pedantic tone, his superior air, his tendency to talk about himself—something he had never done in the past—his categorical assertions, his hasty, impatient manner, even with her. When she pointed all this out, he replied he had many responsibilities and couldn’t be treading on eggshells at home.

Roser saw him having lunch in the faculty cafeteria surrounded by young students listening to him with the veneration of disciples. She could see how Victor enjoyed this reverence, especially from the female students, who applauded his banal observations with unjustified admiration. Roser knew him inside out, every nook and cranny, and this belated vanity surprised her for being so unexpected. It made her feel sorry for her husband: she was discovering how vulnerable to flattery a conceited old man could be. It never crossed her mind that she would be the one to cause the reversal of fortune that punctured Victor’s vanity.



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THIRTEEN MONTHS LATER, Roser began to suspect a stealthy disease was slowly eating away at her, but since her husband hadn’t noticed anything, she convinced herself these must be symptoms of age or her imagination. Victor was so caught up in his success he had neglected his relationship with her, although when they were together he was still her best friend and the lover who made her feel beautiful and desired at the age of seventy-three. He also knew her inside out. If her weight loss, the yellowish tinge to her skin, and her nausea didn’t worry Victor, it must be something unimportant. It was another month before she decided to consult someone, because in addition to her previous symptoms, she was waking up shivering with fever. Out of a vague feeling of embarrassment, and to avoid giving Victor the impression she was complaining, she went to see one of his colleagues. When she was handed the results a few days later, she came home with the desperate news that she had terminal cancer. She had to say it twice for Victor to snap out of his stupor and react.

From then on, both their lives suffered a dramatic transformation. The only thing they really wanted was to prolong and enjoy the time they had left together. Victor’s vanity was well and truly pricked. He descended from Olympus to the hell of illness. He asked for indefinite leave from the hospital and gave up his classes to be with Roser. “We’re going to spend our time well for as long as we can, Victor. Maybe the war against this cancer is lost, but meanwhile we can win a few battles.” Victor took her on a honeymoon to a southern lake, an emerald-colored mirror that reflected forests, waterfalls, hills, and the snowcapped peaks of three volcanoes. They stayed in a rustic cabin in the midst of this serene landscape, far from everything and everyone. There they went back over every stage of their lives, from the days when she was a skinny young girl in love with Guillem, to the present, when for Victor she had become the most beautiful woman in the world. She insisted on swimming in the lake, as though that icy, pristine water could wash her inside and out, purify her, and restore her health. She also wanted to take walks, but wasn’t strong enough to go as far as she wished, and so they ended up strolling gently, her clinging to her husband’s arm and with a stick in her other hand. She was visibly losing weight.



Victor had spent his life fighting suffering and death. He was familiar with the volcanic emotions a patient facing the end goes through, because he had taught them at the university: denial of one’s fate, immense anger at becoming ill, bargaining with destiny and the divinity to prolong one’s existence, succumbing to despair, and finally, at best, resigning oneself to the inevitable. Roser skipped all the earlier stages and from the outset accepted her passing with astonishing calm and good humor. She refused to follow the alternative treatments that Meche and other well-intentioned female friends suggested: she didn’t want to know about homeopathy, herbs from Amazonia, healers, or exorcisms. “I’m going to die: so what? Everybody has to die.” She took advantage of the hours when she felt well to listen to music, play the piano, and read poetry with the cat Meche had given them on her lap. It looked like an Egyptian goddess but had always been half-feral, distant, and solitary. Sometimes it disappeared for days on end, and would often come back bearing the bloody remains of a rodent, which it deposited on their marital bed as an offering. Now it seemed to understand that something had changed, and overnight became gentle and affectionate, refusing to leave Roser.