7
Every so often, an inspector from the Office of the Undersecretary for the Control of Domestic Heads shows up at his house. He knows all the inspectors, all those who matter, because when they shut down the Faculty of Veterinary Sciences, when the world was in chaos, when his father began to want to live inside books and would call at three in the morning asking to speak with the Baron in the Trees, so that the man could help him get into the pages, when his father later told him that books were spies from a parallel dimension, when animals became a threat, when at a chilling speed the world was put back together and cannibalism legitimized, he worked there, at the undersecretary’s office. They’d recruited him based on the recommendation of employees from his father’s processing plant. He was one of the people who drafted the regulations and rules, but he lasted less than a year because the salary was low and he had to put his father in the nursing home.
The office first began sending inspectors a few days after the female was brought to his house. The female who at the time had no name, who was a number in a registry, a problem, one domestic head like so many others.
The inspector was young and didn’t know he’d worked for the undersecretary. He took the man to the barn where the female was lying on a blanket, tied up, naked. The inspector didn’t seem surprised and only asked if she’d been given the required vaccines.
“She was a gift and I’m still getting used to her being here. But she’s been vaccinated, I’ll get the papers for you.”
“You could always sell her. She’s an FGP, she’s worth a fortune. I have a list of interested buyers.”
“I’m not sure what I’m going to do yet.”
“I don’t see anything out of the ordinary. My only suggestion is to clean her up a little to prevent disease. Remember that if you decide to slaughter her, you’ll need to contact a specialist who’ll verify you’ve done so and notify us for our records. The same goes for selling her, or if she escapes, or if anything else happens that should be recorded, so we don’t have any issues down the road.”
“Okay, everything’s clear. If I want to slaughter her, I’m certified to do so. I work at a processing plant. How’s El Gordo Pineda doing?”
“You mean Señor Alfonso Pineda?”
“Yeah, El Gordo.”
“No one calls him that, he’s not fat, and he’s our boss.”
“So El Gordo’s a boss. That I can’t believe. I worked with him back when we were kids. Send him my regards.”
After that first visit, El Gordo Pineda himself called to say that the next time an inspector stopped by, they’d only ask for his signature, so as not to bother him.
“Hi, Tejito. Imagine you of all people with a female.”
“Gordo, it’s been ages, mate.”
“Hey, I’m not fat any more! The wife’s got me drinking juice and other crap that healthy people eat. Now I’m thin and miserable. When are we gonna have ourselves a barbecue, Tejito?”
El Gordo Pineda had been his partner back when they’d started carrying out inspections of the first domestic heads. The owners knew what was prohibited and what wasn’t, but they didn’t expect visits from inspectors and the two of them witnessed all sorts of things.
The regulations were adapted on the job. He remembers one case where a woman answered the door. They asked the woman about the female in the home and needed to see her papers, verify that she’d been vaccinated and take a look at her living conditions. The woman got nervous and said that her husband, the female’s owner, wasn’t home, and that they’d have to come back later. He looked at El Gordo and the two of them had the same thought. They moved the woman aside as she was trying to close the door and entered the house. She shouted that they weren’t allowed to come in, that it was illegal and she was going to call the police. El Gordo told her that they were authorized to do so and said she could call the police if she wanted to.
They went from room to room but the female wasn’t there. Then it occurred to him to open closets, check under beds. Eventually they looked in the couple’s room. Underneath the bed was a wooden box with small wheels that was big enough to hold a person lying down.
When they opened it, they saw the female, in what looked like a coffin, unable to move. They didn’t know what to do because regulations hadn’t been drafted for a case of this nature. The female was healthy
and though the wooden coffin wasn’t a conventional place to keep her, it wasn’t reason enough to fine the owner. When the woman walked into the room and saw they’d discovered the female, she broke down.
She began to cry and told them that her husband had sex with the head and not with her, that she couldn’t take it any more, she’d been replaced by an animal, and couldn’t bear the idea of sleeping with that disgusting creature under the bed. She was humiliated and if they sent her to the Municipal Slaughterhouse for being an accomplice, she didn’t care, all she wanted was to go back to a normal life, to life before the Transition. With that statement, they were able to call the team in charge of examining heads for evidence that they’d been “enjoyed”, which was the official word used in such cases. The regulations specify that reproduction is only permitted by artificial means. Semen must be purchased in special banks, and sample implantation carried out by qualified professionals. The whole process has to be documented and certified so that if the female is impregnated, the fetus already has an identification number. As such, domestic females should be virgins. Having sex with a head, enjoying her, is illegal and the sentence is death in the Municipal Slaughterhouse. The special team went to the house and confirmed that the female had been enjoyed “in every possible way”. The owner, a man of around sixty, was sentenced and sent directly to the Municipal Slaughterhouse. The woman was fined and the female confiscated and sold for a low price in an auction because of what is officially referred to as “proscribed enjoyment”.
He’s only had a few hours of sleep after the long drive from the game reserve when he wakes with a start. A car horn is honking.
Jasmine, who’s at his side, looks at him, her eyes open wide. She’s used to keeping still, to watching him, because she sleeps all day and at night he needs her not to move much. That’s why he started tying her to the bed, and she got used to it. He doesn’t want Jasmine wandering through the house when he can’t keep an eye on her. He doesn’t want her to get hurt or for something to happen to his child.
He jumps out of bed and moves the curtain aside. A man in a suit is standing next to a car with the door open and bending down
periodically to honk the horn.
“It’s an inspector,” he thinks.
He opens the front door, in pyjamas, his face twisted with sleep.
“Señor Marcos Tejo?”
“That’s me.”
“I’m from the Office of the Undersecretary for the Control of Domestic Heads. The last inspection was almost five months ago, is that right?”
“That’s correct. Show me where to sign so I can go back to sleep.”
The inspector looks at him with surprise at first, and then with authority, and raising his voice, says, “Excuse me? Where’s the female, Señor Tejo?”
“Look, El Gordo Pineda called to tell me that you’d only need a signature. The last inspector didn’t have a problem.”
“You mean Señor Pineda? He doesn’t work in the department any more.”
A shiver runs along his spine. He tries to think. If the inspector finds out that Jasmine is pregnant, they’ll send him to the Municipal Slaughterhouse. But worse still is they’ll take his child away.
He tries to buy himself some time to figure out what to do. “Why don’t you come in for some mate, I’m half-asleep,” he says. “Just give me a few minutes to wake up.”
“I appreciate the offer but I have to get going. Where’s the female?”
“Come on, just for a bit. You can tell me what happened to Pineda,” he says, sweating, trying not to show he’s nervous.
The inspector hesitates and then says, “All right, but I can’t stay long.”
They sit down in the kitchen. He lights the stove and puts the kettle on the burner. As he’s getting the mate ready, he rambles on about the weather, and about how bad the roads are in the area, and asks the inspector if he likes the work. When he hands the man the mate, he says, “Will you give me a few minutes to wash my face? I got back from a long drive yesterday and I’ve had almost no sleep. You woke me up with all your honking.”
“But before I honked I was clapping my hands for a while.”
“Really? I apologize. I’m a deep sleeper, I didn’t hear a thing.”
The inspector is uncomfortable. It’s clear he wants to leave, but Pineda’s name drew him into the house and that’s what’s keeping him there.
With the inspector in the kitchen, he goes to his room and sees that Jasmine is still in bed. He closes the door and as he walks to the bathroom to wash his face, thinks: What should I do? What should I say?
He returns to the kitchen and offers the inspector some biscuits.
The man accepts them with distrust.
“Did they get rid of El Gordo Pineda?”
The inspector doesn’t answer right away. He tenses up. “How do you know him?” he asks.
“I used to work with him back when he were kids. We’re friends, we were inspectors at the same time. We did your job when hardly any of the regulations had been finalized, we were the ones who adapted them.”
The inspector seems to relax a little and looks at him with different eyes. With a degree of admiration. He helps himself to another biscuit and there’s a hint of what could be a smile on his face.
“I just started, I’ve been doing this for less than two months. They promoted Señor Pineda. I never worked for him, but I’m told he was a great boss.”
He’s relieved, but hides it. “Yeah, El Gordo’s something else. Just give me a second,” he says, and goes to his room to get his phone. He dials El Gordo’s number and returns to the kitchen.
“Gordo, how have you been? Look, I’m here with one of your inspectors. He wants me to show him the female, but the thing is I haven’t slept and she’s out in the barn, and I’d have to open it up—it’ll be a whole ordeal. Didn’t I just have to sign and that was that?”
He hands the phone to the inspector.
“Yes, sir. Of course. We hadn’t been informed. Right, from now on. Consider it taken care of.”
The inspector places the mate off to the side, searches in his briefcase and pulls out a form and a pen. He smiles in a way that’s artificial, tense. It’s a smile that hides several questions and one threat: What are you doing with the female? Are you enjoying her? Are we talking illegal use of another’s property? Just you wait until El Gordo
Pineda isn’t around any more. Just you wait, you with your special privileges, you’re going to pay.
He sees this clearly. The questions and the veiled threat. But he doesn’t care. He knows he can fake a certificate for domestic slaughter, the plant has everything he needs. That, and he can no longer depend on El Gordo Pineda, not after this visit. He wants the inspector to leave, he wants to go back to sleep, even though he knows it won’t be possible. He hands back the form and says, “Did you want more mate?”
The inspector gets up slowly. He puts the form in his briefcase and says, “No, thank you. I’ll be on my way.”
He sees the inspector to the door and holds out his hand. The man’s hand doesn’t grasp his; it’s limp, lifeless, so that he has to make an effort to shake it, to support the hand that’s like an amorphous mass, a dead fish. Before turning away, the inspector looks him in the eye and says, “This job would be pretty easy if everyone could just sign and not do anything else, don’t you think?”
He doesn’t say anything. What he thinks is that it’s an impertinence, even if he does understand. He understands the powerlessness felt by this young inspector who needs something out of the ordinary to happen so his day will be worthwhile, this inspector who’s suspicious about the whole scene and has to resign himself to not doing his job, this inspector who’s clearly not corrupt, who never would have accepted a bribe, who’s an honest man because there are a few things he doesn’t understand yet, this inspector who reminds him so much of himself when he was young (before the processing plant, the doubts, his baby, the series of daily deaths), and thought that complying with regulations was what mattered most, when in some inaccessible corner of his mind, he was glad about the Transition, glad to have this new job, to be part of this historic change, to be thinking about the rules that people would have to comply with long after he had disappeared from the world, because the regulations, he’d thought, “are my legacy, the mark I’ll leave behind”.
He never would have imagined he’d break the very law he established.