Read Online Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil by Rafael Yglesias - Free Book Online
Authors: Rafael Yglesias
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broken arm by moving it about in a painful way, he told me that little boys don’t cry although I hadn’t made a peep. My father’s hug and kiss of me provoked the doctor into nervous reassurance: “He’s fine. It was a simple break. Snapped it clean. I don’t think it even hurt him.”
“A simple break!” my father teased. He took my nose between his index and middle fingers and squeezed hard. So hard it made my eyes water. “That can’t be. We Nerudas don’t do anything simply.” Francisco looked great. His hair was long and almost entirely black. Only a smudge of white appeared above his ears, like racing stripes on the side of a car. He was tall, six feet three. His stomach was flat, his shoulders wide, his posture vigorous, his chest so proud it almost invited an attack. The setting for his eyes was deep and wide apart, a characteristic shape of the Nerudas. The jewels that peered out were a warm brown; they seemed insistently friendly, despite a gleam of mockery. His eyes were highlighted by thick brows that curved up and away at the corners, emphasizing his profile and intelligent forehead. Francisco was obviously handsome, almost a cliché of the Latin lover. When women got their first look at him, they invariably smiled. Indeed, the orthopedist’s nurse, a blotchy-skinned brunette with a harsh Southern accent, a sour woman who had disdained to address my bowed grandmother, who had barked at my mother when she first barged in, and who had told me several times to sit still although I was in pain and not really moving that much, broke into a smile at the sight of my father and roared with laughter as he continued his joke. “Maybe we should break it a few more times,” Francisco said. He put his arm around me, engulfing me into the crook as he squeezed. For a moment he shut out the world. He let me go. “Right, Rafael? Twist it into a pretzel. Make it into a Neruda fracture, a Cubist arm. After all, it was a Spaniard who began Cubism.”
“Cubism,” my mother mumbled with disgust, as though naming a social travesty. “He’s a glorified cartoonist,” she added to Francisco.
“No, he’s a genius.” My father hadn’t disagreed; he cheerfully wiped Ruth’s opinion away. “And loyal to the Republic,” Francisco added with a laugh. My father noticed that the doctor, the nurse, and I were all baffled by their discussion of Picasso’s politics. “Thank you, Doctor,” he said and clapped the physician on his back. The orthopedist was startled not only by the force of the contact, but by the fact of it. “My only question is: can the patient have ice cream?”
My father’s reaction to my injury was to treat it as a triumph. He announced we would stop at the Dairy Queen on Seventh Avenue and buy me a chocolate dip cone, my favorite. Grandma protested weakly that I shouldn’t have ice cream on an empty stomach. Normally Grandma would have been ferociously negative and stopped him, but she was still too enfeebled by the embarrassment of my injury occurring while I was in her care to argue with much conviction. Typically, my mother would also have overruled Francisco, but she had fallen into a moody silence since we left the orthopedist. She kept her arm around me and twice kissed my temple; otherwise she was disengaged, staring ahead at the Tampa streets, apparently bored by my grandmother’s account of events.
But Francisco was cheerful. He told me I was the first Neruda to break a bone in thirty years. “You know why it’s taken so long?” he asked me as we got out of the car to go up to the Dairy Queen counter. He grabbed my head again with his arm and squeezed. “I can’t get over how big you are! You’re a giant! I think you’re going to be taller than me.”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
He laughed at that, squeezed my head hard once again and let go. The embrace of his arm made me deaf and dumb for a second and its release just as abruptly restored the bright world. It is
“A simple break!” my father teased. He took my nose between his index and middle fingers and squeezed hard. So hard it made my eyes water. “That can’t be. We Nerudas don’t do anything simply.” Francisco looked great. His hair was long and almost entirely black. Only a smudge of white appeared above his ears, like racing stripes on the side of a car. He was tall, six feet three. His stomach was flat, his shoulders wide, his posture vigorous, his chest so proud it almost invited an attack. The setting for his eyes was deep and wide apart, a characteristic shape of the Nerudas. The jewels that peered out were a warm brown; they seemed insistently friendly, despite a gleam of mockery. His eyes were highlighted by thick brows that curved up and away at the corners, emphasizing his profile and intelligent forehead. Francisco was obviously handsome, almost a cliché of the Latin lover. When women got their first look at him, they invariably smiled. Indeed, the orthopedist’s nurse, a blotchy-skinned brunette with a harsh Southern accent, a sour woman who had disdained to address my bowed grandmother, who had barked at my mother when she first barged in, and who had told me several times to sit still although I was in pain and not really moving that much, broke into a smile at the sight of my father and roared with laughter as he continued his joke. “Maybe we should break it a few more times,” Francisco said. He put his arm around me, engulfing me into the crook as he squeezed. For a moment he shut out the world. He let me go. “Right, Rafael? Twist it into a pretzel. Make it into a Neruda fracture, a Cubist arm. After all, it was a Spaniard who began Cubism.”
“Cubism,” my mother mumbled with disgust, as though naming a social travesty. “He’s a glorified cartoonist,” she added to Francisco.
“No, he’s a genius.” My father hadn’t disagreed; he cheerfully wiped Ruth’s opinion away. “And loyal to the Republic,” Francisco added with a laugh. My father noticed that the doctor, the nurse, and I were all baffled by their discussion of Picasso’s politics. “Thank you, Doctor,” he said and clapped the physician on his back. The orthopedist was startled not only by the force of the contact, but by the fact of it. “My only question is: can the patient have ice cream?”
My father’s reaction to my injury was to treat it as a triumph. He announced we would stop at the Dairy Queen on Seventh Avenue and buy me a chocolate dip cone, my favorite. Grandma protested weakly that I shouldn’t have ice cream on an empty stomach. Normally Grandma would have been ferociously negative and stopped him, but she was still too enfeebled by the embarrassment of my injury occurring while I was in her care to argue with much conviction. Typically, my mother would also have overruled Francisco, but she had fallen into a moody silence since we left the orthopedist. She kept her arm around me and twice kissed my temple; otherwise she was disengaged, staring ahead at the Tampa streets, apparently bored by my grandmother’s account of events.
But Francisco was cheerful. He told me I was the first Neruda to break a bone in thirty years. “You know why it’s taken so long?” he asked me as we got out of the car to go up to the Dairy Queen counter. He grabbed my head again with his arm and squeezed. “I can’t get over how big you are! You’re a giant! I think you’re going to be taller than me.”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
He laughed at that, squeezed my head hard once again and let go. The embrace of his arm made me deaf and dumb for a second and its release just as abruptly restored the bright world. It is
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