He detests being this efficient. But he doesn’t stop answering, resolving problems, trying to find the best option for the plant.
“Who are they going to arrest? Over a hundred people living deprived, marginal lives? How will they know who killed Luisito, who to blame? If it shows up in the security footage that’s one thing, but it’ll be a long time before that happens.”
“You’re right. Say they arrest two or three of them; we’ll still have problems with the others. But how many head do we need to kill them all?”
“Not all of them, we’ll kill enough for the rest to leave.”
“Right.”
“These people exist outside the law. It’s unlikely they even have IDs. If we don’t do something, we could be talking years for the investigation, and in the interim they’ll overturn more trucks because now they know how to do it.”
“Tomorrow I’ll have armed staff on duty for the trucks’ arrival.”
“That too. Though I don’t think they’ll risk it.”
“You didn’t see the wild look on their faces.”
“I did. But they’ll be tired and fed. Though I do agree it’s a good idea to have armed staff now.”
“Good. I trust this is going to work.”
He doesn’t say anything, just shakes Krieg’s hand and says he’s going home. Krieg says okay, that he should absolutely go home, and apologizes for having called him at a time like this.
As he drives away from the plant, he sees the destroyed truck again, the blue lights of the police cars approaching, the blood on the pavement.
He wants to pity the Scavengers and be sorry about Luisito’s fate, but he doesn’t feel a thing.
19
He gets home and goes straight to Jasmine’s room. He hasn’t looked at his phone once to see if she’s okay. It’s the first time since he installed the cameras that he’s forgotten to check on her.
When he opens the door, he sees that Jasmine is lying down and looks to be in pain. She’s touching her belly and her nightgown is stained. He runs up to her and sees that the mattress is soaked with a brownish green fluid. “No!” he yells. He knows, because of all he’s read, that if the amniotic fluid is green or brown, there’s a problem with the baby. He doesn’t know what to do other than pick Jasmine up and take her to his bed so she’s more comfortable. Then he grabs his phone and calls Cecilia. “I need you to come over now.”
“Marcos?”
“Get in your mom’s car and drive here.”
“But Marcos, what’s going on?”
“Just come over now, Cecilia. I need you here now.”
“But I don’t understand. You sound different, I don’t recognize you.”
“I can’t explain over the phone, just know that I need you to come now.”
“Okay, I’m on my way.”
He knows she’ll be a while. Her mother’s house isn’t in the city, but it’s not close either.
When he hangs up, he runs to the kitchen, grabs some dish towels, and wets them. He puts the cold cloth to Jasmine’s forehead. Then he tries to give her an ultrasound, but he doesn’t detect a problem. He touches her belly and says, “Everything’s gonna be just fine, little one, just fine, your birth’s gonna go well, everything’s gonna be just fine.” He gives Jasmine some water. Over and over he says these words, he can’t stop, though he knows his child might die. He can’t bring himself to get up and take care of the things that need to be done for labor, like boil water. Instead, he doesn’t move and clings to Jasmine, who’s becoming paler by the minute.
He looks at the print hanging above his bed, at the Chagall his mother loved so much. It’s then that he prays, in a way. He asks his mother for help, wherever she is.
That’s when he hears a car engine and runs outside. He hugs Cecilia. She steps back and looks at him with surprise. He puts his hand on her arm, but before he takes her inside, he says, “I need you to have an open mind. I need you to set aside whatever you might feel and be the professional nurse I know.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Marcos.”
“Come and I’ll show you. Please help me.”
When they enter the room, Cecilia sees a woman lying on the bed, pregnant. Cecilia looks at him with sadness in her eyes, and a bit of surprise, and confusion. But then she moves closer and sees the mark on the woman’s forehead. “Why is there a female in my bed? Why didn’t you call a specialist?”
“The baby is mine.”
She looks at him with disgust. Then she takes a few steps back, crouches down, and puts her head between her hands, as though she were about to faint.
“Are you crazy? Do you want to end up in the Municipal Slaughterhouse? How could you have been with a female? You’re sick.”
He goes to her, slowly lifts her to her feet, and hugs her. Then he says, “The amniotic fluid is green, Cecilia, the baby’s going to die.”
As though his words were magical, she begins to move and tells him to start boiling water, to bring clean towels, alcohol, more pillows. He runs through the house looking for these things while she examines Jasmine and tries to calm her down.
The labor lasts several hours. Jasmine pushes instinctively, but Cecilia can’t make herself understood. He tries to help, but feels Jasmine’s fear and it paralyzes him. All he can do is say, “It’s gonna be fine, everything’s gonna be just fine,” until Cecilia shouts that she can see a foot. He panics. Cecilia tells him to leave, she says he’s making both her and Jasmine nervous, and that the birth could be complicated. She tells him to wait outside.
He waits behind the door to the room, his ear pressed against the wood. There are no shouts, just Cecilia’s voice saying, “Come on, honey, push, push, that’s it, come on, you can do this, harder, it’s on its way now, come on, love, that’s it, that’s it,” as though Jasmine could understand her. Then there’s complete silence. The minutes pass and he hears Cecilia yell, “No! Come on, little one, turn around, come on, honey, push, come on, it’s almost there, almost there. Please, God, help me. You are not going to die on me, no fucking way, not while I’m here. Come on, love, that’s it, you can do this.” For a few minutes he doesn’t hear anything, and then he hears a cry, and goes in.
His child is in Cecilia’s arms. She’s covered in sweat, her hair is a mess, but she’s smiling, and it lights up her face.
“It’s a boy.”
He goes up to her and takes the baby in his arms, rocks him, kisses him. The baby cries. Cecilia says that the umbilical cord needs to be cut, and the baby cleaned and wrapped up. She says this between tears, she’s emotional, happy.
Once she’s taken care of these things, Cecilia hands back the baby, who’s now calmed down. He looks at his son in disbelief. “He’s beautiful,” he says, “he’s just beautiful.” He feels the shards of stone shrink, lose their hold.
Jasmine is in bed and she stretches out her arms. They ignore her, but she opens her mouth and moves her hands. She tries to get up, and then she does, and bumps into the night table with her hips, and knocks over the lamp.
They look at her silently.
“Go get some more towels and water to clean her before you take her out to the barn,” Cecilia tells him.
He gets up and gives his son to Cecilia, who begins to rock and sing to him. “He’s ours now,” he tells her, and she looks at him, unable to respond.
All Cecilia can do is look at the baby and cry silently. She cuddles him and says, “What a beautiful baby, you’re the most adorable baby boy. What are we going to call you?”
He goes to the kitchen and returns with something in his right hand.
Jasmine is only able to stretch out her arms desperately toward her son. She tries to get up again but is cut by the pieces of glass on the floor from the broken lamp.
He sits down behind Jasmine. She looks back at him in despair. First he puts his arms around her and kisses the mark on her forehead. He tries to calm her down. Then he gets onto his knees on the floor and say
s, “Easy does it, everything’s gonna be just fine, take it easy.” With a wet rag he wipes the sweat from her forehead. He sings “Summertime” into her ear.
When she calms down a little, he stands up and grabs her by the hair. Jasmine, now only able to move her hands, is trying to reach her son. She wants to speak, to scream, but there are no sounds. He picks up the club he brought from the kitchen and hits her on the forehead, right where she’s been branded. Jasmine falls to the floor, stunned, unconscious.
Cecilia jumps when she hears the thud and looks at him without understanding. “Why?” she yells. “She could have given us more children.”
As he drags the body of the female to the barn to slaughter it, he says to Cecilia, his voice radiant, so pure it wounds: “She had the human look of a domesticated animal.”
Acknowledgments
To Liliana Díaz Mindmurry, Félix Bruzzone, Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, Pilar Bazterrica, Ricardo Uzal García, Camila Bazterrica Uzal, Lucas Bazterrica Uzal, Juan Cruz Bazterrica, Daniela Benítez, Antonia Bazterrica, Gaspar Bazterrica, Fermín Bazterrica, Fernanda Navas, Rita Piacentini, Bemi Fiszbein, Pamela Terlizzi Prina, Alejandra Keller, Laura Lina, Mónica Piazza, Agustina Caride, Valeria Correa Fiz, Mavi Saracho, Nicolás Hochman, Gonzalo Gálvez Romano, Diego Tomasi, Alan Ojeda, Marcos Urdapilleta, Valentino Cappelloni, Juan Otero, Julían Pigna, Alejo Miranda, Bernadita Crespo, Ramiro Altamirano, Vivi Valdés.
To my parents, Mercedes Jones and Jorge Bazterrica.
To Mariano Borobio, always.
About the Author and Translator
© DENISE GIOVANELLI
AGUSTINA BAZTERRICA is an Argentine novelist and short story writer. She has received several awards for her writing, most notably the prestigious Clarín Novela Prize for her second novel, Tender Is the Flesh, which has been translated into nine languages and optioned for television.
SARAH MOSES is a writer and a translator of French and Spanish. Her work has appeared in various print and online journals and anthologies, including Brick and Bogotá 39. Her cotranslation (with Carolina Orloff) of Ariana Harwicz’s novel Die, My Love was longlisted for the 2018 Man Booker International Prize.
SimonandSchuster.com
www.SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/Agustina-Bazterrica
www.SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/Sarah-Moses
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by Agustina Bazterrica
English language translation copyright © 2020 by Pushkin Press Limited
Originally published in Argentina in 2017 by Alfaguara as Cadáver Exquisito
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ISBN 978-1-9821-5092-1
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Tender Is the Flesh Page 16
