Tender is the Flesh(30)
He runs his hand over her belly. She’s eight months pregnant.
2
He has to get going, but first he wants to have some mate with Jasmine. The water’s already been heated on the stove. It took him a lot of time to get her to understand the concept of fire, its dangers and uses. Whenever he lit the burner, she took off and ran to the other end of the house. Her fear turned into wonder. Then all she wanted to do was touch the white and blue that could sometimes be yellow, that seemed to dance, that was alive. She’d touch the flames until they burned her and then pull her hand away quickly, frightened. She’d suck on her fingers and step back a little, but then she’d move closer and do it again and again. Slowly, fire became part of her daily life, her new reality.
When he’s had one last sip of mate, he kisses her, and as he does every day, walks her to the room where he keeps her locked up. He turns the bolt in the front door and gets into his car. She’ll be fine watching the TV he mounted on the wall, sleeping, drawing with the crayons he left her, eating the food he made for her, flipping through the pages of books she doesn’t understand. He wishes he could teach her to read, but what’s the point if she can’t speak and will never be part of a society that sees her only as an edible product? The mark on her forehead, the huge, clear, indestructible mark, forces him to keep her locked up in the house.
He drives to the plant quickly. He intends to get what needs to be done over with and go back home. But his phone rings. He sees it’s Cecilia and pulls over to the side of the road. She’s been calling more often lately. He’s afraid she wants to come home. There’s no way he can tell her what’s going on. She wouldn’t understand. He’s been trying to avoid her, but that’s just made it worse. She can feel his impatience, sees that the pain has become something else. She says, “You’re different”; “Your face has changed”; “Why didn’t you pick up the other day, are you that busy?”; “You’ve already forgotten about me, about us.” The “us” she refers to isn’t limited to her and him, it includes Leo, but saying so out loud would be cruel.
When he arrives at the plant, he nods to the security guard and parks his car. He doesn’t care whether the man is reading the paper, doesn’t even bother to check who he is. He no longer stops for a smoke, his arms propped up on the car roof. What he does is go straight to Krieg’s office. He gives Mari a quick kiss on the cheek, and she says: “Hi, Marcos. You’re really late, love. Se?or Krieg is downstairs. The people from that church are here and he’s gone to deal with them.” This last part she says with annoyance. “They’re showing up more and more often.” He doesn’t say anything, though he knows he is late and what’s more that the people from the church were early. He goes downstairs quickly and runs through the hallways without greeting the workers on the way.
The lobby is where they meet suppliers and people who don’t work at the plant. Krieg is standing there, not saying a thing, swaying slowly, almost imperceptibly, as though he had no choice. He looks uncomfortable. In front of him, there’s a delegation of about ten people. They’re dressed in white tunics and their heads are shaved. They watch Krieg in silence. One of them wears a red tunic.
He goes up to them and shakes the hand of each one. Then he apologizes for being late. Krieg says that Marcos, the manager, will now look after them, and excuses himself to take a phone call.
Krieg walks away quickly without looking back, as though the members of the church were contagious. He runs his hands over his trousers, cleansing himself of something that could be sweat, or rage.
Once Krieg is gone, he goes up to the man he recognizes as the spiritual master, which is what they call the leader, and holds out his hand. He asks the man for the papers that permit and certify the sacrifice. He looks them over and sees that everything is in order. The spiritual master tells him that the church member who will be immolated has been examined by a doctor and has prepared his testament and performed his departure ritual. The man gives him another piece of paper that’s been stamped and certified by a notary and says, “I, Gastón Schafe, authorize my body to be used as food for other people,” and contains a signature and ID number. Gastón Schafe steps forward in his red tunic. He’s a seventy-year-old man.
Gastón Schafe smiles and recites the Church of the Immolation’s creed passionately and with conviction: “The human being is the cause of all evil in this world. We are our own virus.”
All of the church members raise their hands and shout, “Virus.”
Gastón Schafe continues, “We are the worst kind of vermin, destroying our planet, starving our fellow man.”
He’s interrupted again. “Fellow man,” shout the church members.
“My life will truly take on meaning once my body feeds another human being, one who truly needs it. Why waste my protein value in a meaningless cremation? I’ve lived my life, that’s good enough for me.”
In unison, all the church members shout, “Save the planet, immolate yourself!”
A few months back, a young woman had been chosen for sacrifice. In the middle of the church’s discourse, Mari came downstairs shouting. A young woman committing suicide was an atrocity, she said, no one was saving the planet, the whole thing was nonsense, she wouldn’t allow a bunch of lunatics to brainwash a woman so young, they should be embarrassed, maybe consider mass suicide, and if they really wanted to help, why didn’t they donate all their organs. A Church of the Immolation whose members were alive was utterly grotesque, she shouted, until finally he wrapped his arms around her and took her to another room. He sat Mari down and gave her a glass of water and waited until she was calm. She cried a little and then composed herself. “Why don’t they just give themselves to the black market, why do they have to come here?” Mari asked him, her face contorted.