When he came back with his father, Mrs. Linn had turned on her two lavender vaporizers. She circled the father and the son a few times, as if she needed to be sure they were similar enough. Then she had the father sit on the massage table. Perhaps the father thought he was dealing with something else, because before he gave himself over completely and let the specialist work, he made his son promise not to say a word to his mother. His son assured him he would not, and he had to explain that his face went into the opening, and that it wasn’t anything painful.
Mrs. Linn indicated that he, on the other hand, should wait seated in the armchair beside the table. But he was restless and didn’t sit down, and before he knew it, Mrs. Linn’s elbows, fists, and knees climbed up his father like a big spider in a trance. They sank and spun over his shoulders, his shoulder blades, his spine and coccyx. Her fists compressed the waist, then lifted it and dropped it. His father’s entire body let itself be kneaded and resettled. On the table, Mrs. Linn held him by the shoulders, arching him back more than he would have thought a father could arch. There were tugs, pushes, rotations. The oiled elbows sank into the hips and he, never taking his eyes from the father, let his body fall, completely relaxed, into the armchair. As if Mrs. Linn had been waiting for exactly that moment, she dug one of her knees into his father’s spine. It was a quick and surgical movement. Something cracked in his body, so loudly he felt it in his own, so loudly that he was frightened by the tug, the precise and expert correction. The three of them were still for a few seconds. Then, with relief, he understood it was all a good sign.
Mrs. Linn said goodbye to them in the waiting room. The receptionist made a file for his father and handed him a card.
They walked to the car and made the trip back in silence. They passed the plaza, and at the stoplight to cross the avenue, they both sat looking at the pedestrian crosswalk. There were green, red, and yellow lights. There was a turnoff for each street, and at each corner everyone knew what to do. He waited for his signal, and his father accepted the wait. When the light changed to green, they were already feeling much better.
THE HEAVY SUITCASE OF BENAVIDES
He returns to the room carrying a suitcase. Durable, lined in brown leather, it stands on four wheels and offers up its handle elegantly at knee level. He doesn’t regret his actions. He thinks that the stabbing of his wife had been fair, but he also knows that few people would understand his reasons. And that’s why he opts for the following plan: Wrap the body in garbage bags to keep the blood from seeping. Open the suitcase next to the bed and take every pain required to bend the body of a woman dead after twenty-nine years of marriage, and push it toward the floor so it falls into the suitcase. Unaffectionately cram the extra flesh into the free space, finally getting the body to fit. Once that’s done, more out of diligence than caution, gather the bloody sheets and put them into the washing machine. Swaddled in leather atop four now buckling wheels, the woman’s weight doesn’t diminish in the slightest, and though Benavides is small, he has to lean down a little to reach the handle, a gesture that lends neither grace nor efficiency to his task. But Benavides is an organized man, and within a few hours he’s out on the street, at night, taking short steps and pulling the suitcase behind him, walking toward Dr. Corrales’s house.
Dr. Corrales lives nearby. There’s a large, plant-covered gate above which loom the residence’s upper floors; Benavides rings the doorbell. A feminine voice on the intercom says, “Hello?” And Benavides says, “It’s Benavides, I need to talk to Dr. Corrales.” The intercom crackles like it’s on its last legs, then falls silent. Standing on tiptoe, Benavides peers between the lush plants growing on the other side of the brick wall, but he can’t see anything. He rings the doorbell again. The voice on the intercom says, “Hello?” And Benavides says, again, “It’s Benavides, I want to talk to Dr. Corrales.”
The device makes the same noises and is silent again. Benavides, perhaps tired out by the tensions of the day, lays the suitcase on the ground and sits down on it. A while later, the gate opens and some men emerge, saying their goodbyes. Benavides stands up and looks at the men, but doesn’t see Dr. Corrales among them.
“I need to speak to Dr. Corrales,” says Benavides.
One of the men asks his name.
“Benavides.”
The man tells him to wait a moment and goes back inside the house. The rest of the men look at Benavides curiously. Some minutes later, the man who had gone inside returns:
“The doctor is waiting for you,” he tells Benavides, and Benavides takes hold of his suitcase and enters the house with the man.