Tío Eduardo, a polished individual, poses for Marcela.

He states that he has no fear of public opinion and even less of his sister’s opinion.

He divulges information rapidly. “My late sister, Adriana, was afraid of herself when she was alive.”

“ . . . ”

“She suffered from a terror of not being one individual, of multiplying herself: She was everyone else. If she had an argument with someone, she was also that other person. If she went to the theater, the actors and the spectators were all her, multiplied many times over. She considered these other beings into whom she projected herself to be her enemies. Sometimes she would disappear: She couldn’t find herself, not in the mirror, not in her bed, not in her own clothes. Then her fear functioned in reverse: She was neither one person nor many, she was less than one, she’d erased herself.”

I comment that his version of the story is quite different from the one his sister María gave us.

“Who put you in touch with me?” he asks, deliberately.

“Her daughter.”

“You see?” And he smiles, inviting me to understand.

I’m ready to ask him about the corpse’s facial expression but can’t because for no reason I can fathom he cuts me off. “I beg you, let’s drop this for tonight.” He adds, “My home is open to you,” then bids us farewell.

I’m convinced that if she puts on her Card Catalogue persona for me again, Bibi will save me from innumerable research rooms, interviews, inquiries, postponements, incomprehensions, inanities. Doctor, I need information about your specialty; doctor, would you please give me your opinion? Doctor, how much is known about this condition? What do you anticipate? Where might I confirm that? I’ve been there before and would rather not: Egotism is rampant among rival colleagues. “You’ll see right through him,” a doctor once said to me about another doctor.

I thank Bibi but ask her to please cut it out with the section on horses. I’m experiencing no difficulties with quadruped suicides at the moment, and I am actually dealing with a crazy-woman suicide which also happens to be the case the boss asked me to investigate.

I tell her that Piel Blanca’s facts have driven me into a thicket. I tell her about the contradictory and incomplete versions offered by the brother and the sister.