The taxi arrived at Tacuarí Street, and the doorman who was there three days earlier smiled in the foyer with the conspiratorial air of clandestine visits. This time they let him in immediately. The closed blinds were heavy around that room lit by electric lamps at midday. It didn’t seem like the same room as before—the floral wallpaper was darkened by stains, and the department store furniture wasn’t that pristine after all. The pervasive odor of enclosure and the water stains made him look up insensitively at the ceiling for possible leaks. He abandoned the patient momentarily; he would have to sanitize the room before attending to the man. “Sir, why not open the windows?” He felt fussy like those who told him: “You have to exercise.” The sick man responded: “Doctor, it’s just that the sun is bothersome.” “Bothersome for whom?” “For her.”

His liver was no longer swollen, but he was still in pain—they discussed X-rays and electrical treatments but inevitably returned to private matters. She was a married woman. On Saturdays and Sundays she went out with her husband: those were deadly days. And today, “What day is it? I never know what day it is,” Afranio Mármol said. The patient frowned; this was a bad sign for a doctor. But the woman sang marvelously: “You don’t hear her, Doctor? Don’t you think she has a beautiful voice?” The house was hemmed in by silence, no cars passed on the street. “I don’t hear anything,” Afranio Mármol said. “She studied in a conservatory and sings in rural churches on Sundays. Listen to the high notes.” The silence made the furniture creak. They went into the study and the doctor, recovering his doctor’s cough, sat at the desk, lifted the lid of the inkwell (which was the head of an eagle), took the quill and slowly wrote a prescription. The owner of the house screamed: “Come, Doctor! My wife doesn’t feel well,” and ran, leading him to another room where almost everything was red, with a thick green quilt covering the big bed. The man knelt, looking intently at the empty pillow, and after standing up said: “Doctor, it’s nothing serious, right? Do me the favor of examining her.” Afranio Mármol moved his hands across the bed and responded: “No, it’s not serious, she’s not suffering, it’s nothing.” He tilted his head against the pillow to listen to the heartbeat of the woman until the man calmed down.

The Pavilion on the Lakes

It must have been early summer, when the promenades were lush and seemed longer. That day she was with a new friend her same age. They became friends through their laughter, which kept expanding in larger circumferences, like the ever-growing circles on the water made by the little stones they’d throw into the lake at Palermo Park. Catalinita had a very good nanny because she liked to chat with the other nannies—all naughtiness went unnoticed during the long talks that made her move her eyes rapidly from right to left and kept her from noticing anything except the pleasure of her conversations. She savored her words with the click of her tongue against her palate. When the conversation was over it seemed like she had just eaten a delicious dish. Catalina slyly reached for the candies that were surely in her nanny’s pocket.