The Sickness Read Free

know nothing about this situation, nothing at all. You would never treat me like that, but if that’s the case, who is responsible for all this? And why?
    This is the reason for my letter, Doctor. It’s the only way I have now of asking you for an appointment. My situation remains the same, with my health deteriorating by the day. Reply directly to this address. Please, trust no one else. I need to see you as soon as possible.
    Thank you for your attention and, as I say, I’m here, waiting for your reply.
    Ernesto Durán
    Blood is a terrible gossip, it tells everyone everything, as any laboratory technician knows. Hidden inside that dark fluid, stored away in little tubes, lie murky melodramas, characters brought low, or sordid stories on the run from the law. When his father fainted, Andrés insisted on him having a whole battery of blood tests. His father protested. He tried to make light of the matter. He preferred the term “dizzy spell” to “fainting fit,” and insisted on this almost to the point of absurdity.
    â€œIt was just a dizzy spell,” he kept repeating, blaming it on the humidity, the summer heat.
    It was, according to him, the fault of the climate rather than an indication of some physical ailment. But the truth of the matter is, he had collapsed on the floor
like a sack of potatoes in front of the woman who lived in apartment 3B. They’d been talking about something or other—neither of them could remember what—when suddenly his father collapsed, and the neighbor started screaming hysterically.
    â€œI thought he’d died. He was so pale! Almost blue! I didn’t want to touch him because I was afraid he might already be cold! I didn’t know what to do! That’s why I started screaming!” says the neighbor.
    A few seconds later, his father, once he’d recovered consciousness, had tried to calm her down and reassure her that everything was fine, that nothing very grave had happened. Perhaps he had told her, too, that it was just a dizzy spell. Nevertheless, that same afternoon, the neighbor phoned Andrés to let him know what had happened.
    â€œThe old busybody!” his father grumbled when Andrés arrived to pick him up and drive him to the hospital.
    While the nurse was taking the blood samples, Andrés suddenly noticed that his father had grown smaller. It had never occurred to him before to notice his size, but seeing his father there, arm outstretched, eyes fixed on the ceiling, so as not to have to look at the needle, it seemed to him that his father had become shorter, had lost height. Javier Miranda is a fairly tall man, almost five foot ten. Tall and slim, with a rather athletic build. He always walks very erect, as if his body didn’t weigh on him at all. Despite his age and the fact that he’s gone gray, he looks cheerful and healthy. His curly hair has won out over any incipient baldness. His skin is slightly tanned, the color of light clay. His eyes are brown too.
He’s never smoked, only drinks occasionally, goes for a walk every morning in the park—Parque Los Caobos—avoids fatty foods, has fruit and muesli for breakfast, and every night eats seven raw chickpeas as a way of combating cholesterol. “What went wrong?” he seemed to be asking himself. He had sidestepped time rather successfully. Everything had been going relatively well until, one afternoon, that inexplicable fainting fit had stopped him in his tracks. It was that brief wavering of his equilibrium that had brought him to this place and abruptly transformed him into this weak, wounded, small—yes, smaller—person. The words “Sickness is the mother of modesty” came unbidden into Andrés’s mind. They appear in Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy , published in 1621. It’s required reading in the first term of medical school. The quote bothered him though. It struck him as not so much