Mouthful of Birds

by Samanta Schweblin

  But time passes and nothing happens. Every object is composed of millions of shifting particles, and yet Benavides cannot perceive anything in the room that could be considered movement. Finally, he stands up. He’s slept in his clothes, so now he only has to put on his shoes. He opens the door. His eyes hurt from the light coming in the windows at the end of the hallway. He isn’t sure which of the many doors leads to the room where he left his wife the night before.

  He finds the study, and matters get worse. What it holds, or more like what it doesn’t hold, is distressing. Inside the room, nothing that resembles a suitcase. And the wretchedness finds Benavides even in a house that isn’t his: someone has taken his wife. Walking quickly, he searches the second floor, goes down the stairs, crosses the central hall toward more corridors, enters parts of the house heretofore unknown to him: there are even more hallways, other rooms, winter gardens distributed capriciously throughout the massive house, and a large kitchen into which he bursts, exhausted, only to have three meticulously uniformed cooks look at him for a few seconds, their faces betraying no surprise. But Dr. Corrales is nowhere to be found, and Benavides does not see his suitcase or any other, and he certainly does not find his wife up walking and talking. The women in the kitchen return to their culinary tasks.

  “I’m looking for Dr. Corrales.”

  “He’s having breakfast,” says one of the women.

  Benavides looks back for a moment toward the empty hallways, then turns back to the kitchen.

  “Where?”

  “He’s having breakfast,” repeats the woman. “We don’t know where.”

  Benavides turns back to the hallway. Dr. Corrales is there behind him, holding a steaming cup of coffee and a half-finished piece of cheese bread.

  “You arrived last night in very poor condition, Benavides. A lot of alcohol. I stored your suitcase in the garage. Shall I call a car for you?”

  “You don’t understand. There was an incident last night, a problem, at my house, you see . . .”

  “I understand, Benavides. You know that you don’t have to explain anything here, you just take it easy and be on your way,” says Corrales, offering a piece of cheese bread to Benavides.

  “No, thank you,” says Benavides. “It’s about my wife.”

  “Yes, I know, it’s almost always about that, but what can we do . . .”

  “No, you don’t understand, my wife is dead.”

  “Why do you keep repeating that, Benavides? I tell you, I do understand . . . Mine has been dead since the day we got married. Every once in a while she speaks: she insists that I’m fat, that we have to do something about my mother, and then there’s the matter of the environment . . . but you mustn’t concern yourself with them . . .”

  “No, look, give me my suitcase and I’ll show you.”

  “In the garage, Benavides. I’ll leave you to it now because I have patients waiting.”

  “No, listen . . .”

  “Go home: have yourself a shower, and before you go to bed, take these pills for me, and you’ll just see how well you sleep.”

  Benavides refuses the pills.

  “Come with me, I beg you. I need to show you what I have in the suitcase.”

  Corrales finishes his bread. He sighs and nods, looking at his empty mug.

  They go out the front door and cross the garden. As they walk, a tingling feeling intensifies Benavides’s nerves. They enter through the front of the garage. Inside, it’s dark. Corrales turns on the light and everything is illuminated: tool benches, boxes of old files, broken appliances, and the suitcase, alone and upright in the middle of the garage.

  “Show me, Benavides.”

  Benavides walks over to the suitcase and rolls it slowly. He moves it with the intention of laying it down; he has the hope he will feel the light weight of an empty valise. Then it would all be a mistake, as Corrales himself explained last night when Benavides had shown up—drunk, as Corrales said just now. I’m sorry, Corrales, I swear this won’t happen again, he will have to say. Or maybe, on opening the suitcase and finding it empty, his eyes would meet Corrales’s complicit gaze; maybe Corrales would say, It’s over, Benavides, you don’t owe me anything. But when he takes the handle, the weight of a body much like his wife’s reminds him that actions have consequences. His face goes pale, he feels weak, and the suitcase falls onto its side with a thud and stains the floor with a dark, thick liquid.

  “Do you feel all right, Benavides?”

  Benavides replies, “Yes, of course.” He can’t think of anything but the twisted-up body. The suitcase gives off a smell of putrefaction.

  “What’s in it, Benavides?”

  Then Benavides discovers his error: trusting Dr. Corrales, having faith in the doctor. As if a man dedicated to health in life could ever contend with death. So he says, “Nothing.”

  “What do you mean, ‘nothing’?”

  “I mean, don’t worry about it. You go see your patients now and I’ll manage here.”

  “Is this a joke?”

  Corrales approaches. Benavides bends down and holds on to the buckles so Corrales can’t open them, but the doctor kneels down next to him and says, “Let me see, come now, move.” And with a simple shove, Benavides falls over. Corrales struggles with the buckles but can’t open them: pushed to their limit by the suitcase’s excess load, they resist.

  “Help me,” orders Corrales.

  “No, look here . . .”

  “I’m telling you to help me, Benavides. Stop this nonsense,” says Corrales, indicating Benavides should sit on the suitcase. Benavides finds the most opportune spot on the irregular leather surface, and puts the weight of his body on top of his wife’s. Corrales is strong, and together they finally manage to unbuckle the clasps.

  Benavides stands up and moves away from the suitcase that, though now unbuckled, has still not been opened. He doesn’t want to see. Rapid pulses squeeze his heart. Corrales studies the scene. He knows, thinks Benavides when he sees the doctor stand up and walk toward him. Corrales stops beside him and looks at the suitcase. In a low voice, almost hypnotized, he orders Benavides:

  “Open it.”

  Benavides stays where he is. Maybe he thinks that this is the end, or maybe he’s not thinking about anything, but ultimately he obeys and walks over to the suitcase. When he opens it, he forgets Corrales for a moment: his wife is curled up like a fetus, her head bent inward, her knees and elbows forced into the rigid, leather-lined box, her fat filling up all the empty space. What a thing, nostalgia, Benavides says to himself. All those years just to see her like this.

  Threads of blood trickle toward him over the floor. Corrales’s voice returns him to reality:

  “Benavides . . .” And the doctor’s cracked voice betrays his anguish.

  “Benavides . . .” Corrales, walking slowly, approaches the suitcase without taking his eyes from its contents. His eyes, full of tears, finally turn to meet Benavides’s gaze. “Benavides . . . This is drastic. It’s . . . It’s . . . wonderful,” he concludes.

  Benavides, dubious, stays silent. He looks back at the suitcase but what he sees is what is there: his wife, purple, coiled like a worm in tomato sauce.

  “Wonderful,” repeats Corrales, shaking his head. He looks at the suitcase for a moment, then at Benavides, as if he can’t understand how Benavides has been able to do such a thing for himself. “You are a genius. And to think that I underestimated you, Benavides. A genius. Let’s see. Let me clear my head—it’s no small thing you’re proposing with this . . .” He rests his arm around Benavides’s shoulders with friendly enthusiasm. “Well, let me offer you a drink. Believe it or not, I know just the person you need.”

  Corrales lets go of Benavides and heads toward the garage exit.

  “Genius, truly beautiful,” he repeats in a low voice as he walks away. Benavides takes a moment to
react, but as soon as he understands that he’s about to be left alone, he looks at his suitcase one last time and runs after the doctor.

  * * *

  Olives, sliced cheese and salami, potato chips, little cheese-flavored crackers, onion and ham. Everything neatly arranged on a large wooden tray on the coffee table in the main living room, along with three fine crystal glasses into which Corrales pours white wine.

  “Donorio, this is my friend Benavides, the man I’ve told you so much about.”

  Donorio curiously studies Benavides’s small body and finally puts out his hand. Corrales smiles, pours more wine, and invites the men to eat something.

  “Donorio, you have no idea what you’re about to see,” says Corrales. “Now, I don’t want to sound arrogant, I know you have experience with great artists. But even so, I don’t think you can imagine what we’ve got prepared for you. Isn’t that right, Benavides?”

  Benavides finishes off his wine in one gulp.

  “I want to see it,” says Donorio.

  * * *

  They cross in the night from the house to the garage. Corrales goes first, enjoying the slow walk toward success; Donorio follows, distrustful but curious. Finally, lagging, sensing the suitcase nearby, Benavides feels his fragile nerves gather into large and fibrous knots.

  Corrales has the men enter in darkness, since he prefers the impact the sudden image will have when he turns on the light.

  “Benavides, guide Donorio to you-know-what and let me know when he’s ready.”

  Benavides stops in the center of the garage. Feeling his way in the darkness, guided by the sounds, Donorio comments:

  “There’s a strange smell . . . as though of . . .”

  “Here comes the light,” says Corrales, and in effect, with the tips of Benavides’s and Donorio’s shoes nearly touching the pool of thick blood, it appears in front of them, horrible, defiant, authentically innovative: the work.

  What is violence if not this very thing we are witness to now? thinks Donorio, and a shiver runs from his legs to the nape of his neck. Violence reproduced before his eyes in its most primitive form. Savage. He could touch it, smell it. It was fresh and intact and awaiting a response from its viewers.

  Corrales joins them.

  “This is going to go over well,” says Donorio.

  Corrales nods. Beside them, Benavides’s small body trembles. His weak voice speaks for the first time in Donorio’s presence.

  “You don’t understand,” he manages to say.

  “How could we not, Benavides?” says Corrales.

  “It’s extraordinary!” says Donorio. “Horror and beauty! What a combination . . .”

  “Horror, yes, but . . .” Benavides stammers, looking at his wife. “I mean that . . .”

  “You’re going to be rich, famous! There is zero competition with a work like this one. The public will fall at your feet.”

  “Trust him, Benavides, Donorio is the best there is.”

  “Oh, no, Benavides here is the best,” concludes Donorio. “I’m just a curator, my part is minimal. The important thing here is the work, Violence, understand?”

  “My wife.”

  “No, Benavides, believe me, I know marketing and that won’t work. The title is Violence.”

  A new anguish, uncontrollable. And Benavides confesses:

  “I killed her. I killed her . . . then I just wanted to hide her.”

  Corrales gives Benavides a few affectionate pats on the back, but his attention is directed purely and exclusively at Donorio’s instructions.

  “It’ll be best if we conserve it in a cold environment. Do you have air-conditioning in the garage?”

  “Yes, yes, of course.”

  “I killed her!” Benavides falls to his knees.

  “Good, then let’s start by refrigerating the place. I’m going to make a couple of calls.” Donorio takes a few steps toward the door but soon he stops and turns toward Corrales, full of sincerity. Benavides’s wailing obliges him to raise his voice: “I’m grateful to you for thinking of me. This is a big opportunity.”

  “Me, I killed her, like this . . .” Benavides pounds his closed fists on the floor. “I killed her like this.”

  “Donorio, ask for the phone and take care of what you need to do,” says Corrales as he walks the curator to the door.

  “Like this, I killed her like this.”

  Benavides drags himself over the floor in no particular direction, pounding against the floor whatever objects he finds. “Like that, like that!”

  “Don’t amuse yourself here, Corrales,” says Donorio, already in the doorway. “There will be time later for contemplation and delight.”

  “I understand perfectly. You go on and we’ll catch up with you.”

  Donorio nods and goes out into the garden. When Corrales turns, a now listless Benavides is pounding on his wife’s body.

  “I did it. Me,” Benavides mutters. Corrales stops him.

  “Leave her be, Benavides! She’s perfect like that, don’t ruin her.”

  “But I killed her . . .”

  “Yes, Benavides, yes. We know it was you, no one is going to take that away from you,” says Corrales as he helps Benavides stand up. He adds: “Trust us with this, you’ll just see how you take your place among the stars.”

  “The sky?” asks Benavides. “With my wife?”

  He feels that something is wrong in his head, there’s something he can’t manage to understand, and his body falls, collapsing beside the suitcase.

  * * *

  In the light of a new day, Benavides wakes up and opens his eyes. For a moment he believes he is in his own bed, beside his wife, on a normal unhappy morning. But soon he remembers the truth and sits up. Where is his wife now? In the garage? Still in the suitcase? Has Donorio taken her? Corrales? He leaves the room. He’s been wearing the same clothes for two days now, and in the hallway’s harsh light he can see that parts of his clothes are taking on a grayish hue. Although he estimates he has slept for a prudent number of hours, he has not rested. He feels exhausted, and he realizes that once again he must scour the rooms in search of Dr. Corrales. After some time, once he has checked the study, the first-floor rooms, the entrance hall, the living room, the hallways around the winter gardens, Benavides—fortuitously, as on the previous day—comes across the kitchen and asks the women:

  “Corrales?”

  They reply in the negative.

  This time Benavides will not go looking for him. Some men wait apathetically for others to command them. But he will solve this on his own, and at once. He will call a taxi and take his wife home. He’s already leaving the house and crossing the garden. Halfway to the garage he stops: in front of its open doors he sees a dozen men dressed in blue rushing about. On their backs gleams a logo printed on a white rectangle: “Museum of Modern Art. Installation and Transportation.” Benavides realizes that the garage has been entirely emptied out. That is, all the furniture, every item or object that once formed part of the household landscape, has been removed, and now, in a larger, empty space, alone, unique, original, sits the work. And there are Corrales and Donorio, attentive, cordial, open to the artist’s feelings:

  “How did you sleep, Benavides?”

  “That’s my wife.”

  Corrales looks at Donorio, and in his voice is the slow melody of growing disappointment.

  “I told you, Donorio, this kind of site-specific exhibit is not to the artist’s liking. We should have brought the work to the museum.”

  “My wife.”

  “I’ve been working in this field for years, Corrales. Believe me, the public will prefer it this way.”

  “But she’s my wife.”

  “But, Benavides, you are not an artist for the common man. Your work is directed at a select audience of intellectuals, minds that scorn ev
en the innovations of the museum, men who appreciate something more, above and beyond the simple work. That is . . .”

  Donorio’s arm gestures in a flourish toward the garage, while Benavides and Corrales await his conclusion.

  “Context,” Donorio finishes.

  “Beautiful, quite so . . . How absurd to question his strategy,” says Corrales.

  “But she’s my wife,” Benavides repeats.

  “Benavides, please, this subject has already been discussed. The subject is not ‘the wife,’ it’s ‘violence’ . . . Let’s not go back over this, I beg you. We’ve agreed,” he sighs. “As I was saying: context. In any case, we’re going to add certain elements. Getting out of the museum is a novel way to go, but we must maintain standards, the right environment.”

  “Yes, of course . . .” says Corrales.

  Benavides repeats once more what he has already said over and over. He moves away from the men and approaches the suitcase. Donorio signals to the men in blue; Benavides makes a break for it. Someone shouts, “Don’t let him touch it!” and everyone stops what they’re doing to run after Benavides’s short steps, and he barely manages to touch the suitcase’s handle before a dozen heavy blue bodies pile on top of him. What a disgrace, his disgrace; in the darkness of other men’s weight, he concludes that death must be something like this. From far away, Donorio’s voice reaches him: precise instructions to be executed upon his own person. And that is the end of his short third day.

  * * *

  Benavides wakes up in the light of a new day, still far from his bed and his wife. This time he goes barefoot, without even shielding his body from the cold; he stands up and goes right out of the room, down the hallway and the stairs, out of the house and across the garden to reach the garage. The men in blue are gone. They’ve hung bright halogen lights from the ceiling, and there, in the middle of the room, the open suitcase frames the coiled body of his abandoned wife.