The place was a four-story mansion of brownstone[2], with too much woodwork and marble. The large rooms, decorated with impossible wallpaper and moldings on the ceilings, were depressingly musty and smelled of cookery. But the floors and the linen were clean, and the hot water was not too often cold or turned off. So I thought it was a bearable place to stay at – at least for a while. The landlady, a Spanish woman named Herrero, did not annoy me with gossip or criticisms of the burning electric light late at night in my third-floor room. My neighbors, mostly Spaniards, too, were quiet and uncommunicative. Only the noise from the cars in the street below was a bit annoying.
I had been there for three weeks when the first strange incident happened. One evening, at about eight, I heard something dripping onto the floor and suddenly realized that I had been smelling the stench of ammonia for some time. I looked around and saw that in one corner, on the side toward the street, my ceiling was wet. To find the source of the trouble and stop it, I ran downstairs to inform the landlady, and she told me that the problem would be solved quickly.
“Doctor Muñoz,” she cried as she rushed upstairs with me. “I think he has spilled his chemicals again. He is too sick to take care of himself, getting sicker and sicker all the time, but he will not ask any other doctor for help. He has a very strange sickness: all day he takes bad-smelling baths, and he should never get warm. His little room is full of bottles and machines. He does not work as a doctor now, but he was great once. Even my father in Barcelona heard of him. He never goes out, only on the roof, and my boy Esteban brings him food, and laundry, and medicines, and chemicals – the ammonia that man uses for keeping himself cool!”
Mrs. Herrero went up the stairs to the fourth floor, and I returned to my room. The ammonia stopped dripping, and as I cleaned it up and opened the window for air, I heard the landlady’s heavy footsteps above me. I had never heard Dr. Muñoz himself, only some sounds of a mechanism. I wondered for a moment what the strange illness of this man might be and why he did not want to get the outside help.
I might have never met Dr. Muñoz, but one morning, as I sat writing in my room, I suddenly had a heart attack[3]. Doctors had warned me about the danger of those attacks before, and I knew there was no time to lose. So, remembering what the landlady had said about the genius doctor, I managed to walk upstairs and knock at his door. My knock was answered in good English by a strange voice coming from the right, asking my name and business[4]. I explained my situation and the door next to the one I had knocked at opened.
I was greeted by a rush of cool air, and although the day was one of the hottest days in June, I shivered as I stepped into a large apartment. Its rich decoration surprised me: mahogany furniture, old paintings, and many bookshelves. It all looked more like a gentleman’s study than a boarding house bedroom. I now saw that his hall room which was above mine – the “little room full of bottles and machines” which Mrs. Herrero had told me about – was the laboratory of the doctor, and that his main living-room with a large bathroom was in the spacious next room.
The man I saw in front of me was short, but well-built and well-dressed. His noble face, which spoke of intelligence, had a short gray beard, and I could see his dark eyes behind an old-fashioned pince-nez[5] on his nose. Thick, well-cut hair, which meant regular visit of a barber, was parted above his high forehead, and the whole picture of him was of superior blood and breeding[6].
But as I saw Dr. Muñoz in that rush of cool air, I felt an unexplainable dislike for that man. Maybe it was his pale and gray complexion or coldness of touch that was the reason for this feeling, but probably these things were due to the man’s unknown serious illness. Or maybe it was just that cold which was so strange to feel on such a hot summer day.
However, my dislike was soon forgotten in admiration because the strange doctor was extremely skillful despite the ice-coldness and shakiness of his pale hands. He examined me and clearly understood my needs. Then in his weak voice he told me that he was the worst of enemies to death, but, unfortunately, lost all his friends in a lifetime battle with it, using unusual experiments. He was something of a fanatic, and he talked and talked about it while mixing drugs which he brought from the smaller laboratory room.
His voice was queer but soothing. I could not even hear his breathing as he talked so fast. He tried to distract my mind from my own problems by speaking of his theories and experiments. I remember him telling me about my weak heart, and that a man’s will and consciousness can be stronger than organic life itself. If a body is healthy and carefully preserved, it may keep its functions despite the most serious problems, defects, or even the absence of some organs. He might, he said, some day teach me to live without any heart at all! About his own illness he said that it needed constant cold. Any rise in temperature could actually kill him, and so the temperature was kept at some 55° or 56° Fahrenheit[7] by a system of ammonia cooling and the engine whose noise I had often heard in my own room below.
Feeling much better in a very short time, I left the cold place as a true admirer and follower of the genius doctor. After that I visited him quite often, listening to him while he told me of secret researches and terrible results. I shivered a bit when I examined the strange and shockingly ancient books on his shelves. By then I was almost cured of my heart problems by his skillful manipulations. He told me he preferred using rare medieval methods. Those methods had the power to affect the nervous system from which organic impulses had gone. He also told me about his older friend, Dr. Torres, who had a great illness, and how he had done his earlier experiments with him eighteen years before. The methods of healing he used had been most extraordinary, and its processes were not welcomed by older and more conservative colleagues. Unfortunately, soon after Dr. Muñoz had saved his colleague, he himself fell victim[8]to the enemy he had fought.
As the weeks passed, I was sorry to see that my new friend was slowly getting physically weaker and weaker, as Mrs. Herrero had said. His complexion was grayer than usual, his voice became hollow, his movements were slow, and his mind was blurred. He did not seem to notice this sad change, and little by little my conversations with him started bringing back that slight dislike I had felt at first.
He had also developed strange whims, for example, he started using exotic spices and Egyptian incense till his room smelled like a tomb of a pharaoh. At the same time, he demanded even colder air, and with my help he increased the ammonia in his refrigerating machine till he could keep the temperature as low as 40° or 34° and finally even 28°[9]. The bathroom and laboratory, of course, were less chilly, or all the water there would have frozen and the chemical processes would have stopped. Yet, a kind of growing horror seemed to possess the doctor. He now talked of death all the time, but laughed bitterly when things such as burial or funeral were mentioned.
All in all, he became a sad and even depressing companion, but I was grateful to him for helping me, and I could not leave him to the strangers around him. I carefully dusted his room every day and did much of his shopping, though some chemicals he ordered from druggists puzzled me.
There seemed to be an unexplained atmosphere of panic around his apartment. The whole house, as I have said, had a musty smell, but the smell in his room was the worst, despite all the spices and incense he used. The stench of chemical baths which he was constantly taking was unbearable. I thought that it must be connected with his illness and often wondered what that illness might be. The appearance and the voice of the doctor became frightful, so even Mrs. Herrero crossed herself when she looked at the doctor and left him all to me, not letting her son Esteban do chores for him anymore. When I suggested bringing in other doctors, Dr. Muñoz became furious. Although he avoided any emotions, he strongly refused to stay in his bed. He seemed determined to defy the death demon – his ancient enemy. He then stopped eating anything and lived on his mental power[10] alone.
He started writing some long documents, which he carefully sealed, and instructed me to send them after his death to certain people whom he named.