# The Bald Man Carves the Turkey

In the nursing home bed, Jacobo dreams it as if he were living it again. Lorena, his wife, and his daughters, María and Viviana, distribute the sweet pork loin on Styrofoam plates. His sons-in-law, Adán and Rogelio, watch *Home Alone* with Carlos, Arturo and Daniela, three of his grandchildren. Carmen (the youngest of Viviana's) is very small and doesn't even pay attention to the movie, so Jacobo rocks her in his arms. Marco, his brother-in-law, looks at the Nativity scene; he still doesn't have the dark circles and scarred face that crystal meth will leave him. Victoria, the youngest of Jacobo's daughters (sixteen years old), sits in the living room with Javier, a boyfriend who lasted only thirteen days.

When he sees them in this private screening, Jacobo thinks the same thing he thought thirty-eight years ago: that he could never be happier. And he isn't wrong: this is the only Christmas they all spent together.

The old man (back then, in his fifties) has learned that the dream is a kind of movie: no one does anything but what they did that time. He can scream or run naked, but the answers and gestures don't change. That's why (and because he loves that Christmas) he always sits where he sat, eats what he ate, thinks what he thought. And so he's better off: it's a perfect moment. Jacobo lets himself be carried by the thousand-times-said answers, the always-given kisses and the same opened gifts. He goes on autopilot; he only lives happily that eternal Christmas dinner. The dream is a river that hasn't changed in the fifteen years since his wife died in this same nursing home. Jacobo lives to sleep and sleeps to find her (her and the others).

Until that Friday in March, when the bald man appears and carves the turkey in the kitchen.

***

The nurses don't understand why Jacobo always wears a smile, if his daughters visit him every never and don't stay even half an hour. Besides, there's the matter of the throat cancer. Jacobo doesn't socialize with the other retirees and isn't interested in either the workshops or the Thursday movies. They've counted up to five straight days where he only opens his mouth to eat. When he arrived, they thought he was mute. But no. One dawn when another retiree screamed for hours, Jacobo got up to curse her out. What he had invested his pension in this place for was long, tranquil nights of sleep.

Jacobo stands out for his memory. If he's near a domino game long enough, he says who has the fours or who's going to choke the game. He ruins conquián and canasta the same way. The others complain and he goes to sleep. When he worked in government, he could find any file without consulting the classification book. They digitized the archive and Jacobo designed the database. Though the system was useless: you'd tell the archivist the document and, in three seconds, he'd respond with the shelf and the page. The computer remained in a corner, waiting to be started for the fifth time.

Jacobo earned enough for retirement to last without bothering either his daughters or his grandchildren. He doesn't care that they don't look for him, because he has his memories. He has them from the best moment and the only one that matters.

Once, Jacobo wondered what the difference would be between his life in the dream and the one he has in the nursing home. A lot, he told himself. While he dreams, the cancer disappears, his daughters' love is real and present, the leftover apple salad tastes just as good and every night he gets a little drunk (but only a little) on Martell. In that Christmas he speaks without his throat burning from the ulcers, he has complete teeth and his hair isn't an ashen mass.

***

That Friday in March, then, Jacobo falls asleep. He opens his eyes and is in the house where he lived forty-three years, seven months, three days and one hour (Sauces 8, Los Cedros subdivision). His daughters enter through the door. Carlos doesn't greet him and Arturo comes asleep in Adán's arms; the boy wears a pink Polo that his grandmother gave him a few days ago. Jacobo notices the smell of talcum powder on his grandson's head. Although he has lived it thousands of times, that smell reminds him of a friend from university.

They sit in the living room. Jacobo's skin bristles when he sees his wife, for he must think, again, if he should cheat on her with Teresa, the Accounting manager. Just as it happened that Christmas, he shakes his head and the idea; he would never forgive himself for something like that. He kisses Lorena, for the thousandth time, in the same spot.

Jacobo goes to the cabinet for the same clean glass for Rogelio and then he sees him. In the kitchen there's a bald man, with an enormous nose full of pimples, dressed in Dockers and a red plaid flannel shirt. His lotion smells of patchouli. He carves the turkey, methodical and slow; he fixes his gaze on the bird he butchers.

Is he a cousin of his sons-in-law? A friend of his daughters? A neighbor they invited? His face awakens no memory. The bald man becomes a problem, for Jacobo forgets no one. He approaches, asks him who he is and touches his shoulder. But it's impossible for that man to do anything but carve the turkey while his bald head shines in the kitchen like a tiny sun.

Jacobo wakes up and, while bathing him, the nurses see that look that too many ninety-three-year-olds have: fearful and empty.

While he has breakfast, he tries to remember the guy. He thinks about other dreams he's had: senseless, vague, without order. He finishes his guava compote and convinces himself that he's lucky, but that most dreams don't make sense.

The next day, Jacobo falls asleep as soon as they turn off the light. He's in his living room. Beside him, his wife tells the cow and pig joke, which he thinks is pretty bad, but also tender. He wonders, while caressing her hair, if they could have another child. When she finishes, he lets out the same laugh as always. He feels the skin of his two-piece recliner —which he bought eight days after herniating between vertebrae L2 and L3— and gets up, as usual, for another glass. Again, in the kitchen, the Dockers bald man carves the turkey, methodical and slow; he's in no hurry to leave.

Although Jacobo knows that nothing is going to happen, he tells his wife that there's someone in the kitchen he doesn't know. She answers that yes, she has tried the basil filet, that it was at the Ramos' house about two years ago.

Jacobo wakes up in the early morning, frightened. He tries to fall asleep, but for the first time in all the time he's been in the nursing home, he spends the night awake.

The following six nights, Jacobo dreams and the bald man carves the turkey in the kitchen. And six times he has tried everything, throwing a glass at him, stabbing him or just pulling down his pants. But nothing works: the glasses don't break, the knife bends and the pants simply don't unbutton.

The nurses notice he's doing poorly. "Finally, Mr. Jacobo is showing his age." What they don't know is that he's worried. He only had two things he was sure of: his dream and his memory; and the second is failing him.

The next day, his daughters visit him. They talk about the cancer and the treatments and the medicine and the prices. When they quiet down a bit, Jacobo brings up that Christmas and the bald man, they click their tongues:

"Oh, Dad, who knows. Only you remember those things."

After a week, he tries to sleep with the mission of ignoring the bald man: "If I try really hard, but really hard, I'll stay in the living room. The trick is not to turn around, not to turn around, not to turn around. Anyway, I don't have to go into the kitchen, because I didn't go in that time. Maybe the bald man leaves or maybe I remember who he is. The important thing is to act like he's not there and that's it."

The living room appears. Adán says the business is going badly and Rogelio says it's because the dollar is through the roof. Lorena talks about an article she read about salaries in China. Everyone goes quiet. The only uncomfortable silence of the night. Jacobo respects it thinking the same as that time: that he doesn't like the new dining room; too modern for his taste. He makes up that he doesn't, but he already knows Victoria will put on *Romances* by Luis Miguel. They recover their good humor and the celebration continues. Carmen wakes up and cries. Jacobo gets up to rock her and passes by Marco, who remains mesmerized by the Nativity. He must think the same, although now it hurts him to have judged him: "Fucking junkie."

When Jacobo carries his granddaughter, he wonders if she'll be tall and, although he would still kiss Carmen's forehead and silently promise her that he'll always help her out, he goes off-script. He can't avoid it. No matter how much he fights against himself, the curiosity is enormous. He looks at the kitchen. The bald man carves the turkey, absent, as if he didn't share the same dream. Jacobo shakes his head and screams. So as not to get angrier, he prefers to walk with his granddaughter down the hallway; he finally kisses her forehead and calms down. But when he looks at her, the baby has the bald man's face, only now she doesn't wear Dockers, but a pink onesie and a knitted cap.

***

Now, sleeping is more torture than anything else: Jacobo concentrates on his memory (on the thousands of repetitions) to avoid losing control: "Things happened like this and that's it. There's no other way. Everything is the same. Remember well, remember well, goddammit." And he feels this is the remedy for not remembering him, for his bald head not to blind him and ruin everything.

While he's awake, he makes mental lists of what is and what he must not lose. He tries to have a memory that lasts as long as what he lived, that lasts as long as the dream, as if splicing them together were the solution: the smell of cider, Luis Miguel on the stereo, the fight between Carlos and Daniela, the scolding María gave them, what he thinks of *Treasure Island*, the question of whether he'd have the guts to kill himself just because, the color of Carmen's baby bottles, his wife's perfume, the temperature of the dining room when he's sober, the temperature of the living room after three cognacs.

Christmas is a prison made of infinite details.

***

Now it's a Friday in June. Three months the bald man has been getting into the dream. Jacobo falls asleep. Again, the living room. His grandchildren's laughs even bother him now. He wonders if they were like that, if they only laughed a little while or half an hour or never. He doesn't even know if Marco was a coke addict or an alcoholic. Jacobo wants to get up for Martell, wants to go for the glass for Adán, wants to keep consoling his granddaughter. What he doesn't want is to have that hot sensation in the pit of his stomach every time he passes by the kitchen, he doesn't want worry to win, to turn around and that bald head to blind him. What he really wants is to never again see the bald man's face on that baby he's carrying.

Jacobo leaves Carmen in the crib and goes to the dining room. He sits with his wife, as always; he kisses her ear with tenderness, as always (although now he can't act as well; the tenderness is superficial). For a moment, the whirlwind calms. Lorena squirms from the tickles and tells him to stay still. She turns to look at him with loving eyes, only they aren't hers: they're the bald man's, gray and distracted.

***

The problem is that Jacobo's cancer is in remission. The oncologist told him he'll live another five or six years if he takes care of himself. He can stop chemotherapy and eat solid foods again. While he hears this, Jacobo remembers the moment before waking up that morning: seated at the table, as if it were *The Last Supper*, his grandchildren, his sons-in-law, his daughters, his wife, the boyfriend who lasted thirteen days, they all have the bald man's face.

Jacobo forces a smile for the photo that Marco takes of them, who by the way also has the bald man's face. Through the kitchen doorway, the light of the tiny sun comes out and, although he doesn't see him, he knows he's in there.

As if it were never going to end, the bald man carves the turkey.