The Disease

                                                By Linda Bindner

                                                   Chapter 1

        Diego knew that death for Zorro was always a distinct possibility.  He just didn’t know what form his killer would take.  He assumed it would be at the hand of either Alcalde Ramone, then later, Ignacio de Soto, and the hangman’s noose they so favored.  Or else it would happen during a sword fight with some nefarious outlaw.  It would come at a time when he should have zigged right instead of zagging left, directly in line with a lancer’s bullet.  It was an eventuality he’d prepared for since the inception of Zorro.

But not once in all the years he’d worked at being the hero of the pueblo had he predicted Zorro’s demise would possibly come at the hands of Victoria.  She was his beloved, his Preciosa.  He would protect her as long as he lived, do his utmost to keep her safe, even die for her.  He would do the same for anybody in trouble, but especially for her.

At the same time, he was always just slightly afraid of her.  She had the most power over him because she was the single person in his life who could irretrievably harm him.  He’d always been far more anxious about his future concerning Victoria than anything involving a hangman’s noose.

The predicted threat from Victoria often took the form of her falling for and marrying another man.  Or there was always the nightmarish possibility that she would at last grow tired of waiting for the time she and Zorro could be together and move on with her life without him.

But never in a million years would he have predicted the particular situation that unraveled his life one innocent Thursday afternoon right at the beginning of siesta.

Z Z Z

It was a particularly hot siesta, hence no one was around to witness the auspicious event beginning Zorro’s demise.  This was history in the making, something Ignacio de Soto had longed for since his arrival in the pueblo, and ironically, he was too busy sleeping to take note of it.  When Diego thought back to that moment, he was overwhelmed with surprise that something so extraordinary could come from such an ordinary event.  He thought that Victoria had joined him on the tavern’s porch simply to fill his glass with juice prior to closing for the coming siesta, wholly unprepared for the cold dash of reality as Victoria sank down across from him with a grateful sigh.

Diego glanced up from the book he was reading, prepared to cheerfully thank her for the refill, when he suddenly caught the troubled look in her eyes.  “Victoria, what’s wrong?”

Victoria’s lips trembled.  “Diego, I need your help.”

The hair on the back of his neck quickly rose in warning at the grating of her voice.  “Anything, of course,” he said, and squeezed her hand in support.  The action did nothing but inform him that her hands were icy cold.

Victoria looked down to study the scarred table top.  “I… I just came from…”  She gave a harsh swallow.

“From..?”

His caring tone prodded tears.  “I just came from... seeing… Dr…”

Victoria had been to see a doctor?  Was she sick?

Diego squeezed her hand again.  “Victoria, if you can’t tell me, that’s fine.”

But she took a steadying breath.  “Dr. Hernandez says I… I only have a year or two… to live.”

The statement was just blunt enough to thoroughly stun Diego.  “You… what?”

Victoria inhaled another shaky breath and swiped at her eyes.  “I’m sorry, Diego.  I know this sounds dramatic.  And I should have prepared you for this.  And…”  Her voice trailed to silence.

“Please don’t apologize for being upset.”

Instead of further calming her, the word ‘please’ made her dissolve into a bundle of tears.  “Dios, I’m going to miss you!”

Miss him?  Victoria was talking about her death as if it was imminent.  That thought nearly stopped Diego’s brain altogether.  “Vic… toria.   You have to calm down, or I’ll take you right back to the doctor.”

Incredibly enough, his threat worked.  “No, I’ll tell you.  I just need… a moment.”  Victoria’s ragged breath forced her surging emotions back under control.  “I’m sure you’ve noticed… that in recent months… I’ve sometimes been pale… and so tired.”

Maybe, maybe not, but now Diego couldn’t help but notice her hesitation.  “You’ve been out of breath quite often lately.”

Victoria nodded.  “I’ve also been distracted.”  And she appeared distracted now, her tear stained cheeks turned away from him so that she stared at the horizon.  “Sometimes… I’m so distracted that I have… trouble remembering who ordered… what in the tavern.”

Diego was appalled he hadn’t noticed this before now, and shifted uneasily on his bench.  “You must cover it well.  I have mentioned you needed more rest, though.  You may remember that.”

“Yes,” she hesitantly stated, seemingly more interested in watching a fly buzz around the table than their conversation.  But at last she said to the fly, “Everyone kept telling me… there must be a reason… why I felt so tired all the time, why…”  She gulped.  “You all nagged at me so often… I finally went to see Dr. Hernandez.  But he wasn’t sure.  So I went again… and again… and again today.”  She blinked dark eyes at him, as if she expected him to read her mind and come up with the name of her strange malady on his own.

But Diego was clueless.  “What did the doctor finally decide it was?”

Victoria gave a shadow of her normal welcoming smile.  “I expected him to tell me… that it was female troubles… or that I need a break from the tavern… that it was all in my head.”

“That wasn’t what the doctor said, though, was it?”
        “No.”

That simple statement seemed to have wiped away what energy she had left.  Diego actually saw her grow paler than she already was.  For the first time that he could ever remember, Victoria really did look sick.  “Perhaps if you’re ill, you should lie down?”

Her hand on his arm stopped him from rising to help her to her room.  “No, I’ll tell you now.”  He resumed his seat as Victoria heaved in air like she’d been running a race.  “Dr. Hernandez said… he’d noticed how I’ve been so tired lately… how I can’t breathe sometimes.  He thought I was having heart trouble.”

“But that’s not it?”  Anyone else would be growing frustrated at the way she was drawing this out, even if she couldn’t help it.  But if nothing else, Zorro’s exploits had taught Diego patience.

Victoria shook her head.  “He thinks I have… what’s called The Wasting Disease.”

Diego frowned.  This was a disease he was unfamiliar with.  “The what?”

“The Wasting Disease.”

“I don’t think I’ve come across that before.  What does your waist have to do with your breathing?  Or with being tired?  I would think that you would be losing weight, not --”

Victoria’s rolling eyes stopped him.  “Wasting as in fading… as in disappearing… as in vanishing.”

Diego reared back.  “You’re not fading!  You may be a little pale right now, but --”

“The fading will come later,” she bluntly told him.  “Dr. Hernandez… said that I would…” She gasped a harsh breath.  “He said that he’d once… seen a case like mine… when he worked in… Barcelona.  That he’d heard things about it… that --”

“But surely he’s wrong this time.  If he’s only heard of --”

“He hasn’t just heard… he’s seen it,” she reminded him.  “He said that he wished... It wasn’t so, but… I’m behaving just the way that… other person did.”  The grimness of her voice was too obvious to misinterpret.  “My pulse is strong… which means it isn’t my heart.”

“Then it’s something else!” Diego protested loudly.

“Diego, you’ll wake everyone,” Victoria quietly admonished.  “And I can’t face them… yet.”  She looked down again, seemingly beaten.

But Diego wasn’t beaten, not by a long shot.   “He’s wrong!  You have a lifetime to look forward to, not a year.”  It was his turn to let his voice trail away as he looked at her… really  looked.

She was so pale, she was nearly translucent, her skin covered in dots of grimy sweat.  She was clearly struggling to breath, and also clearly tired, with great purple stains under her eyes.  She had gotten so thin that she looked like a stiff wind would blow her right out of the pueblo.

“I’d say that Dr. Hernandez… is right.”  She sucked in a breath of air.  “He usually is.”

Diego couldn’t argue with that assessment.  But that meant everything Victoria had said so far was the absolute truth: that she was distracted, having trouble breathing, would slowly fade away, was only going to live for a year, maybe two.

Diego stared at her in horror.  “No!”

Again came her ghostly smile.  “Diego, stop.”

But Diego’s horror wouldn’t stop.  It encompassed his mind so fully that all he could do was stare numbly at her.

At last he was able to stop as Victoria had ordered him to do.  He had to get his emotions under control, anyway.  He was acting the way a fianceè would react to her news, not a simple friend.  If he wasn’t careful, he would end up giving himself away.

Yet, they were talking about Victoria’s death!

“What can I… do?” he eventually forced out, feeling uncharacteristically helpless.

“Diego,” she carefully began, almost blushing now.  “Dr. Hernandez doesn’t have time… to research a cure… or even treat what’s wrong with me.  This Wasting Disease… it might have a cure… he doesn’t know.”  She took a deep breath, alarming Diego by how shallow it really was.  “I wonder if you can… do his research for him?”

Diego gazed at her, confused.  “You want me to find a cure for you?”  She nodded.  “But I’m not a doctor, Victoria.  I don’t have the slightest idea where to begin, or…”

Victoria wrapped icy fingers around his arm.  “If you don’t help me… who will?”

Diego stared into her beseeching eyes, horrified anew.  How could he say yes to her query?  He might do more harm than good, and if that happened, he would never forgive himself.  But at the same time, how could he possibly say no?  If he did nothing, and she then grew worse and possibly died, how could he ever live with himself?  The secret of Zorro’s identity might stay intact, but without Victoria in his life, in whatever capacity possible, Zorro’s life, and Diego’s by extension, wouldn’t be worth living.

Victoria made one final argument.  “Dr. Hernandez says that… as far as he knows… this thing I have… it’s fatal.”

Refusing to even contemplate Victoria’s death, Diego quietly asked, “When do we start?”

The first nail in Zorro’s coffin hammered home.