Tender is the Flesh(43)

“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 any more.”

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. He detests Doctor 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 Doctor 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 Doctor 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, Doctor 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 had stopped listening.

“I didn’t say anything.”

Doctor 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. Doctor 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 laboratory, like she always does. The first few times he heaved, got stomach aches, 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.

Doctor 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 “Doctor Mengele” behind her back, but then experimenting on humans was naturalized 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 fulfil 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.