Tender Is the Flesh

Starting with a dream that Tejo has the night after destroying Leo’s cot, Tejo begins to sense a hardening sensation in his heart, with a stone figuratively replacing the organ that represents love and emotion. Tejo feels the stone expanding or spreading at several key moments, and in each case, he lashes out with anger instead of feeling compassion for others. First, following the death of his father, Tejo treats Nélida bitterly before succumbing to his grief. Later, while visiting Marisa, Tejo again feels a stony sensation when he criticizes Marisa for being superficial. The stone’s influence surges as Tejo devises a plan to rid the area around Krieg of Scavengers. For a moment, he hesitates, remembering a starving young boy among the Scavengers that he passed on the road, but his resolve returns as the stone dissolves into bits in his throat.

The stone’s trajectory, therefore, is linked to Tejo’s increasing ruthlessness and detachment in dealing with the people and problems around him. The stone is mentioned one last time, in passing, at the novel’s conclusion, as Tejo holds his baby in his arms. In that moment, he “feels the shards of stone shrink, lose their hold” (208).