Epidemic

EPIDEMIC / Ninotchka Rosca IT OCCURRED TO LÁZARO REYES, M.D., that if he could kill one child—just one child—everything would be all right again. The problem was to find the child. Having found him, Lázaro would know what to do: a quick glide of the scalpel across the throat, the body hung by its feet over the garden faucet drain. He was sure his hands wouldn't tremble; he would not hesitate. Such was his rage against that face of innocence: black mop of hair, brown-gold eyes, snub nose and full lips, atop a lanky body within filthy, loose clothes. On the accursed day reality turned brittle, a series of omens had warned him. First, his pot of cattleya, those well-bred orchids, had teetered on his bedroom windowsill and seemingly by itself, slid out the open window to smash on the driveway below. On his way to the bathroom, his feet had been snagged by his ten-year-old daughter's skateboard which, propelled by an immense kick, had zoomed down the corridor, to the stairs and into infinity. Then, his air-conditioned car, usually well-mannered, coughed, spat smoke and uttered a terrible bleat at the turn of the ignition key. It died, leaving him stranded in his own garage, for his daughters had taken the second car while the third, of course, was with his wife who was visiting her parents in the province. His own chauffeur was still on vacation, which could've explained the car's tantrum but that still left him running for the diesel public bus at nine in the morning to wedge himself into the packed humanity of offensive smells inside. The bus had taken him to the shopping center where he hoped to catch a cab. Despite the hour, a million people were aboard, marching in and out of shops, standing on the curb, darting forward with flailing hands and managing to lure one cab after another away from him. The summer heat and the noise made him light-headed. His collar, limp with sweat, was a comatose snake about his neck. He was certain his blood pressure was rising. A sudden pain in the area of his kidneys jolted him into turning around. But it was only a look, a stare, from a boy, age ten. "Want me to call you a cab, mister?" the boy asked. He used the proper third person plural pronoun of the native language, signalling his immeasurable respect for the being of Lázaro Reyes, M.D. At his nod, the boy took off, sprinting through and among the moving vehicles. Lázaro lost him in the confusion of the traffic. He thought he spotted him, playing matador with a rampaging bus, but when the kid raised his face, Lázaro saw it was the wrong child. Then again, another boy crossed the highway, zigzagging through black exhaust fumes but he had a pack of ciagarettes in his hand and was The Missouri Review · 87 selling them, stick by stick, to harassed drivers of mini-buses. Wrong kid. Lázaro shifted his weight from foot to foot; it was taking quite a while—fifteen, twenty minutes. Again that jolt in his kidney area. He looked over his right shoulder. Another boy of the same age, almost a twin of the first. "Want a cab, mister?" The same articulation of respect. Lázaro nodded; the boy took off. After five minutes, he was back, leading a cab, his waving right hand laying an imaginary red carpet toward Lázaro on the curb. The doctor pulled out his wallet, untangled a peso bill and handed this to the boy who, with a grin and a flourish, opened the passenger door. At that instant, the first boy came running, leading another cab through traffic and throng. "Sir, sir," he called out. "Too late," Lázaro told him, just as the second cab eased itself behind the first. The boy's face mirrored the shock of those words. It seemed to Lázaro that, in the twenty minutes he's been gone, he'd managed to get himself even filthier. Sweat streaks ran from...