“What happened?” asked Manuela.
“I fell off Julio’s motorcycle!” he answered, wincing with the pain.
Maria rolled her eyes and smirked. “Oh, poor baby! He fell!”
“Look, if I don’t learn to ride, Julio can’t help me get a job.”
“Ah, he’s finally going to give you one?” asked Maria.
“If I learn to ride. If I stop falling off. He told me it was a test to see how it goes.”
“How what goes?”
“Stuff!” Hector replied. “Me. How I manage, you know.”
Manuela and David watched them argue as if they were two adults.
“And how many times did you fall?”
“Twice. Bashed myself pretty hard.” Hector stood up to show his sister a scraped leg.
“Boom. Straightened her out. Here they are!” Robert announced smugly as he pushed through the door with a bag of potatoes in his arms. “Damn! You got busted up. Playing football?” He jerked his head toward his older brother’s leg.
“No, on Julio’s motorcycle.”
“He’s teaching you how to ride?”
“Yup.”
Hector and Robert looked at each other.
“What’s wrong with you weirdos?” asked Maria impatiently.
“Nothing,” said Hector. “Here, I was able to scrape this together.”
He handed Maria a wad of bills.
HINGS NEVER HAPPEN the way I imagine. Last night I kept staring into the darkness above me and listening to the slow and steady breathing of my roommates, until the moon filled the entire room with a blue glow. Not good. I’ve never been able to sleep when the lights are on. The darker the room, the better I sleep.
In Chía, the town where this place is, the moon rises so huge when it’s full you almost think it’ll fall out of the sky, right smack onto the earth, just like in that old story. And the light it casts is just as huge. Trust me. Even with the curtains tightly closed, my back turned, my face hidden under the pillow or blankets, the moonlight slips through to the center of my forehead and won’t let me sleep.
And that’s what happened that night.
So I started to think. There were two things that bugged me. The first was what I was going to say to the psychologist at our next appointment. There was so much to share. I figured that if she played the music of that man again, I’d end up telling her all about my mother and my father. I wouldn’t mind crying. I would let all the tears I had saved pour out and mix with that music that seemed to come from the same sad place. I would tell her that my father was a political prisoner and was in a penitentiary on the coast. While we were still together, my mother and I had been able to go see him twice. He had been getting skinnier, his hands shaking more and more. But ever since my mother was arrested for the same crime and they brought me to this place, I hadn’t heard from him again.
I would share that when they told me I could not live with my family, I thought my life was going to end. I still hoped my mother would get out of prison very soon, like she had promised me. But I would also admit that now I was terrified of never seeing David again, and that I had never felt so close to someone who wasn’t a family member. We had begun to spend much more time together thanks to music class. The truth is he was much better than me at drawing out the melody from the songs they taught us and playing it on basically any instrument. Instead of getting angry like I usually did when someone was better than me, I felt proud and happy that he was so good, that the teacher kept congratulating him every chance he got. Who knows, if the psychologist put on that beautiful music for him, maybe David could lift the notes out and play them on some instrument for everyone in class. I planned to share it all with the psychologist that afternoon.
The other thing that bugged me was that David had something to show me. That’s what he had told me last time. My plan was to leave the psychologist’s office and meet him to see what he wanted. But things don’t always happen the way you imagine.
So, when it was time to get up, it felt like I had barely lain down to sleep and the blue light of the moon had left my body weak. I bathed slower than ever, I made my bed, and I dragged myself to the cafeteria for breakfast. Since they served us breakfast and dinner in the small dining room, there was no point in keeping an eye on the faces that passed. I wasn’t going to see him there. Me and David, we only crossed paths at school, on the playground, by the ditch, and in the large dining room, at lunchtime. But there are things you do even if there’s no point. You just can’t help yourself.
I was finishing my café con leche—mostly warm milk—a little dizzy from glancing side to side so much, my eyes heavy and my body warm, when the person in charge of my group arrived and headed straight to my table.
“Nina, didn’t you sleep?” she asked me as she sat down by my side and checked my face.
“The moon didn’t let me,” I replied, and she laughed as if we were both in on a white lie.
“Go change. Put on normal clothes,” she said. My eyes snapped open. I was intrigued and awake. “You have a visit with your mother at noon.”
“Do I . . . not go to class?”
“Only the first two,” she replied. “Someone will pick you up at the secretary’s office at twelve. What classes do you have?”
“I have an appointment with the psychologist.” I must have been making a strange face because the woman asked me:
“Aren’t you happy? You get to see your mom . . .” She looked at me like I was a weirdo.
“Can I take my flute?” I asked. I had learned a song and wanted my mom to hear it.
“Sure!” The woman smiled at me. “But hurry!”
I was so happy, imagining my mother’s hand on my cheek. I left without finishing the milky coffee and ran out to put on my prettiest clothes, to pick up the drawings I’d made, the stories I’d written.
The woman smiled again, to herself, and examined what was left on my plate.
AD IS COMING BACK,” she said, and Hector found himself oddly surprised at the amount of hair his sister Maria had.
Manuela began to jump on the bed, making it creak.
“When?” asked Robert.
“He sent a message for us to wait for him together. He’ll be back soon.”
“Didn’t he say when?” asked David.
Maria shook her head.
“Well, that’s the same thing he said when he left!” Robert protested.
“Yes. But this time he sent us a message that we should behave well and wait for him together.”
“Did you talk to him?” Robert insisted.
“No. I said he sent a message for us to wait for him together,” Maria repeated, annoyed.
“Together,” Hector said to Robert. “You heard that, yeah?”
“Who did he send a message with?” David asked, while Manuela kept jumping beside him on the bed, making him tremble.
“With Doña Carmen’s friend,” said Maria, who had enough of her brothers’ interrogations.
“The old gossiping woman with the store in her house?” asked Robert.
“She doesn’t gossip! Besides, we’ve had dinner more than one night with food she’s given us, just so you know!”
“She’s a pain in the ass!” Robert insisted. “The other night—”
“That’s enough!” Maria stopped him. “Aren’t you guys happy that Dad is coming back?”
“I am,” Manuela babbled, still jumping. “He’ll see that I don’t suck on my blankie no more, right, Hector? And I don’t sleep in the drawer no more, neither!”
As she finished, she made a final jump and then fell on David, who groaned beneath his little sister’s flailing legs.
“Me too,” said Hector.
“And now you can go back to school,” said Maria. “They keep asking when you’ll be in class again.”
“Not sure I’m going back to school,” Hector muttered, sitting down next to David, who had recovered from the hit and was now carefully watching Manuela as s
he started jumping again beside him.
Maria glared at Hector as if she wanted to burn through him with her eyes.
“What do you mean you’re not sure? What else are you going to do? Stock groceries at Corabastos? Do you think that’s what Mom wanted for you?”
Everyone fell silent and looked at her.
HECTOR TOOK THE CURVE, tilting his body to the same side, and twisted his wrist back, accelerating. The engine hummed, and they passed between the idling buses, making obscene gestures to the drivers waiting to be dispatched to their routes. He slowed down a bit and pointed the motorcycle toward an abandoned lot. As he popped up onto the median, a truck crossed in front of him, coming slowly down from the highest part of the borough, and Hector shot toward the grass. He opened the throttle and held on tightly to the handlebars to withstand the sudden acceleration. Then he braked, dropping gears and making the rear tire spin a serpentine on the grass.
When they came to a full stop, he gunned the engine twice more and turned to his companion.
“What’d you think?” he asked, his cheeks chafed by the cold wind.
“Well, little bro, you’ve learned. Time for the next step,” said Julio, who seemed younger sitting behind him on the bike. He jumped off and gestured for Hector to turn off the engine. Hector obeyed, popped the kickstand down, and lowered the motorcycle onto it. He got off, his legs feeling like he’d forgotten them for a long time, and took two wobbly steps toward Julio, who pointed to a huge cherry tree in the pasture.
“See that tree?” he asked.
“Sure,” Hector said, thinking maybe it was a test of his eyesight.
“Good. Then pop a cap in it,” said Julio, and pulled a revolver from his waistband. He pointed at the tree and let Hector watch him.
“Boom!” he shouted, amused to see the younger boy jump. “Now you got to learn to use it.”
He set the revolver in Hector’s open hand.
“This thing? Why?” Hector asked, not daring to curl his fingers around the warm metal.
“Just in case, kid. You never know what might happen. You gotta be ready, no?”
Hector shrugged, not knowing what to answer.
“What, you chickenshit or something?” Julio asked, sizing him up with a cold stare.
Hector held the gun in his palm, never taking his eyes off it.
“Look at it, fall in love with it. I’ll leave you two alone so you can get to know each other. Just don’t you lose it, eh?” Julio warned, hopping on the motorcycle and starting it with a kick.
The engine gave a high-pitched hum. He shifted into first and sped away, doing a wheelie. Then he braked, dropping the front wheel to the ground, and returned to the younger boy’s side.
“Oh, and here. For expenses.” Julio laughed, throwing a wad of bills at Hector. “If you run out of bullets, come look for me. Be ready for me to call you. And hey, don’t be shooting nothing that moves. Not yet, you hear?”
He cackled loudly and rode off.
Hector stood there for a while, the metal object in his open hand, till he felt his fingers slowly curl around the pistol grip.
THE MIDDAY SUN pierced their skulls and bored into their brains, liquefying them and making the principal’s endless stream of words seem like threads of melted gum.
When she finished her speech and announced that the school year was over, the students all loosed shouts. Summer vacation!
David was the first of the siblings to run out the school gate and stand next to the ice cream man, waiting for the others.
“Want a popsicle?” asked the man, letting the boy take a peek at the variety of ice cream in the cart.
David shook his head.
“You can pay me later,” the man insisted.
“But it’s the last day of school,” David pointed out.
“The last day?” the man repeated, worried. “You kids don’t come back tomorrow?”
David shook his head again.
“I’ll pay you back?” asked David.
“Well, all right. Pay me the first day of school next year then.”
David smiled excitedly and leaned forward to choose.
“Give me some!” said Robert, arriving a few minutes later to discover his younger brother enjoying a popsicle.
“Nope. It’s mine. He said I could pay him back.” David jerked his head at the ice cream man, who had moved his cart a few steps away to draw more customers. Then the boy continued to nibble on his treat.
“He’s a freaking pig,” Robert said when Maria arrived, holding Manuela by the hand. “Doesn’t want to share.”
“Why should I? I’m the one who got the ice cream. I can eat it all by myself.”
“Imagine if we all acted like that,” Maria said, shrugging. “None of us would eat at home.”
Manuela approached her brother and took his free hand.
“Don’t bother him, he’s hungry,” she announced fiercely.
David looked down at his little sister. She had confirmed what he’d always known: she was the sweetest girl in the world.
“Take it,” he said, offering her the popsicle.
The girl took it, smiling, and got ready to give it a lick.
“Stingy brat!” Robert snarled. “Just you wait and see. You’re going to get so hungry without school food, asshole.”
Maria gave her brother a withering look and pushed him ahead.
“Come on,” she ordered. “Let’s go home!”
E TOOK ME BY THE HAND and led me silently through the orchard to his favorite place. I had no clue what he was going to show me. My floating flowers had died days ago. Apparently, they didn’t like the cold nights on the plains. I let myself get swept away without asking him anything, like he was guiding me with my eyes closed to a surprise cake baked for my birthday.
“It’s over here,” he said as we reached the ditch, like I hadn’t known his special spot for ages.
“Look,” he said at last, stopping under one of the branches of the willow that drooped into the water. He pulled out a bucket. I looked down into it and saw there were a ton of tadpoles wriggling and squirming frantically against each other. One of them had begun its metamorphosis and now had a tiny pair of legs near its long tail. David looked at it carefully for a long time. I didn’t dare say a thing. I focused on the pollywogs, trying to understand his fascination with these nasty, slimy baby frogs. David reached in and carefully took the tadpole with legs between his fingers. I feared the worst. I knew I couldn’t handle watching him swallow another tadpole in front of me, especially one that already had legs, so I closed my eyes.
“Open your eyes,” he said. He was pointing at the tadpole with legs, escaping into the slimy darkness of the mud. “It took off. It’ll become a frog.”
I looked at him, hoping he would finally reveal his secret.
“All of them will become frogs, won’t they?” I asked.
“No. Not all of them. These are mine,” he said with a strange glint in his eyes. “These aren’t going to become frogs. This is my tadpole farm.”
I nodded. I figured he was in the middle of something that not even he completely understood, so I smiled at him, trying to make things less awkward. He hid the bucket again under the camouflage of the willow branches, making sure that the ditch water didn’t reach the lip and spill inside.
“They’re my tadpoles,” he insisted, looking at me expectantly.
What could I say? Suddenly I remembered that everyone called him the Immortal Boy.
“I shouldn’t have shown them to you,” he said after a moment, pushing me so I fell to the ground. “You don’t understand either.”
I stood up, angry.
“How will I understand if you don’t explain to me?” I demanded, being careful not to mention his immortality at all.
But it was too late. He was walking away, his only answer, again, the sight of his back swaying from side to side.
LTHOUGH THEY WERE not as chubby anymore and had lost those dimples in
the knuckles he liked so much, David insisted on holding his sister’s hands in his own. Manuela looked at him with glassy eyes and cracked lips. They were alone in the room and he didn’t know what else to do to calm the girl’s trembling.
“More water?” he asked, offering her the cup he held in his free hand.
Manuela shook her head and her breathing became agitated. A whistling sound came from her chest with every inhalation.
“Don’t wheeze, Manue,” David begged.
“I can’t stop,” the girl replied with a shudder.
David closed his eyes, and everything was submerged in deep silence, except for the desperate wheeze of the girl’s chest. After listening for a while, David thought that maybe a little air would do her some good, so he let go of her hands and opened the door. Indeed, a fresh breeze slipped through the open space and reached his little sister.
“David,” she said, opening her eyes, “I want panela.”
David walked over to the kitchen table and checked everywhere. Nothing.
“Let’s wait for Maria to come home,” David replied. “She’ll bring food.”
Manuela closed her eyes again and rested, breathing more calmly. Her chest stopped wheezing, and David congratulated himself on having thought of opening the door.
Sitting down next to his sister, he began counting the fingers on her hands, again and again.
“WHAT’S GOING ON?” asked Hector, rubbing his eyes and trying to make something out in the darkness.
“She’s burning up,” answered Maria.
Hector got up and went to the little kids’ bed. There were his brothers: Robert asleep with his butt in the air and his cheek against the pillow, and on the other side, David, hugging Manuela close. He had his eyes open and was looking at her carefully as if afraid of missing something.
“Come over to this bed,” said Hector.
David shook his head.
“Come on, man,” the older boy insisted, “that way you’ll let her sleep, and you can sleep too.”
The Immortal Boy Page 5
