The Summer of Dead Toys

by Antonio Hill

  I went to change and came out with the bikini on. I walked up and down like the models on a catwalk do. The way he looked at me made me feel pretty. Then he said: Come and sit beside me. I tried but I was uncomfortable: the earth and the pebbles stuck into my legs. He took out a towel from his rucksack and spread it out for both of us. And we lay down and watched the light coming through the trees for a while. I told him things and he really listened to me. You are very pretty, he whispered while he stroked my hair. And then I really felt like the prettiest girl in the world.

  I hid the bikini, just like he told me to, so Inés wouldn’t find it. My mother saw it, of course, and commented that one of the kids must have forgotten it. I smiled, thinking that just like he’d said, that present was our secret. I didn’t put it on again until the next summer, the first day the monitors arrived, but he didn’t notice. I swam in the pool, like I had the year before, but he was busy with the others and didn’t pay me any attention. But afterward, when I met him in the corridor, he said very seriously: you have to wear a swimsuit in the pool. Then he winked at me and added: But you can put on the pink bikini when we see each other in the cave. After all, I gave it to you. I didn’t understand, but I nodded.

  Come tomorrow at four o’ clock, he said to me quietly, and you can tell me how your year has been. I was so happy because I had lots of things to tell him, things about school, my friends, but the truth is we hardly spoke at all. When I arrived he was already there, sitting on the same towel as last summer. You’re late, he scolded me, although it wasn’t true. I’m wearing the bikini underneath my clothes, I told him, so he wouldn’t get angry. Then he laughed, and I realized he was joking with me, but he kept talking in an angry voice. Oh, really? I don’t believe you, as well as coming late you’re a liar . . . and laughing he took me by the shoulders, laid me down on the towel and started tickling me. Let’s see if it’s true, he said again, and he put his hands under my clothes to see if he touched the bikini. OK, yes, it’s there. I laughed too, although his hands were warm. Very warm. Then he lay down on top of me and stroked my face, and told me again that I was very pretty. You’re prettier than last year. I was a little ashamed and he noticed my red cheeks. Are you hot? he asked. I’m going to undress you as if you were a doll, he said smiling. He was speaking in that funny voice. And I let him take off my T-shirt and pull down my trousers. You’re my doll, he whispered again and again. I could hardly hear him. With one hand he stroked my hair, my arms, tickled my neck. I closed my eyes. I didn’t see anything else, but after a while I felt a warm liquid on my tummy. I opened my eyes, afraid, and saw a sticky white stain. I tried to move because it made me feel sick but he didn’t let me. Shhhh, he repeated, shhh . . . dolls don’t talk.

  Leire had to force herself not to grab the pages from her. At her side, Héctor took her hand. She closed her eyes and kept listening.

  That summer I learned to be his doll. Dolls close their eyes and let themselves be stroked. They also take their hand and put it where they’re told to. And open their mouth and lick with their tongue even though it sometimes makes them want to vomit. Above all, good dolls don’t tell anyone. They obey. They don’t complain. Like real dolls, they must wait for their owner to pick them up and then get tired of playing with them. It’s strange, you want them to play with you, although there are games you don’t like at all. And above all, you can’t bear the idea that your owner might forget about you, or replace you with another doll. At the end of last summer, the last day we played, he looked at me and said: You’re growing up. And, unlike most people who smile when they say that, I felt that he didn’t like it. Then in my bedroom I looked at myself in the mirror and saw he was right: my body was changing, my breasts were growing . . . only a little, but enough that the pink bikini was too small. That’s when I decided to eat less.

  “ Bastard!” Joana couldn’t stop the word coming out of her mouth. Inés looked at her, nodded and said: “There’s not much more.”

  This year everything’s been different from the start. When he arrived he looked at me as if he didn’t recognize me. I was proud: thanks to hardly eating a thing I had barely put on any weight at all. But I was taller, that I couldn’t prevent. And I saw that he noticed, though he said nothing. I tried to fit into the bikini but couldn’t and I cried with rage. He didn’t even mention it. He looked at me as if I didn’t exist, as if he’d never played with me. And when one day I said we could go to the cave he looked at me strangely. He acted as if he didn’t know what I was talking about. But my mother was useful for once and arranged everything. She told the monitors what a bad student I was and how worried she was about me, I think to embarrass me. And he nodded, and said, “Don’t worry, we’ll help her. I’ll give her private classes in the evenings on the days I’m free.” I loved the idea: the two of us together, in a closed room. I felt special again.

  The first day I waited for him at the desk in my room, the one I share with Inés. The silly girl insisted on bringing all her dolls. While I prepared the notebooks and books, I looked at them and told them: Today it’s my turn, today he’ll play with me. But he didn’t: he spent a while explaining some mathematical problems and then he gave me some exercises. Then he went over to the window and stayed there. When he came back I saw something was happening to him. His eyes were dark. And I said to myself: Now. I was waiting for him to speak to me in that hoarse voice, to touch me with those warm hands that at the beginning made me sick. But he just sat down and asked: What age is your sister?

  I hated him. I hated him with all my heart. Before I’d hated him for what he did to me, and now I hated him because he’d stopped. And then, little by little, I saw how he was getting closer to Inés. No one else noticed, of course. Not even her. Inés can spend hours playing with her dolls and not notice anything. She doesn’t like games outside, or sports. She doesn’t much like other kids: Mama always says she’s too solitary. In school she has only one friend and hardly plays with anyone else. But he looked at her, I saw him while I was pretending to read; while my mother’s eyes watched me to make sure I would eat, I had my eyes on Inés. Then I decided to do something. I knew it was in my hands, that the games last summer were bad; in school they’d told us about it and we’d all put on revolted faces. Including me. Well, I wanted to end it all but I didn’t know how. And one afternoon, while the monitors and the children were on an outing, I went to speak to the priest. I meant to tell him everything: talk to him about the bikini, the games in the cave, his sweaty hands, even though I might die of shame.

  “Fèlix!” exclaimed Joana.

  “Yes,” replied Inés. “Father Fèlix.”

  I knocked on his door and went into his office. And almost without noticing I started crying. Really crying, with my whole body. I cried so much he couldn’t understand my words. He closed the door and said to me: Calm down, calm down, first cry and then tell me everything, all right? Crying is good. When your tears are gone, we’ll talk. I felt like my tears would never end, like my stomach was a knot of black clouds that kept raining. But after a long time the knot began to unravel, the tears stopped and I could talk at last. I told him everything, sitting on an old wooden chair that creaked every time I moved a bit. He listened without interrupting, only asking a question when I hesitated. He asked if there was anything else, if he’d put his “thing” inside me, and I said no. He seemed relieved. Suddenly I wasn’t ashamed any more, or weepy, I just wanted to tell him everything. I wanted the whole world to know I’d been his doll. When I finished I felt like there was nothing left inside me, only the sudden fear of what was going to happen from now on.

  But nothing happened. Well, the priest told me I should relax, that he would take care of everything, to forget these things. Don’t tell anyone else, he said. They’ll think you’re making it up. Leave it to me.

  That was three days ago. The private classes have ended and when I meet him in the corridor he won’t even look at me. He is angry with me, I know. I know I broke the rules
of good dolls. The second-last group of kids has gone. He’s gone too, but he’ll be back in a few days. I don’t want to be here to see him. I want to escape. Go where no one can find me and sleep forever.

  The doorbell startled them all. Joana got up to answer it, while Leire embraced Inés. She had left the pages on the table and couldn’t hold back the tears any longer.

  The person who entered with Joana was the last person they were expecting to see just then: Father Fèlix Castells.

  38

  Leire continued holding Inés. The young woman was sobbing almost silently, as if she were ashamed of it. When Fèlix came in, all eyes were on him. But it was Joana who said in a clear, loud voice:

  “You felt relieved when she told you he hadn’t penetrated her? Truly, Fèlix?”

  He looked at her without answering.

  “You did nothing?” she went on, accusing him in fury. “Nothing? This child told you what this bastard was doing to her and you thought since he hadn’t raped her, none of it mattered? You didn’t report him, even when this little girl drowned herself in the pool?”

  Héctor grabbed the pages Inés had left on the table.

  “You should read them, Father. And if indeed God does exist, I hope he forgives you.”

  Fèlix hung his head. He seemed incapable of defending himself, of saying a single word in his own defense. He didn’t sit down. He remained on foot in front of this improvised tribunal.

  “Don’t put all the blame on him,” murmured Inés. She moved softly away from Leire and looked at the priest. “What he did wasn’t right, but he didn’t do it just for himself. He was also protecting me.”

  “Inés—”

  “No. I’ve spent years with all this. Feeling I was to blame. Thinking myself in debt to Iris, keeping her alive even if only in a symbolic way . . . Until last Christmas, when I found these pages and learned the whole story. I showed them to Marc in Dublin and he reacted in the same way you are now. Appalled, enraged, anxious to know the truth. But there’s a part of that truth I didn’t dare tell him. I let him hate his uncle, initiate a plan of revenge against him, to make him confess what he wanted to know.” She took a breath before going on. “When the truth is that, very early that morning, I heard footsteps in the house. I couldn’t sleep in Mama’s bed; she kept moving. I went out to the corridor without making a sound and didn’t see anyone, but I was sure someone had gone downstairs. One of my dolls was on the floor. I picked it up and went down to the garden.”

  Iris is sitting at the edge of the pool in a nightdress. Her eyes see only the dolls. She hasn’t slept all night, staring at them intently. They belong to Inés and at this moment she hates them with all her heart. She’s pulled the heads and arms off some of them before tossing them in the water; others she’s submerged as if she could drown them. There’s only one left in her hand, her sister’s favorite, and before throwing it in with the others she contemplates her work, satisfied. The pool has become a pond full of little plastic bodies floating adrift. She doesn’t notice Inés’s presence until she hears her voice.

  “What are you doing?”

  She laughs like one possessed. Inés bends down and begins taking out the ones floating closest to the edge. The water is freezing, but they are her dolls. She loves them.

  “Don’t touch them!”

  Iris tries to stop her. She grabs her with all her strength and wrestles her to the ground, but although Inés is smaller, Iris is very weak. Inés tries to free herself from her sister’s arms and they struggle at the edge of the pool, they roll around fighting until they fall into the water. Inés notices how the pressure eases, how the cold penetrates her entire body. She barely manages to come to the surface and paddles like a puppy to the steps. Then she looks back. Iris is emerging from the bottom, like a big dead doll.

  “That’s how it was,” Inés finished. “I ran away and hid. Mama found me a little later, with my hair still wet. She hugged me and told me not to worry. That Father Fèlix would take care of everything.” Silence overwhelmed the room. Father Castells had sat down, although he kept his head lowered.

  “God,” said Joana. “And Marc?”

  “Marc didn’t know anything, Joana,” answered Fèlix. “I took care of that. You can say I did wrong, but I swear that I tried to do the right thing.”

  “Oh really?” asked Héctor. “I doubt hiding the abuse of a minor was doing the right thing, Father. You knew the truth. You knew Iris was beside herself and you knew why.”

  “And what good would it have done?” shouted Fèlix. He stood up suddenly and his flushed face showed the torment escaping him. “Iris was dead, and this girl wasn’t to blame!” He swallowed and continued, in a quieter but no less tense voice. “I doubted what Iris said. Perhaps I didn’t realize the significance of it. I thought part of it was true and part the fruit of a problematic child’s imagination. But then, when she died, I told myself that bringing all that filth to light would only serve to make this poor little girl face so much. Her mother begged me to protect her. And I opted for the living, Inspector. I confessed the truth to the inspector who took on the case,” he said, not mentioning his name. “I asked him to stop investigating for this little girl’s sake. And he agreed.”

  “But you didn’t tell him you were letting a paedophile go free, did you? You just told him about a fight between sisters, an unfortunate accident. And what happened to the monitor?”

  “I spoke to him as well.” He knew it didn’t matter, that by this point his excuses were falling on deaf ears, but he continued anyway. “He assured me he’d never do it again, that he would reform, it was just that one time, because—”

  “Because Iris was looking for it, right?” Leire intervened.

  Fèlix shook his head.

  “He was a good boy from a good family. He believed in God and he promised it would never happen again. The Church preaches forgiveness.”

  “Justice, Father, preaches something else,” interrupted Héctor. “But you all think you’re above it, isn’t that right?”

  “No . . . I don’t know.” Fèlix lowered his eyes again. “I said the same thing to Marc when he came to see me after returning from Dublin. He wanted to know that boy’s name. He barely remembered who the camp monitors were, he was only six. And I refused to tell him. I told him to forget the whole matter.”

  “But Marc didn’t forget,” continued Héctor. “He said so in his blog: he spoke of means and ends, revenge and justice, truth.”

  “I don’t know what he was planning. I didn’t discuss the subject with him again.” He looked at Inés, as if she might have the answer.

  “He didn’t give me the details, but it was some plot against you. He didn’t want to tell me what it was.”

  Héctor stood in front of Father Castells.

  “Well, now the time has come to give this name, don’t you think? The name of the monitor who abused this little girl and is, morally at least, responsible for her death? The name Marc was trying to discover?”

  He nodded.

  “I hadn’t seen him for a while, but I met him yesterday at the Martís’ house. His name is Eduard. Eduard Rovira.”

  39

  “Pigs,” said Leire as she drove toward the Rovira home. “They’re all pigs. I’m sure that the friendship with the Roviras mattered more than what had happened to the cook’s daughter. A good Christian boy from a good family who has made a mistake . . .”

  Héctor looked at her and couldn’t deny it.

  “There was an element of that, I’m sure. And also hurt pride or fear. How could you justify all this happening under your nose without your seeing it? With Iris dead, the most “practical” thing is to bury the matter.”

  Leire accelerated.

  “I want to catch this fucker.”

  They caught him at home. The elder Roviras weren’t there, so it was a surprised Aleix who opened the door to them, thinking they were looking for him.

  “I thought it was tomorrow—”


  Héctor grabbed him by the collar.

  “We’re going to talk then for a little while, you and I. But first we want to chat to your dear brother. Is he in his room?”

  “Upstairs. But you have no right to—”

  Héctor slapped him across the face. A red mark spread over the boy’s cheek.

  “Hey, this is police brutality!” he protested, seeking Leire’s help with his eyes.

  “What?” she asked. “You mean what’s come up on your face? You’ve been bitten by a mosquito. There’re lots in summer. Even in this neighborhood.”

  The uproar had brought Edu out of his room. Héctor released Aleix and focused all his attention on his brother. He forced himself to forget what Inés had read them barely half an hour before, to stifle the superhuman rage which threatened to cloud his vision once again. He remained tense for a few seconds, fists clenched. His face must have been frightening because Edu drew back.