Tender is the Flesh(20)
Cecilia’s words were like a river of lights, an aerial torrent, like fireflies glowing. She’d tell him, when they didn’t yet know they’d have to turn to the treatments, that she wanted their children to have his eyes but her nose, his mouth but her hair. He’d laugh because she’d laugh, and with their laughter, his father and the nursing home, the processing plant and the heads, the blood and the stunners’ sharp strikes would disappear.
The other image that comes to him like an explosion is Cecilia’s face when she opened the envelope and saw the results of the Anti-Mullerian hormone test. She didn’t understand how the number could be so low. She looked at the piece of paper, unable to speak, until very slowly, she said, “I’m young, I should be producing more eggs.” But she was disconcerted, because as a nurse she knew that youth doesn’t guarantee anything. She looked at him, her eyes asking for help, and he took the piece of paper from her, folded it, put it on the table and told her not to worry, that everything was going to be okay. She started to cry and he just held her and kissed her on the forehead and the face, and said, “Everything’s going to be okay,” even though he knew it wouldn’t be.
After that came more injections, pills, low-quality eggs, toilets and screens with naked women on them, and the pressure to fill the plastic cup, baptisms they didn’t attend, the question, “So when’s the first child coming along?” repeated ad nauseum, operating rooms he wasn’t allowed to enter so that he could hold her hand and she wouldn’t feel so alone, more debt, other people’s babies, the babies of those who could, fluid retention, mood swings, conversations about the possibility of adopting, phone calls to the bank, children’s birthday parties they wanted to escape, more hormones, chronic fatigue and more unfertilized eggs, tears, hurtful words, Mothers’ Days in silence, the hope for an embryo, the list of possible names, Leonardo if it was a boy, Aria if it was a girl, pregnancy tests thrown helplessly into the bin, fights, the search for an egg donor, questions about genetic identity, letters from the bank, the waiting, the fears, the acceptance that maternity isn’t a question of chromosomes, the mortgage, the pregnancy, the birth, the euphoria, the happiness, the death.
17
He gets home late.
When he opens the door to the barn, he sees the female curled up, sleeping. He changes her water and replaces her food. She wakes with a start at the sound of the balanced feed hitting the metal bowl. She doesn’t move closer and looks at him in fear.
She needs to be washed, he thinks, but not now, not today. Today he has something more important to do.
He leaves the door of the barn open on his way out. The female follows him slowly. The rope stops her at the entrance.
Back in the house, he goes straight to his son’s room. He picks up the cot and takes it out to the yard. Then he gets the axe and kerosene from the barn. The female is on her feet, watching him.
He stands next to the cot, paralysed in the middle of the star-filled night. The lights in the sky in all their appalling beauty crush him. He goes into the house and opens a bottle of whisky.
Now he’s next to the cot again. There are no tears. He looks at it and takes a sip from the bottle. He starts with the axe, feels a need to destroy the cot. As he breaks it into pieces, he thinks of Leo’s tiny feet in his hands right after he was born.
After that he douses the cot in kerosene and lights a match. He takes another sip. The sky is like an ocean that’s gone still.
He watches the hand-painted drawings disappear. The hugging bear and duck burn, lose their shape, evaporate.
The female is watching him. He sees her there. She seems fascinated by the fire. He goes into the barn and she curls up in fright. He remains on his feet, swaying. The female trembles. And if he destroys her too? She’s his, he can do whatever he wants. He can kill her, slaughter her, make her suffer. He picks up the axe. Looks at her silently. This female is a problem. He raises the axe. Then he moves closer and cuts the rope.
He goes out and lies down in the grass beneath the silence of the lights in the sky, millions of them, frozen, dead. The sky is made of glass, glass that’s opaque and solid. The moon seems a strange god.
He no longer cares if the female escapes. He no longer cares if Cecilia comes back.
The last thing he sees is the door to the barn and the female, that woman, looking at him. It seems like she’s crying. But there’s no way she understands what’s happening, she doesn’t know what a cot is. She doesn’t know anything.
When only the embers remain, he’s already asleep in the grass.
18
He opens his eyes, then closes them again. The light hurts. His head is pounding. He’s hot. There’s a stabbing pain in his right temple. He lies still, trying to remember why he’s outside. Then a hazy image appears in his mind. A stone in his chest. That’s the image. It’s the dream he had. He sits up with his eyes still closed. He tries to open them, but can’t. For a few seconds, he’s still, his head resting on his knees, his arms wrapped around them. His mind is blank until he remembers the dream with terrifying clarity.
He’s naked and walks into an empty room. The walls are stained with humidity and something brown that could be blood. The floor is dirty and broken. His father is in the corner, sitting on a wooden bench. He’s naked and is looking at the floor. He tries to go to his father, but can’t move. He tries to call him, but can’t speak. In another corner, a wolf is eating some meat. Whenever he looks at the wolf, the animal raises its head and snarls. It bares its fangs. The wolf is eating something that’s moving, that’s alive. He looks closer. It’s his son, who’s crying but not making a sound. He grows desperate. He wants to save the infant but is immobile, mute. He tries to shout. His father gets up and walks in circles around the room, without looking at him, without looking at his grandson, who’s being torn to pieces by the wolf. He cries, but no tears fall, he shouts, wants to climb out of his body, but can’t. A man appears with a saw. The man could be Manzanillo, but he can’t see his face. It’s blurred. There’s a light, a sun hanging from the roof. The sun moves, creating an ellipse of yellow light. He stops thinking about his son, it’s as though he never existed. The man who could be Manzanillo cuts his chest open. He feels nothing. Just checks to make sure the job was done well. He gives Manzanillo a congratulatory handshake. Sergio comes in and looks at him closely. He appears to be deep in concentration. Without saying anything to him, Sergio bends down and reaches into his chest. He examines it, moves his fingers, pokes around. Sergio yanks out his heart. He eats a piece. The blood spurts from Sergio’s mouth. His heart is still beating, but Sergio throws it to the ground. While he squashes it, Sergio speaks into his ear, and says, “There’s nothing worse than not being able to see yourself.” Cecilia comes into the room with a black stone. Her face is Spanel’s, but he knows it’s her. She smiles. The sun moves more quickly. The ellipse gets bigger. The stone shines. It beats. The wolf howls. His father sits down and looks at the floor. Cecilia opens his chest up even more and puts the stone inside it. She’s beautiful, he’s never seen her so radiant. She turns around, he doesn’t want her to leave. He tries to call her, but can’t. Cecilia looks at him happily, picks up a club and stuns him right in the middle of the forehead. He falls, but the floor opens up and he keeps falling because the stone in his chest plunges him into a white abyss.