Free The Sickness by Alberto Barrera Tyszka Page B

coast of the island, the port of Punta de Piedras, they both lean on the rail to witness that encounter with the land. His father tells him about the beaches that await them, of the wonderful time they’re going to have. That was his way of mourning: organizing a party for his son.
    Over the years, Andrés had gradually managed to track down his first flicker of interest in medicine to that time, to that week on Isla Margarita. It happened on the third day. His father always got him up very early, as if he were afraid that Andrés might wake alone, as if he didn’t want him to have a moment without some stimulus, some distraction. As soon as the sun rose, his father would get him out of bed, always eager to invent some new surprise, some new adventure. The previous day they had gone fishing, without success. That morning he proposed running down to the beach to look for jellyfish. At that hour, when the light was still weak and the sand cold, they would be sure to find a few lost among the last fingers of the waves. Some of those white medusas, which could sting you when in the water, always got washed up on the shore during the night. The less cautious, the less
experienced, the fat and the flabby, didn’t make it back, but remained there on the sand, along with other detritus from the sea, condemned to a slow death, drying up and suffocating in the air and the sun.
    Andrés only woke properly when the icy water touched his feet. They walked for nearly half a mile but found only one small jellyfish. However, parked on the sand at the end of the beach was a police car. Next to it stood a group of officers. He and his father ran toward them. A man’s body lay on the sand. His clothes were slightly tattered, his skin purple, and his lips very swollen. Out of the cavity of his right eye sprouted some yellow foam, like very pale broccoli, like some sort of soft coral emerging from the man’s head. Javier Miranda squeezed his son’s arm and tried to drag him away, but Andrés stayed where he was, absorbed, studying the body. The policemen gave some vague explanation. The man wasn’t a tourist. They assumed he was a local fisherman. They were waiting for a pathologist to arrive and examine the body.
    â€œHe’s alive!” said Andrés in an anxious, childish voice.
    While his father was listening to what the policemen had to say, Andrés, intrigued, had gone closer to the body. He heard it breathe. He saw the gaping mouth, saw the fat lips tremble slightly; he crouched down and once more heard the man breathe.
    â€œHe’s alive!” he said again, shouting this time.
    Only his father hurried over to him and took his hand. The officers looked at each other and smiled. One of them laughed out loud. Or that, at least, is what Andrés remembers.

    â€œHe’s breathing,” he murmured rather sadly, while his father drew him away from the corpse.
    â€œNo, he’s not,” said the policeman. “Listen, kid. What you can hear is the water moving around inside the body. That’s all. Listen,” he repeated, crouching down beside him. They all stayed still for a moment in expectation, and a liquid whisper slipped out onto the air. “Did you hear that? It’s just water. But the guy’s dead alright.”
    Andrés was astonished. He imagined that body full of sea, full of water that came and went, that made noises, that went round and round, unable to escape. He thought of it as a secret room, in which the water could circulate freely. That morning, Andrés thinks, marked his initial curiosity about bodies, the discovery of the existence of an order distinct from words, more physical, more tactile, less invisible. His father had to drag him away. The boy wanted to wait for the pathologist to come, he wanted to know what would happen next. His father, of course, feared that the incident would lay bare the very loss he was trying to conceal. One death