The Childhood of Jesus

  ‘He was their pet, their universal pet. They don’t understand why he ran away. They are heartbroken. They ask after him every day. Why am I telling you this, señor? So that you can understand that from the beginning David found a place for himself in our community at Punto Arenas. Punto Arenas is not like a normal school, where a child spends a few hours each day absorbing instruction, and then goes home. At Punto Arenas teachers and students and advisors are bonded tightly together. Why then did David run away, you may ask? Not because he was unhappy, I can assure you. It was because he has a soft heart and could not bear the thought of señora Inés pining for him.’

  ‘Señora Inés is his mother,’ he says.

  The woman shrugs. ‘If he had waited a few days he could have come home on a visit. Can you not persuade your wife to release him?’

  ‘And how do you think I should persuade her, señora? You have seen her. What magic formula do you think I possess that will change the mind of a woman like that? No, your problem is not how to take David away from his mother. You have that power. Your problem is that you cannot keep him. Once he makes up his mind to come home to his parents, he will come. You have not the means to stop him.’

  ‘He will keep running away as long as he believes his mother is calling him. That is why I ask you to speak to her. Persuade her that it is for the best that he come with us. Because it is for the best.’

  ‘You will never persuade Inés that for her child to be taken from her is for the best.’

  ‘Then at least persuade her to let him go without tears and threats, without upsetting him. Because, one way or another, he will have to come. The law is the law.’

  ‘That may be so, but there are higher considerations than obeying the law, higher imperatives.’

  ‘Are there indeed? I would not know. For me, thank you, the law is enough.’

  CHAPTER 29

  THE TWO officers are gone. Eugenio is gone. The driver is gone too, his commission unfulfilled. He is left with Inés and the boy, safe for the present behind the locked door of his old apartment. Bolívar, his duty done, has returned to his post in front of the radiator, from where he gravely watches and waits, his ears pricked for the next intruder.

  ‘Shall we sit down and discuss the situation calmly, the three of us?’ he suggests.

  Inés shakes her head. ‘There is no time for yet more discussions. I am going to phone Diego and tell him to fetch us.’

  ‘Fetch you and bring you to La Residencia?’

  ‘No. We are going to drive until we are beyond the reach of those people.’

  No long-term plan, no ingenious scheme of escape, that much is clear. His heart goes out to her, this stolid, humourless woman whose life of tennis parties and cocktails at dusk he turned upside down when he gave her a child; whose future has now shrunk to driving aimlessly around back roads until her brothers get bored or their money runs out and she has no choice but to return and surrender her precious cargo.

  ‘How would you feel, David,’ he says, ‘about going back to Punto Arenas, just for a while—going back and showing them how clever you are by coming top of the class? Show how you can do sums better than anyone else, how you can obey the rules and be a good boy. Once they have seen that, they will let you come home, I promise you. Then you can lead a normal life again, the life of a normal boy. Who knows, maybe one day they might even put up a plaque to you at Punto Arenas: The famous David was here.’

  ‘What will I be famous for?’

  ‘We will have to wait and see. Perhaps you will be a famous magician. Perhaps a famous mathematician.’

  ‘No. I want to go with Inés and Diego in the car. I want to be a gypsy.’

  He turns back to Inés. ‘I plead with you, Inés, think again. Don’t go ahead with this reckless move. There must be a better way.’

  Inés pulls herself erect. ‘Have you changed your mind yet again? You want me to give up my child to strangers—give up the light of my life? What kind of mother do you think I am?’ And to the boy, ‘Go and pack your things.’

  ‘I’m finished packing. Can Simón swing me before we go?’

  ‘I’m not sure I can swing anybody,’ says he, Simón. ‘I don’t have my old strength, you know.’

  ‘Just a little. Please.’

  They make their way down to the playground. It has been raining; the seat of the swing is wet. He wipes it dry with his sleeve. ‘Just a few pushes,’ he says.

  He can push with only one hand; the swing barely moves. But the boy seems happy. ‘Now it’s your turn, Simón,’ he says. With relief he settles into the swing and allows the boy to push him.

  ‘Did you have a father or did you have a godfather, Simón?’ asks the boy.

  ‘I am pretty sure I had a father, and he pushed me on the swings just as you are pushing me. We all have fathers, it’s a law of nature, as I told you; unfortunately, some of them vanish or get lost.’

  ‘Did your father push you high?

  ‘To the very top.’

  ‘Did you fall?’

  ‘I don’t remember ever falling.’

  ‘What happens when you fall?’

  ‘It depends. If you are lucky you just get a bump. If you are unlucky, very unlucky, you can break an arm or a leg.’

  ‘No, what happens when you fall?’

  ‘I don’t understand. Do you mean, while you are falling through the air?’

  ‘Yes. Is it like flying?’

  ‘No, not at all. Flying and falling aren’t the same thing. Only birds can fly; we human beings are too heavy.’

  ‘But just for a little, when you are high up, it is like flying, isn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose so, if you forget you are falling. Why do you ask?’

  The boy gives him an enigmatic smile. ‘Because.’

  On the stairs they meet a grim-faced Inés. ‘Diego has changed his mind,’ she says. ‘He is not coming any more. I knew this would happen. He says we must catch a train.’

  ‘Catch a train? To where? To the end of the line? What will you do when you get there, you and the child alone? No. Telephone Diego. Tell him to bring the car. I will take over. I have no idea where we will go, but I will go with you.’

  ‘He won’t agree. He won’t give up the car.’

  ‘It is not his car. It belongs to all three of you. Tell him he has had it long enough, it is your turn now.’

  An hour later Diego turns up, surly, itching for a fight. But Inés cuts short his grumbling. Dressed in boots and overcoat, he has never seen her behave so imperiously before. While Diego stands by, his hands thrust in his pockets, she lifts a heavy suitcase onto the roof of the car and ties it down. When the boy comes dragging his box of found objects, she shakes her head firmly. ‘Three things, no more,’ she says. ‘Small things. Choose.’

  The boy selects a broken clock mechanism, a stone with a white seam in it, a dead cricket in a glass jar, and the parched breastbone of a gull. Calmly she picks up the bone between two fingers and tosses it away. ‘Now throw the rest in the rubbish bin.’ The boy stares, dumbstruck. ‘Gypsies don’t carry museums with them,’ she says.

  At last the car is packed. He, Simón, climbs gingerly into the back seat, followed by the boy, followed by Bolívar, who settles at their feet. Driving much too fast, Diego takes the road to La Residencia, where without a word he gets out, slams the door to, and stalks off.

  ‘Why is Diego so cross?’ asks the boy.

  ‘He is used to being the prince,’ says Inés. ‘He is used to getting his own way.’

  ‘And am I the prince now?’

  ‘Yes, you are the prince.’

  ‘And are you the queen and Simón the king? Are we a family?’

  He and Inés exchange glances. ‘A sort of family,’ he says. ‘Spanish doesn’t have a word for exactly what we are, so let us call ourselves that: the family of David.’

  The boy settles back in his seat, looking pleased with himself.

  Driving slowly—he feels a jab of pain
each time he changes gear—he leaves La Residencia behind and begins to search for the main road north.

  ‘Where are we going?’ asks the boy.

  ‘North. Do you have a better idea?’

  ‘No, but I don’t want to live in a tent, like in that other place.’

  ‘Belstar? Actually, that is not a bad idea. We can head for Belstar and catch a boat back to the old life. Then all our worries will be over.’

  ‘No! I don’t want an old life, I want a new life!’

  ‘I was just joking, my boy. The harbour master at Belstar won’t let anyone take the boat back to the old life. He is very strict about that. No return. So it’s either a new life or else the life we have. Any suggestions, Inés, for where to find a new life? No? Then let us keep going and see what comes up.’

  They find the highway north and follow it, first through the industrial suburbs of Novilla, then through ragged farmland. The road begins to wind into the mountains.

  ‘I need to poo,’ announces the boy.

  ‘Can’t it wait?’ says Inés.

  ‘No.’

  There is, as it turns out, no toilet paper. What else, in her haste to be off, has Inés forgotten to bring?

  ‘Do we have Don Quixote in the car?’ he asks the boy.

  The boy nods.

  ‘Will you give up a page of Don Quixote?’

  The boy shakes his head.

  ‘Then you will just have to have a dirty bum. Like a gypsy.’

  ‘He can use a handkerchief,’ says Inés stiffly.

  They stop; they drive on. He is beginning to like Diego’s car. It may not be much to look at, it handles clumsily, but the engine feels quite sturdy, quite willing.

  From the heights they descend into rolling scrubland with dwellings scattered here and there, very different from the sandy wastes south of the city. For long stretches theirs is the only car on the road.

  They strike a town named Laguna Verde (why?—there is no lagoon), where they fill the tank. An hour passes, a full fifty kilometres, before they reach the next town. ‘It’s getting late,’ he says. ‘We should look for a place to spend the night.’

  They coast down the main street. There is no hotel to be seen. They stop at a filling station. ‘Where will we find the nearest lodgings?’ he asks the attendant.

  The man scratches his head. ‘If you want a hotel, you will have to go on to Novilla.’

  ‘We have just come from Novilla.’

  ‘Then I don’t know,’ says the attendant. ‘People usually just camp out.’

  They return to the highway, into the gathering night.

  ‘Are we going to be gypsies tonight?’ asks the boy.

  ‘Gypsies have caravans,’ he replies. ‘We have no caravan, just this cramped little car.’

  ‘Gypsies sleep under hedges,’ says the boy.

  ‘Very well. Tell me when next you see a hedge.’

  They have no map. He has no idea what lies ahead on the road. In silence they drive on.

  He glances over his shoulder. The boy has fallen asleep, his arms around Bolívar’s neck. He looks into the dog’s eyes. Guard him, he says, though he utters no word. The icy amber eyes stare back at him, unblinking.

  He knows the dog does not like him. But perhaps the dog likes no one; perhaps liking is outside the range of his heart. What does it matter anyway, liking, loving, compared with being faithful?

  ‘He is asleep,’ he tells Inés, speaking softly. And then: ‘I am sorry it has to be me coming with you. You would have preferred your brother, wouldn’t you?’

  Inés shrugs. ‘I always knew he would let me down. He must be the most self-centred person in the world.’

  It is the first time she has criticized either of her brothers in his hearing, the first time she has sided with him.

  ‘One grows very self-centred, living in La Residencia,’ she goes on.

  He waits for more—about La Residencia, about her brothers—but she has said enough.

  ‘I have never dared ask,’ he says: ‘Why did you accept the boy? The day we met, you seemed to take such a dislike to us.’

  ‘It was too sudden, too much of a surprise. You came out of nowhere.’

  ‘All great gifts come out of nowhere. You should know that.’

  Is it true? Do great gifts really come out of nowhere? What possessed him to say that?

  ‘Do you really think,’ says Inés (and he cannot but hear the feeling behind her words), ‘do you really think I had not longed for a child of my own? What do you think it was like, being shut up in La Residencia all the time?’

  He can now give the feeling a name: bitterness.

  ‘I have no idea what it was like. I have never understood La Residencia or how you landed up there.’

  She does not hear the question, or does not think it worthy of reply.

  ‘Inés,’ he says, ‘let me ask for the last time: Are you sure this is what you want to do—run away from the life you know—and all because the child doesn’t get on with his teacher?’

  She is silent.

  ‘This is not a life for you, a life of flight,’ he presses on. ‘Nor does it suit me. As for the boy, he can be a runaway only so long. Sooner or later, as he grows up, he is going to have to make his peace with society.’

  Her lips tighten. She stares furiously ahead into the darkness.

  ‘Think about it,’ he concludes. ‘Think hard. But whatever you decide, be assured, I will’—he pauses, resisting the words that want to come out—‘I will follow you to the ends of the earth.’

  ‘I don’t want him to end up like my brothers,’ says Inés, speaking so softly that he has to strain to hear her. ‘I don’t want him to become a clerk or a schoolteacher like that señor León. I want him to make something of his life.’

  ‘I am sure he will. He is an exceptional child, with an exceptional future. We both know it.’

  The headlights pick out a painted sign at the roadside. Cabañas 5 km. Soon afterwards there is another sign: Cabañas 1 km.

  The cabañas in question are set off from the road, in total darkness. They find the office; he gets out and raps on the door. It is opened by a woman in a dressing gown holding a lantern. For the past three days the electricity has been cut off, she informs them. No electricity, therefore no cabañas for hire.

  Inés speaks. ‘We have a child in the car. We are exhausted. We can’t go on driving all night. Don’t you have candles we can use?’

  He returns to the car, shakes the child. ‘Time to wake up, my precious.’

  In a single fluid moment the dog rises and slips out of the car, the heavy shoulders brushing him aside like a straw.

  The boy rubs his eyes sleepily. ‘Are we there?’

  ‘No, not yet. We are going to stop for the night.’

  By the light of her lantern the woman shows them over the nearest of the cabañas. It is skimpily furnished but it has two beds. ‘We will take it,’ says Inés. ‘Is there anywhere we can get a meal?’

  ‘The cabañas are self-catering,’ the woman replies. ‘You have a gas cooker over there.’ She waves the lantern in the direction of the cooker. ‘Have you brought no supplies?’

  ‘We have a loaf of bread, and some fruit juice for the child,’ says Inés. ‘We didn’t have time to shop. Can we buy food from you? Perhaps some chops or sausages. Not fish. The child doesn’t eat fish. And some fruit. And whatever scraps you have for the dog.’

  ‘Fruit!’ says the woman. ‘It’s a long time since we last saw fruit. But come, let us see what we can find.’

  The two women depart, leaving them in darkness.

  ‘I do eat fish,’ says the boy, ‘only not if it has eyes.’

  Inés returns with a can of beans, a can of what the label calls cocktail sausages in brawn, and a lemon, as well as a candle and matches.

  ‘What about Bolívar?’ asks the boy.

  ‘Bolívar will have to eat bread.’

  ‘He can eat my sausages,’ says the boy. ‘I hate s
ausages.’

  They eat a frugal meal by candlelight, sitting side by side on the bed.

  ‘Brush your teeth, then it is bedtime,’ says Inés.

  ‘I’m not tired,’ says the boy. ‘Can we play a game? Can we play Truth or Consequences?’

  It is his turn to baulk. ‘Thank you, David, but I have had enough consequences for one day. I need to rest.’

  ‘Then can I open señor Daga’s present?’

  ‘What present?’

  ‘Señor Daga gave me a present. He said I must open it in time of need. It’s time of need now.’

  ‘Señor Daga gave him a present to take along,’ says Inés, avoiding his eyes.

  ‘It’s time of need, so can I open it?’

  ‘This is not the real time of need, the real time of need is yet to come,’ he says, ‘but yes, open it.’

  The boy runs out to the car and returns bearing a cardboard box, which he tears open. It contains a black satin gown. He lifts this out and unfolds it. Not a gown but a cape.

  ‘There is a note,’ says Inés. ‘Read it.’

  The boy brings the paper closer to the candle and reads: Behold the magic cloak of invisibility. Whoever wears it shall walk the world unseen. ‘I told you!’ he cries, dancing with excitement. ‘I told you señor Daga knows magic!’ He wraps the cape around himself. It is much too large. ‘Can you see me, Simón? Am I invisible?’

  ‘Not quite. Not yet. You didn’t read the whole note. Listen. Instructions to the wearer. To attain invisibility, wearer shall don the cloak before a mirror, then set fire to the magic powder and utter the secret spell. Whereupon the earthly body shall vanish into the mirror leaving only the traceless spirit behind.’

  He turns to Inés. ‘What do you think, Inés? Shall we let our young friend don the cloak of invisibility and utter the secret spell? What if he vanishes into the mirror and never returns?’

  ‘You can wear the cloak tomorrow,’ says Inés. ‘It is too late now.’

  ‘No!’ says the boy. ‘I am going to wear it now! Where is the magic powder?’ He rummages in the box, comes up with a glass jar. ‘Is this the magic powder, Simón?’