It was not the miracle he had imagined, and like any self-respecting skeptic, he needed to see it to believe it. He knew that when he went into Lázaro García’s house he would find a logical explanation. But later on, when he found time to recount the events of that afternoon to his wife and friends, he would admit that, for a moment, hearing the people who had gathered there, his hair had stood on end.
As a doctor, he felt entitled to knock and demand they open the door to the García home to him.
He found Lázaro freshly bathed, lying in bed vomiting. In the absence of his mother, his brother, Miguel, had warmed up the cabrito en salsa from the day before. The mere smell of the goat meat had been enough to make him feel sick, but he knew he needed to eat. At the second mouthful, his stomach rebelled.
“How many days have you gone without food, Lázaro?”
“I don’t remember, Doctor. I can remember the three days in the cemetery, but I can’t remember how many days it’s been since I fell ill. More than a few, I’d bet, because my clothes are all too big for me.”
“Well, you can’t start with something so heavy. Start with toast and chamomile tea, but slowly: small pieces and sips, bit by bit, so that your stomach gradually gets used to the food.”
Miguel took the plate of cabrito away and went to make the tea and toast. There was a persistent knocking on the door, which Miguel answered on his way to the kitchen. It was Father Emigdio. Dr. Cantú nodded a greeting.
“I’ve just sent a telegram to the archbishop to announce the miracle of our Lazarus.”
Dr. Cantú preferred not to contribute anything to that line of conversation. He wanted to hear the story from the mouth of the supposed risen one.
“What happened, Lázaro? They tell me outside that you came back.”
“That’s right, Doctor. The plain truth is that I was fed up, so I thought it best I come back.”
“You mean you got bored?” asked Father Emigdio, somewhat indignant.
“Well, yes. Imagine: all that was happening was that I was watching more and more dead people arrive, and then more dead people again. And then I thought how happy my mama would be to see me well, and just look what happened. Now I’m here and she’s there.”
“You decided to come back yourself?”
“With the help of God and His angels, of course,” the priest cut in.
“I kept an eye out, Father, to see if the angels would appear to show me where to go, but they didn’t. So, yes, it was just me. Who else? Of course, the gravedigger helped me onto the cart and brought me here, Doctor.”
“He got you out of the grave?”
“Oh, no. He never put me in there. He’s a good man. He’d never have done that. Just imagine. He left me at the edge with the other ones that weren’t ready yet.”
“Ready?”
“Ready for the pit. All the others eventually went, but not me. I waited and waited to be called, all blessed and everything by my mama, and nothing happened. I tried to wait, but I got tired of it, so I got up and walked until I found Don Vicente. Then he put me on the cart and brought me home.”
“They say that you told Don Luis, your neighbor, that you had seen his daughter . . .”
“Well, what could I say to him, with him hugging me like that? I tell you, Doc, I saw a lot of dead people, and God only knows whether I saw her. Maybe. I was embarrassed to ask Don Luis what time or what day she’d died, or what color her sheet was, but the honest truth is that, bored as I was, I took to counting them to pass the time. And he asked me whether I’d seen her, so I said yes, I think so. And then he asked me why I hadn’t brought her with me. But you won’t see me going in that pit—not a chance. Rummaging through those rotten, stinking bundles to find my neighbor, as much as I liked her—no, sir. And anyway, if Luz died, she should stay where she’s meant to be, right? What do you think, Father? The dead shouldn’t be wandering around, visiting Papa, should they?”
“You came back to visit your mother, Lázaro. Remember?”
“I did, Father, but not Luz.”
“And did you see a bright light as you returned?”
“In the day I saw light; at night I couldn’t see anything. That’s how I know I spent three days there, Father. I would’ve liked to have come back sooner, but the truth is, it was a while before it occurred to me, because at first I was really sick. But then, when I got bored, I realized I’d gotten better, so I just got up and walked.”
“Just like Lazarus.”
“How could it be like anyone else, if that’s who I am?”
“Lázaro García. Explain one thing for us,” Dr. Cantú interjected, suspecting that, if they went on like this, they would go around in circles for eternity. “Did you come down with the Spanish flu?”
“Yes, Doctor. In no time I felt like I was choking to death.”
“With a very high fever and aching body?”
“As much as my mama tried, may her poor soul rest in peace, it wouldn’t go down. I couldn’t even think anymore, and everything hurt so much I couldn’t move, much less breathe. My skull and my brain hurt so much I wanted to rip my head off, and the compresses my mama made for me did nothing. By the time my mama said, ‘Son, you’re not going to get better, you’ll have to go now because Don Vicente’s coming,’ all I wanted was to die.”
“That was when you died?” the priest asked.
“No, Father! Like I keep saying, I got bored!”
“Okay. When was it you died, so that you could return?”
“Who said I died? I never said I died.”
“But you returned!”
“Well, I went in good faith. My mama said to me, ‘Go,’ and I went. She wrapped me in my sheet, and I tried not to move too much. But after three days, I got tired of waiting, and I came back.”
“To be clear: You fell sick?” Dr. Cantú asked.
“Yes, Doctor.”
“They took you in the cart to the cemetery?”
“Yes, Doctor. The gravedigger put me on there.”
“But you were alive when you went?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You were alive? Your mother sent you to be buried alive?”
“Don Vicente never buried me, Father. He kept asking: ‘Are you still alive?’ And I always said yes. The other poor folks gradually went quiet, and then they were ready.”
“Ready for the pit. Dead, you mean.”
“Yes, Doctor. But not me, as much as I tried. So I came back here when I was able to get up. What is it, Father? Why are you making that face?”
The information he had just received, processed, and accepted hit Father Emigdio like a bucket of icy water. “There is no miracle! What am I going to say to the archbishop? What am I going to say to all the people waiting outside?”
“Tell them, Father,” the doctor suggested, thinking it would reassure him, “that there is no resurrected one because he was never dead. But tell them that we now have the first sufferer of this influenza who has survived, and that, Father Emigdio, is the best possible miracle. Then tell them to go home, because this isn’t over yet.”