"There are tubes in my throat?" Lupe asked.

"There are tubes in all our throats, Lupe," Juan Diego said.

"Whoever Dr. Gomez is, Vargas wants to have sex with her," Lupe told her brother. "Dr. Gomez is married, she has children, she's a lot older than he is, but Vargas still wants to have sex with her."

"Dr. Gomez is an ear, nose, and throat specialist, Lupe," Juan Diego said to his unusual sister.

"Dr. Gomez can look at my larynx, but Vargas can't--he's disgusting!" Lupe said. "I don't like the idea of a mirror at the back of my throat--this hasn't been a good day for mirrors!"

"Lupe's a little worried about the mirror," was all Juan Diego said to Dr. Vargas.

"Tell her the mirror doesn't hurt," Vargas said.

"Ask him if what he wants to do to Dr. Gomez hurts!" Lupe cried.

"Either Dr. Gomez or I will hold Lupe's tongue with a gauze pad--just to keep her tongue away from the back of her throat--" Vargas was explaining, but Lupe wouldn't let him continue.

"The Gomez woman can hold my tongue--not Vargas," Lupe said.

"Lupe is looking forward to meeti

ng Dr. Gomez," was all Juan Diego said.

"Dr. Vargas," Edward Bonshaw said, after he'd drawn a deep breath, "at a mutually convenient time--I mean some other time, of course--I think you and I should talk about our beliefs."

With the hand that had so gently touched the sleeping girl, Dr. Vargas--with a more forceful grip--closed his fingers tightly around the new missionary's wrist. "Here's what I think, Edward--or Eduardo, or whatever your name is," Vargas said. "I think the girl has got something going on in her throat; perhaps the problem is her larynx, affecting her vocal cords. And this boy is going to limp for the rest of his life, whether he keeps that foot or loses it. That's what we have to deal with--I mean here, on this earth," Dr. Vargas said.

When Edward Bonshaw smiled, his fair skin seemed to shine; the idea that an inner light had been suddenly switched on was eerily plausible. When Senor Eduardo smiled, a wrinkle as precise and striking as a lightning bolt crossed the bright-white tissue of that perfect check mark on the zealot's forehead--smack between his blond eyebrows. "In case you were wondering about my scar," Edward Bonshaw began, as he always began, his story.

* 10 *

No Middle Ground

"We'll see you sooner than you think," Dorothy had told Juan Diego.

"We end up in Manila," the young woman had said enigmatically.

In a moment of hysteria, Lupe had told Juan Diego that they would end up living in Lost Children--a half-truth, as it turned out. The dump kids--like everyone else, the nuns called them "los ninos de la basura"--moved their things from Guerrero to the Jesuit orphanage. Life at the orphanage was different from life at the dump, where only Rivera and Diablo had protected them. The nuns at Ninos Perdidos--together with Brother Pepe and Senor Eduardo--would look after Lupe and Juan Diego more closely.

It was heartbreaking to Rivera that he'd been replaced, but he was on Esperanza's shit list for running over her only son, and Lupe was unforgiving on the subject of the unrepaired side-view mirror. Lupe said it was only Diablo and Dirty White she would miss, but she would miss the other dogs in Guerrero and the dump dogs--even the dead ones. With Rivera's help or Juan Diego's, Lupe had been in the habit of burning the dead dogs at the basurero. (And of course Rivera would be missed--both Juan Diego and Lupe would miss el jefe, despite what Lupe had said.)

Brother Pepe was right about the nuns at Lost Children: they could accept the kids, albeit grudgingly; it was their mother, Esperanza, who gave the nuns fits. But Esperanza gave everyone fits--including Dr. Gomez, the ENT specialist, who was a very nice woman. It wasn't her fault that Dr. Vargas wanted to have sex with her.

Lupe had liked Dr. Gomez--even while the doctor was having a look at Lupe's larynx, with Vargas hovering uncomfortably nearby. Dr. Gomez had a daughter Lupe's age; the ENT specialist knew how to talk to young girls.

"Do you know what's different about a duck's feet?" Dr. Gomez, whose first name was Marisol, asked Lupe.

"Ducks swim better than they walk," Lupe answered. "A flat thing grows over their toes, uniting them."

When Juan Diego translated what Lupe had said, Dr. Gomez replied: "Ducks are web-footed. A membrane grows over their toes--it's called a web. You have a web, Lupe--it's called a congenital laryngeal web. Congenital means you were born with it; you have a web, a kind of membrane, across your larynx. It's pretty rare, which means special," Dr. Gomez told Lupe. "Only one in ten thousand births--that's how special you are, Lupe."

Lupe shrugged. "That web isn't what's special about me," Lupe said, untranslatably. "I know stuff I'm not supposed to know."

"Lupe can be psychic about things. She's usually right about the past," Juan Diego tried to explain to Dr. Gomez. "She doesn't do the future as accurately."

"What does Juan Diego mean?" Dr. Gomez asked Dr. Vargas.

"Don't ask Vargas--he wants to have sex with you!" Lupe cried. "He knows you're married, he knows you have kids--and you're much too old for him--but he still thinks about doing it with you. Vargas is always thinking about having sex with you!" Lupe said.

Tags: John Irving Fiction
Source: readsnovelonline.net