Once he figured out who these prostration professionals were and why they had come, Firefly set to convincing himself of the gravity of his own illness. As a cover he devised a rigid catatonia and perfected it to such a degree that the doctors were faced with a wide-eyed wooden doll, gaze fixed on the zenith, a thread of transparent purple saliva drooling from his lips. Flies did not disturb him, nor did the handbell rung by the nun who dispensed the cane juice, which was so piercing and shrill it made even the moribund tremble.
In examinations of the parents and sister, which the experts undertook straight off, the pendulum’s spin was sluggish, stumbling, knotted like the speech of a drunk. Such lethargy could be caused by anything, since magnetic disturbances often overwhelm sensitive bodies in the aftermath of a hurricane.
More revealing was the radiesthesic map of the aunts, the three of them wrapped in the same hypnosis, as if huddled under the red sealing wax of a single blanket. Very useful, it must be admitted, was the light interrogation that accompanied the auscultation, with responses obtained via screams in the ear, shakings, and slaps across the face.
They then turned to Firefly.
To the astonishment of the specialists, the copper cone spun normally up the length of that wooden body, but when it reached his heart the device jumped like a frightened rabbit: it stopped abruptly, remained still a few seconds, then began spinning crazily in the wrong direction. Clearly, the blood beat mightily and flowed in torrents through that pretend cadaver.
Isidro and Gator looked at each other, both suspecting the same thing. The herbalist turned and faced the garden, apparently intrigued by the plants; in reality he wanted to meditate on this enigma, which he intended to solve on the spot.
Then he swiveled back toward the bed of the petrified boy. Once more he scrutinized the stiff. “Precocious catalepsy,” the experts declared in unison, though, smelling something fishy, they remained unconvinced.
Once the verdict had been pronounced, Isidro and Gator sat down on either side of the cot. The chubby one pulled the pendulum from the right-hand pocket of his trousers and suspended it in the air, observing it calmly, as if he wished to confirm the impeccable operation of the laws of gravity.
In his mind, Gator went over the various tonics or revivifying potions, all based on a French wine, Château des Mille Tremblements, mixed with rum and raw sugar, which he could insist the young patient, despite his inert, practically wooden state, drink through a cinnamon straw.
Isidro, while studying the pendulum’s easy swing, peered at the melon-head with the astuteness of a caged bird, careful not to let him know he was being watched. Gator meanwhile was fascinated, or pretended to be, by the minuscule purple flowers that grew between the bricks, a practically extinct species that sprouted there alone due to the aseptic nature of the place. In reality, he was eyeing cataleptic Firefly from askance to see if he was breathing or not.
After these apparently incandescent inquiries, the two focused directly on scrutinizing this child overcome by the excesses of Morpheus. They understood instantly, and quickly exchanged glances out of the corners of their eyes like two accomplice snakes before a defenseless partridge, that something was not spinning smoothly in this strange case of familial oneiromancy.
The shining aunts were demanding they be “left in peace,” that they “needed some shut-eye,” believing they were washing clothes on the white stones of a large river during siesta hour, after a succulent codfish stew.
But let’s go again to El Floridita, where the two maverick sawbones are now describing how they unmasked, thanks to a well-interpreted remark, the cataleptic’s crude pretending. “From that triple swing of the inquisitor pendulum,” the radiesthesist told the openmouthed waiters, including the operatic barmaid, indicating his guest the exemplary herbalist as witness, “had come inescapable truths.” He underlined the words syllable by syllable. By then they had spiked Isidro’s bloody potion three times over with angostura bitters and celery salt.
The waitress listened wide-eyed and artlessly dribbled across the tablecloth the soy sauce that was to dress a special wheat-germ steak (for the restaurant staff unnatural and evidently emetic) that a skillful cook had prepared for Gator. Before wiping it up, she gave a quick pull on the silk strap that sustained her décolletage.
“That’s right,” the herbalist continued, picking up the radiesthesist’s long monologue as if they had been rehearsing their entire lives for this dramatic performance: the meeting of minds of two specialists puffed up by what the Diario de la Marina was calling their illustrious contribution to solving “the atrocity of the century.” “That’s right. No longer could we presume that this was simply the morbid reflex that quicksilver, when corrupted by the hurricane’s magnetic disturbances, will project onto vulnerable bodies.”
“No!” Isidro piled on, waving his right index finger in the air. “In a pause between ignoble snores, one of the Fates had assured them: Early in the morning, the family had carefully masked all the mirrors with black brocade.”
On stretched a silence filled with suspense. He looked keenly at the slack-jawed waiters. Another sip. Meanwhile, Gator carried on, exalted by the fascination the duo evoked in the marinated listeners.
“The nocturnal bite of certain bats, as was well known by the Ciboneys who at dawn would staunch the wounds with saffron flowers, leaves its victims groggy and exhausted. But in this case the insentient victims bore not the least sign of jugular perforation. What’s more, knowing that those sucking sneaks always lie in wait, the family had not neglected the home’s defenses, making ample prophylactic use of cloves of garlic.* Something, however, and this was our last resort, was affecting the lymphatic flow in each member of the family except the child, whose pendulum map was normal, though we did not have a clue as to what had caused the spelclass="underline" the bite of a mosquito infected with a lethal virus, mass hypnosis. or a cataleptic potion.”
“I was racking my brains,” Isidro, after insisting on Worcestershire sauce for the next drink, “when suddenly one of the three narcissistic nasties opened her eyes and asked Firefly for nothing less than another cup of linden-flower tea as delicious as the one he’d made for her at home. That was when, like a bolt of lightning, I felt a spark of truth fly between two oppositely charged poles: on the one hand, we had a ruse, yes, a catatonic ruse by the melon-head, who was the one with something to hide and who with that rictus of his rebuffed any possible interrogation; and on the other, we had the aunt’s soothing and unknowingly revelatory request. Another linden-flower tea! Evidently, the crafty barracuda had given his family a sleeping potion, a diabolical concoction that he himself had not drunk, but whose effects — the scoundrel — he pretended to suffer.”
“You criminal!” Isidro sputtered through clenched teeth. He pointed mercilessly at Firefly and hurled the pendulum to the floor amid a scattering of terrified nuns.
“You monster!” Gator echoed from the fountain, where his botanical ruminations had led him to the same conclusion at the very same time.
From the hospice wing across the courtyard, cupping their hands to their mouths and parting the mosquito nettings to reveal faces waxen or enraged, the lepers immediately began to howl “To the stocks!” though they had no clue who was being accused, or of what.