On my desk are two envelopes: One of them, manila, must have Marcela’s photos inside. The other has the agency’s name printed on it, and also my name, typed. Its contents are unknown. I open it first.

It contains more notes from Bibi. Immediately, from the first piercing words, they act upon me, make me uneasy.

Durkheim says, “In families where repeat suicides occur, they’re often performed almost identically. They take place not only at the same age . . .”

They take place . . . at the same age, he says.

“but even in the same way. In one case hanging is preferred, in another asphyxiation or falling from a high place. In one oft-cited case, the resemblance is even greater; the same weapon was used by a whole family at intervals of several years.”

My father’s pearl-handled gun that Mamá keeps in the dresser.

But Durkheim maintains that this is because of the contagious influence on the minds of surviving family members, and that it has yet to be proven that suicide is an inherited trait; if an individual whose family included mad people and suicides kills himself, it’s not because his parents took their own lives but because they were mad. Durkheim says this.

•

Oppression makes you weak.

If Durkheim says it then it comes as a relief, though in point of fact I don’t know who Durkheim is. An authority on the subject, perhaps. The Louis Pasteur, the Marie Curie of suicide. Who knows.

I read: “Durkheim repeats. . .”

Still Durkheim. I hesitate, given the risk of a further addendum which could reignite my suspicion that suicide might be hereditary. Why does Bibi keep at this? Does she know? Is my soul so transparent?

Durkheim repeats something recounted by Falret.

A young girl of nine learned that an uncle on the father’s side had intentionally killed himself. The news affected her greatly: She had heard it said that insanity is hereditary. . .

Insanity, not suicide.

. . . While she was in this sad state her father voluntarily put an end to his own existence.

Suicide.

From that time onward she felt herself absolutely destined to a violent death. She had no other thought than the impending end and repeated incessantly: “I must perish like my father and my uncle! Thus is my blood tainted!” She tries to kill herself . . .

There it is, finally: heredity.

However, the man she believed to be her father was not actually her father. To free her from her fears her mother confessed the truth and arranged an interview for her with her real father. The great physical resemblance between them caused the patient’s doubts to disappear instantly. She at once gave up all thought of suicide; her cheerfulness steadily returned and she regained her health.

Happy ending.

Do I like this? Do I not like it? The question isn’t whether this is to my taste or whether life imitates novels. This particular case lays all my doubts out before me, wants to disorient me, torture me, until it restores me to life and health. Should I keep pondering it?