“To face the consequences,” he repeated: now he was authoritarian. “That is, to talk face to face with me.”
“Don’t be a sucker!” I said quickly. “Don’t be a sucker!”
But he’d already raised his hand when Ferrufino saw him take a step to the left, breaking ranks. A satisfied smile crossed Ferrufino’s mouth and vanished immediately.
“I’m listening, Raygada…” he said.
As Raygada spoke, his words gave him courage. He even managed, at one moment, to wave his arms dramatically. He asserted that we weren’t bad and that we loved the school and our teachers; he reminded him that youth was impulsive. In the name of all of us, he asked for pardon. Then he stammered but went on:
“We ask you, Mr. Principal, to post an exam schedule as in past years…” Frightened, he grew silent.
“Take note, Gallardo,” said Ferrufino. “The student Raygada will come to study next week, every day, until nine at night.” He paused. “The reason will go down on your report card: rebelling against a pedagogical decree.”
“Mr. Principal…” Raygada was livid.
“Seems fair to me,” whispered Javier. “Serves him right.”
2.
A ray of sunlight pierced the dirty skylight and ended up caressing my forehead and eyes, filling me with peace. Still, my heart beat faster than usual and at times I felt short of breath. A half hour was left before dismissal; the boys’ impatience had settled down a little. Would they respond after all?
“Sit down, Montes,” said Professor Zambrano. “You’re an ass.”
“Nobody doubts that,” asserted Javier, right beside me. “He is an ass.”
Could the rallying cry have reached every grade? I didn’t want to torment my brain all over again with pessimistic assumptions, but I had my eye on Lou a few feet away from my desk, and I felt anxious and doubtful, because deep down I knew that what was at stake was not the exam schedule, not even a question of honor, but a personal vendetta. Why give up this lucky chance to attack the enemy when he’d dropped his guard?
“Here,” somebody next to me said. “It’s from Lou.”
I accept taking command, with you and Raygada. Lou had signed twice. Between his signatures, like a small blot with the ink still shining, there appeared a sign we all respected: the letter C, upper case, enclosed in a black circle. I looked over at him: his forehead and mouth were pinched; he had slanted eyes, sunken cheeks and a strong, pronounced jaw. He was watching me intently: maybe he thought the situation required him to be cordial.
I answered on the same piece of paper: With Javier. He read without shifting and shook his head yes.
“Javier,” I said.
“I know,” he answered. “Okay. We’ll give him a rough time.”
Give who? The principal or Lou? I was just about to ask him but the whistle for the end of the period distracted me. At the same time, the shouting rose over our heads, mixed with the noise of pushed desks. Someone—Cordoba maybe?—whistled loudly as if trying to stand out.
“They know already?” Raygada asked, on line. “To the embankment.”
“What a fast thinker!” somebody called out. “Even Ferrufino knows.”
We went out the back door fifteen minutes ahead of the lower grades. Others had left already and most of the students had stopped in the street, forming small groups. They were talking, fooling around, shoving each other.
“Nobody hang around here,” I said.
“The Coyotes with me,” Lou shouted proudly.
Twenty boys surrounded him.
“To the embankment,” he ordered. “Everybody to the embankment.”
Arm in arm in a row linking the two sidewalks, the seniors brought up the rear, elbowing our way through, forcing the less enthusiastic ones to speed up:
A cool breeze that could not even stir the dry leaves of the carob trees or the hair on our heads blew the sand from one side of the embankment to the other, covering the burning hot surface. They had responded. Before us—Lou, Javier, Raygada and I, with our backs to the railing and the endless dunes stretching from the opposite bank of the river—a packed crowd extending the length of the whole block remained quiet, even though from time to time strident, isolated shouts could be heard.
“Who does the talking?” Javier asked.
“I will,” proposed Lou, ready to jump up on the railing.
“No,” I said. “Javier, you speak.”
Lou checked himself and looked at me, but he wasn’t mad.
“All right,” he said, and shrugging his shoulders, added: “What’s the difference?”
Javier climbed up. With one hand he leaned on a twisted, dry tree and with the other he held himself up on my neck. Through his legs, agitated by a slight quivering that disappeared as the tone of his voice grew convincing and forceful, I could see the dry, burning riverbed and thought about Lou and about the Coyotes. A mere second had been enough for him to take over. Now he was in command and they looked up to him, him, a little yellow rat who not six months earlier had been begging me to let him join the gang. The tiniest slip, and then blood pouring down my face and neck; and my arms and legs, immobilized beneath the moon’s brightness, unable now to answer back to his fists.
“I beat you,” he said, panting. “Now I’m the leader. Let’s get that settled.”
None of the shadows spread out in a circle over the soft sand had moved. Only the frogs and crickets answered Lou, who was insulting me. Still stretched out on the hot ground, I managed to yell out:
“I’m quitting the gang. I’ll start another one, better than this one.”
But I and Lou and the Coyotes still crouched in the shadows knew it wasn’t true.
“I’m quitting too,” said Javier.
He helped me get up. We went back into town and while we were walking through the empty streets, I was wiping away the blood and tears with Javier’s handkerchief.
“Now you talk,” said Javier. He had got down and some of them were applauding him.
“Okay,” I answered and got up on the railing.
Neither the walls in the background nor the bodies of my pals cast shadows. My palms were moist and I thought it was nerves, but it was the heat. The sun was in the center of the sky; it was suffocating. My buddies’ eyes didn’t meet mine: they looked at the ground or my knees. They kept quiet. The sun protected me. “We’ll ask the principal to post the exam schedule, just the same as other years. Raygada, Javier, Lou and I will make up the committee. Junior high agrees, right?”
Most agreed, nodding their heads. A few shouted, “Yes.”
“We’ll do it right now,” I said. “You’ll wait for us at Merino Square.”
We started walking. The main door to the school was shut. We knocked loudly; behind us we heard a growing murmur. Gallardo opened up.
“Are you crazy?” he asked. “Don’t do this.”
“Don’t get mixed up in it,” Lou interrupted him. “Do you think a hick scares us?”
“Go in,” Gallardo said. “You’ll see.”
3.
His little eyes observed us closely. He tried to feign irony and a lack of concern, but we knew that his smile was forced and that deep inside his thick-set body were fear and hatred. He knitted his brow and wiped away his scowl as sweat gushed out of his small, purple hands.
He was shaking.
“Do you know what this is called? It’s called rebellion, insurrection. Do you think I’m going to submit myself to the whims of a few idlers? I’ll crush your insolence….”
He lowered and raised his voice. I saw him fight not to shout. Why don’t you explode once and for all, I thought. Coward!
He had stood up. A gray smudge floated around his hands, which rested on his glass-topped desk. Suddenly his voice rose, grew harsh.
“Get out! Whoever mentions exams again will be duly punished.”
Before Javier or I could make a signal to him, the real Lou showed himself: the nighttime raider of filthy huts in Tab
lada, the fighter of the Wolves in the dunes.
“Sir…”
I didn’t turn to look at him. His slanting eyes must have been shooting sparks of fire and fury, as when we fought on the dry riverbed. Now, too, he must have had his mouth open, filled with spit, baring his yellow teeth.
“Neither can we accept their flunking us all because you don’t want any schedules. Why do you want us all to get bad grades? Why?…”
Ferrufino had come close. He nearly touched him with his body. Pale, terrified, Lou continued to speak:
“We’re sick and tired of—”
“Shut up!”
The principal had raised his arms and his fists clenched something.
“Shut up!” he repeated angrily. “Shut up, you animal! How dare you!”
Lou was already silent, but he looked Ferrufino in the eyes as if he were suddenly going to lunge at his neck. They’re just alike, I thought: Two dogs.
“So, you’ve learned from this one.”
His finger was pointing at my forehead. I bit my lip: soon I felt a thin, hot thread coursing along my tongue and that calmed me.
“Get out!” he shouted again. “Get out of here! You’ll regret this.”
We left. A motionless and gasping crowd sprawled right up to the edge of the steps connecting San Miguel School to Merino Square. Our schoolmates had invaded the small gardens and the fountain: they were mute and anxious. Oddly, in the midst of the bright, static patch appeared small white rectangles that no one stepped on. The heads seemed identical, uniform, as in parade formation. We crossed the square. No one questioned us: they moved to one side, making way for us, with tight lips. Until we stepped out onto the street they held their place. Then, following a signal none of us had given, they walked behind us, out of step, just as they did when walking to class.
The pavement was boiling: it looked like a mirror melting in the sunlight. Can it be true? I thought. One hot, deserted night they told me about it, on this same street, and I didn’t believe it. But the newspapers said that in some faraway places the sun drove men crazy and sometimes killed them.
“Javier,” I asked, “you saw the egg fry all by itself on the street?”
Surprised, he shook his head. “No. They told me about it.”
“Can it be true?”
“Maybe. We could test it now. The ground’s burning up; like hot coals.”
Albert appeared in the doorway of the Queen. His blond hair shone wonderfully: it looked like gold. Friendly, he waved his right hand. His enormous green eyes were wide open and he smiled. He must have been wondering where this uniformed and silent crowd was marching to in the brutal heat.
“Coming back later?” he called to me.
“Can’t. See you tonight.”
“He’s an idiot,” said Javier. “He’s a drunk.”
“No,” I asserted. “He’s my friend. He’s a nice guy.”
4.
“Let me talk, Lou,” I asked him, trying to keep cool.
But nobody could contain him now. He was standing up on the railing, under the branches of the withered carob tree: he held his balance admirably and his skin and face reminded you of a lizard.
“No!” he said aggressively. “I’m going to talk.”
I signaled to Javier. We went up to Lou and grabbed his legs. But he managed to grab hold of the tree in time and wriggle his right leg out of my arms. Driven back three steps by a strong kick in the shoulder, I saw Javier quickly seize Lou by the knees and raise his face defiantly with eyes scorched by the sun.
“Don’t hit him!” I shouted. He restrained himself, shaking, while Lou began to scream:
“Know what the principal told us? He insulted us, he treated us like dogs. He doesn’t feel like posting the schedules because he wants to make it hard on us. He’ll flunk the whole school and it doesn’t matter to him. He’s a…”
We were back at the starting point and the twisted rows of boys started swaying. Nearly the entire junior high was still there. With the heat and each word from Lou, the students’ resentment grew. They were incensed.
“We know he hates us. We don’t get along with him. Since he arrived, this school isn’t a school. He insults us, he whips us. On top of everything else, he wants to screw us on the exams.”
A sharp, anonymous voice interrupted him:
“Who’s he whipped?”
Lou hesitated for a second. He exploded all over again.
“Who?” he challenged. “Arévalo! Show them your back!”
Amid whispers, Arévalo emerged from the center of the crowd, pale. He was a Coyote. He went up to Lou and uncovered his chest and back. A thick red welt showed on his ribs.
“This is Ferrufino!” Lou’s hand pointed to the mark while his eyes studied the astonished faces of those nearby. Tumultuously the human sea pressed around us: everyone struggled to get close to Arévalo and nobody listened to Lou or to Javier and Raygada, who were asking for calm, nor to me, shouting: “It’s a lie! Don’t pay any attention to him! It’s a lie!” The tide carried me away from the railing and from Lou. I was suffocating. I managed to open a path for myself until I got out of the mob. I loosened my tie and slowly caught my breath with my mouth open and my arms straight up, until I felt my heart regain its beat.
Raygada was next to me. Indignant, he asked me:
“When did that happen to Arévalo?”
“Never.”
“What?”
Even he, always calm, had been taken in. His nostrils were quivering sharply and he was squeezing his fists together.
“Nothing,” I said. “I don’t know when it was.”
Lou waited for the excitement to die down a little. Then, raising his voice over the scattered complaints:
“Is Ferrufino going to beat us?” he shouted, his angry fist threatening the students. “Is he going to beat us? Answer me!”
“No!” five hundred or more burst out. “No! No!”
Shaken by the effort his shrieking had required of him, Lou was swaying victoriously on the railing.
“Nobody goes into the school until the exam schedule’s posted. That’s only fair. It’s our right. And we won’t let anyone enter the elementary school either.”
His aggressive voice got lost in the shouting. In front of me, in the bristling crowd of raised arms jubilantly throwing hundreds of caps into the air, I couldn’t make out a single one who remained indifferent or opposed.
“What’re we going to do?” Javier wanted to look calm, but his eyes glittered.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Lou’s right. Let’s help him.”
I ran to the railing and climbed up. “Tell the kids in the lower grades there’s no afternoon classes,” I said. “They can go home now. Kids in the upper classes stay to surround the school.”
“And the Coyotes too,” Lou finished, happy.
5.
“I’m hungry,” Javier said.
The heat had let up. On the one usable bench in Merino Square we were taking the sun’s rays, gently filtered through a few clouds that had appeared in the sky, but almost nobody was sweating.
Leon rubbed his hands together and smiled. He was fidgety.
“Don’t tremble,” said Amaya. “You’re too big to be afraid of Ferrufino.”
“Watch it!” Leon’s monkey face had gone red and his chin stuck out. “Watch it, Amaya!” He was up on his feet.
“Don’t fight,” Raygada said calmly. “Nobody’s scared. You’d have to be a screwball.”
“Let’s go around the back way,” Javier suggested.
We went around the school, walking down the middle of the street. The high windows were half open and you couldn’t see anyone behind them or hear any sound.
“They’re eating lunch,” Javier said.
“Yeah. Of course.”
The main door of the Catholic school towered over the sidewalk across the street. Boarders were posted up on the roof, observing us. Undoubtedly, they’d been informed.
&nb
sp; “What brave guys!” somebody jeered.
Javier gibed at them. A shower of threats was the response. Some of them spat, but missed. There was laughter. “They’re dying of envy,” Javier whispered.
At the corner we saw Lou. He was sitting on the sidewalk, all alone and looking distractedly at the street. He saw us and came over. He was happy.
“Two brats from the first year came,” he said. “We sent them down to the river to play.”
“Yeah?” said Javier. “Wait half an hour and you’ll see. There’s going to be fireworks.”
Lou and the Coyotes guarded the back door of the school. They were spread out between the corners of Lima and Arequipa streets. When we got to the entrance to the alley, they were talking in a huddle and laughing. All of them were carrying sticks and stones.
“Not that way,” I said. “If you hit them, the brats are going to want to get in anyhow.”
Lou laughed. “You’ll see. Nobody gets in through this door.”
He too had a club, which he had hidden behind his body until then. He showed us, waving it.
“And over there?” he asked.
“Nothing yet.”
Behind us someone shouted our names. It was Raygada: he came running toward us calling, waving excitedly. “They’re coming, they’re coming,” he said anxiously. “Come on.” Suddenly he stopped ten yards short of reaching us. He turned on his heels and went back at a full run. He was very excited. Javier and I ran too. Lou shouted something to us about the river. The river? I thought. There isn’t any. Why does everybody talk about the river if water flows only one month a year? Javier was running at my side, puffing.
“Can we hold them back?”
“What?” It was hard for him to open his mouth. He was tired out.
“Can we hold back the lower grades?”
“I think so. All depends.”
“Look.”