The Schooldays of Jesus (3 page)

‘No, it's not true,' says Inés. ‘Someone should wash that girl's mouth out with soap.'

‘She says that Roberto comes to the women's room when they are asleep and puts his penis in her mother's thing.'

Inés casts him, Simón, a helpless glance.

‘What grown-up people do may sometimes seem strange,' he intervenes. ‘When you are older you will understand better.'

‘Maite says her mother makes him put a balloon on his penis so that she won't get a baby.'

‘Yes, that is correct, some people do that.'

‘Do you put a balloon on your penis, Simón?'

Inés gets up and leaves.

‘I? A balloon? No, of course not.'

‘So if you don't, can Inés get a baby?'

‘My boy, you are talking about sexual intercourse, and sexual intercourse is for married people. Inés and I aren't married.'

‘But you can do sexual intercourse even if you aren't married.'

‘It is true, you can have sexual intercourse if you are not married. But having babies when you are not married is not a good idea. On the whole.'

‘Why? Is it because the babies are
huérfano
babies?'

‘No, a baby born to an unmarried mother is not a
huérfano
. A
huérfano
is something quite different. Where did you come across that word?'

‘In Punta Arenas. Lots of boys in Punta Arenas are
huérfanos
. Am I a
huérfano
?'

‘No, of course not. You have a mother. Inés is your mother. A
huérfano
is a child with no parents at all.'

‘Where do
huérfanos
come from if they don't have parents?'

‘A
huérfano
is a child whose parents have died and left him alone in the world. Or sometimes the mother has no money to buy food and gives him away to other people to look after. Him or her. Those are the ways you get to be a
huérfano
. You are not a
huérfano
. You have Inés. You have me.'

‘But you and Inés are not my real parents, so I am a
huérfano
.'

‘David, you arrived on a boat, just as I did, just as the people around us did, the ones who didn't have the luck to be born here. Very likely Bengi and his brother and his sisters arrived on boats too. When you travel across the ocean on a boat, all your memories are washed away and you start a completely new life. That is how it is. There is no before. There is no history. The boat docks at the harbour and we climb down the gangplank and we are plunged into the here and now. Time begins. The clock starts running. You are not a
huérfano
. Bengi is not a
huérfano
.'

‘Bengi was born in Novilla. He told me. He has never been on a boat.'

‘Very well, if Bengi and his brother and sisters were born here then their history begins here and they are not
huérfanos
.'

‘I can remember the time before I was on the boat.'

‘So you have told me already. There are lots of people who say they can remember the life they had before they crossed the ocean. But there is a problem with such memories, and because you are clever I think you can see what the problem is. The problem is that we have no way of telling whether what these people remember are true memories or made-up memories. Because sometimes a made-up memory can feel just as true as a true memory, particularly when we
want
the memory to be true. So, for example, someone may wish to have been a king or a lord before he crossed the ocean, and he may wish it so much that he convinces himself he truly was a king or a lord. Yet the memory is probably not a true memory. Why not? Because being a king is quite a rare thing. Only one person in a million becomes a king. So the chances are that someone who remembers being a king is just making up a story and then forgetting he made it up. And similarly with other memories. We just have no way of telling for sure whether a memory is true or false.'

‘But was I born out of Inés's tummy?'

‘You are forcing me to repeat myself. Either I can reply, “Yes, you were born out of Inés's tummy,” or I can reply, “No, you weren't born out of Inés's tummy.” But neither reply will bring us any closer to the truth. Why not? Because, like everyone else who came on the boats, you can't remember and nor can Inés. Unable to remember, all you can do, all she can do, all any of us can do is to make up stories. So, for instance, I can tell you that on my last day in the other life I was among a huge crowd waiting to embark, so huge that they had to telephone the retired pilots
and ships' masters and tell them to come to the docks to help out. And in that crowd, I could say, I saw you and your mother—saw you with my own eyes. Your mother was clutching your hand, looking worried, unsure of where to go. Then, I could say, I lost sight of the pair of you in the crowd. When at last it was my turn to step on board, whom did I see but you, all by yourself, clinging to a rail, calling, “Mummy, mummy, where are you?” So I went over and took you by the hand and said, “Come, little friend, I will help you find your mother.” And that was how you and I met.

‘That is a story I could tell, about my first vision of you and your mother, as I remember it.'

‘But is it
true
? Is it a
true
story?'

‘Is it true? I don't know. It
feels
true to me. The more often I tell it to myself, the truer it feels. You feel true, clutching the rail so tightly that I had to loosen your fingers; the crowd at the docks feels true—hundreds of thousands of people, all lost, like you, like me, with empty hands and anxious eyes. The bus feels true—the bus that delivered the superannuated pilots and ships' masters at the docks, wearing the navy-blue uniforms they had brought down from trunks in the attic, still smelling of naphtha. It all feels true from beginning to end. But maybe it feels so true because I have repeated it to myself so often. Does it feel true to you? Do you remember how you were separated from your mother?'

‘No.'

‘No, of course you don't. But do you not remember because it didn't happen or because you have forgotten? We will never know for sure. That is the way things are. That is what we must live with.'

‘I think I am a
huérfano
.'

‘And I think you are just saying so because it seems romantic to you to be alone in the world without parents. Well, let me inform you that in Inés you have the best mother in the world, and if you have the best mother in the world you are certainly not a
huérfano
.'

‘If Inés has a baby will he be my brother?'

‘Your brother or your sister. But Inés isn't going to have a baby because Inés and I are not married.'

‘If I put my penis in Maite's thing and she has a baby, will it be a
huérfano
?'

‘No. Maite is not going to have a baby of any kind. You and she are too young to make babies, just as you and she are too young to understand why grown-up people get married and have sexual intercourse. Grown-up people get married because they have passionate feelings for each other, in a way that you and Maite don't. You and she can't feel passion because you are still too young. Accept that as a fact and don't ask me to explain why. Passion can't be explained, it can only be experienced. More exactly, it has to be experienced from the inside before it can be understood from the outside. What matters is that you and Maite should not have sexual intercourse because sexual intercourse without passion is meaningless.'

‘But is it horrible?'

‘No, it isn't horrible, it is just an unwise thing to do, unwise and frivolous. Any more questions?'

‘Maite says she wants to marry me.'

‘And you? Do you want to marry Maite?'

‘No. I don't ever want to get married.'

‘Well, you may change your mind about that when the passions arrive.'

‘Are you and Inés going to get married?'

He does not reply. The boy trots to the door. ‘Inés!' he calls out. ‘Are you and Simón going to get married?'

‘
Shush!
' comes Inés's angry retort. She re-enters the dormitory. ‘That's enough talk. It's time for you to go to bed.'

‘Do you have passions, Inés?' asks the boy.

‘That is none of your business,' says Inés.

‘Why don't you ever want to talk to me?' says the boy. ‘Simón talks to me.'

‘I do talk to you,' says Inés. ‘But not about private matters. Now brush your teeth.'

‘I'm not going to have passions,' the boy announces.

‘That is what you say today,' says he, Simón. ‘But as you grow up you will find that the passions have a life of their own. Now hurry up and brush your teeth, and maybe your mother will read you a goodnight story.'

CHAPTER 3

ROBERTA, WHOM on the first day they took to be the owner of the farm, is in fact an employee like them, employed to oversee the workers, to supply them with rations and pay them their wages. She is a friendly person, well liked by all. She takes an interest in the workers' personal lives and brings little treats for the children: sweets, biscuits, lemonade. The farm is owned, they learn, by three sisters known far and wide simply as the Three Sisters, elderly now, and childless, who divide their time between the farm and their residence in Estrella.

Roberta has a long conversation with Inés. ‘What are you going to do about your son's schooling?' she asks. ‘I can see he is a bright lad. It would be a pity if he ended up like Bengi, who has never been to a proper school. Not that there is anything wrong with Bengi. He is a nice boy, but he has no future. He will just be a farm labourer like his parents, and what kind of life is that, in the long term?'

‘David went to a school in Novilla,' says Inés. ‘It wasn't a success. He didn't have good teachers. He is a naturally clever
child. He found the pace in the classroom too slow. We had to remove him and educate him at home. I am afraid that if we put him in a school here he will have the same experience.'

Inés's account of their dealings with the school system of Novilla is less than wholly truthful. He and Inés had agreed to keep quiet about their entanglements with the authorities in Novilla; but evidently Inés feels free to confide in the older woman, and he does not intervene.

‘Does he want to go to school?' asks Roberta.

‘No, he doesn't, not after his experiences in Novilla. He is perfectly happy here on the farm. He likes the freedom.'

‘It's a wonderful life for a child, but the harvest is coming to an end, you know. And running around on a farm like a wild thing is no preparation for the future. Have you thought of a private teacher? Or of an academy? An academy won't be like a normal school. Maybe an academy would suit a child like him.'

Inés is silent. He, Simón, speaks for the first time. ‘We can't afford a private tutor. As for academies, there were no academies in Novilla. At least no one spoke of them. What exactly is an academy? Because if it is just a fancy name for a school for troublesome children, children with ideas of their own, then we wouldn't be interested—would we, Inés?'

Inés shakes her head.

‘There are two academies in Estrella,' says Roberta. ‘They are not for troublesome children at all. One is the singing academy and the other is the dance academy. There is also the Atom School; but that is for older children.'

‘David likes to sing. He has a good voice. But what happens
in these academies besides singing and dancing? Do they hold proper classes? And do they accept such young children?'

‘I am no expert on education, Inés. All the families I know in Estrella send their children to normal schools. But I am sure the academies teach the basics—you know, reading and writing and so forth. I can ask the sisters if you like.'

‘What about the Atom School?' he asks. ‘What do they teach there?'

‘They teach about atoms. They watch the atoms through a microscope, doing whatever it is that atoms do. That is all I know.'

He and Inés exchange glances. ‘We will keep the academies in mind as a possibility,' he says. ‘For the present we are perfectly happy with the life we have here on the farm. Do you think we can stay on after the end of the harvest if we offer the sisters a small rental? Otherwise we will have to go through the rigmarole of registering with the Asistencia and looking for a job and finding a place to live, and we are not ready for that, not yet—are we, Inés?'

Inés shakes her head.

‘Let me speak to the sisters,' says Roberta. ‘Let me speak to señora Consuelo. She is the most practical. If she says you can stay on the farm, then maybe you can give señor Robles a call. He offers private lessons and doesn't charge much. He does it out of love.'

‘Who is señor Robles?'

‘He is the water engineer for the district. He lives a few kilometres further up the valley.'

‘But why would a water engineer give private lessons?'

‘He does all kinds of things besides engineering. He is a man of many talents. He is writing a history of the settlement of the valley.'

‘A history. I didn't know that places like Estrella had a history. If you give us a telephone number I will get in touch with señor Robles. And will you remember to speak to señora Consuelo?'

‘I will. I am sure she won't mind if you stay here while you look for something more permanent. You must be longing to move into a home of your own.'

‘Not really. We are happy with things as they are. For us, living like gypsies is still an adventure—isn't it, Inés?'

Inés nods.

‘And the child is happy too. He is learning about life, even if he doesn't go to school. Will there be jobs around the farm that I can do to repay your kindness?'

‘Of course. There are always odd jobs.' Roberta pauses thoughtfully. ‘One more thing. As I am sure you know, this is the year of the census. The census-takers are very thorough. They call at every farm, even the remotest. So if you are trying to dodge the census—and I am not saying you are—you won't succeed by staying here.'