The Manual of Darkness

  An Exciting Case

  ‘Do you know what day it is?’

  He has to think. He has to think back to the night of the party in his honour, which, he guesses, was Monday, and count from there, but he picks his way through as though this were a minefield. Thursday? He can’t bring himself to say it.

  ‘What day of the week?’

  The neurologist frowns and looks at him dubiously.

  ‘Or the date. Whichever you prefer.’

  ‘The date? But I never know what date it is!’

  The neurologist glowers.

  ‘Thursday. I think it’s Thursday.’

  ‘Good. Do you know where you are?’

  ‘In a doctor’s consulting room. At least that’s what I thought; right now it feels like a nursery.’

  ‘Don’t be impatient. The questions may sound ridiculous, but I have to ask them.’

  ‘It’s just that what’s wrong with me is …’

  ‘I know. Your eye. But I need to give you a general examination.’

  For twenty minutes he feels as though he is going crazy. First, the doctor asks him to name three things in the room. Víctor scans it with deliberate care and answers: ‘A clock, a bed, a photo of your wife and son. I assume.’ Then the neurologist asks him to clap his hands; then clap them again, then look at the ceiling. He keeps Víctor talking constantly as though trying to coax some secret from him. He picks up a stick and holds it by one end. Close one eye and look at the stick. What were the three objects: clock, bed, photo. Now the other eye. Can you see the red dot?

  ‘Really? It’s red? It’s just that with the left eye …’

  The doctor sighs. That’s it. He’s found something. Something serious. Maybe it’s not just that he’s going blind. Maybe it’s something terminal. A brain tumour.

  ‘You see, I have this little spot …’

  A little spot, a small smudge, a tiny moon. The diminutives don’t make it sound any less serious. From that moment, Víctor interprets every word, every action of the neurologist, as proof that his brain is harbouring some foreign body, something living, deadly, an enemy lying in wait. The doctor systematically checks his motor reflexes, his manual dexterity, strength and sensitivity, his co-ordination and his reflexes. He checks his torso, then begins to examine his legs. When Víctor sees him pick up the hammer to check his knee reflexes, he can stand it no longer. He pushes the doctor’s hands away, sits up on the bed and protests:

  ‘Listen, if I’m going to end up paralysed, I’d rather you just told me straight out.’

  ‘Have you been suffering from stress lately?’ the doctor asks after a pause, the hammer still hovering in the air. Víctor cannot quite decide whether what he can see in the man’s eyes is a glimmer of compassion. ‘This kind of condition can sometimes be stress-related.’

  ‘That’s what the ophthalmologist asked me. And yes, I’ve been out of my mind with worry. It’s hardly surprising. Look, there’s nothing wrong with my knees. Take my word for it. They’re fine. It’s my eyes that are the problem.’

  ‘Not exactly. It’s your eyesight. The reason you’re here is because the ophthalmologist ruled out there being something wrong with your eyes.’

  ‘Eyes? Plural?’

  ‘Either or neither. We don’t know yet.’

  ‘So what now?’

  ‘Well, now we have to rule out any neurological problem. Eyes are merely the lens of the camera. In reality, we see with this …’

  The man brings his hand up to the nape of his neck and massages it with a slight rotary movement. Unconsciously, Víctor imitates the gesture.

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Exactly. Between the eyes and the visual cortex, there are any number of nerve connections that might present a problem.’

  ‘A … serious problem?’

  ‘We can’t know that until we’ve carried out a series of tests. We’ll start with a perimetry test.’

  He sits Víctor at a machine and tells him to press a button whenever he sees a light go on. Víctor cannot shake off the feeling that he is taking an exam, and as he presses the button, he desperately wants someone to tell him whether he’s getting it right. After repeating the test with the right eye, and having made no comment, the doctor goes back to his desk and starts to write. Víctor waits, trying to remain calm, but he feels his vocal cords quiver and recognises the first six notes of ‘If’. He is convinced the man is taking too long over what he is writing. He is convinced he is going to die.

  ‘Do I have a brain tumour?’ he asks, finally, his voice almost inaudible.

  His throat feels so tight he is not even sure that the words came out. In fact, the doctor keeps writing as though he has heard nothing, and it is a moment before he looks up.

  ‘If I told you I think it’s unlikely, would you feel any better? Right now, the important thing is to do more tests: a blood test, a chest X-ray, an ECG and a cranial MRI scan.’

  As he lists them, he hands Víctor the forms he has been filling out one by one, as though dealing cards from a deck. The game seems crucial, the stakes high, because there is a glint in the doctor’s eye now, an excitement that Víctor did not notice earlier.

  ‘I’m confident these tests will give us the answer. If not, we might need to do a lumbar puncture to rule out multiple sclerosis. Antibodies too.’ He suddenly goes back to writing his notes. He makes no attempt to explain to Víctor what he has just said. He does not even look at him. He is talking to himself. ‘Maybe genetic screening.’ He looks up again as though he has just thought of something he might have overlooked. ‘Is there any family history?’

  ‘Family history of what?’

  ‘Of blindness.’

  Víctor cannot believe what he is seeing. The guy is licking his lips at the prospect. He can’t even bring himself to hide the fact. All the years of studying, hospital rotations, endless bureaucracy and frustrating routine check-ups suddenly became worthwhile the moment Víctor stepped through the door. Finally, he has an exciting case.

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘You’ll need to get authorisation from your health insurance for the tests. Come and see me when you’ve got the results. They should be ready in about three weeks. Oh, and take these pills,’ he adds, handing Víctor one last piece of paper. ‘They’ll keep you calm.’

  Papá is Asleep

  Most of the nicotine in a cigarette is eliminated by combustion. The rest is absorbed by the body and the respiratory system becomes accustomed to ever greater doses. However, even for a chronic smoker, nicotine in liquid form is lethal, immediately, whether it is ingested, inhaled or absorbed through the skin. Nicotine is the most common toxic agent in insecticides. Among those accustomed to handling the toxin professionally, there is an urban myth that a single drop in the eye of a horse will cause the animal to collapse within a few steps. Martín Losa would certainly have been familiar with the story. This is why it is impossible that he would not have seen, or, if he were not looking, would not have sensed purely by touch, that he was about to make a terrible, irreversible mistake.

  Fortunately, he was alone. Had there been anyone else breathing the air in that room, or anywhere else in the house, they would have died with him, like him: asphyxiated in five seconds. Eight, if we’re being generous. Every single second would have been a living hell.

  Although there were no witnesses, what his wife and son saw when they discovered his body, together with the medical examiner’s report, makes it possible for us to reconstruct what happened with reasonable accuracy. There were six jars on the table. Five of them contained different liquids Martín was testing for their efficacy as excipients. The sixth, which was slimmer than the others and rough to the touch, precisely to avoid any confusion, contained a concentrated brownish solution of nicotine. Even so, Martín took the top off this jar, held it up for a second or two and then put it into the heating block. Almost immediately the poison began to evaporate and found its way into his lungs.

  Martín wou
ld have noticed an intense burning sensation in his throat. He might have thought he had a dry mouth, but just then his body would have begun to produce torrents of frothy saliva. Then came the nausea, a pain in his stomach so severe he would have doubled up suddenly as though trying to bite his knees. It is impossible to know whether he had time to realise what was happening to him, but everything indicates that by then his mind would have been in the grip of paralysing confusion. His vision would have become cloudy, his hearing dulled. Convulsions in his right side made him drop the tweezers he had been holding. They landed about three metres away, next to the door, with an ant squashed between the pincers. One last spasm left Martín sprawled on the floor. Immediately afterwards, as though it were some sort of conspiracy, all the muscles involved in the breathing process went into paralysis. And he died.

  According to the medical examiner, death took place around 7 p.m. As they did every Saturday, his wife and his son Víctor arrived home half an hour later. In the hall she struggled for a couple of seconds, getting her son’s coat off. The nicotine had completely evaporated by now, so it could not have been the smell that alerted her. Perhaps she noticed that her husband had not popped out to say hello as he usually did when he heard the key turn in the lock. Muffled music came from the closed workshop, but there was nothing unusual about that. Martín always liked to have music playing. Without saying a word, his wife buttoned the boy’s coat again and led him back on to the landing.

  ‘Stay here, don’t move,’ she told the boy. ‘Everything’s fine. Mamá will be right back.’ She went into the house then quickly popped her head around the door again. ‘Did you hear me, Víctor? Whatever happens, you’re not to move from there.’

  Then she walked down the corridor.

  Víctor closed his eyes and held his breath. It was something he always did when he played hide-and-seek. He was not sure whether his mother was playing a game, but he had only to listen to her voice to be sure. ‘Martín … Martín …’ His mother called the name over and over in a whisper that seemed increasingly tremulous until, after the creak of a hinge, she screamed ‘Martín!’ at the top of her lungs. Then the music stopped. Shortly afterwards he heard footsteps. It has been thirty years since that day and what Víctor remembers most now about those few minutes in which he did not see, did not know, could not imagine what was happening, is the silence that followed, broken some moments later by the sound of the dial on the telephone turning. Then he heard his mother talking in a low voice; there was a sense of urgency but also a weariness, as though she were complaining about something it was too late to change.

  Although he remembered that she had told him not to move, Víctor thought that maybe the game had changed now, that maybe it was his turn to find his parents, Or worse, that the game was over and his parents had forgotten about him. So he got to his feet and tiptoed into the hall. His parents had never been very good at hide-and-seek. But he, at six years old, knew all the best places to hide. And so, as he stepped inside, he wore a crafty smile. He reached his father’s workshop, pushed open the door as quietly as he could and saw his father sprawled on the floor. He was almost disappointed that it had been so easy. But, engrossed in the ritual of the game, he let out a whoop of joy, threw himself on Martín’s lifeless body and screamed:

  ‘Here I come, ready or not, Papá!’

  When his father did not react, Víctor pushed his fingers into his father’s tummy, trying to tickle him.

  ‘Come on, Papá … It’s your turn …’

  Bewildered by his father’s utter stillness, Víctor made a puzzled face. Was this a different game? Sometimes they played at being asleep, but that was usually later, after dinner, when he had his pyjamas on. Víctor decided to test the theory. He lay down next to Martín, closed his eyes, squeezing them tight, and pretended to snore.

  At that moment his mother came in. She didn’t scold him for disobeying her. Instead she did something that is still etched on his memory: she rushed across the room, lifting her feet carefully to step over them and, reaching the window, she threw it wide open. Although it was cold. Although it was late. Then she tried to take her son in her arms, but her legs gave way beneath her. She sat down on the floor, gently pulled Víctor away from his father and sat him on her lap. Víctor did not understand what was happening. He looked from his mother’s tears to his father’s smile: an inexplicable, larger-than-life grimace but a smile nonetheless. Just as he was about to give up, the boy stared again at the mouth, stretched so wide it seemed distorted, the curious angle of the jaw, and then, slowly, he looked his father’s body up and down. He thought he had worked it out. Guess the animal. They played this all the time. It had to be an animal, that was the only thing that could explain the unnatural posture, the arms twisted against the solar plexus, the legs drawn up to the waist but completely stiff as though frozen there.

  ‘A cockroach!’

  He said it as if it were an incantation, as though the word would not only put an end to his father’s game but might also break the spell that held them all motionless.

  Instead of congratulating him for guessing correctly, his mother hugged him harder. Víctor remembers the unusual smell of sweat. He remembers being annoyed by his wool jacket chafing at his face. At this point he began to think that perhaps his father was not playing a game but he could think of no other reason for his strange posture. He thinks he remembers struggling for a moment and then his mother stroked his face and said:

  ‘Shhh. Papá is asleep.’

  She said it over and over: Papá is asleep. Papá is asleep, darling, Papá is asleep. This is how he knows that it was a long time before the doorbell rang. Some men in uniforms took Papá away on a stretcher. Then more people came. There was a long conversation with two policemen on the sofa in the dining room, which Víctor remembers because he fell asleep. Papá is asleep, Víctor too.

  The next day, he woke to the unexpected hum of soft voices. Visitors on a Sunday morning; this was an event so unusual that he had to investigate. He was putting on his slippers when his mother came into his room carrying a large wooden box. She set it on the ground, then sat down on the bed next to him to explain that his father was dead. To try to explain to him. You remember Papá fell asleep last night? He’s still asleep. When is he going to wake up? He might never wake up, hijo. Never? But where is he? They took him away, remember? I remember, but when is he coming back? He’s not coming back. You mean we won’t ever see him again? Well, maybe we’ll see him some day, a long, long time from now. Up in heaven? That’s right, darling, we’ll see him in heaven.

  She did her utmost to smile for him, but could not quite hide the grief, the tension at the corners of her mouth. And though at that age he could not have put it into words, Víctor knew it was a grief she would never truly overcome. Perhaps he would not be a little wretch, perhaps he would find the strength to overcome this event, but always, behind every smile, he would see a ghostly trace of that grief and he could do nothing to console her. He hugged her as hard as he could and she, surprised by this sudden role reversal, trembled as he held her. Then she pointed to the wooden box.

  ‘I’ve brought you some of his things. Papá would have wanted you to have them. You don’t have to look at them now. Some of them are for when you’re a bit older.’

  Víctor lifted the lid and glanced inside. The first thing he saw was a finger. A severed thumb that was inexplicably clean. He quickly closed the box and, more disgusted than frightened, said:

  ‘There’s a thumb in there!’

  His mother kissed him and tousled his hair.

  ‘It’s only plastic, silly.’

  ‘You mean it’s a toy?’

  ‘It’s for doing magic.’

  ‘Magic?’

  ‘That right. Now, you need to get dressed. Some visitors have come to say goodbye to your papá and they’d like to see you.’

  ‘There’s something I have to do first.’

  He went into the kitchen, climbed up on
a stool so he could reach the tap and filled a jug with water. He went out on to the terrace and then carefully, without spilling a single drop, he poured the water into the moat around the terrarium.

  ‘Are you going to give them food?’ his mother asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to put talcum powder on the walls like Dad did so they won’t drown?’

  ‘No,’ Víctor said brusquely, as though annoyed at being asked to explain himself.

  An Island

  Every Tuesday, as he pushed open the green door, Víctor felt as though he were stepping into a parallel universe. The maestro was always sitting at the table, waiting for him in the gloom. As his student entered the room, finding his way by the faint glow from the small window, Galván would hold up his cigarette lighter, the flickering flame like a prearranged signal to indicate he was there. Then he would turn on the ceiling spotlight and exhale the first puff of smoke. As Víctor took his seat, he watched the smoke roll across the green mat and prepared himself once again to set foot on this island, floating in time, swathed in mist, with a curious sun that always hung high in the sky; a perpetual midday in winter.