Don't Move Read Free

I’m crying without restraint, pressing my hands against my wet face. “She’s going to die, isn’t she? We both know it. Her head is flooded.”
    “We don’t know shit, Timoteo.” He goes down on his knees beside me, takes my arm, and shakes me hard, shaking himself at the same time. “We’re going to open her up and take a look. I’ll aspirate the hematoma, give her brain a chance to breathe, and we’ll see what happens.”
    He gets to his feet. “You’re going to be in there with me, right?”
    Before I stand up, I wipe my nose and my eyes with my forearm. A shiny trail of mucus clings to the hairs. “No, I don’t remember anything about the brain. I wouldn’t be any help to you. . . .”
    Alfredo gives me one of his imperturbable looks. He knows I’m lying.
    In the elevator, we don’t talk; we look up at the illuminated numbers of the floors we’re passing. We separate without a word, without even touching each other. I take a few steps and sit down in the doctors’ lounge. Alfredo is scrubbing for surgery. In my mind, I follow each of his movements as he goes through a ritual I’m quite familiar with. I see him thrust his arms up to the elbows in the big stainless-steel sink; I watch his hands unwrap the sterilized sponge. I’ve got the smell of antiseptic in my nose. The nurse passes him the sterile towels so he can dry himself off; the scrub nurse ties his surgical gown. . . . It’s unusually quiet around here—everyone’s been reduced to silence. A nurse, someone I know very well, passes in front of the open door, our eyes meet, and his immediately shift to the floor and his rubber shoes. Now Ada’s at the door. Ada, who’s never been married, who has a ground-floor apartment with a garden that her upstairs neighbors’ laundry falls into.
    “We’re starting,” she says. “Are you sure you don’t want to come?”
    “Yes.”
    “Do you need anything?”
    “No.”
    She nods and tries to smile.
    “Listen, Ada,” I say as she moves away.
    She turns toward me again. “Yes, Doctor?”
    “If the worst should happen, ask everyone to leave. Then, before you come to call me, before I see her, disconnect the respirator, remove all the needles and all the tubes, clean up everything, and cover up the—well, just try to give her back some dignity.”
    Now Alfredo has finished scrubbing, and he enters the operating room with his hands in the air. The assistant surgeon approaches him and slips on his gloves. You’re lying under the OR lamp. I’ve got one thing left to do, the most terrible of all: I’ve got to notify your mother. You remember, she left for London this morning. She was supposed to interview somebody, a cabinet minister, I think. She was very excited. Her cab drove away from the house just before you left. Earlier, I heard the two of you talking in the bathroom. You came home at 12:15 Saturday night, fifteen minutes later than the time you’d agreed to, and she was very upset. In certain areas, she’s not at all indulgent. She can’t stand when you break the rules; she takes it as a personal attack on her serenity. Generally, though, she’s an easygoing mother; when she’s inflexible, it’s a kind of self-defense, sure, but believe me, it oppresses her, too. I know you’re not doing anything wrong. You meet your friends after school and talk in the twilight, in the cold, you pull the sleeves of your sweaters over your hands and shiver under all that graffiti. I’ve never been strict with you. I trust you; I even trust your mistakes. I know you from the way you are at home and from the rare moments we spend together, but I don’t know you as you are with other people. I know you have a good heart, and I know you give it all to your great friendships. And so you should; it’s wonderful to have that sparkle in your life. But your mother doesn’t see it that way. She thinks you don’t study enough, that you waste your energy, and she’s afraid you’ll fall behind in