But the answer lay inside the box; I only had to open it. Inside were two envelopes. One contained the electrocardiogram I had been given at Marcelo’s firm the morning I had gone there applying for a job. In the other, I found a letter from him. I immediately recognized the spidery writing of someone learning to write with their mouth. On those sheets of paper, Marcelo responded definitively to all the questions I had never asked him. As I read his words, my hand shook and my eyes brimmed with tears. As logical as he was sentimental, Marcelo began by going back to the first morning we met. I was able to confirm that I caused the impact on him I had always suspected. He devoted a couple of paragraphs to praising my charms: my sprite-like appearance, my lucid gaze, the courage of someone who has had to fight for everything that he thought he could perceive in every one of my gestures. This was followed by a long list of attributes that were far from common in the rarefied atmosphere where he moved. Marcelo was fed up with gorgeous women incapable of arousing anything in him apart from biological yearnings. He had become immune to the showy, excessive, faultless beauty all around him. It was something that he already felt, but that until he met me had been only a vague sense of unease. That day, however, striving to understand why my sudden appearance had stirred him up so much, he suddenly realized how he detested the sophisticated lack of authenticity that prevailed in his realm. Prey to a strange impulse, he remained in his office until daylight was completely extinguished and the tower was empty. Abandoning his aerie, he spurned the elevators and walked down through the different floors, passing through each of the regions that made up his kingdom in a slow, nostalgic tour, like a ghost setting out on its rounds. He went through empty rooms and offices until he reached the recruitment department. There, his pulse racing with schoolboy excitement, he searched for my file among the piles strewn over the desks, desperate to know my name, age, and likes and dislikes, to discover everything about me before that first fateful meeting that had intertwined our destinies once and for all. It angered him to find the file among those who had been turned down, but his blood ran cold when he discovered that the reason for it was an incurable myocardial ischemia. According to his medical team, he had fallen in love with a woman who, unbeknownst to her, was afflicted with a damaged heart, a heart like a time bomb waiting to explode in the middle of her chest. Caressing the file, Marcelo thought things over for a long while. There was no solution to the illness but a transplant. And in his own chest he had a strong, healthy heart he did not know what to do with. Taking out his lighter, he brought the flame to the tip of the folder and watched it burn with a complicit smile. The next day, no woman was going to receive the news that she was condemned to die. That night, sitting in the darkness in the midst of mountains of files, Marcelo took stock, weighed everything up, and finally decided to redeem his worthless existence with a magnanimous act. He would look after this stranger, build a world without anxiety for her, fulfill her every desire, like a Pygmalion from the heights. And finally, when the moment came, he would make the sacrifice that would save both that woman’s life and his own.
The very next morning, he set to work. He phoned me at home to inform me that I did not fit the profile they were looking for, and to invite me to have the coffee I had spilled. The fact that I might also fall in love with him was not absolutely necessary, but it made everything easier. Every night, Marcelo watched me smile, stroke his hand, and celebrate his witty remarks, and he smiled as well, because he had confirmed that his heart and my body would not reject each other, since he knew that in each and every one of the hospitals in the city a team of surgeons was waiting like musketeers on guard, because the entire universe was on high alert. The idea of chopping himself up only occurred to him later on. And he didn’t do this so that when the moment of truth came for him to donate his heart nothing would make him back out. He embarked on his meticulous subtractions moved by the desire to see the effect his loving donations had on me, as he would not be there to see the expression on my face when he gave me his final gift. He was hoping that at the very least I would not hate him.
My tears soaked the last page of his letter. Moved so much I was unable to stop weeping, I raised my hand to my heart. Beneath my fingertips, I felt Marcelo’s heartbeats; heartbeats that often, as I slept curled up on his chest, I had heard like a calm, protective, subterranean rumble—a rhythm breathing life into the man who in turn gave me life. Now those heartbeats belonged to me. They were mine. If we disregard the contents of the freezer, they were all I had left of Marcelo.
I had a lengthy convalescence in which to absorb the enormity of his gesture. On leaving the hospital, I discovered that Marcelo had given me not only his heart, but also his house and enough money to enable me to live the quiet life the doctors were recommending. I devoted myself to it. I went back to my yoga classes and walks in the park, but I exchanged soap operas for jigsaw puzzles. And despite the fact that some nights his absence seemed to me unbearable, and all I wanted to do was to surrender, give in, to put an end to this borrowed existence that seemed to me like a jail sentence, I never did. I had to understand that, despite being on my own, I really wasn’t. Marcelo ran through my veins, saw through my eyes, beat inside my chest. All I had to do was lead a life worthy of his sacrifice. To live for us both. Until the day that he took pity and decided to end the heartbeats.
The Seven (or So) Lives of Sebastian Mingorance
The weatherman had warned of it two days in advance: a storm was coming that weekend. He delivered this forecast with total self-assurance, framed by an image of the country as seen by the celestial eye of the weather satellite, the area of low pressure resembling the entrails of a burst pillow. And for once, he appeared to be right, thought Sebastian Mingorance, studying the gray, unforgiving sky from his bedroom window, through which glided enormous black clouds, sinister as stealth bombers. This collusion of clouds frustrated his plans to go fishing, forcing him to spend the weekend confined to his tiny bachelor pad. And long may it remain so, he would declare to his friends when they met for a drink at the bar, although it was just a pretense, to show he was happy with what he had to that censorial group of first-time fathers, callow youths with dark circles under their eyes, whose continuity had been achieved with a pelvic thrust; pitiful cabin boys awash in a sea of bottles and diapers. And so Sebastian Mingorance resigned himself to a tedious day at home, fending off the claustrophobia of boredom by mainlining the drowsy opiate of television, or by playing solitaire, it made no difference; anything was better than succumbing to the humiliation of opening his briefcase and catching up on his reports. Anything. He made himself a cup of coffee and hurriedly pulled on some clothes to go out and buy the distraction of a newspaper before the storm broke.
When he reached the street, still in the doorway after sprinting downstairs, he was overwhelmed by his customary paralysis. At the end of the street on the right was Felipe’s newsstand. On the left was Bernardo’s newsstand. The door to Mingorance’s apartment block was exactly midway between the two. Felipe was a nervy youngster with a forward manner, who hawked his newspapers with exaggerated urgency as if performing a rescue operation. Bernardo, on the other hand, was a reserved old man with faltering gestures, who hawked his newspapers with discreet indifference, as if engaged in a contraband operation. Mingorance found both attitudes equally irritating, and as a result, he always had difficulty deciding which way to go; especially when, as now, he didn’t have the right money, and would inevitably be given change: from Felipe, a tiresome handful of coins that would always escape as they were thrust into his palm, or, from Bernard, a sweaty assortment of coppers that would invariably miss the target of his upturned hand. Either way, Mingorance would find himself scrabbling on the ground for coins. Whether when he did so he received on the back of his head a blast of cheap tobacco or a whiff of hair of the dog was up to him. His final decision, taken without resorting to reason, which given the circumstances was completely pointless, never ceased to bemuse Mingorance. He neve
r knew what made him turn right instead of left, or vice versa, although he sensed that the choice wasn’t quite a conscious one. And since he considered it excessively demeaning to give the credit to his feet, he preferred to imagine it had nothing to do with him, and that instead a higher power, a kind of cosmic puppet master, was guiding him in one direction or the other, following some mysterious design.
On that Saturday, then, for no particular reason, Mingorance turned left when he could just have easily turned right. Conversely, Mingorance I the Irresolute, whom we shall designate thus to distinguish him from the original for reasons that will soon become clear, turned right when he could just as easily have turned left. At the end of the street, cocooned in the bunker of his newsstand, his newspapers protected beneath plastic sheeting, Bernardo watched the advancing storm clouds with a knowing eye, as Noah must have studied the sky moments before the prophesied flood. At the far end of the street, Fernando contemplated the rain clouds with an apathy that revealed his generation’s inbred foolish anticonformism, leaving it until the last moment to cover his newspapers. The first raindrops surprised Mingorance and Mingorance I the Irresolute as they were picking up the coins strewn on the ground. Both shielded their heads with their newspapers, and made for the doorway to their building, trotting in that silly way that isn’t quite running, but that, when performed elegantly, is a supple movement of the legs that can amount to a brief and somewhat striking display of physical prowess. During his little sprint, Mingorance I the Irresolute narrowly avoided colliding with his neighbor from across the street, also on his way to the newsstand, although his trot was a great deal more lithe and synchronized, suggesting calf muscles honed on an exercise bike. Mingorance I the Irresolute eyed him with contempt. He only knew his neighbor by sight, from spying on him out of his window, and yet he felt the same hatred for him as he would if he had confessed during a drunken spree that he liked to rub himself against nine-year-old girls on public transport. In fact, he represented everything that Mingorance I the Irresolute secretly longed to be: with his denim jeans and shoulder-length hair, he looked like a cool teenager, one of those people with the cosmopolitan air of an adventurer, who always applies the tourniquets when there’s a train crash.
He was brooding over this when he spotted the girl on the sidewalk, the rain making her red curls bedraggled. Her slender body was leaning over a bicycle chained to an orange tree, her pearl-white hand stubbornly squeezing the back tire as if she refused to accept that she lived in such a sickeningly cinematic world, where punctures always happen during a downpour. Their gazes collided conveniently and, even as Mingorance I the Irresolute’s step slowed, by way of compensation his pulse quickened. All that beauty concentrated in one woman, right there, in the middle of nowhere, within anyone’s grasp, took his breath clean away. It was obvious she wasn’t local but rather was there on an errand or a social visit, and that with her bicycle out of service she would have trouble getting home. Seeing her stranded as the rain poured more heavily, desperately searching the buildings with no sheltering doorways and the spindly orange trees even as the rising wind tore at her coat, led Mingorance I the Irresolute to consider the possibility of helping her out. He seriously thought of going up to her and inviting her for a coffee in his apartment until the storm blew over, but was dissuaded by the certainty that he would be unable to accompany the offer with a smile free from insinuation and awkwardness. He had been chaste for many years, and the mere idea of her following him into his lair filled his veins with a clumsy, feverish desire. He doubted he would even make it to the front door, and imagined pouncing on her in the hallway, grunting as he took her on the landing. Or, what was worse, he imagined reaching the apartment safe and sound, his fingers abashed by her celestial curves, his manhood dead and buried before all that beauty. In short, he imagined himself reduced to a shy, ungainly teenager, who, with tragic symbolism, would end up spilling his coffee all over her skirt. Clearly, the budget for the film of his life didn’t stretch to include a woman like her. And so, true to his name, Mingorance I the Irresolute walked on by, cravenly leaving her to the rigors of the weather, excusing his lack of courage with a foolish grin, even as he puzzled over the way others always get the best things in life, already thinking about arriving home and abandoning himself to another of those sad, bitter masturbation sessions that punctuated his bachelorhood.
However, Mingorance II the Intrepid had other plans. Compelled possibly by the many years of famine, by a frustration that threatened to become chronic, and because the memory of Belen’s docile blow jobs had all but faded—Belen, that incompetent, bucktoothed secretary, whose brief sojourn at the company was justified only by her ability to alleviate the tensions of practically the entire male staff with her rabbit-like mouth. For this and possibly a thousand other reasons too tedious and numerous to mention, Mingorance II the Intrepid told himself that in the end we construct our own lives, brick by brick, and if we keep missing the opportunities, we will have difficulty getting anywhere. And so, taking advantage of the timely cloudburst backed up by distant rumbles of thunder, Mingorance II the Intrepid approached with his most innocent smile that rare, exotic butterfly suddenly within reach of his net.
Halting at a prudent distance, he debated whether or not to take another step forward, the way tigers do when confronted by a rustle in the undergrowth, and then, in a reedy voice, dizzy from the scent of perfume and female perspiration reaching him on the breeze, he invited her up to his place for coffee. She looked at him with a mixture of appreciation and mistrust, as though speculating about the possible dangers of being locked in an apartment with a stranger in this era of extravagant perversions. However, the timid fellow holding his paper over his head must have struck her as harmless, friendly even, because, after scrutinizing the sky filling with leaden clouds, she accepted the offer with a polite smile. Although taken aback by her acceptance of his offer, Mingorance II the Intrepid managed gallantly to hoist the bicycle onto his shoulder and set off toward his lair, grateful for the rain that hid his tears as the pedal dug painfully into his shoulder blade. The wind flung the dead leaves against the passersby like ninja stars. Suddenly plunged into the silence of a lengthy courtship, they reached the doorway to his building, passing on the way Mingorance I the Irresolute, who was watching the neighbor opposite as he chatted excitedly to the girl with the bicycle. He looked on with infinite sadness as she examined the storm clouds then nodded with a smile, while his neighbor hoisted her bicycle onto his shoulder, taking care not to let the pedal dig in to him. They crossed the road struggling against the wind: he disgustingly solid, like a menhir; she touchingly fragile, like a hut made of straw. Giggling like a couple of kids, they reached the entrance, while Mingorance I the Irresolute, the girl’s laughter piercing his heart like a glass shard, began to mount the stairs, treading close on the heels of Mingorance II the Intrepid, who was carrying a bicycle and a dream.
Mingorance didn’t even hear them enter, distracted as he was at his window. He was watching the arrival of the storm with a melancholy that was doubly melancholic, for, added to the sadness one always feels on rainy days, there was the sight of his neighbor opposite, festooned with a punctured bicycle, approaching the entrance to his building accompanied by a young girl with a shock of red hair. Yet again, his neighbor seemed determined to show him that he knew how to live life, that he was able to get the best out of it even in the most adverse circumstances, including a redhead in the midst of a storm. Mingorance spied on him with contempt. He only knew him by sight, and yet he felt the same hatred for him as he would if he had confessed during a drunken spree to knowing someone in the morgue who let him do things to dead people. He represented everything Mingorance secretly longed to be: he was one of those people who, when a ship is sinking and the passengers are crammed onto the lifeboats, appears at the last moment clutching a little girl’s lost dog, as if he had pulled it out of a hat.
Such was life, thought Mingorance; some people feast
on everything, while others content themselves with the crumbs. And he had always found a kind of bitter irony in the fact that their buildings were almost identical, so much so that they were like reflections, and that they happened to live in the same apartment on the same floor, as if fate had arranged things that way on purpose, to make them goad each other on, to make one feel like the negative of the other. He sat down in the armchair and smoothed out the crumpled newspaper, still going over in his mind the scene he had just witnessed. Why did he never bump into beautiful redheads in the rain? Why did his life seem so impervious to such pleasurable coincidences, to chance encounters with the promise of romance? Why did his life always run along such sterile, orderly tracks? What if he had decided to walk toward the right, toward Felipe’s newsstand, and had come across her, stranded in the rain, pleading for shelter with her eyes? But who was he trying to kid? If that had happened, he would be equally alone now in his apartment, annoyed at the innate shyness that would have prevented him from helping her. Or so he concluded, spreading the newspaper on his knees, which were at right angles to those of Mingorance I the Irresolute, who was sitting in the armchair beside him, lamenting the innate shyness that had prevented him from helping the redhead—whom, only a few feet away, Mingorance II the Intrepid was busy relieving of her coat with reverential fingers.
The Heart and Other Viscera Page 15
