The Childhood of Jesus Page 18

  He shakes his head. ‘That’s enough, Elena. Can we change the subject? David tells me that Fidel threw a stone at him the other day. What is going on?’

  ‘It wasn’t a stone, it was a marble. It’s what David must expect if his mother won’t let him fraternize with other children, if she encourages him to think of himself as some kind of superior being. Other children will gang up on him. I spoke to Fidel, I scolded him, but it won’t have any effect.’

  ‘They used to be best friends.’

  ‘They used to be best friends before you brought Inés into the picture, with her peculiar ideas about child-raising. That is another reason why you should reassert yourself in the household.’

  He sighs.

  ‘Can we speak in private?’ he says to Inés. ‘I have something to propose to you.’

  ‘Can it wait?’

  ‘What are you whispering about?’ the boy calls from the next room.

  ‘No concern of yours.’ And to Inés: ‘Please, can we step outside, just for a minute?’

  ‘Are you whispering about señor Daga?’ calls the boy.

  ‘This has nothing to do with señor Daga. It is something private between your mother and myself.’

  Inés dries her hands and takes off her apron. She and he leave the apartment, cross the playground into the parkland. Perched in the window, the boy keeps watch on them.

  ‘What I have to say concerns señor Daga.’ He pauses, draws a breath. ‘I understand you wish to have another child. Is it true?’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘David says you are going to give him a brother.’

  ‘I was telling him his bedtime story. It was something that came up in passing; it was just an idea.’

  ‘Well, ideas can become reality, just as seed can become flesh and blood. Inés, I don’t want to embarrass you, so let me simply say, with the utmost respect, that if you are considering entering into relations with a man for the purpose of childbearing, you might consider me. I am prepared to play the part. To play the part and then absent myself, while continuing to be your protector, to provide for you and any children of yours. You can call me their godfather. Or, if you prefer, their uncle. I will forget whatever passed between us, between you and me. It will be washed from memory. It will be as if it had never happened.

  ‘There. I have said it. Please don’t answer at once. Reflect.’

  In silence, in the gathering dusk, they turn back to the apartment. Inés strides ahead. She is clearly cross, or upset: she will not so much as look at him. He blames Elena for putting him up to it, blames himself too. What a crude way of offering oneself! As if he were offering to fix the plumbing!

  He catches up with her, takes her by the arm, turns her to face him. ‘That was unforgiveable,’ he says. ‘I am sorry. Please forgive me.’

  She does not speak. Like a thing carved in wood she stands, her arms at her sides, waiting for him to let go. He loosens his grip and she stumbles away.

  From the window high above he hears the boy call: ‘Inés! Simón! Come! Señor Daga is here! Señor Daga is here!’

  He curses under his breath. If she was expecting Daga, why did she not warn him? What does she see in the man anyhow, with his cocky swagger and his smell of pomade and his flat, nasal voice?

  Señor Daga has not come alone. With him is his pretty girlfriend, wearing a white dress with flounces in startling red, and heavy earrings in the shape of chariot wheels that sway as she moves. Inés greets her with frosty reserve. As for Daga, he seems quite at home in the apartment, lounging on the bed, doing nothing to put the girl at ease.

  ‘Señor Daga wants us to go dancing,’ announces the boy. ‘Can we go dancing?’

  ‘We are due at La Residencia tonight. You know that.’

  ‘I don’t want to go to La Residencia! It’s boring! I want to go dancing!’

  ‘You can’t go dancing. You are too young.’

  ‘I can dance! I’m not too young! I’ll show you.’ And he whirls around the floor, stepping lightly and not without grace in his soft blue shoes. ‘There! Do you see?’

  ‘We are not going dancing,’ says Inés firmly. ‘Diego is coming to fetch us, and we are going with him to La Residencia.’

  ‘Then señor Daga and Frannie must come too!’

  ‘Señor Daga has plans of his own. You can’t expect him to abandon his plans and follow us.’ She speaks as if Daga were not in the room. ‘Besides, as you know only too well, they don’t allow visitors at La Residencia.’

  ‘I am a visitor,’ objects the boy. ‘They allow me.’

  ‘Yes, but you are different. You are my child. You are the light of my life.’

  The light of my life. What a surprising thing to say in front of strangers!

  Now Diego makes his appearance, and the other brother too, the one who never opens his mouth. Inés greets them with relief. ‘We are ready. David, fetch your things.’

  ‘No!’ says the boy. ‘I don’t want to go. I want to have a party. Can we have a party?’

  ‘There is no time for a party, and we don’t have anything to offer our guests.’

  ‘That’s not true! We’ve got wine! In the kitchen!’ And in a trice he has clambered onto the kitchen dresser and is reaching for the top shelf. ‘See!’ he shouts, displaying the bottle triumphantly. ‘We’ve got wine!’

  Blushing scarlet, Inés tries to take the bottle from him—‘It’s not wine, it’s sherry,’ she says—but he evades her. ‘Who wants wine? Who wants wine?’ he chants.

  ‘Me!’ says Diego; and ‘Me!’ says the silent brother. They are laughing, both of them, at their sister’s discomfiture. Señor Daga joins in. ‘And me!’

  There are not enough drinking vessels for all six of them, so the boy goes around the circle with the bottle and a tumbler, pouring sherry for each of them and waiting solemnly for the tumbler to be drained.

  He comes to Inés. With a frown she motions the glass away. ‘You must!’ commands the boy. ‘I am the king tonight, and I order that you must!’

  Inés takes a ladylike sip.

  ‘Now me,’ announces the boy, and before anyone can stop him he raises the bottle to his lips and takes a hearty swig. For an instant he gazes triumphantly around the assembly. Then he chokes, coughs, splutters. ‘It’s horrible!’ he gasps. The bottle drops from his hand; deftly señor Daga rescues it.

  Diego and his brother fall about laughing. ‘What ails thee, gentle King?’ cries Diego. ‘Canst thou not hold thy liquor?’

  The boy recovers his breath. ‘More!’ he cries. ‘More wine!’

  If Inés is not going to act, then it is time for him, Simón, to step in. ‘Enough of that!’ he says. ‘It is late, David, time for our guests to leave.’

  ‘No!’ says the boy. ‘It’s not late! I want to play a game. I want to play Who Am I?’

  ‘Who Am I?’ says Daga. ‘How do you play that?’

  ‘You have to pretend you are someone and then everyone has to guess who you are. Last time I pretended I was Bolívar and Diego guessed it at once, didn’t you, Diego?’

  ‘And what is the penalty?’ asks Daga. ‘What penalty do you pay if we guess right?’

  The boy seems nonplussed.

  ‘The way we used to play in the old days,’ says Daga, ‘is if we guess right you have to tell a secret, your most cherished secret.’

  The boy is silent.

  ‘We have to leave, there is no more time for games,’ says Inés feebly.

  ‘No!’ says the boy. ‘I want to play another game. I want to play Truth or Consequences.’

  ‘That sounds better,’ says Daga. ‘Tell us how you play Truth or Consequences.’

  ‘I ask a question and you have to answer and you can’t lie, you have to tell the truth. If you don’t tell the truth you have to pay a penalty. All right? I’ll start. Diego, is your bum clean?’

  Silence falls. The second brother grows red in the face, then explodes in a great snort of laughter. The boy laughs delighted
ly, and whirls around in a dance. ‘Come on!’ he shouts. ‘Truth or Consequences!’

  ‘Just one round,’ concedes Inés. ‘And no more rude questions.’

  ‘No rude questions,’ agrees the boy. ‘It’s my turn again. My question goes’—he looks around the room, from one face to another—‘my question goes to…Inés! Inés, who do you like most in the world?’

  ‘You. I like you most.’

  ‘No, not me! Which man do you like most in the world, to make a baby in your tummy?’

  There is silence. Inés is tight-lipped.

  ‘Do you like him or him or him or him?’ the boy asks, pointing in turn at the four men in the room.

  He, Simón, the fourth man, intervenes. ‘No rude questions,’ he says. ‘That was a rude question. A woman doesn’t make a baby with her brother.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘She just doesn’t. There is no why.’

  ‘There is a why! I can ask any question I like! It’s in the game. Do you want Diego to make a baby inside you, Inés? Or do you want Stefano?’

  For Inés’s sake he intervenes again. ‘That’s enough!’

  Diego stands up. ‘Let’s go,’ he says.

  ‘No!’ says the boy. ‘Truth or Consequences! Who do you like most, Inés?’

  Diego turns to his sister. ‘Say something, say anything.’

  Inés is silent.

  ‘Inés doesn’t want to have anything to do with men,’ says Diego. ‘There, you have your answer. She doesn’t want any of us. She wants to be free. Now let’s go.’

  ‘Is that true?’ says the boy to Inés. ‘It’s not true, is it? You promised I could have a brother.’

  Once more he intervenes. ‘Only one question each, David. That is the rule. You asked your question, and you got your answer. As Diego says, Inés doesn’t want any of us.’

  ‘But I want a brother! I don’t want to be the only son! It’s boring!’

  ‘If you really want a brother, go out and find one yourself. Start with Fidel. Take Fidel as your brother. Brothers don’t all have to come out of the same womb. Start a brotherhood of your own.’

  ‘I don’t know what a brotherhood is.’

  ‘I’m surprised to hear that. If two boys agree to call each other brother, they have started a brotherhood. It is as simple as that. They can round up more boys and make them brothers too. They can swear loyalty to one another and choose a name—the Brotherhood of the Seven Stars or the Brotherhood of the Cave or some such. Even the Brotherhood of David, if you like.’

  ‘Or it can be a secret brotherhood,’ interjects Daga. His eyes glint, he wears a little smile. The boy, who has barely listened to him, Simón, now seems quite transfixed. ‘You can swear an oath of secrecy. No one need ever find out who your secret brothers are.’

  He breaks the silence. ‘That is enough for tonight. David, go and fetch your pyjamas. You have kept Diego waiting long enough. Think up a good name for your brotherhood. Then when you come back from La Residencia, you can invite Fidel to be your first brother.’ He turns to Inés. ‘Do you agree? Do you approve?’

  CHAPTER 23

  ‘WHERE IS El Rey?’

  The cart is standing at the quayside, empty, ready to be loaded, but El Rey’s place has been taken by a horse they have not seen before, a black gelding with a white blaze on his forehead. When the boy comes too close, the new horse rolls his eyes nervously and paws the ground.

  ‘Hey!’ Álvaro calls to the driver, who sits drowsing on his seat. ‘Where is the big mare? The youngster has come especially to see her.’

  ‘Down with horse flu.’

  ‘His name is El Rey,’ says the boy. ‘He’s not a mare. Can we visit him?’

  A guarded look passes between Álvaro and the driver. ‘El Rey is back at the stables, resting,’ says Álvaro. ‘The horse doctor is going to give him medicine. We can visit him as soon as he is better.’

  ‘I want to see him now. I can make him better.’

  He, Simón, intervenes. ‘Not now, my boy. Let us speak to Inés first. Then maybe all three of us can make a trip to the stables tomorrow.’

  ‘Better wait a few days,’ says Álvaro, and flashes him a look which he does not know how to interpret. ‘Let El Rey have a chance to recover properly. Horse flu is a nasty thing, worse than human flu. If you are sick with horse flu, you need rest and quiet, not visitors.’

  ‘He does want visitors,’ says the boy. ‘He wants me. I am his friend.’

  Álvaro takes him, Simón, aside. ‘Better if you don’t bring the kid to the stables,’ he says; and, when he still fails to understand: ‘The mare is old. She has had her day.’

  ‘Álvaro has just had a message from the horse doctor,’ he reports to the boy. ‘They have decided to send El Rey to the horse farm so that he can get better more quickly.’

  ‘What is a horse farm?’

  ‘A horse farm is where young horses are born and old horses go to rest.’

  ‘Can we go there?’

  ‘The horse farm is out in the country, I’m not sure exactly where. I’ll make inquiries.’

  When the men knock off at four o’clock, the boy is nowhere to be seen. ‘He went with the last dray,’ says one of the men. ‘I thought you knew.’

  He sets off at once. By the time he gets to the grain store the sun is setting. The store is deserted, the great doors are locked. His heart beating fast, he searches for the boy. He finds him behind the store, on a loading platform, squatting beside the body of El Rey, stroking her head, waving the flies away. The stout leather belt that must have been used to hoist the mare is still around her belly.

  He clambers onto the platform. ‘Poor, poor El Rey!’ he murmurs. Then he notices the blood that has congealed in the horse’s ear, and the dark bullet hole above it, and shuts up.

  ‘It’s all right,’ says the boy. ‘He is going to be well again in three days.’

  ‘Is that what the horse doctor told you?’

  The boy shakes his head. ‘El Rey.’

  ‘Did El Rey tell you that himself—three days?’

  The boy nods.

  ‘But it isn’t just horse flu, my boy. Surely you can see. He’s been shot with a gun, as a mercy. He must have been suffering. He was suffering and they decided to help him, to ease the pain. He is not going to get better. He is dead.’

  ‘No, he’s not.’ Tears are running down the boy’s cheeks. ‘He is going to the horse farm to get better. You said so.’

  ‘He is going to the horse farm, yes, but not to this horse farm, not to the horse farm here; he is going to another horse farm, in another world. Where he will not have to wear harness and pull a heavy cart but can stroll around in the fields in the sunshine eating buttercups.’

  ‘It’s not true! He is going to the horse farm to get better. They are going to put him on the cart and take him to the horse farm.’

  The boy bends and presses his mouth to the horse’s vast nostril. Hastily he grips the boy by the arm and pulls him away. ‘Don’t do that! It’s not hygienic! You will get sick!’

  The boy wrests himself free. He is weeping openly. ‘I will save him!’ he sobs. ‘I want him to live! He’s my friend!’

  He holds the struggling boy still and clasps him tight. ‘My dearest, dearest child, sometimes those we love die and there is nothing we can do about it except look forward to the day when we will all be together again.’

  ‘I want to make him breathe!’ the boy sobs.

  ‘He’s a horse, he’s too big for you to breathe life into.’

  ‘Then you can breathe into him!’

  ‘That won’t work. I don’t have the right kind of breath. I don’t have the breath of life. All I can do is be sad. All I can do is mourn and help you to mourn. Now quick, before it gets dark, why don’t you and I go down to the river and look for some flowers to put on El Rey? He will like that. He was a gentle horse, wasn’t he, in spite of being a giant. He will enjoy arriving at the horse farm with a wreath of flowers around
his neck.’

  So he coaxes the boy away from the dead body, leads him to the riverbank, helps him pluck flowers and weave them into a garland. They return; the boy drapes the garland over the dead, staring eyes.

  ‘There,’ he says. ‘Now we must leave El Rey. He has a long journey to make, all the way to the great horse farm. When he arrives, the other horses will look at him with his crown of flowers, and they will say to each other, “He must have been a king where he came from! He must be the great El Rey whom we have heard about, the friend of David!”’

  The boy takes his hand. Under a rising full moon they trudge back along the path to the docks.

  ‘Is El Rey getting up now, do you think?’ asks the boy.

  ‘He is getting up, he is shaking himself, he is giving that whinny of his that you know, he is setting off, clop-clop-clop, towards his new life. End of weeping. No more weeping.’

  ‘No more weeping,’ says the boy, and perks up, and even gives a jaunty little smile.

  CHAPTER 24

  HE AND the boy share a birthday. That is to say, because they arrived on the same boat on the same day they have been assigned as their birth date the date of their joint arrival, their joint entry into a new life. The boy was deemed to be five years old because he looked five years old, just as he was deemed to be forty-five (so his card says) because that was how old he looked on that day. (He had been piqued: he had felt himself to be younger. Now he feels older. He feels sixty; there are days when he feels seventy.)

  Since the boy has no friends, not even a horse friend, there is no point in holding a birthday party for him. Nonetheless, he and Inés are agreed that the day should be properly celebrated. So Inés bakes a cake and ices it and plants six candles on it, and they secretly buy him gifts, she a sweater (winter is around the corner), he an abacus (he is worried about the boy’s resistance to the science of numbers).

  The birthday celebration is overshadowed by a letter that comes in the post, reminding him that as of his sixth birthday David should be enrolled in the public school system, the responsibility for so enrolling him resting with his parent(s) or guardian(s).