The Schooldays of Jesus (10 page)

At the beginning he, Simón, used to keep Bolívar on a leash while the boy was playing, for fear the dog might race onto the field and attack anyone who threatened his young master. But Bolívar has soon come to learn that running around after a ball is just a game, a human game. Now he is content to sit quietly on the sidelines, indifferent to the football, enjoying the mild warmth of the sun and the rich medley of smells in the air.

According to Inés, Bolívar is seven years old, but he, Simón, wonders whether the dog is not older. Certainly he is in the latter phase of his life, the phase of decline. He has begun to put on weight; though he is an intact male, he seems to have lost interest in bitches. He has become less approachable too. Other dogs are
wary of him. He has only to lift his head and give a muted growl to send them slinking off.

He, Simón, is the sole spectator of the scrappy afternoon football games, games in which the action is continually interrupted by arguments among the players. One day a deputation of older boys approaches him to ask if he will referee. He declines: ‘I'm too old and unfit,' he says. This is not entirely true; but in retrospect he is glad he refused and suspects David is glad too.

He wonders who the boys from the apartment block think he is: David's father? His grandfather? An uncle? What story has David told them? That the man who watches their games shares a home with him and his mother, though he sleeps alone? Is David proud of him or ashamed of him or both proud and ashamed; or is a six-year-old, soon to be seven, too young to have ambivalent feelings?

At least the boys respect the dog. The first day he arrived with the dog they gathered in a circle around him. ‘His name is Bolívar,' David announced. ‘He is an Alsatian. He won't bite you.' Bolívar the Alsatian gazed calmly into the distance, allowing the boys to revere him.

In the apartment he, Simón, behaves more like a lodger than an equal member of the family. He takes care to keep his room neat and tidy at all times. He does not leave his toiletries in the bathroom, or his coat on the rack by the front door. How Inés explains his role in her life to Claudia and the wider world he does not know. She has certainly never referred to him, in his hearing, as her husband; if she prefers to present him as a gentleman boarder, he is happy to play along.

Inés is a difficult woman. Nonetheless, he finds in himself a growing admiration for her, and a growing affection too. Who would have thought she would put La Residencia behind her, and the easy life she lived there, and devote herself with such single-mindedness to the fortunes of this wilful child!

‘Are we a family, you and Inés and I?' asks the boy.

‘Of course we are a family,' he duly replies. ‘Families take many forms. We are one of the forms a family can take.'

‘But do we have to be a family?'

He has made a resolution not to give in to irritation, to take the boy's questions seriously even when they are merely idle.

‘If we wanted, we could be less of a family. I could move out and find lodgings of my own and see you only now and again. Or Inés could fall in love and get married and take you to live with her new husband. But those are roads neither of us wants to follow.'

‘Bolívar doesn't have a family.'

‘We are Bolívar's family. We look after Bolívar and Bolívar looks after us. But no, you are right, Bolívar does not have a family, a dog family. He used to have a family when he was little, but then he grew up and found he didn't need a family any longer. Bolívar prefers to live by himself and meet other dogs in the street, casually. You may make a similar decision when you grow up: to live by yourself without a family. But while you are still young you need us to look after you. So we are your family: Inés and Bolívar and I.'

If we wanted, we could be less of a family.
Two days after this conversation the boy announces, out of the blue, that he wants to become a boarder at the Academy.

He, Simón, tries to discourage him. ‘Why would you want to
move to the Academy when you have such a nice life here?' he says. ‘Inés will miss you terribly. I will miss you.'

‘Inés won't miss me. Inés never recognized me.'

‘Of course she did.'

‘She says she didn't.'

‘Inés loves you. She holds you in her heart.'

‘But she didn't recognize me. Señor Arroyo recognizes me.'

‘If you go to señor Arroyo you will no longer have a room of your own. You will have to sleep in a dormitory with the other children. When you feel lonely in the middle of the night you will have no one to go to for comfort. Señor Arroyo and Ana Magdalena certainly won't let you climb into their bed. There will be no one to play football with in the afternoons. For supper you will get carrots and cauliflower, which you hate, instead of mashed potatoes and gravy. And what of Bolívar? Bolívar won't know what has happened.
Where is my young master?
Bolívar will say.
Why has he abandoned me?
'

‘Bolívar can visit me,' says the boy. ‘You can bring him.'

‘It's a big decision, becoming a boarder. Can't we leave it until the next quarter, and give ourselves time to think it over properly?'

‘No. I want to be a boarder now.'

He speaks to Inés. ‘I don't know what Ana Magdalena could have promised him,' he says. ‘I think it is a bad idea. He is far too young to leave home.'

To his surprise, Inés disagrees. ‘Let him go. He will soon be begging to come home again. It will teach him a lesson.'

It is the last thing he would have expected of her: to give up her precious son to the Arroyos.

‘It will be expensive,' he says. ‘Let us at least discuss it with the sisters, see how they feel. It is, after all, their money.'

Though they have not been invited to the sisters' residence in Estrella, they have been careful to maintain the link with Roberta on the farm, and to pay the occasional call when the sisters are there, as a token that they have not forgotten their generosity. On these visits David is unusually forthcoming about the Academy. The sisters have heard him expound on the noble numbers and the auxiliary numbers and watched him perform some of the movements from the simpler dances, the Two and the Three, dances which if done justly call down their respective noble numbers from the stars. They have been charmed by his physical grace and impressed by the gravity with which he presents the unusual teachings of the Academy. But on this new visit the boy is faced with a challenge of another kind: to explain to them why he wants to leave home and live with the Arroyos.

‘Are you sure that señor and señora Arroyo will have room for you?' asks Consuelo. ‘As I understand it—correct me if I am wrong, Inés—there are just the two of them, and they have quite a complement of boarders as well as children of their own. What have you got against living at home with your parents?'

‘They don't understand me,' says the boy.

Consuelo and Valentina exchange glances. ‘
My parents don't understand me
,' says Consuelo ruminatively. ‘Where have I heard those words before? Pray tell me, young man: why is it so important that your parents should understand you? Is it not enough that they are good parents?'

‘Simón doesn't understand the numbers,' says the boy.

‘I don't understand numbers either. I leave that sort of thing to Roberta.'

The boy is silent.

‘Have you thought carefully about this, David?' asks Valentina. ‘Is your mind made up? Are you sure that after a week with the Arroyos you won't change your mind and ask to come home?'

‘I won't change my mind.'

‘Very well,' says Consuelo. She glances at Valentina, at Alma. ‘You can have your wish and become a boarder at the Academy. We will discuss the fees with señora Arroyo. But your complaint about your parents, that they don't understand you, pains us. It seems to be asking a lot that they should not only be good parents but understand you as well. I certainly don't understand you.'

‘Nor I,' says Valentina. Alma is silent.

‘Aren't you going to thank señora Consuelo and señora Valentina and señora Alma?' says Inés.

‘Thank you,' says the boy.

The next morning, instead of going to Modas Modernas, Inés accompanies them to the Academy. ‘David says he wants to become a boarder here,' she tells Ana Magdalena. ‘I don't know who put the idea in his head, and I'm not asking you to tell. I just want to know: Do you have room for him?'

‘Is this true, David? You want to board with us?'

‘Yes,' says the boy.

‘And you are opposed, señora?' says Ana Magdalena. ‘If you are opposed to the idea, why not simply say so?'

She is addressing Inés, but he, Simón, is the one who replies. ‘We don't oppose this latest desire of his for the simple reason
that we don't have the strength,' he says. ‘With us David always gets his way, in the end. That is the kind of family we are: one master and two servants.'

Inés does not find this amusing. Nor does Ana Magdalena. But David smiles serenely.

‘Girls like security,' says Ana Magdalena, ‘but for boys it is different. For boys, some boys, leaving home is a great adventure. However, David, I must warn you, if you come and live with us you won't be master any longer. In our home señor Arroyo is the master and the boys and girls listen to what he says. Do you accept that?'

‘Yes,' says the boy.

‘But just during the week,' says Inés. ‘At weekends he comes home.'

‘I will write down a list of the things you should pack for him,' says Ana Magdalena. ‘Don't worry. If I see he is lonely and pining for his parents I will give you a call. Alyosha will keep an eye on him too. Alyosha is sensitive to such things.'

‘Alyosha,' says he, Simón. ‘Who is Alyosha?'

‘Alyosha is the man who takes care of the boarders,' says Inés. ‘I told you. Weren't you listening?'

‘Alyosha is the young man who helps us,' says Ana Magdalena. ‘He is a product of the Academy, so he knows our way of doing things. The boarders are his special responsibility. He takes his meals with them and has a room of his own off the dormitory. He is very sensitive, very good-natured, very sympathetic. I will introduce you to him.'

The transition from day student to boarder proves to be the
simplest of matters. Inés buys a little suitcase into which they pack a few toiletries and changes of clothing. The boy adds
Don Quixote
. The next morning he matter-of-factly kisses Inés goodbye and marches off down the street with him, Simón, trailing behind carrying the suitcase.

Dmitri is, as usual, waiting at the door. ‘Aha, so the young master is coming to assume residence,' says Dmitri, taking over the suitcase. ‘A great day, to be sure. A day for singing and dancing and killing the fatted calf.'

‘Goodbye, my boy,' says he, Simón. ‘Be good, and I will see you on Friday.'

‘I am good,' says the boy. ‘I am always good.'

He watches as Dmitri and the boy disappear up the staircase. Then, on an impulse, he follows. He arrives in the studio in time to catch a glimpse of the boy trotting off to the interior reaches of the apartment, holding Ana Magdalena's hand. A feeling of loss rolls through him like a fog. Tears come, which he tries in vain to hide.

Dmitri puts a consoling arm around his shoulder. ‘Be calm,' says Dmitri.

Instead of being calm he bursts into sobs. Dmitri draws him to his breast; he offers no resistance. He allows himself a huge sob, another, a third, inhaling with deep, shuddering breaths the smells of tobacco smoke and serge.
Letting go
, he thinks:
I am letting go. It is excusable, in a father.

Then the time for tears is over. He pulls himself free, clears his throat, whispers a word that is meant to be a word of gratitude but comes forth as a kind of gargle, and rushes down the stairs.

At home, that evening, he tells Inés of the episode, an episode that in retrospect seems stranger and stranger—more than strange, bizarre.

‘I don't know what got into me,' he says. ‘After all, it is not as if the child is being taken away and locked up in a prison. If he feels lonely, if he doesn't get along with this Alyosha man, he can, as Ana Magdalena says, be home in half an hour. So why was I so heartbroken? And in front of Dmitri, of all people! Dmitri!'

But Inés's mind is elsewhere. ‘I should have packed his warm pyjamas,' she says. ‘If I give them to you, will you take them tomorrow?'

Next morning he hands over to Dmitri the pyjamas in a brown paper packet with David's name written on it. ‘Warm clothing, from Inés,' he says. ‘Don't give it to David himself, he is too scatter-brained. Give it to Ana Magdalena, or better, give it to the young man who looks after the boarders.'

‘Alyosha. I will give it to him without fail.'

‘Inés frets that David might be cold at night. That is her nature—to fret. By the way, let me apologize for the spectacle I made of myself yesterday. I don't know what got into me.'

‘It was love,' says Dmitri. ‘You love the boy. It broke your heart to see him turn his back on you like that.'

‘Turn his back? You misunderstand. David is not turning his back on us. Far from it. Boarding at the Academy is just temporary, a whim of his, an experiment. When he gets bored with it, or unhappy, he will come home again.'

‘Parents always feel heartsore when their young flee the nest,' says Dmitri. ‘It's natural. You have a soft heart, I can see that. I
have a soft heart too, despite the rough exterior. No need to be ashamed. It is our nature, yours and mine. It is how we were born. We are softies.' He grins. ‘Not like that Inés of yours.
Un corazón de cuero
.'

‘You have no idea what you are talking about,' he says stiffly. ‘There has never been a more devoted mother than Inés.'