The Last Winter

By Juan Juan M.D.

The Last Winter is an attempt to analyze the moral problems that we confront in this century. In the first book Benjamin, after the death of his wife, falls in love with a pleasure-seeking woman. He loves her desperately and believes he is the only man in her life. As he comes to realize that he has no claim over the woman who is at the same time his lover, colleague and the wife of one of his friends the psychological tension becomes tremendous. The novel recounts his trials and tribulations as well as the protagonists suffering as he discovers he has been betrayed. It examines the vicissitudes of a doctor in the last winter of his life and has as a setting a world riddled with adultery, drug abuse, and crime. It also relates the adventures of a psychiatrist who is continually seeking to help his patients and suffers together with them. The Last Winter dissects the intricate thoughts of the sane and the criminal, discusses love, abandonment, the joy of life, the beauty of nature and the reason of living; in short investigates all the feelings that fill our life with passion.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 29, 2003
• ISBN: 9781403341198

Juan Juan M.D.

Juan Carden is a full time poet by destiny, a full time doctor by devotion, and a full time writer by desire. He was born in Quito, Ecuador on October 21st, 1942. After graduating from medical school in 1968, he came to the United States for his training in internal medicine. While rotating through the intensive care unit as an intern, he met his future wife. After completing his internal medicine residency at St. Louis University Hospital, he moved to Houston, Texas to train in Hematology/Oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Hospital. He excelled behind expectations as he orchestrated protocols that improved the systemic treatment for breast cancer. Despite being asked to join the faculty at this prestigious institution, he decided to move back to St. Louis with his family to work in private practice. While he did have his full share of struggles when his wife got sick and having to run a full time practice and raise three children, he has always possessed a very positive outlook on life. His offspring even followed his footsteps and dedicate themselves to the care of cancer patients Juan Carden is a historian, a traveler, a reader, a philosopher, a scientist, a psychologist, and a person that has passion for life. He is described as somebody that analyzes the present and the past, looking for a better future. His has so much love for human kind and nature. When Juan Carden tells stories, we can learn from his credo and from the depths of his soul. His books of fiction are convincing realities. He writes about different topics utilizing different styles, from historical novels to science fiction. All his narration is fascinating and full of quandaries that converge in an amalgam of illusions.

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© 2002 by Juan Carden. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author.

ISBN: 1-4033-4119-2 (e-book)

ISBN: 1-4033-4120-6 (Paperback)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2002092410

Contents

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

About the Author

I

At seven forty-five in the morning on the 21st of April 1999, as he had often done before, Dr.Benjamin Borg stopped to look at the beautiful painting that hung on the white wall opposite his desk. That painting reminded him of the beach and of certain emotions. He had lived for forty-nine years, in reality a short time in the vastness of eternity, as fleeting as the passage of a comet through the millionth part of the galaxy, not even enough time for a redwood tree to reach its fullest height, and as brief as the rotation of the sun around a minute sector of the Milky Way; and yet forty years was just as long as billions of human beings ever live. In such an insignificant span of time millions of humans, animals and insects would have been born, have reproduced, and have died. Everything is relative, time is an unnecessary and subjective medium. It serves neither to clarify nor to measure the effects of suffering or pleasure. A fraction of a second is incommensurable and infinite when a person is in pain-someone who understands and somehow wants to help suffering spirits must stop the earth from spinning to put an end to their temporary torture.

Sick of suffering, incapable of understanding why the pain never abated, tired of a life of endless agony, heart broken, and plagued by a guilty conscience, Benjamin wanted never to have to think again. He wanted to get down on his knees and ask God to forgive him, but he wanted even more to ask forgiveness of the man who, because of what he had done, had to endure suffering even more intense. Overwhelmed by these reflections, Benjamin had decided to go somewhere far away from everyone and everything.

Maybe the spring in Southampton would give him back his strength, solace his soul and end the pain that tormented his body!

On that mild Saturday in April the snow had melted and the white blanket had been reduced to mud and ice. After having turned the parks into vast, desolate wastelands, the icy north wind had gone. Life was being reborn and New Yorkers were leaving their homes to consecrate the sun and spring.

Just before leaving to enjoy his deserved vacation, he remembered some papers with important data from the results of his research on the importance of chromosomes in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. As that information was essential for the completion of his manuscript, he decided to stop in his office for a few minutes.

As he entered the building he was still reflecting on recent events. He felt that this last winter would soon end. It was a regular, ordinary winter, no different from any other-but these last four months had left wounds that could never be healed.

Even if the last winter had passed quickly, he would still never be the same again. He still remembered the hot summer sun and the cool winds of the peaceful autumn. He had ceased to think about winter, had nearly forgotten it, but it had left an irrevocable scar that would never entirely fade away, even if he was able to experience the joys of life again. That winter was ending and would never return, but it would always be with him, be with God and the universe itself.

That winter lasted just four months, in reality just an instant, a miserable instant in the span of his existence, a brief flash in the darkness of his eternal insomnia.

Maybe what happened during that last winter was only a fleeting dream, just another part of the comedy, the farce that was his life. Still it had had as profound an impact on his conscience as an illusion that is shattered by a faint breeze. Everything seemed so unreal, what had happened had endured less time than it took for his heart to beat, his shattered, devastated heart.

He had endured so much pain and suffering that last winter, so many different agonies that each one seemed to overflow from inside him and dull his intellect like the molten rock that shoots out from inside the Earth to silence men and fill them with fear. And just as that lava petrifies the erupting volcano, his spirit had been frozen by a confusion of emotions.

He took the elevator up. In his oblivion the only person he had seen was the porter, who greeted him amiably. He entered his office, stopped in front of his desk and admired the painting that had been with him all this time, for more than fifteen years. He had thought of taking it along with him as he began his new life, but he had desisted-he did not want to prolong the memory of his suffering.

The painting was of a lovely woman running on the beach. Her long dress blew in the wind, as did her precious blond hair, and the waves broke gently at her ankles. That picture had been painted one hot summer when he had spent an incredible vacation with Vianka on the scorching beaches of Puerto Rico.

Suddenly he heard a faint noise and saw a silhouette that he thought he recognized reflected in the glass over his diploma. His eyes were immediately drawn to the weapon in the person’s hand, but he didn’t turn his head. He held his breath and asked God to forgive him for his sins and begged the Creator to take care of his insane son.

In that short prayer he thanked the man behind him for wanting to free him of his torment. He cursed his inability to explain why he suffered and was relieved to remember that his will was in order. He calmly closed his eyes, expecting at any moment to hear the well-aimed shot that would split his cranium.

The beautiful woman in the painting smiled, the smell of her perfume permeated his thoughts, the ocean breeze lifted his spirit and the seagulls reminded him of an infinite number of verses and memories. He soared through time and space, thought of his parents and of his native city, and his entire life flashed before him.

I had better tell you my story from the beginning. I know you’ll understand that the facts and my memory have been blurred, scattered like a bouquet of flowers in a violent storm. I have shed tears for the suffering my friend has had to endure. They are but a river flowing into the immense sea of his afflictions.

I feel overwhelmed by all my patients’ problems. I feel that I am alone in the vast universe and as if I alone I understand them. I roam through the world, as solitary as a comet streaking through the universe in search of its destiny. I am overwhelmed by the suffering of others, I live on as a lonely rose in a miserable morass. I feel like a single grain of sand in immense dunes of humiliation.

Trying to console the inconsolable I think of myself as something insignificant and vain, like a zero among thousands of numbers, like a sigh in the middle of a storm. After so many years of administering therapy, of hearing so many affairs and adventures related to me, I don’t know if I will be able to continue helping the people who expect me to solve their problems.

Benjamin Borg was born in 1950 in the beautiful city of Buenos Aires, the queen of the River Plate, the city in which Jorge Luis Borges, Lalo Schifrin, Luis Federico Leloir, Bernardo Housay and César Milstein entered the world-all famous writers and doctors and all deserving of the Nobel Prize, the award that motivated my friend and patient to write and to study medicine.

Pedro de Mendoza and Juan de Garay picked that city to settle in, Robert Devall invented the tango there, and hundreds of thousands of people have chosen to make it their homeland, bringing with them the culture of their native lands, changing it forever, and turning it into the most spectacular city in the world. It is not Madrid, Rome, Paris or London, but a little of each.

As a youth Benjamin enjoyed walking through La Boca, San Telmo, Corrientes, La Recoleta and Puerto Madero. He watched soccer games between Boca and River, admired the Babel of architectural styles that thrived wherever he looked and his childhood was a happy one.

His neighborhood was located on the banks of the widest river in the world and that river flowed through the city that, although it might rest, would never sleep. During the day if he wasn’t studying or working he would spend time with his friends playing football, swimming in the river, fishing or playing tennis or volleyball. His neighbors were all middle class people. The majority of them represented a second generation of immigrants and they were concerned with achieving in the New World what their parents had failed to in the Old. The street in front of his house was his playground and changed from a soccer field to a tennis court to a volleyball court depending on what the children felt like playing. Two stones would mark the goals and the person to whom the ball belonged made the teams and decided who got to play. The children would stretch a chord from his house to the house across the street where an Italian family lived and adjust it to make a tennis or volleyball net. Eventually his father nailed a basket onto the lamppost and thus they also had a basketball court where they would play until twelve at night.

His parents’ ancestors were German Jews, hired by Catherine the Great to work in Russia. According to their contract their descendants were excused from serving as military recruits for a hundred years. They accepted the agreement, thinking that those hundred years would never pass. But the day came when the best of their descendants were called by the conscription office to serve in the army. It was then that they decided to emigrate to America, to assemble the entire family, hire a ship and travel to New York. When they arrived on the island they were notified that they had to remain in quarantine and for this reason they continued on to Argentina. As people in Buenos Aires were incapable of pronouncing their surname, they were given a Christian one.

His maternal ancestors, devout Catholics, had come directly from Italy. When they touched the new earth, they were surprised to learn that the province of Buenos Aires alone was four times as large as their native country. The Italian family, after residing in La Boca, the neighborhood where all immigrants ended up, eventually prospered, moved to San Telmo and soon forgot about Italy.

His childhood was full of joy. He grew up as free as the wind that blew off the shoreline, as solid as the tall oak trees and as carefree as the seagulls that flew over his house. As a small child books were his companions and he was influenced both by his father’s religion and his mother’s piety. He never could understand the distinction between their religions but as a child he learned to appreciate that the love they professed for each other was much stronger and more lasting than all their differences. He was born in a unique country and grew up in security, knowing neither luxury nor poverty. He lived for the most part cheerfully and happy, learning to be a doctor under the tutelage of his father. When he came of age he was content and did not want more than what he already had; but he was aware of the immense material and spiritual wealth that the world had to offer.

His personality developed, nurtured by the love of his parents, who believed that their children were the finest on the planet. He matured with the conviction that suffering was a word that only needed to be in dictionaries to describe the miseries that afflicted others. He was sure of himself, fixed in his head was the idea that an angel was always watching over him. Ever since he was a child he knew that his Creator guided his footsteps and in his mind he possessed everything necessary for him to fulfill his destiny. He studied and graduated as a doctor, the best in his class, but he didn’t believe that that would be so much his final profession as it would be a single stage in his life. He knew from the day he was born that he had come to this world to leave nothing undone, he was sure that his fate would be unique and that he would be remembered until the end of time.

He loved his native land almost as much as his parents. He wanted his country to become the most prominent in the world and he devoted himself to serious study to that end. He wanted to imitate Borges, Schifrin, Leloir, Housay and Milstein. Following the example they had set, after graduation he wanted to acquire the greatest knowledge in the world and he decided to continue his studies in the planet’s modern Mecca-the city of New York, where he became both my friend and patient.

When he was in his third year of medical school he met the woman that would eventually be his wife. At that time he was working as an assistant in the dissection room. He laid eyes on her for the first time while he was preparing a corpse for the first-year students, who were performing their dissections. According to my friend his beloved’s hair was blonde, her eyes blue and she had an inquisitive and candid look. Wrapped in her white apron, she looked like an angel come to cure the suffering of the deceased, spread out like carrion in the morgue.

Her eyes met his, her gloves grazed his hand, her voice came to him like a faint sigh. His spirit was filled with joy and his heart beat uncontrollably. Like him, she descended from a family whose ancestors originated from two different parts of the globe. Fleeing from English oppression, her maternal great-grandparents had come with the first Welsh immigrants to populate the pampas. When they first arrived in their new fatherland they were assigned vast stretches of land around a huge lake in Puerto Madrin. After becoming wealthy through the exportation of sheep’s wool and the selling of their meat, they moved to the nation’s capital. Her father’s family descended from Juan de Garay, the founder of her native city. They had come to Buenos Aires a long time ago and as good Catholics had procreated in great numbers, dispersing offspring throughout Argentina. Some of her maternal relatives represented the cream of Buenos Aires’ society, but others, like her mother’s parents, lived modestly.

They were married in his sixth and her third year of medical school, but as his wife immediately got pregnant she had to discontinue her studies. She had one small child and another on the way when Benjamin finally finished medical school. He would soon begin his postgraduate work, but as he finished his coursework in December and his residency wouldn’t begin until June, they decided to take six months and really get to know their fatherland.

Luis Borges described his country as six separate continents and as they traveled through Argentina they discovered them all-colossal, timeless glaciers; enormous mountains where only the condor and puma lived; endless rivers, some of which destroyed everything in their paths with their strong currents and others that were as lazy as sea lions; vast plains where even the wind is soundless and one’s thoughts mix with the metaphors of silence, where the gauchos lift their hymns to the heavens and praise their native lands in old proverbs, where men complain of their unrequited love for some heartless beauty and where the maté passes from hand to hand and from mouth to mouth. They also discovered the deep seas where the whales, dolphins, seals and penguins frolic full of all the food the ocean has to offer. They traveled through impenetrable woods and vast regions of rain forest that contain the largest waterfalls in the world, where the monkeys, the arayá, the yaguareté, the tapir and the coatí live together in a veritable paradise.

New York, in reality Manhattan, was where they fell in love, suffered, dreamed and where his wife finally passed away. Nothing had prepared them for life on that island, entirely different from the neighborhoods where they were born and the city of Buenos Aires in general. What awed them most when they first arrived was the number of people of different races that swarmed the airports and the streets. It was a stark contrast to Argentina, where the majority of people were Caucasian, where the Indians had been exterminated years ago, and where the only people of African descent were American and Brazilian tourists. The next seven years of his life would pass between the bodies of water that flowed around the fifty three square miles of the island of Manhattan.

Their first ten years of their marriage was a series of passions, emotions, hopes and joys. All that ended the day their third and last child was born.

No one understood what had happened! One day his precious wife was healthy, strong, full of love, life and of hope for the child she was to give birth to, and the next she was dead!

That was the beginning of his afflictions, the beginning of his solitude and the end of the beginning of his life. It all came to an end that last winter.

As Benjamin was consoling his children his father suddenly turned pale. He realized that the greatest misfortune had occurred and that it wasn’t the death of his son’s beloved wife. As he took Oscar, as the new born had been baptized, in his arms, the old man broke into silent sobs.

Benjamin thought that he was crying for his daughter-in-law, for his grandchildren or for the son who had been left helpless and alone. But it wasn’t that. As he picked up the new born, as beautiful and tender as a wild flower but as serious as a Tibetan Buddha, he saw that it had been born with Down’s syndrome. Benjamin’s father had sensed right away that as of that moment his grandson would live in a separate world, one full of illusions, hallucinations and strange feelings, and that as of that day the child would begin to suffer a slow death.

Cursing his fate, Benjamin cried inconsolably. He wanted to throw everything away and return to the land where he was born, but in the end he followed his old father’s advice and stayed in North America. He did so for the same reason his ancestors had migrated to Argentina-for the sake of his children. He did not abandon the land where his beloved wife died only because he wanted Oscar to have the best medical treatment and his other children to have the best opportunities.

The change in his life was dramatic. He dedicated himself to the study of the unknowable, he tried to overcome his misfortune by working and devoting all his love to his family. The country’s institutions, so different from his own, made his research possible and pushed him, even if he would never accept the death of his wife, at least to learn to live without her. His potential was recognized, universities competed to employ him- instead of wasting time looking for work he was able to dedicate himself to his research and teaching.

It happens inevitably to all abundantly talented men and women who come to the United States. They come supposedly just to study, to acquire greater knowledge, and are sure that they will return one day to the native countries that need them so badly.However sooner or later they are all seduced by America and they never return to their fatherlands. They quickly realize that it’s impossible to refuse the offers of money, of positions within mega-corporations, of professional titles and of work at the universities that represent the greatest scientific institutions in the world. They cannot turn their backs on the possibility of pursuing their work without anyone to interfere. It is naive to believe that a young man born in a humble land, not sure whether or not he’ll find work when