If I Close My Eyes Now (2 page)

What if there are secrets the scientists know but we cannot even suspect? That the governments hide from us the way the Portuguese sailors hid their maps from their enemies? Perhaps the Russians have the real maps of the heavens. What about the Americans? Do they have real maps of the heavens too?

‘
I can clearly see tall mountains and areas in shadow
…’

If as they said on the radio the Russian astronaut circled the Earth in an hour and forty-eight minutes, thought the boy, he must have seen day and night at the same time.

‘…
the forests, islands, and ocean shores. I can see the sun, the clouds
…’

If Japan is twenty-four hours ahead of us, on the far side of
the Earth, that means it’s already tomorrow there. So the Russian travelled from the future back into the past. But that’s impossible. He can’t do that. Or can he? How can he? If I go into the future, can I meet myself as I am today, the light-skinned boy wondered. Or as I was today? Me, today, now, as I am at this moment, will I be able to see how I will be? What I will be?

‘…
and the shadows the light casts on my beloved, distant Earth
.’

So says the Russian. The Russian astronaut. Major Yuri Gagarin, aged twenty-seven. That was what they said he said on the radio. It could be a lie. Father Thomas is always telling us that the Russians lie in order to conquer the world. That’s what he says in every Latin class: the Communists lie. But the other teacher, Lamarca, says it’s the Americans who lie, the boy remembered. Because they want the riches from our soil, our gold, oil, our monazite sands …

Paulo swam underwater as quietly as he could towards Eduardo. He could see his body from underneath the buoy, and played the joke on him he knew he hated: tipping over the inner tube, he pulled his friend’s underpants down.

Eduardo went under, swallowed a mouthful of water, and came up spluttering.

Paulo swam quickly towards the shore, laughing and making whooping sounds like the Red Indians after they had defeated the invading palefaces in the Westerns they saw in the Sunday matinees at the Cine Theatro Universo. Eduardo recovered, muttered something and swam a powerful crawl to try to catch his friend.

Paulo ran a few metres out of the water, still laughing, and then came to a halt.

He waited.

His furious friend was getting close.

Very close.

Paulo laughed again, enjoying himself. This was his favourite trick. He knew he was quicker and more nimble than Eduardo, he knew how to dodge much better – being shorter was an advantage, so that when he swerved to left or right he could bend and slip through Eduardo’s open arms.

Disconcerted, unable to dart in and out like his friend, Eduardo still kept up the chase, his feet slipping now and then on the wet grass and mud, while Paulo raced on, never once losing his balance.

All of a sudden, Paulo tripped over something and fell head first.

It was a body.

A blonde woman, her arms and legs splayed out, filthy with blood and mud.

Her left breast had been chopped off.

All Eduardo could see in the rough wall the policeman had pushed him up against was a chink in the stones and the black ants emerging from it in a busy, orderly line. The ants climbed up towards the grille high above his head, through which the afternoon heat and occasional distant street sounds seeped: the wheels of a cart and the iron shoes of a mule on the paving blocks, the voices of two women walking past on the far
pavement, the long, muffled wail of a crying child, or perhaps of someone being held in the police station basement.

The three cops stank. Eduardo was sweating. He wanted to believe it wasn’t out of fear.

‘I saw first,’ he repeated.

‘But I was the one who tripped over the body,’ Paulo explained, yet again.

They were standing with their backs to each other. Paulo was facing the opposite wall. The police took turns to ask the same questions.

‘Why were you with her?’

‘How come she went there with you?’

‘Who called her?’

‘I already told you, we don’t know her!’

‘Sir, neither Paulo nor I know who she is.’

‘Of course you do.’

‘Whose penknife is it?’

‘How many times did you stab her?’

‘How did you get her down there?’

One of the cops laughed. Eduardo thought he heard them whispering together.

‘I already told you, and so did Eduardo, we don’t know her.’

‘We didn’t know who she was. I never saw her. We never saw her.’

‘Never.’

‘How many stabs?’

‘What d’you mean, you didn’t know her?’

‘How many times did you stab her with your penknife?’

‘It’s not Eduardo’s penknife, it’s mine.’

‘How many times?’

‘It’s my penknife, but we never did anything to her, we don’t know her; never, nothing.’

‘Everybody knows her, you monkey.’

‘I’m not a monkey.’

‘Shut your mouth! Only speak when I ask a question, monkey.’

‘I’m not a monkey! And there’s no reason I should answer any questions!’

‘D’you want to feel my fist, monkey?’

‘Please, sir, stay calm! Calm down, Paulo! We went to the lake to swim. That’s all, sir.’

‘How many stab wounds? Talk, monkey!’

‘I don’t know. We didn’t want to look.’

‘We didn’t count. Neither Paulo nor I counted.’

‘A penknife doesn’t make wounds like that. It was a dagger.’

‘How d’you know, monkey? Have you already sunk a dagger in someone?’

‘I’m not a monkey! And I haven’t done anything. I simply tripped over the dead body.’

‘How did you know she was dead?’

‘You two killed her.’

‘Why did you stab her so often?’

‘When I tripped she was already dead!’

‘We didn’t touch her, sir. We found her, and I told Paulo we had better come here to the station to tell you what we had found. The body.’

‘And I told you it would be better not to have anything to do with the police!’

‘We went back there with you, didn’t we? To show you. We only found her. That’s all.’

‘I told you the police wouldn’t believe us, Eduardo!’

‘We don’t believe you because you’re lying. What did you do to her?’

‘Nothing! She was already cold when I tripped over her.’

‘You’re lying, little monkey.’

‘Paulo and I went to the lake because our geography teacher threw us out of his class.’

‘He sent us to talk to the headmaster.’

‘Which of you pulled up her skirt?’

‘You, or you?’

Paulo realized he was hungry. I’m hungry, I’m thirsty, I want a pee, I haven’t had lunch, I haven’t eaten anything apart from that bit of bread with coffee, why did they push me and Eduardo into this stifling room, why do they keep on asking us about killing that woman, why, what for? Can’t they see we didn’t have anything to kill her with? We couldn’t have done it with my penknife. I didn’t pull her skirt up, it was already pulled up to her waist, or perhaps it was torn, who knows? No, it wasn’t torn, and if it was, I didn’t do it. Eduardo didn’t pull it up either. The guy shouting in my ear spits whenever he speaks, filthy bastard, it must be the one who talked to us first, the one with a rotten front tooth, the one who pushed us into this room at the back of the police station, when we came to tell them about the body we’d found. His breath is so bad you can smell it from yards away. Or it was the other one. My stomach’s rumbling: what time is it?

‘Was it you, monkey?’

‘We didn’t touch her. I only tripped. When I was running.’

‘We went to the lake because our teacher threw us out. And we couldn’t go home.’

‘We couldn’t go home until the end of the school day.’

‘Did he throw both of you out?’

‘Yes.’

‘What were you doing?’

‘Nothing bad, sir.’

‘We were looking at a magazine.’

‘In the class.’

‘What magazine?’

‘The teacher took it. He sent us to see the headmaster.’

‘What kind of magazine was it?’

‘A dirty magazine; I bet these little monkeys had a dirty magazine.’

‘Were you doing dirty things? Together? With each other?’

‘No! We were swimming!’

‘The headmaster wasn’t in his office, so we thought it was better to get out of there.’

‘We thought it was better to run away.’

‘You wanted to do dirty things to her!’

‘We didn’t see her! We don’t know her!’

‘I’ve never seen her, I swear. Nor has Paulo.’

‘You’re lying, monkey.’

‘Everybody knows that woman.’

‘We don’t.’

‘I’ve already told you, we never saw her before!’

‘Everybody knows that woman. Or knew her.’

‘But I don’t, sir.’

‘Of course you do. That woman was a whore.’

‘A whore?’

‘The dead woman was a whore?’

‘A whore. A tramp. You knew that.’

‘But we didn’t, sir. I’ve never been to one of those places. Nor has Paulo. His father goes, and so does his brother. He never does. We never do.’

‘Was she a whore from the red-light district?’

‘I’m the one asking the questions, monkey. What did you want with her?’

‘You wanted to force her to do dirty things, didn’t you?’

‘She refused, so you attacked her.’

‘With the penknife.’

‘You even took a dirty magazine with you.’

‘Where is it?’

‘The geography teacher took it. Mr Lemos took it. You can ask him.’

‘You cleaned the knife on her tights. The blade is clean, and the stockings are covered in blood.’

‘No, sir. We took our bikes to the lake, that’s all.’

‘To swim.’

‘Until Paulo tipped over the inner tube and pulled my pants down, and I started running after him, and—’

‘So both of you were naked? In the midst of the bushes?’

‘You were doing dirty things to each other.’

‘No, no! It was a joke!’

‘A dirty joke.’

‘No!’

‘We’ve sent for your father. And yours.’

‘No, not my father!’

‘Calm down, Paulo. I’ll explain we haven’t done anything wrong. That we came to tell the police. That the blonde woman was already dead when you fell over her.’

‘How did you know she was dead?’

‘She was already stiff!’

‘The blood was already stiff!’

‘You mean congealed, Paulo.’

‘So you touched her body.’

‘You played with her body.’

‘No! We only touched it lightly.’

‘To see if she was still alive.’

‘But she wasn’t.’

‘How could she be? Stabbed to death like that!’

‘Stabbed by a penknife. Your penknife.’

‘It wasn’t my penknife! Those wounds were made by a dagger! I know they’re dagger wounds.’

‘And how do you know that?’

‘My father’s a butcher. There was no need to send for him.’

‘Are you scared?’

‘What did you do? You can tell us.’

‘I’m not scared.’

‘You’re a minor, nothing will happen to you.’

‘You didn’t need to send for him …’

‘Is my mother coming as well? Did you call my mother too?’

‘Do you often go there, to the lake?’

‘What do you do when you’re together?’

‘Do you swim naked? Do you go around naked?’

‘Where did you hide the dirty magazine?’

‘We didn’t do anything wrong. All we did was bunk off school.’

‘Aren’t you ashamed, monkey? Your mother’s outside, in tears.’

‘She’s my mother. Paulo’s mother died.’

‘Worse still. All that sacrifice to give children an education, and you two spend your time running around naked.’

‘But Mr Lemos threw us out of his class!’

‘Because you had a dirty magazine.’

‘Let me speak to my mother, sir. So that she won’t worry.’

‘Afterwards.’

‘In a little while.’

‘After you’ve given a proper explanation of why you pulled his pants down and what you were doing by the lake, why you pulled her knickers down, and about the penknife – everything.’

‘But we already told you. All three of you.’

‘So tell us again. From the beginning.’

‘Why are you so scared of your father?’

‘Not mine – he’s Paulo’s father.’

‘If you were my son, I’d show you how to educate a good-for-nothing.’

‘I’m not a good-for-nothing.’

A fourth adult voice interrupted them, opening the door and announcing:

‘The little mulatto’s father is here.’