The Childhood of Jesus Page 20

  CHAPTER 25

  ‘WHY ARE we going home early?’

  They are on the bus, the three of them, heading back to the Blocks.

  ‘Because it was all a mistake,’ says Inés. ‘They are too old for you, those boys in your class. And that teacher, that señor León, doesn’t know how to teach.’

  ‘Señor León has a magic eye. He can take it out and put it in his pocket. One of the boys saw him.’

  Inés is silent.

  ‘Am I going back to school tomorrow?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘To be specific,’ he intervenes, ‘you will not be going back to señor León’s school. Your mother and I will be discussing a different kind of school for you. Maybe.’

  ‘We are not discussing any other schools,’ says Inés. ‘School was a bad idea from the beginning. I don’t know why I allowed it. What was that woman saying about dyslexia? What is dyslexia?’

  ‘Not being able to read words in the right order. Not being able to read from left to right. Something like that. I don’t know.’

  ‘I haven’t got dyslexia,’ says the boy. ‘I haven’t got anything. Are they sending me to Punto Arenas? I don’t want to go.’

  ‘What do you know about Punto Arenas?’ he says.

  ‘It has got barbed wire and you have to sleep in a dormitory and you’re not allowed to go home.’

  ‘You are not being sent to Punto Arenas,’ says Inés. ‘Not as long as I am alive.’

  ‘Are you going to die?’ says the boy.

  ‘No, of course not. It is just a manner of speaking. You are not going to Punto Arenas.’

  ‘I forgot my book. My writing book. It’s in my desk. Can we go back and fetch it?’

  ‘No. Not now. I’ll fetch it some other day.’

  ‘And my pouch.’

  ‘The pencil pouch we gave you for your birthday?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll fetch that too. Don’t worry.’

  ‘Do they want to send me to Punto Arenas because of my stories?’

  ‘It’s not that they want to send you to Punto Arenas,’ he says. ‘It’s more that they don’t know what to do with you. You are an exceptional child, and they don’t know what to do with exceptional children.’

  ‘Why am I exceptional?’

  ‘That is not a question for you to ask. You just are exceptional, and you will have to live with the fact. Sometimes it will make your way easier, and sometimes it will make it more difficult. This is one of the cases when it makes it more difficult.’

  ‘I don’t want to go to school. I don’t like school. I can teach myself.’

  ‘I don’t think so, David. I think you have been teaching yourself a little too much of late. That is half the problem. A little more humility, a little more readiness to learn from others, is what is called for.’

  ‘You can teach me.’

  ‘Thank you. Very kind of you. As you may remember, I have offered to teach you several times in the past, and been rejected. If you had let me teach you to read and write and count in a normal fashion, we would have had none of this mess.’

  The force of his outburst clearly takes the boy aback: he casts him a look of pained surprise.

  ‘But that is all behind us,’ he hastens to add. ‘We are going to start a new page, you and I.’

  ‘Why doesn’t señor León like me?’

  ‘Because he is too full of his own importance,’ says Inés.

  ‘Señor León does like you,’ he says. ‘It is just that he has a whole class to teach, and doesn’t have time to give you individual attention. He expects children to work by themselves some of the time.’

  ‘I don’t like working.’

  ‘We all have to work, so you had better get used to it. Work is part of the human lot.’

  ‘I don’t like working. I like playing.’

  ‘Yes, but you can’t play all the time. The time for play is after you have finished your day’s work. When you arrive in his class in the morning, señor León expects work from you. It’s quite reasonable.’

  ‘Señor León doesn’t like my stories.’

  ‘He can’t not like your stories, since he can’t read them. What kind of story does he like?’

  ‘Stories about vacations. About what people do during vacations. What are vacations?’

  ‘Vacations are empty days, days when you don’t have to work. You have been given a vacation for the rest of today. You don’t have to do any more studying.’

  ‘And tomorrow?’

  ‘Tomorrow you are going to learn to read and write and count like a normal person.’

  ‘I am going to write a letter to the school,’ he tells Inés, ‘to notify them formally that we are withdrawing David. That we will take care of his education ourselves. Do you agree?’

  ‘Yes. And while you are about it, write to that señor León too. Ask him what is he doing, teaching small children. Tell him it’s not a job for a man.’

  ‘Esteemed señor León,’ he writes.

  ‘Thank you for introducing us to señora Otxoa.

  ‘Señora Otxoa has proposed that our son David be transferred to the special school at Punto Arenas.

  ‘On mature consideration we have decided against such a move. David is, in our judgment, too young to live away from his parents. We also doubt that he will receive the right kind of attention at Punto Arenas. We will therefore proceed with his schooling at home. We have every hope that his learning difficulties will soon be a thing of the past. He is, as you concede, a bright child who learns quickly.

  ‘We thank you for your efforts on his behalf. We enclose a copy of the letter we have sent your school principal notifying him of the withdrawal.’

  They receive no reply. Instead, there arrives in the mail a three-page form to be filled in for admission to Punto Arenas, plus a list of clothing and personal items (toothbrush, toothpaste, comb) that a new pupil should bring, and a bus pass. All of this they ignore.

  Next comes a telephone call, from neither the school nor Punto Arenas, but, as far as Inés can make out, from some administrative office or other in the city.

  ‘We have decided not to send David back to school,’ she informs the woman on the line. ‘He was getting no benefit from the teaching. He will be learning at home.’

  ‘It is permitted to educate a child at home only if the parent is an accredited teacher,’ says the woman. ‘Are you an accredited teacher?’

  ‘I am David’s mother, and I and no one else will decide how he is to be educated,’ replies Inés, and puts down the receiver.

  A week later there arrives a new letter. Headed ‘Notice of Tribunal’ it instructs the unnamed ‘parent(s) and/or guardian(s)’ to appear before a board of investigation on February 21st at 9 a.m., to show cause why the child in question should not be transferred to the Special Learning Centre at Punto Arenas.

  ‘I refuse,’ says Inés. ‘I refuse to attend their tribunal. I am going to take David away to La Residencia and keep him there. If anyone asks where we are, say we have gone up-country.’

  ‘Please think again, Inés. If you do that, you will be turning yourself into a fugitive. Someone or other at La Residencia—that officious porter, for example—will report you to the authorities. Let us appear before this board, you and David and I. Let them have a chance to see that the boy doesn’t have horns, that he is just an ordinary six-year-old, far too young to be separated from his mother.’

  ‘This is no longer a game,’ he warns the boy. ‘If you don’t persuade these people that you are willing to learn, they are going to send you away to Punto Arenas and the barbed wire. Fetch your book. You are going to learn to read.’

  ‘But I can read,’ says the boy patiently.

  ‘You can only read in your nonsense way. I am going to teach you to read properly.’

  The boy trots out of the room, returns with his Don Quixote, and opens it to the first page. ‘Somewhere in La Mancha,’ he reads, slowly but confidently, giving eac
h word its proper weight, ‘in a place whose name I do not recall, lived a gentleman who owned a scrawny nag and a dog.’

  ‘Very good. But how do I know you haven’t learned that passage by heart?’ He chooses a page at random. ‘Read.’

  ‘God knows whether there is a Dulcinea in this world or not,’ reads the boy, ‘whether she is fatansical or not fatansical.’

  ‘Fantastical. Go on.’

  ‘These are not things that can be proved or disproved. I neither engendered nor gave birth to her. What is engendered?’

  ‘Don Quixote is saying that he is neither the father nor the mother of Dulcinea. Engendering is what the father does to help make the baby. Go on.’

  ‘I neither engendered nor gave birth to her, but I venerate her as one should venerate a lady who has virtues that make her famous through all the world. What is venerate?’

  ‘Venerate is worship. Why didn’t you tell me you could read?’

  ‘I did tell you. You wouldn’t listen.’

  ‘You pretended you couldn’t. Can you write too?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Get your pencil. Write down what I read to you.

  ‘I haven’t got a pencil. I left my pencils at school. You were going to save them. You promised.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten.’

  ‘For my next birthday can I have a horse?’

  ‘You mean a horse like El Rey?’

  ‘No, a little horse that can sleep in my room with me.’

  ‘Be sensible, child. You can’t keep a horse in an apartment.’

  ‘Inés keeps Bolívar.’

  ‘Yes, but a horse is much bigger than a dog.’

  ‘I can get a baby horse.’

  ‘A baby horse will grow into a big horse. I will tell you what. If you are good, and show señor León you belong in his class, we will get you a bicycle.’

  ‘I don’t want a bicycle. You can’t save people on a bicycle.’

  ‘Well, you are not getting a horse, so that is the end of that. Write down: “God knows whether there is a Dulcinea in this world or not.” Show me.’

  The boy shows him his exercise book. Deos sabe si hay Dulcinea o no en el mundo, he reads: the line of words marches steadily from left to right; the letters are evenly spaced and perfectly formed. ‘I am impressed,’ he says. ‘One small point to note: in Spanish God spells his name Dios, not Deos. Otherwise, very good. First class. So you could read and write all the time, and you were just playing a trick on your mother and me and señor León.’

  ‘I wasn’t playing a trick. Who is God?’

  ‘God knows is an expression. It is a way of saying no one knows. You can’t—’

  ‘Is God no one?’

  ‘Don’t change the subject. God is not no one, but he lives too far away for us to converse with him or have dealings with him. As for whether he notices us, Dios sabe. What are we going to tell señora Otxoa? What are we going to tell señor León? How are we going to explain to them that you were playing the fool with them, that you knew how to read and write all the time? Inés, come here! David has something to show you.’

  He passes the boy’s exercise book to her. She reads. ‘Who is Dulcinea?’ she asks.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. She is a woman Don Quixote is in love with. Not a real woman. An ideal. An idea in his mind. Look how well he has made the letters. He could write all the time.’

  ‘Of course he can write. He can do anything—can’t you, David? You can do anything. You are your mother’s boy.’

  With a big and (it seems to him) rather self-satisfied smile on his face, David clambers onto the bed and extends his arms to his mother, who sweeps him up in her embrace. His eyes close; he withdraws into bliss.

  ‘We are going back to the school,’ he announces to the boy, ‘you and Inés and I. We are going to take Don Quixote along. We are going to show señor León that you can read. Once we have done that, you are going to tell him how sorry you are for having caused all this fuss.’

  ‘I’m not going back to school. I don’t need to. I can already read and write.’

  ‘The choice is no longer between going to señor León’s school and staying at home. The choice is between señor León’s school and the barbed-wire school. Besides, school isn’t just about reading and writing. It is also about learning to get on with other boys and girls. It is about becoming a social animal.’

  ‘There aren’t any girls in señor León’s class.’

  ‘Yes. But you meet girls during the breaks and after school.’

  ‘I don’t like girls.’

  ‘That’s what all boys say. Then suddenly one day they fall in love and get married.’

  ‘I’m not going to get married.’

  ‘That’s what all boys say.’

  ‘You’re not married.’

  ‘Yes, but I’m a special case. I’m too old to get married.’

  ‘You can marry Inés.’

  ‘I have a special relationship with your mother, David, which you are too young to understand. I am not going to say any more about it except that it is not a marrying relationship.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because inside each of us there is a voice, sometimes called the voice of the heart, that tells us what kind of feeling we have for a person. And the kind of feeling I have for Inés is more like goodwill than love, the marrying kind of love.’

  ‘Is señor Daga going to marry her?’

  ‘Is that what is worrying you? No, I doubt that señor Daga wants to marry your mother. Señor Daga isn’t the marrying kind. Besides, he has a perfectly satisfactory girlfriend of his own.’

  ‘Señor Daga says he and Frannie make fireworks. He says they make fireworks under the moon. He says I can come and watch. Can I?’

  ‘No, you can’t. When señor Daga says fireworks he doesn’t mean real fireworks.’

  ‘He does! He has a whole drawer full of fireworks. He says that Inés has perfect breasts. He says they are the most perfect breasts in the world. He says he is going to marry her for her breasts and they are going to make babies.’

  ‘He says that, does he! Well, Inés will have thoughts of her own on the subject.’

  ‘Why don’t you want señor Daga to marry Inés?’

  ‘Because if your mother really wanted to get married she could find a better husband.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Who? I don’t know. I don’t know all the men your mother knows. She must know lots of men at La Residencia.’

  ‘She doesn’t like the men at La Residencia. She says they are too old. What are breasts for?’

  ‘A woman has breasts so that she can give milk to her baby.’

  ‘Is there milk inside Inés’s breasts? Will I have milk in my breasts when I grow up?

  ‘No. You will grow up to be a man, and men don’t have breasts, proper breasts. Only women give milk out of their breasts. Men’s breasts are dry.’

  ‘I want to have milk too! Why can’t I have milk?’

  ‘I told you: men don’t make milk.’

  ‘What do men make?’

  ‘Men make blood. If a man wants to give something out of his body, he gives blood. He goes to the hospital and gives his blood to sick people and people who have had accidents.’

  ‘To make them better?’

  ‘To make them better.’

  ‘I am going to give blood. Can I give blood soon?’

  ‘No. You will have to wait until you are older, until you have more blood in your body. Now there is something else I have been meaning to ask. Does it make things difficult for you at school that you don’t have a normal father, like other children, that you have only me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure? Because señora Otxoa, the lady at the school, told us you might be worried about not having a proper father.’

  ‘I’m not worried. I’m not worried about anything.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear that. Because, you know, fathers aren’t very important, compared with
mothers. A mother brings you out of her body into the world. She gives you milk, as I mentioned. She holds you in her arms and protects you. Whereas a father can sometimes be a bit of a wanderer, like Don Quixote, not always there when you need him. He helps to make you, right at the beginning, but then he moves on. By the time you come into the world he may have vanished over the horizon in search of new adventures. That’s why we have godfathers, trusty, staid old godfathers, and uncles. So that while the father is away there is someone to hold his place, someone to fall back on.’

  ‘Are you my godfather or my uncle?’

  ‘Both. You can think of me as whichever you like.’

  ‘Who is my real father? What is his name?’

  ‘I don’t know. Dios sabe. It was probably in the letter you were carrying, but the letter is lost, eaten by the fishes, and shedding tears won’t bring it back. As I said, it often happens that we don’t know who the father is. Even the mother doesn’t always know for sure. Now: are you ready to see señor León? Ready to show him how clever you are?’

  CHAPTER 26

  FOR AN hour they wait patiently outside the school office, until the last bell has rung and the last classroom has emptied. Then señor León passes, satchel in hand, on his way home. He is clearly not pleased to see them.

  ‘Just five minutes of your time, señor León,’ he pleads. ‘We want to show you how much progress David has made with his reading. Please. David, show señor León how you read.’

  Señor León gestures them into his classroom. David opens Don Quixote. ‘Somewhere in La Mancha, in a place whose name I do not recall, lived a gentleman who owned a scrawny nag—’

  Señor León cuts him off peremptorily. ‘I am not prepared to listen to a recitation.’ He strides across the room, flings open a cupboard, returns with a book, and opens it before the child. ‘Read to me.’

  ‘Read where?’

  ‘Read the beginning.’

  ‘Juan and María go to the sea. Today Juan and María are going to the sea. Father tells them their friends Pablo and Ramona may come along. Juan and María are excited. Mother makes sandwiches for the trip. Juan—’