Read Online The Miracle Cures of Dr. Aira by César Aira - Free Book Online

trick.
It was less an improvisation than an instantaneous mnemonic. Evaluating the
results was another issue. There would be time for that, too. After all, if it
was a failure, it would be the first, and the last.
    The door to the bedroom. They opened it; they motioned for
him to go in. He entered . . . And it was as if he had entered a different
world, incomparably more vivid and more real, a world of pure and compressed
action where there was no room for thought, and where, nevertheless, thought was
destined to triumph in the end.
    The first thing that struck him was the lighting, which
was very white and very strong; it seemed excessive, though perhaps this was due
to its contrast with the gloomy semidarkness in the rest of the house. Even so,
it was the last thing one would expect in a sickroom, unless it was an operating
room. He immediately turned to look at the bed and the man lying in it, which
barely gave him a chance to register along the outer edges of his attention
certain elements that contributed to the creation of a high-tech environment and
explained the lighting.
    The man in the bed warranted Dr. Aira’s most intense
interest. Never before had he seen someone so close to death. He was so close
that he had already shed all his attributes and had become purely human. By the
same token, this shedding had removed him from the human. His first impression
was that it was too late. If there was even the remotest possibility of bringing
him back to life, it would have to be via one of his qualities. And it looked as
if he hadn’t a single one left; perhaps, in the spiritual process of preparing
himself for death, he had undergone a “cleansing” that had been set in motion by
the illness. But this was not the case. Despite everything he and the cancer had
done, one of his attributes remained: wealth. He may have cut all his ties to
life, but he remained the owner of this house, and of his lands and factories.
And that would suffice, for money had the marvelous property of including
everything else. He should definitely start there.
    Just thinking about it was enough to re-orient him in
reality. He looked around. The room was large, and many people were there, all
of them strangers, except for the patient’s brothers. They were all looking at
him, but as nobody showed any intention of introducing themselves, he merely
greeted them with a nod and turned his attention to the room and the
furnishings. There were chairs, armchairs, tables, bookshelves, and a lot of
electronic equipment. It took him a moment to notice — even though they stood
out more than anything else — two supermodern television cameras each on top of
a tripod, one on either side of the bed and each with its respective cameraman:
two young men wearing wireless earphones. The spotlights and large microphones
with black felt heads placed at strategic spots apparently belonged to the same
set-up, as did the echo-reducing panels and a technician sitting in front of a
sound board next to the wall. He wondered, intrigued, if this was a custom he
had never heard of, to record the final days of important people. That wasn’t
it, he found out right away, because one of the brothers, as if reading his
mind, said:
    “If you don’t mind, we’d like to film you while you work,”
and without giving him time to respond, he rushed to explain. “It’s to cover
ourselves to the stockholders, just in case.”
    Dr. Aira mumbled something, and looking down at the
ground, he noticed that there were no cables, which was quite fortunate because
otherwise he would surely have tripped on them.
    With a discreet signal from the brother who had just
spoken, the two cameramen looked through their viewers and switched on the
little red lights on their equipment. As if a lever in his body had been
released, Dr. Aira stopped feeling natural. From that moment on, what was
happening on the surface no longer coincided with the episodes of his psyche,
which, now liberated