Tender Is the Flesh

After kissing Jasmine goodbye, Tejo locks her in her room, where she can draw, eat, sleep, watch TV, and more. On his way to work, Tejo receives a call from Cecilia, who now calls often. Tejo is afraid to tell her about Jasmine.

Arriving at the plant late, Tejo skips his usual cigarette and goes to the lobby to welcome a delegation from the Church of the Immolation, whose members have a legal option to offer themselves as food, which Krieg facilitates in exchange for tax breaks. Secretly, however, volunteers from the church are fed to the Scavengers. A few months ago, Mari, a secretary at Krieg, loudly interrupted a delegation from the church and tried to stop a young woman from offering herself as food. Later, as Tejo escorted the young woman through the plant on her way to be stunned, she tried to escape, but Sergio managed to stop her.

Today, Gastón Schafe, a 70-year-old man, leads the delegation in reciting the church’s creed, which includes the tenet that humanity “is our own virus” (128), before offering himself up to be converted into food. After the delegation leaves, Schafe is stunned and thrown to the Scavengers.

At home, Tejo showers and then greets Jasmine. Since she started living inside, Tejo finds his house feels more like a home again. The house is carefully set up to keep Jasmine safe, with dangerous items locked away since she accidentally cut herself with a knife while trying to carve designs into the floor. A new cot, which Tejo built by hand, waits in Leo’s room for the baby to be born. A camera in Jasmine’s room allows Tejo to keep an eye on her throughout the day.

Tejo visits a game reserve that purchases head from Krieg and meets with the owner, Urlet, whose long nails Tejo finds repulsive. Drinking wine at a desk behind which several human heads are displayed as trophies, Urlet describes the pleasure he derives from eating living flesh. Tejo senses that there is some kind of presence in Urlet’s body trying to escape.

After giving Tejo his latest order for more head, Urlet tells him about a new program at the game reserve, whereby celebrities who are in debt allow themselves to be hunted for a fixed period of time. If they survive, Urlet pays their debts. Through the window, Urlet shows Tejo that Ulises Vox, a famous musician, has just been captured by hunters.

About to leave, Tejo runs into Guerrero Iraola, who runs a breeding center. Krieg stopped ordering from Iraola after the quality of his product decreased. Iraola invites him to join him, Urlet, and the other hunters for a meal as they sample Vox. Reluctantly, Tejo accepts, reasoning that it is best to maintain relationships with other industry leaders. As they eat an appetizer made of fingers, Iraola talks about his experience at a cabaret where clients can, at great expense, sleep with a sex worker and then eat her afterward. Tejo overhears a man whispering that the person Iraola raped and ate was a 14-year-old virgin.

At Urlet’s insistence, Tejo samples the fingers and finds them delicious. Various other parts of Vox’s body are served as the hunters brag about their exploits.

Driving home, Tejo passes the zoo and remembers his last visit several months ago. At that time, he saw a group of teenagers torturing and killing the puppies. When a puppy bit one of the teens, the others suggested he would catch the virus, but the bitten teen replied that the virus was made up to allow the government to control people. To support his point, he referenced the film Soylent Green, in which people ate food made from human flesh without realizing it. Powerless to stop them, Tejo left.

Occasionally, government inspectors visit Tejo’s home to make sure that he is obeying all regulations related to keeping domestic head. Before accepting a higher-paying job at Krieg, Tejo was an inspector himself and helped devise the regulations. Alfonso Pineda, the head of the department overseeing domestic head, is Tejo’s friend and former partner. After the first inspection of the female FGP, Pineda assured Tejo that future inspectors would only ask for his signature.

Tejo recalls a case where he and Pineda discovered that a man was raping the domestic head he owned, to his wife’s jealousy. The man was sent to the slaughterhouse.

The day after returning from the game reserve, an inspector shows up at Tejo’s home and asks to see Tejo’s female FGP. Trying to hide his panic, Tejo learns that Pineda was promoted to a different position. Tejo calls Pineda, who instructs the inspector to accept Tejo’s signature and leave. The inspector, who reminds Tejo of his younger self, does as he’s told, but Tejo can tell he suspects that something is amiss.

As soon as the inspector leaves, Tejo hugs Jasmine and cries.

Tejo spends a day off work with Jasmine. With jazz music playing, he shows her how to dance.

Tejo wakes to a call from Nélida, who urges him to come to the nursing home. After calling off work, he sets off in his car. On the way, he begins to smoke but discards the cigarette after he begins to cough. He feels a sensation in his chest, “like there’s a stone in there” (165). He pulls over at the abandoned zoo, where he kicks the sign with the zoo’s name to the ground.

Arriving at the nursing home, Tejo learns that Armando died early that morning. At first, Tejo feels that his father is finally free, even as the stony feeling inside him intensifies. Then something shifts, and he cries.

As Tejo signs papers authorizing Armando’s cremation, Nélida tells him that Marisa also consented to the cremation but will not attend. She does, however, decide to hold a farewell service despite Tejo’s objections. Feeling the stone in his chest expanding, Tejo agrees bitterly.

As Tejo works with Nélida to hold the cremation right away, he is unusually direct and aggressive.