Everyone knows him. People pack in like sardines to see the cannibal. They say that in this day and age, he is a wonder. They are distrustful of him. They go in groups of three, at least, armed with knives, and when they see his big head, they tremble, shuddering as they feel an imaginary bite on their cheek, giving them goosebumps. Later, they lose their fear of him, the bravest have even gone so far as to provoke him, sticking a trembling finger through the bars for an instant. Just like that, again and again, like with a caged bird that pecks.
But the cannibal stays calm, staring with his empty eyes.
Some believe he has become a perfect idiot; that it was only a moment of madness.
But do not listen to them; be very careful in front of the cannibal: he will wait for the opportune moment to pounce on a curious passerby and take off his nose in just one bite.
Imagine the sight you will be if the cannibal eats your nose for lunch.
I can see you now, looking like a skull!
I can see you with your leprous face, like a syphilitic or a cancer patient!
With your lacrimal bones pointing out between the bruised mucous! With the deep folds of your mouth closed at an angle!
You will be a magnificent spectacle.
Know that even the prison guards themselves, sinister men, are afraid of him.
They chuck him his food from far away.
The cannibal leans in, sniffs it, picks out the meat—which they give him raw—, and chews it tastily, full of pleasure, while the juice runs down his lips.
At first, they prescribed him a diet: vegetables and nothing but vegetables; but you should have seen the fit he threw. The guards thought he would break the bars and eat every last one of them. And they would have deserved it, those cruel men! To get it in their heads to torture a man accustomed to serving himself sumptuous victuals in such a way! No, no one would have tolerated it. They had to give him meat, no way around it, and raw.
Have you ever eaten raw meat? Why don’t you try?
But no, you could get accustomed, and that would not be good. It would not be good because the newspapers, when you least expect it, will call you a beast, and not being at all a beast, this is bothersome.
Poor things, they would not understand that yours is a pleasure like any other; like eating fruit straight from the tree, pursing your lips and biting until the nectar runs down your chin.
But what nonsense! Do not believe in the sincerity of my digressions. I do not want you to think ill of me; of me, such a harmless person.
What I said about the cannibal is true though, incredibly true.
This past Monday, we criminology students came to see him.
They have him locked in a cage like the ones for wild animals.
And he looked like a fine fellow! I have always said to myself, there is no one like a scoundrel when it comes to hiding what they are.
We students were laughing cheerfully and got quite close to look at him. I believe neither they nor I will ever forget it. We were awestruck, and, at the same time, how we enjoyed his almost infantile appearance and the complete failure of our professor’s doctrines!
—Look, look how he seems like a child—said one.
—Yes, a child under a magnifying glass.
—His legs must be totally atrophied.
—And I’m sure they put baby powder under his armpits to avoid chaffing.
—And bathe him with Reuter soap.
—He must vomit white.
—And smell like breasts.
Just like that, those villains ridiculed that poor man who stared vaguely and whose large head oscillated like a magnetized needle.
I felt compassion for him. To tell the truth, it was not his fault. What fault could a cannibal have! Even less so if he is the son of a butcher and a midwife, of the sculptor Sophroniscus and the midwife Phaenarete, so to speak. That business of being a cannibal is like being a smoker, or a pederast, or a wise man.
But the judges will inevitably condemn him, without making these considerations. They will punish an entirely natural inclination; this revolts me. I do not wish they proceed in any way lacking justice. That is why I want to state for the record here, in a few lines, my support for the cannibal. And I believe I champion a just cause. I refer to the lack of responsibility existing on the part of any ordinary citizen, when giving satisfaction to a desire that tormentingly unbalances his organism.
Every hurtful word I have ever written against that poor, irresponsible man must be completely forgotten. I, repentant, ask him for forgiveness.
Yes, yes, I sincerely believe the cannibal is in the right; there is no reason for the judges, representatives of public vengeance . . .
But what intense reverie . . . Well . . . What I’m going to do is recount what happened with simplicity . . . I don’t want any cynic to say later on that I am related to the man I defend, like a Sergeant already said about that case with Octavio Ramírez.
It happened like this, with precedents and everything:
In a small town in the South, more or less thirty years ago, two known inhabitants of the area were joined in matrimony: Nicanor Tiberio, dedicated to the profession of butcher, and Dolores Orellana, midwife and grocer.
After exactly eleven months of marriage, a boy was born. Nico, little Nico, who then grew up and has caused such a commotion.
Tiberio’s wife had indisputable reasons to believe the child was overdue, a rare and dangerous thing. Dangerous because for someone who feeds for so long on human substances, it is only logical he will feel the need for them later.
I would like for the readers to fix their attention on this detail, that is, in my view, justifying for Nico Tiberio and for myself, who has stepped into this affair.
Well. The first fight the boy provoked in the heart of the couple was when he was five years old, when he already wandered around and started to be taken seriously. It was about his profession.
A disagreement so vulgar and common among parents that, it seems, almost, not worth giving it any value at all. Nevertheless, for me, it has value.
Nicanor wanted the boy to be a butcher like him. Dolores opined that he should seek an honorable profession, Medicine. She said Nico was an intelligent boy and he should not go to waste. She argued, citing aspirations—women are specialists in aspirations.
They discussed the matter so acridly and for so long that, when he was ten years old, they still had not resolved it. One: that a butcher he must be; the other: that he must become a doctor. At ten, Nico had the same appearance as a child; an appearance I believe I forgot to describe. The poor boy had such soft flesh that it warmed his mother’s heart; flesh like bread soaked in milk, as if he had spent so much time marinating in Dolores’s womb.
But it just so happened that the wretch had developed a serious liking for meat. So serious that there was no debate: he was an excellent butcher. He sold and slaughtered admirably.
Dolores, spiteful, died on May 15, 1906 (is this also an essential fact?). Tiberio, Nicanor Tiberio, thought it convenient to get drunk for six days in a row and on the seventh, which strictly speaking was a rest day, he went off to his own eternal rest. (Oof, this is turning into a full-fledged tragedy.)
We have, then, little Nicolás with absolute liberty to live as he pleased, alone at the age of ten.
Here there is a lacuna in the life of our man. As hard as I have tried, I have not been able to gather enough information to reconstruct it. It seems, however, that no circumstances capable of capturing the attention of his compatriots occurred during it.
A small adventure here and there, nothing more.
What is known for certain is that he was married, at twenty-three, to a woman of regular proportions and somewhat kind. They lived more or less well. Two years later, a boy was born, Nico, again, Nico.
Of this child it is said he grew so much in knowledge and virtue that at three he read, wrote, and was an honest fellow one of those solemn and pale kids in whose faces frozen horror appears.
Nico Tiberio’s wife (of the father, not to be mistaken with the son) already had his eyes on the law, a magnificent career for the little tike. And a few times she had tried to tell this to her husband. But he wouldn’t lend an ear, complaining. Those women always sticking their noses in where they don’t belong!
Well, you aren’t interested in this; let’s go on with the story:
The night of March 23, Nico Tiberio, who came to establish himself in the Capital three years prior with his wife and the little one—a fact I forgot to mention in due course—, stayed out until late at a bar in San Roque, drinking and chatting.
He was with Daniel Cruz and Juan Albán, quite well-known characters who, at the opportune moment, made their statements to the acting judge. According to them, the so-often-named Nicanor Tiberio did not give any extraordinary signs that could shed light on his decision. They talked about women and sumptuous meals. They shot some dice. Around one in the morning, each went his own way.
(Up to this point: the testimonies of the criminal’s friends. Later came his confession, made to the public without shame.)
Finding himself alone, without knowing how or why, a penetrating smell of fresh meat began to obsess him. The alcohol warmed his body, and the memory of the conversation made his mouth water in abundance. Despite the former, he was in his right mind.
According to him, he was not able to pinpoint his sensations. However, the following appears very clearly:
At first, he was attacked by the irresistible urge for a woman. Then, he felt a craving to eat something well-seasoned; but something firm, something to put his jaw to work. Later, he was agitated by sadistic tremors: the thought of a rabid copulation, between moans, blood, and wounds opened by knife slashes.
I figure he would have been stumbling, sniffling.
With no motive, he almost came to blows with some man he encountered along the way.
He arrived at home furious. He opened the door with a kick. His poor little wife woke up with a jolt and sat up in bed. After turning on the light she kept looking at him, trembling, as if she sensed something in his bulging, bloodshot eyes.
Startled, she asked him:
—But, what’s wrong with you, man?
And he, much drunker than he should have been, screamed:
—Nothing, bitch, what do you care? Time for bed!
Nevertheless, instead of doing that, he got up from the bed and went to stand in the middle of the room. Who knew what lies they told that brute?
Nico Tiberio’s wife, Natalia, is dark-skinned and thin.
Out of the ample cleavage of her nightgown hung a large, firm breast. Tiberio, embracing her furiously, bit it strongly. Natalia let loose a scream.
Nico Tiberio, licking his lips, realized that he had never tasted such a delicious treat.
To never have stopped to notice! How stupid!
He had to leave his buddies with their jaws dropped!
It was as if he were crazed, not knowing what was happening to him and with a justifiable desire to keep biting away.
Luckily for him, he heard the little one’s cries, his son’s, who was rubbing his eyes with his hands.
He pounced on him gleefully; he lifted him in his arms, and opening his mouth wide, started biting his face, ripping off regular chunks with every chomp. Laughing, gasping, growing ever more enthused.
The boy ducked and he devoured him from whatever side was closest, without giving himself the luxury of choosing.
Cartilage rang sweetly under the father’s molars. He sucked his teeth and licked his lips.
The pleasure Nico Tiberio must have felt!
And since there is nothing perfect in life, the neighbors came to snatch him away from his engrossed entertainment. They pummeled him with limitless cruelty. They tied him up, when they saw him laying down and unconscious; they handed him over to the Police . . .
Now they will have their vengeance upon him!
But Tiberio (Junior), was left without a nose, without ears, without one eyebrow, without a cheek.
Like that, with his bloodied and unfinished appearance, it looked like he carried all the ulcerations of a Hospital on his face.
If I believed those imbeciles, I would have to say: Tiberio (Senior) is like He who eats what he creates.
