Comemadre by Roque Larraquy

Author:Roque Larraquy
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781566895224
Publisher: Coffee House Press
Published: 2018-05-08T16:00:00+00:00

4

My name begins to spread. It settles into casual conversations, remarks about the hue of my voice, furtive insinuations among the nurses, vile comparisons among my colleagues. I am split by this prism of Quintanas, Menéndez. Take your pick.

I sense the trap inherent to love and its by-products: give up being what you want, abandon your whims, offer an ear, a shoulder, a hand; offer yourself up entirely and piecemeal to sign on the romantic line, when it’s obviously impossible to love someone all the time. These concessions will be my payment when I’ve got you by the neck and have torn you a few new holes.

A botanical digression: Thompson Island, a small landmass in Tierra del Fuego, is the only natural habitat of comemadre, a plant with acicular leaves whose sap produces (in a leap between taxonomic kingdoms that warrants further study) microscopic animal larvae. These larvae devour the plant, leaving only tiny particles behind; the remains then spread to take root in the soil, and the process begins again.

If the larvae are extracted under laboratory conditions, the plant grows unchecked until it can no longer support its own weight and dies without reproducing.

The larvae, meanwhile, can easily survive in a liquid medium or hibernate indefinitely in the form of a black powder.

A few farmers in Tierra del Fuego have taken to planting comemadre as a measure against pests. It has been proven that rats love the taste of the plant and that they die within days of eating it, consumed from the inside out by the larvae.

This is my botanical digression. I show Ledesma the test tube containing the larvae. I won’t be telling him about how I learned of the existence of comemadre, or the crude, coincidental encounter that brought it into my possession. I don’t like to share the details of my life outside the sanatorium.

I lower my voice. I tell him the storage room in the basement is full. We need to find a way to empty it. The incinerator? Fire is filthy, and filth is a dead giveaway. Those are my exact words. It’s more hygienic to inject these larvae into the bodies and make them disappear without a trace.

And more expensive. The acquaintance who gets them for me has substantial overhead. Ledesma hugs me. He whispers that Mr. Allomby will cover every cent. I linger in the embrace: I’ll let him go when I’m good and ready.

Furious, Mauricio Albano Ruiz storms into Ledesma’s office, asking why they postponed his donation. He interrupts our embrace. He demands his payment be returned immediately, in full.

The Argentine aristocracy’s limited history works to its disadvantage. One battle against the royalists or a grandfather who signed the constitution can’t compare to the sagas of European castles that span hundreds of years. As a result, many patrician families paradoxically renounce their history in their homeland, fixing their memories instead on distant ancestors on the other side of the ocean. Their memories are faulty: Edinburgh is not in England. They

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