17
His sister has called countless times to organize the farewell service. She’s clarified she’ll take care of everything, “even the cost”.
When he heard her say this, he smiled at first, but then he was overcome by the feeling that he never wanted to see her again.
He wakes up early because he has to get into the city on time.
Before he leaves, he showers with Jasmine to make sure she doesn’t hurt herself. Then he gets her room ready, cleans it and fills the bowls with food and water so she’ll be fine for a while. He checks her pulse and blood pressure. When he learnt she was pregnant, he put together a complete first-aid kit, picked up books on the subject, brought home a portable ultrasound machine, one of the ones they use at the plant to check impregnated females before they’re sent to the game reserve. He trained himself to care for her and follow the stages of her pregnancy.
Though he knows it’s not ideal, it’s the only option available to him because if he were to call a specialist, he’d have to register the pregnancy and provide documentation for the artificial insemination.
He puts on a suit and leaves.
While he’s driving, his sister calls again.
“Marquitos, are you on your way? Why can’t I see you?”
“I’m driving.”
“Oh, okay. When will you be here?”
“I don’t know.”
“People are starting to arrive. I’d like to have the urn here, as you can imagine. Without the urn there’s no point.”
He hangs up without saying anything. She calls back, but he turns off his phone. Then he slows down. He’ll take all the time he needs.
When he arrives at his sister’s house, he sees a group of people going inside. They’re carrying umbrellas. He gets out of the car, opens the boot and places the silver-plated urn under his arm. Then he rings the bell. His sister answers.
“Finally. Is something wrong with your phone? I couldn’t call you
back.”
“I turned it off. Take the urn.”
“Come in, come in, you don’t have an umbrella again. Do you want to get yourself killed, Marcos?”
His sister says this and looks up at the sky. Then she takes the urn.
“Poor Dad. A life full of sacrifice. And in the end, we’re nothing.”
He looks at his sister and thinks there’s something strange about her. Then he looks more closely and realizes she’s wearing make-up, has been to the hairdresser and has on a tight black dress. None of it’s over the top, so as not to show a complete lack of respect, but she’s sufficiently put together to look good at what is without a doubt her event.
“Come in. Help yourself to whatever you like.”
When he goes into the dining room, he sees that the guests have gathered around the table. It’s been pushed up against the wall and different dishes have been placed on it so people can serve themselves.
His sister carries the urn to a smaller table where there’s a transparent box that looks to be made of etched glass. She places the urn inside the box carefully, with a degree of grandiloquence, so people can see how much she respects her father. Next to the box is an electronic picture frame with images of him changing on the screen, a vase of flowers and a basket full of party favours with his photo and the date of his birth and death on them. The photos have been retouched. He can’t recall there being any shots of his father with his sister and her family, or hugging her kids, because they never went to see him at the nursing home. In another photo, his sister and father are at the zoo. He remembers that day, his sister was a baby. She’s erased him from the photo and inserted herself into it. People approach her and offer their condolences. She takes out a handkerchief and raises it to her tearless eyes.
He doesn’t know anyone. And he’s not hungry. He sits down in an armchair and looks at the people in the room. He sees his niece and nephew in a corner, dressed in black, looking at their phones. They see him but don’t greet him. He doesn’t feel like getting up to talk to them either. People look bored. They eat things from the table, talk quietly.
He hears a tall man in a suit who looks like he might be a lawyer or an accountant, say to another guest, “The price of meat has really dropped recently. Special beef goes for a lot less than it did two months ago. I read this article that said the drop in prices has to do with the fact that
India’s officially decided to sell and export special meat. It was prohibited before and now they’re selling it for hardly anything.”
The man he’s talking to, who’s bald and has a forgettable face, laughs and says, “Well, yeah, there are millions of them. Wait till people start eating them and then the prices will stabilize.” An older woman stops in front of his father’s urn and looks at the photos. She picks up one of the party favours and inspects it. She smells it and then tosses it back into the basket. The woman sees a cockroach on the wall. It’s crawling very close to the electronic picture frame where the fake photos of his father continue to change on the screen. She panics, steps back and leaves. The cockroach crawls into the basket of party favours.
Except for him, there isn’t a single person in the place who knows his father was captivated by birds, that he was passionately in love with his wife and when she died, something in him went out for good.
His sister walks back and forth with short, quick steps, taking care of the guests. He hears her talking to someone and say, “It’s based on the technique of death by a thousand cuts. That’s right, it’s from that book that just came out. The best-seller. I have no idea, my husband’s the one who takes care of it.” What could his sister possibly know about a form of Chinese torture? He stands up and moves closer so he can keep listening, but she heads to the kitchen. When he goes over to the food table, he sees a silver platter containing an arm that’s being filleted. He doesn’t doubt that the arm is oven roasted. It’s surrounded by lettuce and radishes that have been cut to resemble tiny lotus flowers. The guests try the arm and say, “It’s exquisite, really fresh.
Marisa’s such a great hostess. You can tell how much she loved her father.” Then he remembers the cold room.
He goes towards the kitchen, but in the hallway he runs into his
sister.
“Where are you going, Marquitos?”
“To the kitchen.”
“Why are you going to the kitchen? I’ll get you anything you need.”
He doesn’t answer and keeps walking. She grabs him by the arm, but then lets go because the person who was calling her from the dining room has just come up to her to talk.
When he reaches the kitchen, it’s as if he’s been struck by a smell that’s rancid, if fleeting. He walks towards the door to the cold room.
He looks inside and sees a head without an arm. “So she got herself a female, that skank,” he thinks. Domestic heads are a status symbol in the city; they give a household prestige. He looks at the head more closely and when he makes out a few sets of initials, he realizes she’s an FGP. Off to the side on the countertop, he sees a book. His sister doesn’t have books. The book’s title is Domestic Heads: Your Guide to Death by a Thousand Cuts. There are red and brown stains in the book.
He feels he might vomit. Of course, he thinks, she’s going to carve the head up slowly, serving pieces every time she hosts an event. The death by a thousand cuts thing must be some sort of trend if all her guests are talking about it. An activity for the whole family, cutting up the living being in the fridge, based on a thousand-year-old form of Chinese torture. The domestic head looks at him sadly. He tries to
open the door, but it’s locked.
“What are you doing?”
His sister has returned, holding an empty platter in her hands and taps the floor with her right foot. He turns around and sees her there.
That’s when he feels the stone in his chest shatter.
“You disgust me.”
She looks at him, her expression between shocked and indignant.
“How can you say that to me, today of all days. And what’s been going on with you lately? You’ve had this preoccupied look on your face.”
“What’s been going on with me is that you’re a hypocrite and your children are two little shits.”
He shocks himself with the insult. She opens her eyes and mouth, and for a few seconds doesn’t say anything.
“I understand you’re stressed because of Dad, but you can’t insult me like that, you’re in my house.”
“Can’t you see you’re incapable of thinking for yourself? The only thing you do is follow the norms imposed on you. Can’t you see that this whole thing is a superficial act? Are you even capable of feeling something, really feeling it? I mean, have you ever cared about Dad?”
“I think a farewell service was called for, don’t you? It’s the least
we could do for him.”
“You don’t understand anything.”
He walks out of the kitchen and she follows behind, saying he can’t leave, what will people think, he can’t take the urn now, he could at least give her this, the house is full of Esteban’s colleagues and his boss is here, her own brother can’t embarrass her like this. He stops, grabs her by the arm and says into her ear, “If you keep fucking with me, I’ll tell everyone how you did nothing when it came to Dad, understood?” His sister looks at him in fear and takes a few steps back.
He opens the front door and leaves. She runs after him with the urn and reaches the car just before he gets in.
“Take the urn, Marquitos.”
For a few seconds, he looks at her in silence. Then he gets into the car and closes the door. His sister stands there not knowing what to do until she realizes she’s outdoors and doesn’t have an umbrella. She looks up at the sky in fear, covers her head with her hand and runs into the house.
He starts the car and drives away, but first he watches his sister enter the house holding an urn full of dirty sand from an abandoned zoo with no name.