The Disappearance of Irene Dos Santos (11 page)

A nurse arrived with a syringe to take some blood from Lily’s arm and administer a tranquilizer because, according to her,
Lily’s pulse was too fast. Dr. Ricardo Uzoátegui, a former school friend of Carlos Alberto, rushed into the room, quickly
examined Lily, and said: “We would like to conduct some tests to check on the condition of the fetus. You will need to admit
her for observation.” Luz, squeamish about hospitals since the surgery that had left her barren, said she would wait in the
lobby.

Could a tranquilizer be good for the baby? Consuelo heard words of protest in her head but nothing came out of her mouth,
which was dry as hay.
No se preocupe,
said the nurse, patting Consuelo’s arm before wheeling Lily briskly away.

An hour later Dr Uzoátegui said the fetus was positioned with its head against the patient’s kidneys. Although there was no
imminent danger, to be on the safe side it might be advisable to perform a Cesarean section, he said. And later, if it should
turn out that the patient’s kidneys were bruised, peritoneal dialysis might be prescribed following the operation. This kind
of dialysis could, he said, be performed at home, but under the supervision of a specialized nurse. Even though it was a completely
hypothetical matter at this stage, he proceeded to describe the peritoneal dialysis procedure.

“A catheter is used to fill the abdomen with dialysis solution. The walls of the abdominal cavity are lined with a membrane
called the peritoneum, which allows waste products and extra fluid to pass from the blood into the dialysis solution, taking
on the function of the kidneys.”

Although the features of her face were assembled in an expression of deference and attentiveness, Consuelo was rattled by
the way Ricardo Uzoátegui, who had been best man at her daughter’s wedding, kept referring to Lily as “the patient,” as though
he didn’t know her personally, and to the baby as “the fetus,” as though a baby were a thing. She was irritated by the way
he seemed to want to apply all his medical knowledge to this one case, as if it were a contest he was determined to win. She
was bothered by the way he was looking into the air as he spoke, rather than into the eyes of his friend, Carlos Alberto.
She felt an almost irresistible urge to slap his freshly scrubbed face, to hear the clap of flesh smacking flesh, if only
to feel and confirm the existence and solidity of her own hand.

“A natural delivery may not be advisable,” Dr. Ricardo Uzoátegui continued, still looking not quite at, but in the vicinity
of, Carlos Alberto. “We do not know the full extent of the effect the fall has had, and she is very close to her due date.
In such cases, we find it best to operate. You will need to sign a release form.”

Carlos Alberto took the doctor into the hallway, but Consuelo could hear. “What is the risk of surgery to my wife and child,
Ricardo?” Carlos Alberto asked. His tone was polite but tinged with a hint of panic.

“Of course, with surgery there is always a risk, Carlos Alberto,” said Ricardo Uzoátegui. “However, the risk of doing nothing
outweighs the risk of surgery. With surgery, the odds are surely in favor of the patient. As for the fetus, we won’t know
until we see it. The heartbeat is not robust. I understand that there was some trouble conceiving, but in the unfortunate
event the fetus is not viable, one might even consider a surrogate at some time in the future. Although it is not legal here,
there is no reason one couldn’t go elsewhere, the United States, perhaps. I would be happy to recommend a specialist there.”

As though the baby might be expendable; a canvas to be painted over. No reason! No reason except that both parents wanted
this baby in particular, and not some other baby grown in a stranger’s womb. No reason except her daughter’s wish to deliver
this child the natural way. There was
no reason
for Ricardo Uzoátegui to talk about the baby in such a dehumanizing manner! And there was the cost of an operation to consider.
Without Lily’s income after she became pregnant, Carlos Alberto had struggled valiantly to meet the financial burden of supporting
not only his wife but also two of his five sisters, at a time when the whole country was staggering under the crushing weight
of recession and spiraling currency devaluation. His documentary film career was in shambles; all the financiers had vanished.
In addition to teaching courses on film at the Universidad Simón Bolívar, he had supplemented his income by penning stories
for the radio. Occasionally, if he was lucky, television producers would purchase the rights and convert his stories into
screenplays. Consuelo had contributed whatever Ismael sent her to the Quintanilla household. Still, as the currency fell sharply
against the dollar, inflation had risen exponentially. When Lily’s filly, Luna, had developed an arthritic hip, they couldn’t
afford the treatment and it had been Amparo who paid. These days, they could barely pay their bills each month and frequently
were forced to rely on the kindness of the Portuguese grocer on the corner of Avenida Benadiba and Cinco for credit. They
were not insured. Where would they find the money for an operation?

The two men came back into the room.

“No Cesarean,” Lily said.

Consuelo watched Carlos Alberto watching his friend Ricardo, who, perceiving silence as an agreement between hombres, began
discussing preparations for surgery. His voice whirred on, an impassionate machine sound.

She heard Lily call out to her, but could not make her mouth respond.

“Shush, mi amor, your mother is right here, and so am I,” said Carlos Alberto.

“I refuse to be cut open like a melon. I want to go home,” Lily said, her voice trembling with rage.

Ignoring Lily, the doctor again aimed his words in the direction of Carlos Alberto, insisting that Lily must not be moved.

“Take me home,” Lily repeated in a categorical whisper, and began to cry.

Carlos Alberto’s gaze darted agitatedly around the room. To Consuelo he had the look of a cornered animal. And she was suddenly
incensed by her own timidity and fearfulness, by the palpitations of her heart. What was she afraid of? Wasn’t she the woman
who had captured the wildest man on the planet? Hadn’t she pushed out a six-pound baby through an aperture the size of a pea?
She was the mother, was she not? She could be the mother of everyone in the room, including this puny man-child with the pristine
coat and superior smile. As the mother, she must take over, take a decision, overrule all other decisions. She must take charge
of the future.

“Muchacho, look at me,” she said to the doctor, reaching forward, taking his sparsely whiskered chin in her hand, turning
his head to face her. “You know me. I am Señora Consuelo Martinez, the mother of this young woman who is the wife of your
friend Carlos Alberto. From this moment forward, you will look at my daughter when you make recommendations regarding her
treatment. My daughter’s name is not ‘the patient,’ it is Lily, como usted bien lo sabe. You will address her by her name,
and you will address her as if she has a brain. Lily is intelligent; she designs buildings on the rare occasions anyone has
the money to build them these days; she will, I assure you, be able to grasp what you are saying. As for the baby, he or she
has no name yet, but refer again to this child as ‘the fetus’ and I will remove that stethoscope from around your neck and
throttle you with it.”

Dr Ricardo Uzoátegui snapped to attention at the sound of the universal voice of mothers. And, incapable of enduring Consuelo’s
laser stare even a moment longer, he turned to Lily and looked into her eyes for the first time all morning.

“Is there something you would like to say, Lily?”

“If you don’t mind, Ricardo, I would like to consult my godmother, Amparo Aguilar,” said Lily, calmer, now that her mother
had successfully balanced the scales.

“Amparo Aguilar,” explained Consuelo for Ricardo’s benefit, “is a licensed midwife.”

Ricardo looked pained; he knew very well who Amparo Aguilar was. Amparo Aguilar was the bane of every obstetrician in the
city. She was despised by the medical professionals of the mainland almost as much as the Cuban physicians who were scurrying
about the country like cockroaches, dispensing free treatment and vaccines everywhere. Disappointed that the Universal Mother
would consider such brujerías as those practiced by Amparo Aguilar on a par with his own scientific knowledge, he turned toward
Carlos Alberto. At which point, Consuelo decided she must act swiftly. She must phone Amparo.

“All right, then, Ricardo,” she said, “before we come to any decisions, would you be so kind as to permit us the use of a
telephone?”

“I have one in my office, Señora,” said Ricardo Uzoátegui, who had realized the foolhardiness of obstructing a tigress defending
her cub. “First door to your left.”

Consuelo, unsure of what influence Ricardo might exert on Carlos Alberto if left behind, and unwilling to leave it to chance,
asked her son-in-law to accompany her. But before anyone could leave the room, before Carlos Alberto could agree or object,
and as if in answer to an unspoken prayer, she saw Ismael, her beautiful Ismael, chiseled in the doorway. Without even a glance
at Ricardo, or anyone else for that matter, Ismael strode into the room, gathered Lily in his arms, and walked out.

It was at this stage that Carlos Alberto began to dissent in a strangled voice, but Consuelo put a finger to his lips, caught
him firmly by the arm. And together, leaning against each other more for moral than for physical support, they followed, down
the long, white, antiseptic hallway, into the lobby, where Luz, surprised, joined the procession, out the hospital doors and
into the bright afternoon. Ricardo Uzoátegui shot past Consuelo, Carlos Alberto, and Luz, gaining on Ismael, braying out hospital
rules and regulations regarding patient discharge. But Ismael kept walking.

By the time they had all congregated near the car, which was covered festively in orange flower petals from the acacia tree
above, Ricardo was winded and had lost all semblance of authority.

“Señor,” he said to Ismael. “if you insist on taking her home, please ensure that she gets complete bed rest.”

Ismael ignored the doctor, signaled with his chin to Carlos Alberto to open the back door of the Range Rover. When Carlos
Alberto hesitated, Consuelo handed him the car keys and said, “Ricardo will come by to check on Lily later, won’t you, Ricardo?”

Obediently, Ricardo confirmed, “I will come by after my shift to examine her, Carlos Alberto.”

Consuelo observed with relief that Carlos Alberto seemed somewhat appeased. He thanked his friend, helped his father-in-law
to settle Lily in the back of the vehicle, and handed the keys to Consuelo. But Consuelo, whose heart had not caught up with
events and was still pounding irrhythmically, shook her head. “You drive,” she said.

Twenty minutes later, as Carlos Alberto pulled into the driveway of Quinta Quintanilla, Consuelo realized her heart was no
longer pounding, but dancing joyously to the beat of the love song Ismael had composed on the day Lily was born.

Minutes before her heart attack six months earlier, Consuelo had been sitting in her studio reading a review of her exhibition
at Galería Venezuela:

Sadly, Consuelo Martinez has lost her edge. Anchored in the complacent and tautological lexicon of the middle-aged woman,
she has safely retired to the comfort of decorative artesanía of a kind popular with foreign buyers, Europeans and Americans,
who pick it up in bulk and ship it back to their overpriced art stores—the kind of stores that also sell books on indigenous
cultures, jewelry of silver and turquoise, handmade wind chimes and feathery dreamcatchers. The contrast between her insipid
offerings and the powerful canvases of Antonio Bosca is like night and day.

Consuelo hadn’t minded the critics’ prosaic classification of her work; it had sold out, and that was what counted. For her,
the paintings were mere reflections of her principal oeuvre—her family, immediate and extended, with her own heart pulsating
at its core, fed and also consumed by the exigencies of loving and being loved. She might have preferred not to have been
shown alongside, and compared to, the pretentious Bosca, who painted enormous psychedelic renditions of his own penis and
called them self-portraits, but she knew it was largely the titillation of his work that had amplified the gallery’s public
exposure. She wondered how she might convince Carlos Alberto to accept some money from the sales without offending him. Suddenly,
her head felt light, her stomach queasy. Her chest tightened, and there was a peculiar taste like boot polish in her mouth.
Unsteadily, she made it inside to the bathroom and threw up in the toilet. That is all she can recall before she lost consciousness.

What she remembers after is lying in a blindingly white room while a white-haired man more or less her own age, with ruggedly
distinguished features and carefully manicured hands, said he was Dr. Morales and that she was going to be fine.

After five days, before discharging her, he had asked her a number of questions, one of which was, “And are you and your husband
sexually active?”