The Sickness by Alberto Barrera Tyszka Read Free Book Online

stranger? What was I supposed to do? Talk about my life, my intimate thoughts, to a woman I’d only just met? And I was paying for it too! During the rest of the session, I just kept telling her about my fainting fits, but nothing more.
    But something must have happened, Doctor, and it’s either that psychiatrist or your secretary who’s to blame, because I haven’t managed to speak to you since or get another appointment. Do you see? It makes me think that perhaps you’ve been kidnapped, that someone is holding you against your will so that we can’t meet. That’s what I feel.
    I didn’t finish this letter last night. I was tired, and it was late. I don’t think I knew quite how to continue. It’s odd. I had the feeling that I should stop, but I couldn’t find a way to end it, if you see what I mean. I got up early this morning, went for a walk, ate a little fruit, and sat down to finish this letter before going to work. I have to confess, Doctor, that I’m starting to feel really frustrated. What if you don’t answer this letter
either? If there’s no answer, what should I do? I’m still getting the dizzy spells. In fact, they’re getting worse and worse. Now my saliva’s gone funny too. I have a bitter taste in my mouth all the time. I’ve also started to feel a kind of pressure around my eyes, on my eyelids. These are new symptoms, Doctor. I’m afraid that when we do at last meet and talk, when we do see each other again, it will be too late.
    Ernesto Durán
    Mariana is white, but not too white, not so white as to be just that, a white woman. He thinks this while he watches her naked in the shower. Andrés has closed the door and sat down on the lid of the toilet. She hasn’t spotted him there yet. Reality is always different when you’re taking a shower. She is simply there, letting the water do what it will with her, as if nothing else existed, as if the steam were not something impermanent, as if the world were not just outside that room, as close to hand as her towel. Neither the years nor the children have made her less desirable. Not, at least, to him. Ever since the research carried out by Dr. Winnifred Cutler in 1986, science has been doing its best to dissect desire, even concluding that what people call love, physical love, has a shelf life, and can’t last more than seven years. Andrés’s own experience contradicts such statements. He looks at Mariana and feels a tremor inside him, a tension. Desire consumes the body, but doesn’t wear it down. It doesn’t grow wrinkled; it changes, it’s transformed, but
doesn’t age. He looks at Mariana now and he desires her. Tonight, even when he’s depressed and tired, even after fourteen years together, desire remains undefeated. He likes her. He likes her small, narrow shoulders. He likes her size, her skin, her bottom, her feet, her cunt. He has been inside that body so many times and yet it still excites him to see her naked.
    â€œHow long have you been there?” she asks when she finally notices him.
    Andrés doesn’t answer. He pulls her toward him, gently takes her towel from her and starts to dry her.
    â€œWhat’s up? What happened with your dad?”
    He continues absentmindedly running the towel over Mariana’s body. Confronted by such silence, she finally turns to look him in the eye.
    â€œWhat happened?” she asks again.
    â€œI don’t want to talk now,” mutters Andrés, before leaning toward her, in search of a kiss, as if wanting to murder words, to erase them with his lips, to wall them in.
    They made love in the bathroom. Furiously. Like young things. She squatted over him, her back to him. Andrés bit her neck, her shoulders. They made love like two cats. They both enjoyed powerful orgasms and were left panting and silent, as if each body were taking a while to return to its place. Then they went