The Schooldays of Jesus Read online

  ‘If you don’t stop I will report you to the museum authorities and you will lose your job. It is as simple as that.’

  ‘As simple as that…Nothing in this life is simple, Simón—you ought to know that. Let me tell you about this job of mine. Before I came to the museum I worked in the hospital. Not as a doctor, I hasten to say, I was always the stupid one, never passed my exams, no good at book learning. Dmitri the dumb ox. No, I wasn’t a doctor, I was an orderly, doing the jobs no one else wanted to do. For seven years, on and off, I was a hospital orderly. I told you about it already, if you remember. I don’t regret those years. I saw a lot of life, a lot of life and a lot of death. So much death that in the end I had to walk away, couldn’t face it anymore. I took this job instead, where there is nothing to do but sit around all day, yawning, waiting for the bell to ring for closing time. If it wasn’t for the Academy upstairs, if it wasn’t for Ana Magdalena, I would have perished long ago of boredom.

  ‘Why do you think I chat to your little boy, Simón, and to other little ones? Why do you think I play games with them and buy them sweets? Is it because I want to corrupt them? Is it because I want to violate them? No. Believe it or not, I play with them in the hope that some of that fragrance and innocence of theirs will rub off on me, so that I won’t turn into a sullen, lonely old man sitting in a corner like a spider, no good to anyone, superfluous, undesired. Because what good am I by myself, and what good are you by yourself—yes, you, Simón!—what good are we by ourselves, tired, used-up old men like us? We might as well lock ourselves in the lavatory and put a bullet through our heads. Don’t you agree?’

  ‘Forty-four isn’t old, Dmitri. You are in the prime of life. You don’t need to haunt the corridors of the Arroyos’ dance academy. You could get married, you could have children of your own.’

  ‘I could. I could indeed. You think I don’t want to? But there is a catch, Simón, there is a catch. The catch is señora Arroyo. I am encaprichado with her. Are you familiar with the word? No? You will find it in books. Infatuated. You know it, she knows it, everyone knows it, it is no secret. Even señor Arroyo knows, whose head is up in the clouds most of the time. I am infatuated with señora Arroyo, crazy about her, loco, that is the beginning and the end of it. You say, Give her up, look elsewhere. But I won’t. I am too stupid to do that—too stupid, too simple-minded, too old-fashioned, too faithful. Like a dog. I am not ashamed to say it. I am Ana Magdalena’s dog. I lick the ground where her foot has trod. On my knees. And now you want me to abandon her, just like that, abandon her and find a replacement. Gentleman, responsible, steady employment, no longer young, seeks respectable widow with view to marriage. Write box 123, include photograph.

  ‘It won’t work, Simón. It is not the woman in box 123 whom I love but Ana Magdalena Arroyo. What kind of husband would I make for box 123, what kind of father, as long as I bear Ana Magdalena’s image in my heart? And those children you wish on me, those children of my own: do you think they will love me, children engendered from the loins of indifference? Of course not. They will hate and despise me, which will be exactly what I deserve. Who needs an absent-hearted father?

  ‘So thank you for your considered and considerate advice, but unfortunately I cannot follow it. When it comes to life’s great choices, I follow my heart. Why? Because the heart is always right and the head is always wrong. Do you understand?’

  He begins to see why David is captivated by this man. No doubt there is an element of posturing in all this talk of extravagant, unrequited love, as well as a perverse kind of boasting. Mockery too: from the beginning he has felt he is singled out for these confidences only because Dmitri regards him as a eunuch or a moon-dweller, alien to the earthly passions. But the performance is a powerful one nonetheless. How wholehearted, how grand, how true Dmitri must appear to a boy of David’s age, compared with a dry old stick like himself!

  ‘Yes, Dmitri, I understand. You make yourself clear, all too clear. Let me make myself clear too. Your relations with señora Arroyo are your business, not mine. Señora Arroyo is a grown woman, she can take care of herself. But children are a different matter. The Arroyos are running a school, not an orphanage. You cannot take over their students and adopt them into a family of your own. They are not your children, Dmitri, just as señora Arroyo is not your wife. I want you to stop inviting David, my child, the child for whose welfare I am responsible, into your room and showing him dirty pictures. My child or any other child. If you don’t put a stop to it I will see to it that you are dismissed. That is all.’

  ‘A threat, Simón? Are you issuing threats?’ Dmitri rises from his chair, still holding the feather duster. ‘You, a stranger from nowhere, threatening me? Do you think I have no power here?’ His lips open in a smile that reveals his yellowed teeth. Lightly he shakes the feathers in his, Simón’s, face. ‘Do you think I have no friends in higher places?’

  He, Simón, steps back. ‘What I think is of no consequence to you,’ he says coldly. ‘I have said what I had to say. Good morning.’ That night it begins to rain. It rains all day too, without interruption or promise of interruption. The bicycle messengers are unable to go out on their rounds. He stays in his room, killing time, listening to music on the radio, dozing, while water drips into a bucket from a leak in the roof.

  On the third day of the rains the door to his room bursts open and David stands before him, his clothes sodden, his hair plastered to his scalp.

  ‘I ran away,’ he announces. ‘I ran away from the Academy.’

  ‘You ran away from the Academy! Come, close the door, take off those wet clothes, you must be icy cold. I thought you liked it at the Academy. Has something happened?’ While he talks he fusses around the boy, undressing him, wrapping him in a towel.

  ‘Ana Magdalena is gone. And Dmitri too. They are both gone.’

  ‘I’m sure there is some explanation. Do they know you are here? Does señor Arroyo know? Does Alyosha know?’

  The boy shakes his head.

  ‘They will be worried. Let me make you something warm to drink, then I will go out and telephone to say you are safe.’

  Donning his yellow oilskin and yellow mariner’s cap he goes out into the downpour. From the telephone booth on the street corner he calls the Academy. There is no reply.

  He returns to the room. ‘No one answers,’ he says. ‘I will have to go there myself. Wait for me here. Please, please don’t run away.’

  This time he goes by bicycle. It takes him fifteen minutes, through the downpour. He arrives drenched to the bone. The studio is empty, but in the cavernous dining hall he finds David’s comrades the boarders seated at one of the long tables with Alyosha reading to them. Alyosha breaks off and stares at him inquiringly.

  ‘I am sorry to interrupt,’ he says. ‘I telephoned but there was no reply. I have come to tell you that David is safe. He is at home with me.’

  Alyosha blushes. ‘I’m sorry. I have been trying to keep everyone together, but sometimes I lose track. I thought he was upstairs.’

  ‘No, he is with me. He said something about Ana Magdalena being gone.’

  ‘Yes, Ana Magdalena is away. We are having a break from classes until she comes back.’

  ‘And when will that be?’

  Alyosha shrugs helplessly.

  He pedals back to the cottage. ‘Alyosha says they are having a break from classes,’ he tells the boy. ‘He says Ana Magdalena will be back soon. She hasn’t run away at all. That is just a nonsense story.’

  ‘It is not nonsense. Ana Magdalena has run away with Dmitri. They are going to be gypsies.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Dmitri.’

  ‘Dmitri is a dreamer. He has always dreamed of running away with Ana Magdalena. Ana Magdalena has no interest in him.’

  ‘You never listen to me! They have run away. They are going to have a new life. I don’t want to go back to the Academy. I want to go with Ana Magdalena and Dmitri.’

  ‘You want to
leave Inés and be with Ana Magdalena?’

  ‘Ana Magdalena loves me. Dmitri loves me. Inés doesn’t love me.’

  ‘Of course Inés loves you! She can’t wait to get back from Novilla so that she can be with you again. As for Dmitri, he doesn’t love anyone. He is incapable of love.’

  ‘He loves Ana Magdalena.’

  ‘He has a passion for Ana Magdalena. That’s a different thing. Passion is selfish. Love is unselfish. Inés loves you in an unselfish way. So do I.’

  ‘It’s boring being with Inés. It’s boring being with you. When is it going to stop raining? I hate the rain.’

  ‘I am sorry to hear you are so bored. As for the rain, I am unfortunately not the emperor of the heavens, so there is nothing I can do to stop it.’

  Estrella has two radio stations. He switches to the second station just as the announcer is reporting the closure of the agricultural fair on account of the ‘unseasonable’ weather. That news is followed by a long recital of bus services that have been curtailed, and of schools that are suspending classes. ‘Estrella’s two academies will be closing their gates too, the Academy of Singing and the Academy of Dance.’

  ‘I told you,’ says the boy. ‘I am never going back to the Academy. I hate it there.’

  ‘A month ago you loved the Academy. Now you hate it. Maybe, David, it is time for you to learn that there are not only two feelings you can have, love and hate, that there are many other feelings too. If you decide to hate the Academy and turn your back on it, you will soon find yourself in one of the public schools, where your teachers won’t read you stories about genies and elephants but make you do sums all day, sixty-three divided by nine, seventy-two divided by six. You are a lucky boy, David, lucky and much indulged. I think you should wake up to that fact.’

  Having said his say, he goes out in the rain and calls the Academy. This time Alyosha picks up the telephone. ‘Alyosha! It is Simón again. I have just heard on the radio that the Academy is going to be closed until the rain stops. Why didn’t you tell me? Let me speak to señor Arroyo.’

  A long silence. Then: ‘Señor Arroyo is busy, he can’t come to the telephone.’

  ‘Señor Arroyo, the director of your Academy, is too busy to speak to parents. Señora Arroyo has abandoned her duties and cannot be found. What is going on?’

  Silence. From outside the booth a young woman casts him an exasperated look, mouths words, taps her wristwatch. She has an umbrella, but it is flimsy, no proof against the squalls of rain that sweep down on her.

  ‘Alyosha, listen to me. We are coming back, David and I. We are coming at once. Leave the door unlocked. Goodbye.’

  He has given up trying to keep dry. They ride to the Academy together, the boy sitting on the crossbar of the heavy old bicycle, peering out from under the yellow oilskin, shouting with pleasure and lifting his feet high as they plough through sheets of water. The traffic lights are not working, the streets are almost empty. On the town square the stallholders have long since packed up and gone home.

  A car stands outside the entrance to the Academy. A child whom he recognizes as one of David’s classmates sits in the back, his face pressed to the window, while his mother tries to lift a suitcase into the trunk. He goes to her aid.

  ‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘You are David’s father, aren’t you? I remember you from the concert. Shall we get out of the rain?’

  He and she retreat to the entranceway, while David clambers into the car with his friend.

  ‘Terrible, isn’t it?’ says the woman, shaking the water from her hair. He recognizes her, remembers her name: Isabella. In her raincoat and high heels she is rather elegant, rather attractive. Her eyes are restless.

  ‘You mean the weather? Yes, I’ve never known rain like this before. It’s like the end of the world.’

  ‘No, I meant the business of señora Arroyo. So unsettling for the children. It had such a good reputation, the Academy. Now I begin to wonder. What are your plans for David? Will you be keeping him here?’

  ‘I don’t know. His mother and I need to talk. What exactly do you mean about señora Arroyo?’

  ‘Haven’t you heard? They have broken up, the Arroyos, and she has decamped. I suppose one could have foreseen it, the younger woman and the older man. But in the middle of the term, with no warning to the parents. I don’t see how the Academy can go on functioning. That is the disadvantage of these small operations—they depend so much on individuals. Well, we must be off. How are we going to separate the children? You must be proud of David. Such a clever boy, I hear.’

  She raises the collar of her raincoat, braves the rain, raps on the window of the car. ‘Carlos! Carlito! We are leaving now! Goodbye, David. Maybe you can come and play one day soon. We will give your parents a ring.’ A quick wave and she drives off.

  The doors to the studio stand open. As they mount the stairs they hear organ music, a swift bravura passage played over and over again. Alyosha is waiting for them, his face strained. ‘Is it still raining out there?’ he says. ‘Come, David, give us a hug.’

  ‘Don’t be sad, Alyosha,’ says the boy. ‘They have gone to a new life.’

  Alyosha gives him, Simón, a puzzled glance.

  ‘Dmitri and Ana Magdalena,’ the boy patiently explains. ‘They have gone to a new life. They are going to be gypsies.’

  ‘I am totally confused, Alyosha,’ says he, Simón. ‘I hear one story after another, and I don’t know which to believe. It is imperative that I speak to señor Arroyo. Where is he?’

  ‘Señor Arroyo is playing,’ says Alyosha.

  ‘So I hear. Nevertheless, may I speak to him?’

  The quick, brilliant passage he had heard is now being woven together with a heavier passage in the bass that seems obscurely related to it. There is no sorrow in the music, no pensiveness, nothing to suggest that the musician has been abandoned by his beautiful young wife.

  ‘He has been at the keyboard since six this morning,’ says Alyosha. ‘I don’t think he wants to be interrupted.’

  ‘Very well, I have time, I will wait. Can you see to it that David puts on dry clothes? And may I use the telephone?’

  He calls Modas Modernas. ‘This is Inés’s friend Simón. Can someone please pass on a message to Inés in Novilla? Tell her there is a crisis at the Academy and she should come home without delay…No, I don’t have a number for her…Just say a crisis at the Academy, she will understand.’

  He sits down and waits for Arroyo. If he were not so exasperated he might be able to enjoy the music, the ingenious way in which the man interweaves motifs, the harmonic surprises, the logic of his resolutions. A true musician, no doubt about that, consigned to the role of schoolteacher. No wonder he is disinclined to face irate parents.

  Alyosha returns bearing a plastic bag containing the boy’s wet clothes. ‘David is saying hello to the animals,’ he reports.

  Then the boy comes rushing in. ‘Alyosha! Simón!’ he shouts. ‘I know where he is! I know where Dmitri is! Come!’

  They follow the boy down the back stairs into the vast, dimly lit basement of the museum, past racks of scaffolding, past canvases stacked pell-mell against the walls, past a clutch of marble nudes roped together, until they come to a little cubicle in a corner, made of sheets of plywood nailed together in a slapdash way, roofless. ‘Dmitri!’ the boy shouts, and beats on the door. ‘Alyosha is here, and Simón!’

  There is no reply. Then he, Simón, notices the door to the cubicle is sealed with a padlock. ‘There is no one in there,’ he says. ‘It is locked from the outside.’

  ‘He is there!’ says the boy. ‘I can hear him! Dmitri!’

  Alyosha drags one of the scaffolding panels across and leans it against a wall of the cubicle. He ascends, peers in, hastily descends.

  Before anyone can stop him David has scaled the scaffolding too. At the top he visibly freezes. Alyosha climbs up and brings him down.

  ‘What is it?’ asks he, Simón.

  ‘Ana Mag
dalena. Go. Take David with you. Call an ambulance. Say there has been an accident. Tell them to come quickly.’ Then his legs buckle and he kneels on the floor. His face is pale. ‘Go, go, go!’ he says.

  Everything that follows happens in a rush. The ambulance arrives, then the police. The museum is cleared of visitors; a guard is placed at the entrance; the stairway to the basement is barred. With the two Arroyo boys and the remaining boarders in tow, Alyosha retreats to the top floor of the building. Of señor Arroyo there is no sign: the organ loft is empty.

  He approaches one of the police officers. ‘May we leave?’ he asks.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘We are the people who discovered…who discovered the body. My son David is a student here. He is very upset. I would like to take him home.’

  ‘I don’t want to go home,’ announces the boy. He has a set, stubborn look; the shock that had silenced him seems to have worn off. ‘I want to see Ana Magdalena.’

  ‘That is certainly not going to happen.’

  A whistle sounds. Without a word the officer abandons them. At the same moment the boy takes off across the studio, running with his head down like a little bull. He, Simón, catches up with him only at the foot of the stairs, where two ambulancemen, bearing a stretcher draped in a white sheet, are trying to get past a knot of people. The sheet catches, uncovering for a moment the deceased señora Arroyo as far down as her naked bosom. The left side of her face is blue, almost black. Her eyes are wide open. Her upper lip is drawn back in a snarl. Swiftly the ambulancemen replace the sheet.

  A uniformed police officer takes the boy by the arm, restraining him. ‘Let me go!’ he shouts, struggling to be free. ‘I want to save her!’

  The police officer lifts him effortlessly into the air and holds him there, kicking. He, Simón, does not intervene, but waits until the stretcher has been lodged in the ambulance and the doors have slammed shut.

  ‘You can let him go now,’ he says to the officer. ‘I will take over. He is my son. He is upset. She was his teacher.’

  He has neither the energy nor the spirit to ride the bicycle. Side by side he and the boy trudge through the monotonous rain back to the cottage. ‘I’m getting wet again,’ complains the boy. He drapes the oilskin over him.