Rodrigo

Rodrigo is the nurse who assists Marco Carrera at the end of his life, carrying out a limited practical role within a death Marco has planned and insists is his own decision. His presence links Miraijin’s careful organization of a final family gathering to the last stage of Marco’s plan: he is not its author, but the person who will perform the action Marco cannot complete alone once sedation has taken effect.

Role and Introduction

Rodrigo first appears as the person waiting outside Marco’s room. Marco tells Miraijin to call him when she is ready to come, noting that Rodrigo is standing like a sentry despite being offered a chair. The description establishes his watchful, service-oriented presence without giving him control over what is to happen.

At the gathering, Rodrigo is identified as the nurse who will physically carry out the final task. He has come from Málaga, and is distinct from Guido, the nurse who cared for Marco in Florence but could not leave because his mother was disabled. The difference matters: Guido’s absence is explained by his family responsibilities and his religious convictions, while Rodrigo is the person Miraijin has found to be present for Marco’s chosen ending.

Recruitment and Place in the Gathering

Miraijin has arranged for Rodrigo to be there as part of a gathering of people coming from different places. Giacomo arrives from the United States, Luisa from Paris, Marina and Greta from Germany, and Carradori from Lampedusa; Oscar, Miraijin’s boyfriend, comes from Barcelona. Rodrigo is among those assembled, alongside the three members of the Spanish escort. The house at Bolgheri becomes unusually international for the occasion, with Rodrigo’s arrival part of Miraijin’s work to bring Marco’s chosen company together.

Marco’s account of the gathering stresses hospitality and the effort to make it feel like a reception rather than a scene organized around dying. Although he can no longer eat and has relied for months on a feeding tube, he helps Miraijin prepare the meals and considers the guests’ familiar preferences. Rodrigo’s role belongs to this wider arrangement: he is present not only for the final procedure but within the company Miraijin has gathered to make the occasion a meaningful memory for those who will return to their lives elsewhere.

The Agreement and Marco’s Explanation

Before the procedure, Marco addresses those present as a doctor of forty years. He says that the decision is his alone, made in complete autonomy and mental clarity, and describes Rodrigo’s contribution as a favor: Rodrigo will give him twenty or thirty seconds of peace. Marco presents himself as capable of acting by himself, but explains that another person’s help will allow him to avoid having to complete the process while sedation is taking effect.

Marco describes two infusion bags and the sequence he expects: he will open the red tap to begin the anesthetic, then Rodrigo will activate the blue tap after the drugs have taken effect. He explains the intended medical consequences in clinical terms, making his own death sound, as the narration observes, almost like a medical procedure. That technical register helps him manage the emotional atmosphere of the gathering; it is also part of the account he chooses to give his guests.

The narration discloses a material discrepancy between Marco’s explanation and the actual arrangement. He says that he obtained the substances himself through his years as a doctor, but this is a lie built into his script: concentrated potassium could not have been obtained that way. Marco had asked Miraijin for help; she found Rodrigo, and Rodrigo obtained it. Marco withholds this chain of assistance from the group, presenting his plan as more independent than it is.

Assistance and Final Actions

When the time comes, Marco thanks Rodrigo and shakes his hand. Rodrigo responds by caressing Marco’s shoulder. Marco then opens the red tap himself. After the anesthetic begins to take effect, he looks at those gathered and reaches toward Miraijin; from that point, Rodrigo is to provide the assistance that Marco would otherwise have had to perform while sedated.

The narration marks the boundary between Marco’s actions and Rodrigo’s: Marco opens the anesthetic line, while Rodrigo remains responsible for the subsequent step. As Marco’s attention turns to Miraijin, she supports and protects him. The scene then leaves the completion of the process to Rodrigo, who has come for this task. His role is defined by that division of labor, not by a speech, decision, or independent account of his motives.

Narrative Significance

Rodrigo’s character is sketched through function and brief gestures rather than through an extended personal history. The narration momentarily supplies details about his life—including his family background, relationships, and adopted son—but immediately distinguishes that history from the task at hand. Here, he is present to turn on the blue tap. The contrast keeps the focus on the specific responsibility he has accepted while reminding the reader that the person assigned this role has a life beyond Marco’s final scene.

The scene holds two facts together without resolving their tension: Marco asserts complete autonomy, yet the practical means of his death depend on assistance that Miraijin arranged and Rodrigo provides. Rodrigo’s restrained presence makes that dependence visible. His assistance is consequential, but the narrative frames the decision as Marco’s and the gathering as Miraijin’s gift to the survivors; Rodrigo occupies the narrow, indispensable point where the plan becomes action.