Goodbye to the hair

I was depressed and Dorita was not very happy to say, he missed his golden short hair. At that time decided to recall all the things that had happened to have a deeper reflection and a little less painful.
One of the drugs was to cause her hair loss and that was what worried him most of the chemotherapy. The instruction sheet from the oncologist warned: "The hair loss (Alopecia) IS ALWAYS REVERSIBLE" what Dorita translated as: "Your hair will fall down, you must put up with it”.
At first she thought that it was not going to fall but after the second session, while hair began to disappear, she decided not to swim, but not touching, and it still is not falling. I insisted to pass the electrical machine and shave his hair off but she did not want and that was a way of ensuring the possibility to continue going to walk through the neighborhood and to greet the neighbors.
As the temperature did not lower, and the sweating also increased, Dorita decided to wash the hair. While I put in the shower I remained in living and past about five minutes I listened to shouts: “COME HERE, COME HERE, COME, PLEASEEEE”. With fear I went to the bath and behind the curtain of the shower a hand with hair tufts was shown. Dorita was sad, because of not bathing the missing hair stayed getting hooked up.
Just four days after that episode Dorita called to me, she wanted me to cuts the few hairs it had left. She had to come off itself his old image; it was like a ceremony of goodbye that I executed with the machinein operation, just about to cross it in her head.

searching

While tending to Dorita was still looking for a job, I wanted to be a journalist but it was complicated, my friends told me I needed contacts, known famous people.
A friend and neighbor, the one of the “fourth d” (floor and apartment), told me that there was a presentation of a book in a bookstore in capital federal as I needed to be cleared, in addition to some air conditioning, I decided to go. My surprise when I saw it, the host of the cultural program that I liked, it seemed to be a woman one with good vibes.
I am a little shy but I thought that perhaps I could talk and ask to this woman if i could work with her.
After the routinary "good afternoon" i directly told her that i wanted to work with, be part of the program, i had studied a little television so… perhaps, there was some opportunity but I received an unexpected response: "Many kids are studying this, they spend sending mails, i´m sicked of them, you know what happens? here there is no work, one must go abroad,You did not think about leaving this country?”. This woman not only refused to employ me but also that was throwing to me of the country, what a big diva of afternoon cultural tv program…
this woman was smiling to others, she was so charming but inside “do not swell the balls to her please, she is tired…”.

She dosen´t want to go out

Dorita did not want to go out, I was insisting her, in addition the neighbors were asking. "What did happen to Dorita? I haven´t seen her for such a lot of time, why are you in her department? ". She was sad, very sad, she was saying to myself that if they saw her they were going to say with suspicious face: " this one has ’it’, is going to die, she lacks little " and she did not have desire of listening to these flocks of idiots.
Dorita had breast´s cancer, the tumor was extirpated but to the people does not like to hear these words because they are apparent synonymous of death. The language, at the time, has to mask the unmentionable thing, instead of cancer, "she has it", instead of tumor "small nodule". I was so worried that I gave her a book, "Illness as metaphor" of Susan Sontag. The authoress analyzes the halo of mystery and danger on the cancer and it been relating with the psychosis that in past times was awarding to the tuberculosis.
When I gave the book to Dorita she remained perplex, like scared and looked at me surprised saying: " The book is for me? ", I agreed with my head and her look remained like lost, looking for the window.
The psychosis of the neighbors was what Dorita at the time was not supporting I thought that probably the book was going to serve her. Even many of her friends had had cancer but none was encouraging to name it, this it was Ramos Mejía's new cuckoo. The silence was the problem, how could she share the pain that was feeling? Dorita needed someone to speak with her about the wigs, about the handkerchiefs (occulting the peeled head), about the "fever of vomits in the night ", about the fear, about the distress.
The cancer was of others, never of one and the confinement she was in contribute to this fiction - Soothing of consciences-. Every time I was endearing more with her, I was spending days in her home. This night when I went away there was the neighbor of "a" apartment looking out of the door and looking for in, he asked me: " how is Dorita? " I remained immobile, looked for in and Dorita was doing desperate signs in order that I close the door, I was afraid that he could see her. My inconvenient response was "well, well " and my mind imagined Dorita going out, showing without modesties this peeled head.

Registering prices for the INDEC (It´s the Argentinean National Institute of Statistics and Censes)

Dorita was much better, even thought it was the fourth day after the chemotherapy she did not have vomits and the desires of eating would reappear. I had to do the purchases but the heat was unbearable, it was not going down of the thirties of degrees, I even helped Dorita whom to leans on the armchair and opened the window in order to a bit of air could circulate.
Finally I went out to the avenue and went away to the mini supermarket that was staying more nearby with the cellular with me by the doubts.
When I approached the gondola of the meats I saw a woman with a schedule and then, a bit for curiosity, I asked her:
- Forgive me, Are you from some association of defense to the consumer? –
The woman answered me smiling:
- Not, I am of the INDEC –
- Of the INDEC? –
- Yes–
- And you are annotating the prices of the meat? -
-Sure, of some products - -
-Considering the lying index of inflation I ask myself how it is the mechanism in order that the prices that you annotate are reflected in the final calculation –
-But there also are the prices fixed by the government-
-I don´t see those prices in none of the markets of the zone –
-That´s not the problem, the important thing is that they forced me to put the prices fixed by the government-
- We are said in television, newspapers that there is many pressure and for what you are saying to me it seems that is right–
-Yes, there is many pressure, I have been working for the INDEC during twenty years and now they extracted me to the offices and ordered me to be in the street –
- To look for the prices that they want you to find…-
- Clearly. In addition, there is another thing, the inflationary index is balancing then they put several products, for example, there is an increase in the food but the index goes down in the end of the season because gowns’ prices descends … But well, I have to work, many people say to me bad things when I say that I am of the INDEC –
-But you are passing a difficult, coarse situation. I could realize of it just for talking with you in this few seconds–
-Well I must leave you cause I have to continue –
-I hope that the situation changes –
- Thank you, thank you-

Skate

These warm evenings of summer were the worst thing, in Ramos Mejía (my estate) the katydids were singing, the asphalt that neighbors had given for calling "The Gaona" was burning and we also had the noise of the cars. The ventilator and the ice inside the tapper spread by the whole department were not reaching, this way it was impossible to sleep.
Under these conditions it was one more summer, like any other one, but the vomits were not stopping, the effects post-chemotherapy brought together with the heat were unbearable.
Between the vomits and the rest in the bed she was listening to something that was calling her attention, she asked me what it was but I did not know. At about three o'clock of the evening, every evening, this heavy dream was interrupted by a strange noise, as if distantly something was moving from right to left side and ended up by getting lost.
She was listening to it, was waking up and turning it to recapture the dream to get recover.
When she was feeling better she tried to know that it was, sought for it, but nothing, when it was appearing to the balcony she was looking at the avenue, but she couldn´t find that noise.
In the middle of the whole process of blood test, low defenses, vomits, feel better, and to return to feel too badly, it gave her a happy curiosity.
I also wanted to know wherefrom they were coming and in a task of investigation I decided to go down before three o'clock in the afternoon, searched and there I saw them, the noise was was coming from the contact among the skates and the grooved paths, a noise like broken, the kids were skating and skating. I followed them and they will have thought that he was a half a psychopath or neighbor who was "sick of that noise they make at the moment of the siesta (that´s how we call the moment between two and five in the morning when people sleeps, takes a rest)".
The neighbor of tenth b, Dorita, asked me to take care of her and since I was not obtaining work I accepted the offer. And the whole topic of the noise made me remember Enrique Sdrech (Argentinean journalist that was an specialist of crimes and jusgments) , his investigations, his conscientious, perspicacious, at the time opinions I ordered myself f this mini investigation. It was clear that here there was no crime but I wanted to do what I liked and everything was a great excuse to do it.
I extracted some photos from the balcony and I showed them to the neighbor. Dorita was not going out of the department for which it was giving her shame to walk peeled or with scarf because " the neighbors were going to realize made a big gossip and that was arming itself " so I devoted myself to tell her all the events of the neighborhood and to show her photos of the kids of the skate.