Navarro - Story of a Sociopath

Julia Navarro is a journalist, a political analyst, and the internationally bestselling author of six novels, including The Brotherhood of the Holy Shroud and The Bible of Clay. Her fiction has been translated in more than thirty countries. She lives in Madrid.

www.julianavarro.es/en

To Doctor Isidre Vilacosta, for answering my many questions on heart disease, and Doctor Pedro Grgolas, for resolving other questions on medical matters. If any errors remain, then I am responsible for them. Thanks to you both for your patience.

And thanks to the team at Penguin Random House who have, as always, smoothed this books path to its readers.

I m dying. Its not that Im terminally ill or that my doctors have declared me a lost cause. The last time they saw me was to tell me that I was in pretty good shape, especially for someone whos suffered a heart attack and had valve replacement surgery. My blood sugar levels are a bit high, and so is my cholesterol, and my blood pressures on the edge, but its nothing, they say, that cant be fixed by taking a few pills every day, going on a diet, and giving up cigarettes and alcohol.

Go for a walk. The best thing is to go for a walk. Its the best medicine. Lots of people with your medical history would be pleased to look like you, the doctor said, trying to cheer me up.

Im not that much older than him, eight or ten years at the most. I didnt say anything. Why should I? I know that Im dying and I dont need blood tests or cardiograms to prove it. How do I know? I know because I look at myself in the mirror every morning and see the brown patches that have sprouted on my skin. And not an inch of my skin that hasnt lost its elasticity.

I look at my hands and what do I see? Blue threads showing through the skin. The same blue threads that crisscross my legs. They are veins, as hard as stone now.

You are more interesting than you were when you were twenty, the hypocrites say. Liars. Especially the women. The only thing interesting about me is my bank account and my entry in Whos Who.

Its been a while since I realized that other people dont see you for who you are, but rather for what you have, for what you represent. The same gray hair, the same grayish skin: these would be looked at with indifference or even disgust if I were one of those wretched creatures who can be found in any corner of the city.

How much longer do I have? A day perhaps, a week, five, six, ten yearsor maybe tomorrow Ill wake up with a sharp pain in my chest, or find a lump while Im in the shower, or faint in the street, and the same pleasant doctor will tell me that Ive got cancer somewhere, in my lungs, my pancreas, wherever. Or hell tell me that my tired heart has given out again, and Ill need a new valve. From one day to the next death will show her face.

But I dont need a lump, or a fainting fit, or my heart to beat out of time. I know that I am dying because Ive reached that age when theres no more fooling yourself and you sense that you are living on borrowed time.

Tonight death has filled my thoughts and Ive started to wonder what the last minute of my life will be like. Im afraid that it will be in a hospital bed, without any power to make decisions about my own existence. I imagine myself incapable of moving, incapable of speech, communicating by signs or with glances, with nobody able to understand or share my suffering.

We dont choose where or when we are born, but we should at least be able to decide how to confront the final moment of our lives. But thats denied to us as well.

When I know that the hour has come when death will visit, Ill try to work out how to greet her, how to avoid her for a while, but above all how to start the trek into nonexistence.

And so, as I await that treacherous knock on the door, tonight I am overwhelmed by memories of my life, and they all leave the taste of bile in my mouth.

Im scum. Yes, I always have been and I cant make myself regret being scum, for having been scum. Although if what the physicists say is true, and time is just a construct of the human mind, we should have the chance to walk backward, to live the life we could have lived but did not.

Am I wrong if I think and say that we would all change parts of our past? That we would do things differently from how we have done them? If we could retrace our footstepsMaybe even I would behave differently.

There are people who say, out loud, that they regret nothing. I dont believe them. Most people have consciences in spite of themselves. I was born without a conscience, or at least I never knew where to find one, but perhaps one will knock on my door tonight. But I will try not to let her in, because nothing can change the things that torment us.

Tonight, as I look death in the face, Ill go over what I have lived through. I know what I did, and what I should have done.