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Fiction

Social Skills

By Ignacio Martínez de Pisón
Translated from Spanish by Anne McLean
A classic car, a sick dog, and an elderly woman—these are the ingredients of Ignacio Martínez de Pisón’s thoughtful meditation on aging.

The Dodge Dart parked on the crosswalk with its right front wheel up on the curb and the fender touching the lamppost. Doña Mercedes, sitting in the passenger seat, opened the door and let out a snort.

“Your driving is getting worse and worse, Hija. You’re really showing your age,” she said, although Felisa was eighteen years her junior.

Felisa was Doña Mercedes’s maid, cook and, when necessary, driver. Petite, somewhat hunched, with a mousy face, Felisa got out to take a look.

“It’s not that bad,” she said.

“You’re getting more foolish by the day as well. Come on, help me.”

It was help she asked for but Felisa had to do everything: open the back door, gather up poor Fosca, wrapped in her old tartan blanket, in her arms, and ring the veterinarian’s doorbell with her elbow. Fosca, without moving a muscle, let out a gentle moan. They heard footsteps inside the clinic, and the old woman grabbed the dog and gestured to Felisa to go back to the car and find a place to park.

“Hurry, she’s heavy,” she said as the door opened to reveal the shining, round face of Laura Lumbreras, the vet’s daughter.

Without giving her time to say a word, Doña Mercedes rushed into the waiting room and sat down on the sofa with the dog on her lap. The walls were decorated with photos of different breeds of dogs. Fosca, a mutt, rescued from the alley behind the house when she was just a puppy, didn’t resemble any of those dogs. Doña Mercedes covered her nose with her handkerchief and cried a little:

“My poor Fosca, poor little Fosquita . . .”

Laura, babbling incoherent phrases, ran to alert her father, who soon took charge of the situation. Lumbreras was an affected and smarmy man, who looked a bit like an ultraconservative priest. He sat down beside the old lady and rubbed the damp muzzle of the dog, who slowly closed her eyes. There was something sterile and mechanical in his consoling words that took away some of his credibility.

“My dear Mercedes, my daughter told me that you’d called… We know, don’t we: the moment eventually arrives for each of us, and for our beloved pets as well. It is a painful moment, but more for us than for them. Let’s see. Swollen glands? Yes. Lesions, too. General decline, motor difficulties… Don’t worry. She won’t feel a thing. An injection, a little sleepiness that gets deeper and deeper, and that’s it.”

The dog, as if she knew they were talking about her, opened her eyes and looked at her owner, who choked back a sob.

“My poor little Fosquita . . .” she said once more. “She knows just what’s going on.”

“I know it’s sad, but there’s nothing else to do . . .”

Doña Mercedes grew philosophical:

“Death makes us all the same. Animals, people. People get a bit like animals and animals a bit like people, don’t you think?”

The dog, with her big, limp ears and those clustered little teeth, had always been ugly, and was even more so now that she was ill.

“I think she understands what we’re saying,” the old lady went on. “If she started talking right now, it wouldn’t surprise me. Can you imagine? Can you imagine her saying: why are you doing this to me, when I’ve always been so loyal, when I’ve always loved you, with all the moments of happiness I’ve given you over the last ten years?”

“Come, come now, my dear Mercedes . . .” said the vet, picking up the dog and cradling her like a baby.

The woman shook the tartan blanket and pushed it away from her. The gesture seemed to be all she needed to pull herself together.

“And what does one do with a dead animal?” she said, stuffing her handkerchief up her sleeve. “Where do we have to take it?”

“Don’t you worry about that. We,” and here he motioned in the direction of his daughter, who nodded with a grief-stricken air, “will take care of Fosca.”

They both stood up.

“May I?” she asked, holding out the palm of her hand.

“Of course.”

Doña Mercedes slowly, very slowly stroked the dog, who emitted another groan, perhaps her last.

“Many thanks. And send me the bill,” said the old lady with a faltering voice.

Laura, folding the blanket, walked her to the door. Then she joined her father in the examination room. The dog was lying on a table beneath a strong white light. While looking through the drawers for his instruments, Lumbreras didn’t even bother to strap down the animal, who didn’t have the strength to move and seemed to have meekly accepted her fate. He placed a disposable syringe on the small aluminum auxiliary table and pulled on his latex gloves one finger at a time. Before breaking the seal of the syringe, he looked over the dog one last time.

“Fosca, Fosca . . .” he said.

He bent down over the dog’s mammary glands and observed carefully. Then, looking at the ceiling, he felt them meticulously. Laura realized her father had just made an unexpected discovery.

“What do you think?” he asked, not expecting a reply.

The girl watched attentively. Lumbreras allowed several seconds to pass before saying:

“They’re not tumors.”

Another pause. This time it was Laura who interrupted it:

“What then?”

“It’s milk.”

“Milk?”

“Galactorrhea,” the veterinarian nodded. “It tends to present in older dogs following estrum.”

“And the motor difficulties?”

“Who knows. A bit of fever, some passing illness… it could be anything.”

He nodded in the direction of the street.

“See if you can catch her. Tell her to come back.”

Having seen how upset the old lady was, the simple idea of cheering her up put him in a good mood. While he killed time patting Fosca, he caught himself humming the drinking song from La Traviata. He heard some noise behind him and shouted:

“Come in, come in!”

Doña Mercedes, escorted by Laura, approached with a hesitant expression. The veterinarian didn’t notice the fact that she did not have the tartan blanket with her.

“Come in!” he repeated.

The old lady looked shorter than she had a few minutes earlier. She stopped a few inches from the table and looked at the dog, who greeted her by weakly moving her tail and sighing almost inaudibly.

“Good news. What we have here is a pseudopregnancy. A phantom gestation, shall we say.”

The silence that followed this declaration was just that: silence.

“What do you mean?” Doña Mercedes finally said.

“These things happen: sometimes the symptoms are so similar… Anyway, it’s nothing. All better. She shouldn’t eat anything for the next twenty-four hours, and keep her from licking herself because that stimulates the glands… Otherwise she’s perfectly fine, and should live quite well for a few more years.”

Lumbreras took off his gloves, snapping them in mid-air.

“Don’t you understand, Doña Mercedes?” he went on, smugly. “We’re not going to have to put Fosca to sleep. We’ll put her back in the car right now and you can take her home.”

The old lady, unexpectedly stern, said:

“I thought we’d made things clear. I’ve already said good-bye to her. Now do what you have to do.”

She walked toward the exit, and didn’t even stop as she added:

“And don’t forget to send me the bill. Good afternoon.”

Father and daughter looked at each other and then looked at Doña Mercedes, who had left the door open on her way out.

In the street, the Dodge was double-parked. Felisa, with her seat belt buckled, had to lean over and stretch her arm to unlock the door, which she then managed to open with her fingertips. To get into her seat, the old lady held onto the edge of the door with her right hand and the top of the seat with her left. As with all elderly people, it was harder for her to get into than out of a car (and harder to go down stairs than up). The operation was carried out in several stages. In between two of them she stopped a moment to say:

“You really are useless, Hija. You couldn’t find a parking place this time either.”

Felisa puffed out her cheeks and blew a raspberry. The old lady responded by slamming the car door.

“Home, right?” said Felisa.

“Where else?”

When they arrived, the house still smelled of the lunchtime lamb chops.

“Let’s see if we can air the place out a little,” said Doña Mercedes.

“That’s up to you now. Not me.”

Felisa’s belongings were still where she’d left them that morning, piled up beside the umbrella stand in the front hall. Among them the imitation leather suitcase she’d bought thirty-four years earlier, when she was on the brink of leaving the house to marry a locksmith who turned out to be a good-for-nothing. Around the suitcase were several cardboard boxes filled with various objects. Some of them contained clothes, almost all hand-me-downs from Doña Mercedes, who never threw out a garment without offering it to Felisa first. In another was a selection of tin bas-reliefs, from back when the two women would devote rainy afternoons to handicrafts. In another were framed photographs: photos of Felisa with her family before going into service, photos of her sister’s wedding in the village church, photos of her nephews and nieces when they were babies or when they took their First Communion, a photo of the oldest swearing allegiance to the flag, another of the next oldest on honeymoon in Florence… They were photos of a possible life, and beside them were few, very few photos of her real life, her life with Doña Mercedes, always reluctant to pose in front of a camera.

“A whole life . . .” sighed Felisa, and then, to make the comment seem less serious, softly sang: “A whole life long I’ll be spoiling you . . .”

Doña Mercedes walked into the room they called the study and that, since the death of her husband, sixteen years before, had been collecting all the bits of junk that had fallen out of favor in the rest of the house. There, behind a broken sewing machine and an old stationary bicycle, was the chest of drawers in which they kept important papers. From the top drawer she took out a bankbook and a small folder. When she got back to the front hall, Felisa was coming out of the bathroom. The sound of the tank filling up came to an end, as always, with a somewhat anxious gurgle. She held out the bankbook, open to the middle page.

“This is the last entry. Everything’s in order, isn’t it?”

Felisa, like a shy little girl, looked down at the floor. Doña Mercedes handed her the folder as well.

“The car is now in your name. And the insurance, paid up till June.”

“And why would I want that gas guzzler?” whined the other woman.

She began to load her things into the trunk of the Dodge. The boxes that didn’t fit ended up on the back seat.

“And you said you’d never fit everything in . . .!” the old lady reproached her from the front step.

There was still room in the front, and Doña Mercedes ordered her to go to the kitchen and get the basket of greengages to take.

“The whole basket?”

“The whole thing. You love those plums!”

Felisa obeyed and then stood beside the Dodge not really knowing what to do.

“Do you need anything? Do you want me to leave your dinner ready?” she finally said.

Doña Mercedes shook her head and gestured toward the sky as if to say: Get going now if you want to arrive before dark. Felisa waited a few seconds more to see if her employer was thinking of giving her a hug or saying a word or two of farewell. Seeing that she didn’t make the slightest movement, she climbed in behind the wheel of the Dodge and rubbed her moist eyes.

“Call me when you get there,” the old lady said then. “I don’t like that highway one bit.”

The engine started and the car soon disappeared around the corner by the nun’s nursery school. Doña Mercedes closed the door, then went to the little parlor that overlooked the back garden and sat down in her rocking chair to wait.

“Don de gentes” © Ignacio Martínez de Pisón. By arrangement with the autor. Translation © 2013 by Anne McLean. All rights reserved.

English Spanish (Original)

The Dodge Dart parked on the crosswalk with its right front wheel up on the curb and the fender touching the lamppost. Doña Mercedes, sitting in the passenger seat, opened the door and let out a snort.

“Your driving is getting worse and worse, Hija. You’re really showing your age,” she said, although Felisa was eighteen years her junior.

Felisa was Doña Mercedes’s maid, cook and, when necessary, driver. Petite, somewhat hunched, with a mousy face, Felisa got out to take a look.

“It’s not that bad,” she said.

“You’re getting more foolish by the day as well. Come on, help me.”

It was help she asked for but Felisa had to do everything: open the back door, gather up poor Fosca, wrapped in her old tartan blanket, in her arms, and ring the veterinarian’s doorbell with her elbow. Fosca, without moving a muscle, let out a gentle moan. They heard footsteps inside the clinic, and the old woman grabbed the dog and gestured to Felisa to go back to the car and find a place to park.

“Hurry, she’s heavy,” she said as the door opened to reveal the shining, round face of Laura Lumbreras, the vet’s daughter.

Without giving her time to say a word, Doña Mercedes rushed into the waiting room and sat down on the sofa with the dog on her lap. The walls were decorated with photos of different breeds of dogs. Fosca, a mutt, rescued from the alley behind the house when she was just a puppy, didn’t resemble any of those dogs. Doña Mercedes covered her nose with her handkerchief and cried a little:

“My poor Fosca, poor little Fosquita . . .”

Laura, babbling incoherent phrases, ran to alert her father, who soon took charge of the situation. Lumbreras was an affected and smarmy man, who looked a bit like an ultraconservative priest. He sat down beside the old lady and rubbed the damp muzzle of the dog, who slowly closed her eyes. There was something sterile and mechanical in his consoling words that took away some of his credibility.

“My dear Mercedes, my daughter told me that you’d called… We know, don’t we: the moment eventually arrives for each of us, and for our beloved pets as well. It is a painful moment, but more for us than for them. Let’s see. Swollen glands? Yes. Lesions, too. General decline, motor difficulties… Don’t worry. She won’t feel a thing. An injection, a little sleepiness that gets deeper and deeper, and that’s it.”

The dog, as if she knew they were talking about her, opened her eyes and looked at her owner, who choked back a sob.

“My poor little Fosquita . . .” she said once more. “She knows just what’s going on.”

“I know it’s sad, but there’s nothing else to do . . .”

Doña Mercedes grew philosophical:

“Death makes us all the same. Animals, people. People get a bit like animals and animals a bit like people, don’t you think?”

The dog, with her big, limp ears and those clustered little teeth, had always been ugly, and was even more so now that she was ill.

“I think she understands what we’re saying,” the old lady went on. “If she started talking right now, it wouldn’t surprise me. Can you imagine? Can you imagine her saying: why are you doing this to me, when I’ve always been so loyal, when I’ve always loved you, with all the moments of happiness I’ve given you over the last ten years?”

“Come, come now, my dear Mercedes . . .” said the vet, picking up the dog and cradling her like a baby.

The woman shook the tartan blanket and pushed it away from her. The gesture seemed to be all she needed to pull herself together.

“And what does one do with a dead animal?” she said, stuffing her handkerchief up her sleeve. “Where do we have to take it?”

“Don’t you worry about that. We,” and here he motioned in the direction of his daughter, who nodded with a grief-stricken air, “will take care of Fosca.”

They both stood up.

“May I?” she asked, holding out the palm of her hand.

“Of course.”

Doña Mercedes slowly, very slowly stroked the dog, who emitted another groan, perhaps her last.

“Many thanks. And send me the bill,” said the old lady with a faltering voice.

Laura, folding the blanket, walked her to the door. Then she joined her father in the examination room. The dog was lying on a table beneath a strong white light. While looking through the drawers for his instruments, Lumbreras didn’t even bother to strap down the animal, who didn’t have the strength to move and seemed to have meekly accepted her fate. He placed a disposable syringe on the small aluminum auxiliary table and pulled on his latex gloves one finger at a time. Before breaking the seal of the syringe, he looked over the dog one last time.

“Fosca, Fosca . . .” he said.

He bent down over the dog’s mammary glands and observed carefully. Then, looking at the ceiling, he felt them meticulously. Laura realized her father had just made an unexpected discovery.

“What do you think?” he asked, not expecting a reply.

The girl watched attentively. Lumbreras allowed several seconds to pass before saying:

“They’re not tumors.”

Another pause. This time it was Laura who interrupted it:

“What then?”

“It’s milk.”

“Milk?”

“Galactorrhea,” the veterinarian nodded. “It tends to present in older dogs following estrum.”

“And the motor difficulties?”

“Who knows. A bit of fever, some passing illness… it could be anything.”

He nodded in the direction of the street.

“See if you can catch her. Tell her to come back.”

Having seen how upset the old lady was, the simple idea of cheering her up put him in a good mood. While he killed time patting Fosca, he caught himself humming the drinking song from La Traviata. He heard some noise behind him and shouted:

“Come in, come in!”

Doña Mercedes, escorted by Laura, approached with a hesitant expression. The veterinarian didn’t notice the fact that she did not have the tartan blanket with her.

“Come in!” he repeated.

The old lady looked shorter than she had a few minutes earlier. She stopped a few inches from the table and looked at the dog, who greeted her by weakly moving her tail and sighing almost inaudibly.

“Good news. What we have here is a pseudopregnancy. A phantom gestation, shall we say.”

The silence that followed this declaration was just that: silence.

“What do you mean?” Doña Mercedes finally said.

“These things happen: sometimes the symptoms are so similar… Anyway, it’s nothing. All better. She shouldn’t eat anything for the next twenty-four hours, and keep her from licking herself because that stimulates the glands… Otherwise she’s perfectly fine, and should live quite well for a few more years.”

Lumbreras took off his gloves, snapping them in mid-air.

“Don’t you understand, Doña Mercedes?” he went on, smugly. “We’re not going to have to put Fosca to sleep. We’ll put her back in the car right now and you can take her home.”

The old lady, unexpectedly stern, said:

“I thought we’d made things clear. I’ve already said good-bye to her. Now do what you have to do.”

She walked toward the exit, and didn’t even stop as she added:

“And don’t forget to send me the bill. Good afternoon.”

Father and daughter looked at each other and then looked at Doña Mercedes, who had left the door open on her way out.

In the street, the Dodge was double-parked. Felisa, with her seat belt buckled, had to lean over and stretch her arm to unlock the door, which she then managed to open with her fingertips. To get into her seat, the old lady held onto the edge of the door with her right hand and the top of the seat with her left. As with all elderly people, it was harder for her to get into than out of a car (and harder to go down stairs than up). The operation was carried out in several stages. In between two of them she stopped a moment to say:

“You really are useless, Hija. You couldn’t find a parking place this time either.”

Felisa puffed out her cheeks and blew a raspberry. The old lady responded by slamming the car door.

“Home, right?” said Felisa.

“Where else?”

When they arrived, the house still smelled of the lunchtime lamb chops.

“Let’s see if we can air the place out a little,” said Doña Mercedes.

“That’s up to you now. Not me.”

Felisa’s belongings were still where she’d left them that morning, piled up beside the umbrella stand in the front hall. Among them the imitation leather suitcase she’d bought thirty-four years earlier, when she was on the brink of leaving the house to marry a locksmith who turned out to be a good-for-nothing. Around the suitcase were several cardboard boxes filled with various objects. Some of them contained clothes, almost all hand-me-downs from Doña Mercedes, who never threw out a garment without offering it to Felisa first. In another was a selection of tin bas-reliefs, from back when the two women would devote rainy afternoons to handicrafts. In another were framed photographs: photos of Felisa with her family before going into service, photos of her sister’s wedding in the village church, photos of her nephews and nieces when they were babies or when they took their First Communion, a photo of the oldest swearing allegiance to the flag, another of the next oldest on honeymoon in Florence… They were photos of a possible life, and beside them were few, very few photos of her real life, her life with Doña Mercedes, always reluctant to pose in front of a camera.

“A whole life . . .” sighed Felisa, and then, to make the comment seem less serious, softly sang: “A whole life long I’ll be spoiling you . . .”

Doña Mercedes walked into the room they called the study and that, since the death of her husband, sixteen years before, had been collecting all the bits of junk that had fallen out of favor in the rest of the house. There, behind a broken sewing machine and an old stationary bicycle, was the chest of drawers in which they kept important papers. From the top drawer she took out a bankbook and a small folder. When she got back to the front hall, Felisa was coming out of the bathroom. The sound of the tank filling up came to an end, as always, with a somewhat anxious gurgle. She held out the bankbook, open to the middle page.

“This is the last entry. Everything’s in order, isn’t it?”

Felisa, like a shy little girl, looked down at the floor. Doña Mercedes handed her the folder as well.

“The car is now in your name. And the insurance, paid up till June.”

“And why would I want that gas guzzler?” whined the other woman.

She began to load her things into the trunk of the Dodge. The boxes that didn’t fit ended up on the back seat.

“And you said you’d never fit everything in . . .!” the old lady reproached her from the front step.

There was still room in the front, and Doña Mercedes ordered her to go to the kitchen and get the basket of greengages to take.

“The whole basket?”

“The whole thing. You love those plums!”

Felisa obeyed and then stood beside the Dodge not really knowing what to do.

“Do you need anything? Do you want me to leave your dinner ready?” she finally said.

Doña Mercedes shook her head and gestured toward the sky as if to say: Get going now if you want to arrive before dark. Felisa waited a few seconds more to see if her employer was thinking of giving her a hug or saying a word or two of farewell. Seeing that she didn’t make the slightest movement, she climbed in behind the wheel of the Dodge and rubbed her moist eyes.

“Call me when you get there,” the old lady said then. “I don’t like that highway one bit.”

The engine started and the car soon disappeared around the corner by the nun’s nursery school. Doña Mercedes closed the door, then went to the little parlor that overlooked the back garden and sat down in her rocking chair to wait.

“Don de gentes” © Ignacio Martínez de Pisón. By arrangement with the autor. Translation © 2013 by Anne McLean. All rights reserved.

Don de gentes

  El Dodge Dart aparcó en el paso de cebra con la rueda delantera derecha subida al bordillo y el parachoques tocando la base de la farola. Doña Mercedes, sentada en el asiento del copiloto, abrió la puerta y soltó un bufido.

  -Cada vez conduces peor, hija. Se nota que te estás haciendo vieja –dijo, aunque Felisa era dieciocho años más joven que ella.

  Felisa era la criada, cocinera y, cuando hacía falta, choferesa de doña Mercedes. Menudita, algo encorvada, con cara de ratón, Felisa salió a ver.

  -Tampoco está tan mal –dijo.

  -Cada día estás más tonta. Venga, ayúdame.

  Le dijo ayúdame pero Felisa tuvo que hacerlo todo: abrir la puerta trasera, coger en brazos a la pobre Fosca envuelta en su vieja manta escocesa y llamar con el codo al timbre del veterinario. Fosca, sin mover un músculo, dejó escapar un suave lamento. Oyeron pasos en el interior de la clínica, y la anciana agarró a la perra e hizo un gesto a Felisa para que volviera al coche y buscara un sitio para aparcar.

  -Rápido, que pesa –dijo mientras se abría la puerta y asomaba la cara redonda y brillante de Laura, la hija de Lumbreras.

  Sin darle tiempo a decir nada, doña Mercedes pasó a la sala de espera y se sentó en el sofá con la perra en el regazo. La pared estaba decorada con fotos de perros de diferentes razas. Fosca, de raza indefinida, recogida en el callejón trasero de la casa cuando era sólo un cachorrillo, no se parecía a ninguno de esos perros. Doña Mercedes se tapó la nariz con un pañuelo y lloró un poco:

  -Mi pobre Fosca, mi Fosquita…

  Laura, balbuceando frases inconexas, corrió a avisar a su padre, que enseguida se hizo cargo de la situación. Lumbreras era un hombre redicho y untuoso, con algo de sacerdote preconciliar. Se sentó al lado de la anciana y acarició el húmedo morro de la perra, que cerró los ojos con lentitud. En sus frases de consuelo había algo aséptico y maquinal que le restaba credibilidad.

  -Mi querida Mercedes, me ha dicho mi hija que había llamado… Ya lo sabemos: a todos nos acaba llegando el momento, y a nuestras queridas mascotas también. Es un momento doloroso, pero más para nosotros que para ellas. Veamos. ¿Mamas abultadas? Sí. Llagas, también. Decaimiento general, dificultades motoras… No se preocupe. No va a notar nada. Una inyección, un sueñecito ligero que cada vez se va haciendo más profundo, y ya está.

  La perra, como si supiera que estaban hablando de ella, abrió los ojos y miró a su dueña, que ahogó un sollozo.

  -Mi pobre Fosquita… –volvió a decir-. Se está dando cuenta de todo.

  -Sé que es triste pero si no hay más remedio…

  Doña Mercedes se puso filosófica:

  -La muerte nos iguala a todos. Animales, personas. A las personas las vuelve un poco animales y a los animales un poco personas, ¿no le parece?

  La perra, con esas orejas grandes y lacias y esos dientecillos montados, siempre había sido fea, y con la enfermedad aún lo era más.

  -Yo creo que entiende lo que decimos –siguió diciendo la anciana-. Si ahora se lanzara a hablar, no me extrañaría demasiado. ¿Se lo imagina? ¿Se la imagina diciéndome: por qué me haces esto, con lo fiel que te he sido siempre, con lo que te he querido, con todos los momentos de felicidad que te he dado en estos diez años?

  -Vamos, vamos, mi querida Mercedes… –dijo el otro, agarrando a la perra y acunándola como a un bebé.

  La mujer sacudió la manta escocesa y la alejó de sí. Ese gesto pareció bastarle para recuperar la entereza.

  -¿Y qué se hace con un animal muerto? –dijo, guardándose el pañuelo en la manga-. ¿Dónde hay que llevarlo?

  -Usted no se preocupe. Nosotros –y aquí el veterinario hizo una señal en dirección a su hija, que asentía con aire afligido- nos encargaremos de Fosca.

  Se levantaron los dos.

  -¿Puedo? –preguntó ella, mostrando la palma de la mano.

  -Claro.

  Doña Mercedes acarició despacio, muy despacio, a la perra, y ésta emitió un nuevo lamento, tal vez el último.

  -Muchas gracias. Y mándeme la factura –dijo la anciana con la voz quebrada.

  Laura, plegando la manta, la acompañó a la salida. Luego se reunió con su padre en la sala de intervenciones. La perra yacía en la mesa bajo una potente luz blanca. Mientras rebuscaba en los cajones del instrumental, Lumbreras ni siquiera se molestó en atar al animal, que no tenía ni fuerzas para moverse y parecía haber aceptado su destino con mansedumbre. Colocó una jeringuilla desechable sobre la mesita auxiliar de aluminio y fue encajando uno a uno los dedos en los guantes de látex. Antes de romper el precinto de la jeringuilla, echó un último vistazo a la perra.

  -Fosca, Fosca… –dijo.

  Acercó el rostro a sus mamas y las observó pensativo. Luego, mirando al techo, las palpó meticulosamente. Laura se dio cuenta de que su padre acababa de hacer un descubrimiento inesperado.

  -¿Tú qué crees? –preguntó, sin esperar respuesta.

  La joven permaneció atenta. Lumbreras dejó pasar varios segundos antes de decir:

  -No son tumores.

  Nueva pausa. Ahora fue Laura la que la interrumpió:

  -¿Entonces?

  -Es leche.

  -¿Leche?

  -Galactorrea -asintió el veterinario-. Suele presentarse en el diestro avanzado del ciclo sexual.

  -¿Y las dificultades motoras?

  -Quién sabe. Un poco de fiebre, malestar general…: puede ser cualquier cosa.

  Con un movimiento de cabeza indicó la calle.

  -Mira a ver si la alcanzas. Dile que vuelva.

  Había visto tan afectada a la anciana que la simple idea de alegrarle el día le puso de buen humor. Mientras mataba el tiempo acariciando a Fosca, se descubrió a sí mismo tarareando el brindis de La Traviata. Oyó ruidos a su espalda y gritó:

  -¡Adelante, adelante!

  Doña Mercedes, escoltada por Laura, avanzaba con expresión vacilante. El veterinario no reparó en que no llevaba consigo la manta escocesa.

  -¡Adelante! –repitió.

  La anciana parecía más bajita que unos minutos antes. Se detuvo a pocos centímetros de la mesa y observó a la perra, que la saludó con un débil movimiento de cola y un ronroneo casi inaudible.

  -Buenas noticias. Se trata de una falsa gestación. Un embarazo psicológico, digamos.

  El silencio que siguió a esta declaración era sólo eso: silencio.

  -¿Qué quiere decir? –dijo finalmente doña Mercedes.

  -Estas cosas pasan: a veces los síntomas se parecen tanto… Nada. Arreglado. Que no coma nada durante las próximas veinticuatro horas, y procure que no se lama a sí misma porque eso estimularía las glándulas… Por lo demás está perfectamente, y aún puede vivir en buenas condiciones algunos años más.

  Lumbreras se quitó los guantes, haciéndolos restallar en el aire.

  -¿No lo entiende, doña Mercedes? –siguió diciendo, ufano-. Que no va a hacer falta sacrificar a Fosca. Que ahora mismo la metemos en el coche y se la puede llevar a casa.

  La anciana, inesperadamente severa, dijo:

  -Creía que las cosas habían quedado claras. Yo ya me he despedido de ella. Ahora usted haga lo que tenga que hacer.

  Echó a andar hacia la salida, y ni siquiera se detuvo para añadir:

  -Y no se olvide de la factura. Buenas tardes.

  El padre y la hija se miraron y después miraron a doña Mercedes, que al salir dejó la puerta abierta.

  En la calle, el Dodge la esperaba en segunda fila. Felisa, con el cinturón de seguridad puesto, tuvo que ladearse y estirar el brazo para retirar el seguro de la puerta, que luego alcanzó a abrir con las yemas de los dedos. Para instalarse en su asiento, la anciana se agarró con la mano derecha al borde de la puerta y con la izquierda a la parte superior del respaldo. Como a todos los viejos, le costaba más entrar que salir de los coches (y más bajar escaleras que subirlas). La operación se desarrollaba en varias fases. En mitad de dos de ellas se detuvo un instante para decir:

  -Pero qué inútil eres, hija. Tampoco ahora has sido capaz de encontrar aparcamiento.

  Felisa hinchó los carrillos y soltó una pedorreta. La anciana respondió dando un portazo.

  -A casa, ¿no? –dijo Felisa.

  -¿Adónde si no?

  Cuando llegaron, todavía olía a las chuletas de cordero de la comida.

  -A ver si ventilamos un poco –dijo doña Mercedes.

  -Eso ya es cosa suya. No mía.

  Las pertenencias de Felisa seguían donde las había dejado por la mañana, amontonadas junto al paragüero del recibidor. Entre ellas destacaba la maleta de imitación piel comprada treinta y cuatro años antes, cuando estuvo a punto de irse de la casa para contraer matrimonio con un cerrajero que resultó ser un golfo. Alrededor de la maleta había varias cajas de cartón con objetos diversos. Algunas de ellas contenían ropa, casi siempre heredada de doña Mercedes, que nunca tiraba una prenda sin ofrecérsela antes. En otra había una selección de bajorrelieves en estaño, de la época en que a las dos mujeres les dio por dedicar las tardes de lluvia a la artesanía. En otra estaban las fotos enmarcadas: fotos de Felisa con su familia antes de entrar a servir, fotos de la boda de su hermana en la iglesia del pueblo, fotos de sus sobrinos cuando eran bebés o hicieron la primera comunión, una foto del mayor de ellos jurando bandera, otra del segundo en su viaje de novios a Florencia… Eran fotos de una vida posible, y junto a ellas había pocas, muy pocas fotos de su vida real, su vida con doña Mercedes, reacia siempre a posar delante de una cámara.

  -Toda una vida… –suspiró Felisa, y luego, para restar gravedad al comentario, canturreó:- Toda una vida te estaría mimando…

  Doña Mercedes entró en la habitación que llamaban despacho y que, desde la muerte de su marido, dieciséis años antes, había ido acogiendo todos los cachivaches que perdían su acomodo en el resto de la casa. Allí, detrás de una máquina de coser estropeada y una vieja bicicleta estática, estaba la cómoda en la que guardaban los papeles. Del cajón superior sacó una cartilla de ahorros y una carpeta pequeña. Cuando llegó al recibidor, Felisa salía del cuarto de baño. El ruido de la cisterna cargándose concluyó, como siempre, con un gorgoteo algo ansioso. Le tendió la cartilla, abierta por el medio.

  -Ésta es la última anotación. Todo correcto, ¿no?

  Felisa, como una niña vergonzosa, bajó la mirada al suelo. Doña Mercedes le entregó también la carpeta.

  -El coche ya está a tu nombre. Y el seguro, pagado hasta junio.

  -¿Y para qué quiero yo ese coche, con lo que consume? –gimoteó la otra.

  Empezó a meter las cosas en el maletero del Dodge. Las cajas que no cabían fueron a parar al asiento de atrás.

  -¡Y tú decías que no iba a caber todo…! –le reprochó la anciana desde el escalón de la entrada.

  En la parte de delante aún quedaba sitio, y doña Mercedes le ordenó que fuera a la cocina y cogiera la cesta de las ciruelas claudias.

  -¿Entera?

  -Entera. ¡Con lo que te gustan!

  Felisa obedeció y luego permaneció junto al Dodge sin saber muy bien qué hacer.

  -¿Necesita algo? ¿Quiere que le deje la cena preparada? –dijo, por fin.

  Doña Mercedes negó con la cabeza e hizo un gesto hacia el cielo como diciendo: Vete ya si no quieres que te coja la noche por el camino. Felisa esperó aún unos segundos para ver si la señora tenía pensado darle un abrazo o pronunciar unas palabras de despedida. Como vio que no hacía el menor movimiento, se puso al volante del Dodge y se frotó los ojos húmedos.

  -Llámame cuando llegues –dijo entonces la anciana-. Esa carretera no me gusta nada.

  El coche arrancó y enseguida desapareció por la esquina de la guardería de las monjas. Doña Mercedes cerró entonces la puerta, fue al saloncito que daba al jardín trasero y se sentó en la mecedora a esperar.

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