That night, in bed, he came up with several plans, to be carried out the next day, but discarded them all after deciding that none satisfied him. One thing was for sure: he’d taken Lucía’s invitation at face value. The next day, though, he worked from two till eight at the law school kiosk, and it didn’t seem prudent to show up too late at Lucía’s because of the danger that she might not be alone. But by the time he got up his caution had vanished: after showering and eating breakfast, he walked out, turned the corner, and went straight to Doctor Riera’s office. He rang the doorbell, below which a sign read Ring the bell and come in, and pushed through the half-open door.
A woman of a certain age, who must’ve been the secretary, or the nurse, or both things at once, came through the side door that led to an empty waiting room, and with a severe expression asked him his name. When he told her, she must have realized that it wasn’t the name she’d expected to hear, that is, of the patient who’d made an appointment for that time (it was ten exactly), and she was telling him that he’d have to make an appointment for another time when a second door, which also led to the waiting room, opened and Doctor Riera appeared. Seeing him, Nula thought, He’s as beautiful as she is, even more so, for a man: as virile as Lucía is feminine. He’s tall, well-proportioned, with an athlete’s body and an intelligent expression. And his dark, curly hair makes him look younger than her, though he may in fact be older, thirty-five, give or take. His eyes are sharp, his clothes are neat, but because he’s tall and upright, muscular probably, without an ounce of excess fat, even the worst clothes in the world would look good on him. His gestures are precise and natural. He doesn’t seem to have a single defect. Clearly they’re made for each other. They’re like gods and I’m the larva that squirms at their feet and which they wouldn’t even bother to squash. There’s no doubt whatsoever that I’m finished before I even start. And how virile and melodious his voice sounds as he tells the nurse to let me through, that the next patient won’t be there till ten fifteen!
And then he was inside, a clean and tidy office, and Riera gestured to a chair, just in front from the one he sat in, on the other side of his desk. He took a blue index card and a fountain pen from a drawer and transcribed Nula’s answers to his questions, his name, birthday, marital status, residence, and a few details about his medical history. Then Riera stopped writing and examined him, first with his gaze, then with the ritual question he must have asked every new patient, but in which Nula thought he detected a slight hint of scorn.
— What seems to be the problem?
Nula invented some sort of allergy, an itch on different parts of his body that came and went over the past few months. Riera looked at him for a few seconds and then, as they stood up, he said:
— Alright, you can get undressed.
— All the way?
— Not yet, Riera said. You can leave your underwear on.
He had him sit down on the examination table and took his blood pressure, then listened with a stethoscope, or directly with his fingers, on his abdomen, on his chest, and around his back. Then he told him to stand up and take off his underwear.
— Where does it itch? he said.
Nula gestured vaguely around his hips, his belly, his thighs, his head. While he put on a pair of rubber gloves, Riera started examining the skin more closely, murmuring I don’t see anything. Separating his hair with his fingers, he quickly studied his scalp; with the tip of his index finger he rubbed his eyebrows against the grain, straightening the hair in order to examine the skin more closely. Then he told him to lay down again on the table, face up. He sat on a black leather stool and sank his fingers into his pubic hair, slowly and carefully separating the hairs in order to see the skin beneath. After a moment he stopped and then said:
— It’s not lice. You can get dressed.
Nula stood up.
— Hold on, one second, Riera said. With two fingers on his left hand he lifted his penis and with his right hand palpitated and weighed his testicles, then with the same two fingers folded back the foreskin and studied it closely, even going so far as to squeeze it, expanding the orifice in order to see into it. Then he told him to turn around, and separating his buttocks he examined his anus for several seconds. While he took off the gloves and threw them in a cylindrical, metal receptacle, whose lid opened by pressing a pedal that stuck out from the base, Riera announced that he couldn’t find anything in particular.
— It must be psychosomatic. How’ve you been sleeping lately? he asked. I can prescribe a tranquilizer if you want.
— No, not at all. I sleep really well, Nula said.
Riera watched him closely while he dressed, and when he finished, and their eyes met, it seemed to Nula that despite the gravity of his expression and his professional tone when he spoke to him, there was, in Riera’s eyes, a tenuous spark of mockery.
— How much do I owe you, doctor? Nula said.
— Nothing, Riera said. When you’re really sick I’ll charge you. For now I’d rather not think of you as a patient.
He followed him to the door but their eyes never met again. The ten fifteen patient was already in the waiting room, reading a magazine, and he stood up when he saw them come in, deferential to the medical authority, like a private who comes to attention when a superior officer enters the room. Nula said goodbye without turning around and went out to the street. He was so preoccupied that rather than walk down San Martín, as he’d imagined he would, he returned home. He grew more worried the more he thought things over. He threw himself on top of his bed but the very moment he collapsed onto it, as if he’d bounced, he stood back up. A kind of anxiety was taking over him without his even realizing it completely: the visit to Riera’s office, like the profanation of a sanctuary, produced both pride and fear, and he replayed over and over, in a fever, the doctor’s gestures and words. Everything felt saturated with meaning, but a kind of multiple meaning, impossible to specify, one which changed direction each time he tried to force an interpretation through it. The couple that had just come into his life was taking on a disproportionate prestige, representing, with their physical beauty, their tact, their enigmatic behavior, a side of the world that his dark and tragic family life hadn’t allowed him to know existed. Those two attractive, singular people, endowed with a glow more intense than anyone else he knew, appeared sheltered from contingency, from the vulgar details that underscored the mutability of perfection, a kind of gift, at once immediate and inaccessible, offered up by the external world. Even though it had its darker side, like the vaguely mocking look he’d given him after the examination, Doctor Riera’s behavior nevertheless seemed more rational than his wife’s, but his last words, with their irregular feel, seemed to contain a coded message or a warning. Nula spent the rest of the morning going over his questions, waiting for La India, who closed the bookstore at noon and would be on her way back soon after, but at twenty after twelve, when he went to the kitchen to pick at something because he was starting to get hungry, he saw that La India had left him a list and some money to go to the store on the boulevard to buy three or four things they needed for lunch. And so he didn’t open the fridge, and instead hurried out to the street.