Hypothermia by Álvaro Enrigue

Author:Álvaro Enrigue
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Literary, Fiction
ISBN: 9781564788733
Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
Published: 2005-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

THERAPY: THERAPY

Meanness and selfishness are the only values that count in a society that prides itself on being composed of immigrants. That’s why, sooner or later, all of us gringos end up going to therapy. In a world like this one, the only way to get someone to listen to you is by paying them to do it.

WHITE

Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight.

Ears without hands or eyes.

Hamlet: Act III; Scene 4

During Major League postseason playoffs, time all across the country comes to a halt when a game starts. The one that evening wound up in a tie at the top of the ninth inning, and ended up going on until well after midnight. The twelfth inning was so tense that he didn’t even take a sip of the gin and tonic he’d mixed himself to drink while he watched. When the game ended, he added some fresh ice and stayed up a little while longer, enjoying the singular freedom that comes from being awake in a house where everyone else is asleep. There was nothing else worth watching on TV, so he switched off the set and reached for the bookshelf to pick up the video camera he’d bought last winter.

He turned it on, rewound the tape a little, and pressed the play button. On the plasma screen a pure white color appeared, then a blue strip in the upper part of the frame. The vibration of the strip made it clear that the camera was moving, although the big white patch remained static. After a few seconds some vertical bars that he was slow to recognize as trees moved in and out of the frame. At last his own face appeared, talking about the snow and the cold. It was part of a documentary that the girls had filmed on a visit downtown during the record snowfall, which was the very reason for their buying the camera.

Those were unusual, noteworthy days: his wife was out of town, gone to be with her mother in Philadelphia where the latter was recovering from an operation. He was left to contend with their two young daughters and the heavy weather alone.

The snow began falling around noon on a Tuesday already filled with anticipation. He was seated at his desk editing a report, blinds drawn to block the light reflecting off the computer screen, when his boss appeared: It’s already started snowing, he told him, and it’s heavy. I’m gonna stay late because I’ve got a conference call with the consultants in San Francisco, but I can walk home if they close the Metro. You should head home now. You can send me the report by e-mail.

When he found himself alone in his office he opened the blinds wide. What he liked about the beginning of a snowstorm was the fact that the enormous agitation produced by people getting their errands done before all the businesses closed kept the streets completely full. The panorama offered a fleeting illusion: the sky above dissolving into a ferocious whiteness that threatened all the colors of life down below.

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