The Schooldays of Jesus

  Inés now speaks, and loses no time in making her position clear. ‘When we first sent David to the Arroyos, it was promised to us—promised, mind you—that besides the dancing he would be getting a normal education. We were told he would learn to read and write and handle numbers as children do in normal schools. He got none of that. Señor Arroyo is a nice man, I am sure, but he is not a proper teacher. I would be very reluctant to put David back in his care.’

  ‘What do you mean when you say he is not a proper teacher?’ asks Valentina.

  ‘I mean his head is in the clouds. I mean he doesn’t know what is going on under his nose.’

  Glances pass among the sisters. He, Simón, leans over to Inés. ‘Is this the best time?’ he murmurs.

  ‘Yes, this is the best time,’ says Inés. ‘It is always best to be frank. We are talking about a child’s future, a young child whose education thus far has been a calamity, who is falling further and further behind. I am very reluctant to submit him to yet another experiment.’

  ‘Well, that settles the matter,’ says Consuelo. ‘You are David’s mother, you have the right to decide what is best for him. Are we to understand then that you consider the Academy to be a bad investment?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Inés.

  ‘And you, Simón?’

  ‘That depends.’ He turns to Inés. ‘If the Academy of Dance closes for good, Inés, and if there is no place for David in the Academy of Singing, which may well be the case, and if the public schools are out of bounds, what are you proposing we should do with him? Where is he to get an education?’

  Before Inés can reply, Alma returns with the boy, who bears a battered-looking plywood box. ‘Alma says I can have them,’ he announces.

  ‘It’s the marionettes,’ says Alma. ‘We have no use for them, I thought David might like to take them over.’

  ‘Of course,’ says Consuelo. ‘I hope you will enjoy playing with them.’

  Inés is not to be diverted. ‘Where is David going to get an education? I told you. We should hire a private teacher, someone who is properly qualified with a proper diploma, someone who doesn’t have outlandish beliefs about where children come from or how a child’s mind works, someone who will sit down with David and cover the syllabus that normal schools cover and help him to make up the ground he has lost. That is what I think we should do.’

  ‘What do you think, David?’ says he, Simón. ‘Shall we get you a private teacher?’

  David seats himself with the box on his lap. ‘I want to be with señor Arroyo,’ he says.

  ‘You only want to go to señor Arroyo because you can twist him around your finger,’ says Inés.

  ‘If you make me go to another school I’ll run away.’

  ‘We won’t make you go anywhere. We will hire a teacher who will come and teach you at home.’

  ‘I want to go to señor Arroyo. Señor Arroyo knows who I am. You don’t know who I am.’

  Inés gives a snort of exasperation. Though his heart is not in it, he, Simón, takes up the baton. ‘It doesn’t matter how special we are, David, there are certain things we all have to sit down and learn. We have to learn to read—and I don’t mean read just one book—otherwise we won’t know what is going on in the world. We have to be able to do sums, otherwise we won’t be able to handle money. I think Inés also has it in mind—correct me if I am wrong, Inés—that we need to learn good habits like self-discipline and respect for the opinions of others.’

  ‘I do know what is going on in the world,’ says the boy. ‘You are the one who doesn’t know what is going on in the world.’

  ‘What is going on in the world, David?’ says Alma. ‘We feel so cut off from the world, out here on the farm. Will you tell us?’

  The boy lays the box of marionettes aside, trots over to Alma, whispers at length in her ear.

  ‘What did he say, Alma?’ asks Consuelo.

  ‘I don’t feel I can tell you. Only David can do that.’

  ‘Will you tell us, David?’ asks Consuelo.

  The boy shakes his head decisively from side to side.

  ‘Then that is the end of the matter,’ says Consuelo. ‘Thank you, Inés, thank you, Simón, for your advice on señor Arroyo and his Academy. If you do decide to hire a tutor for your son, I am sure we will be able to assist with the fees.’

  As they are leaving, Consuelo takes him to one side. ‘You must get a grip on the boy, Simón,’ she murmurs. ‘For his own sake. Do you understand what I mean?’

  ‘I understand. There is another side to him, believe me. He is not always so cocksure. And his heart is good.’

  ‘I am relieved to hear that,’ says Consuelo. ‘Now you must go.’

  It takes him a long time to gain entry to the Academy or ex-Academy. He rings the bell, waits, rings again, on and on, then begins to rap on the door, first with his knuckles, eventually with the heel of his shoe. At last he hears stirrings within. The key turns in the lock and the door is opened by Alyosha, looking dishevelled, as if he has just woken up, though it is well past noon.

  ‘Hello, Alyosha, do you remember me? David’s father. How are you? Is the maestro in?’

  ‘Señor Arroyo is at his music. If you want to see him you will have to wait. It may be a long wait.’

  The studio where Ana Magdalena used to give her classes stands empty. The cedar floor that was polished daily by young feet in dancing slippers has lost its gleam.

  ‘I’ll wait,’ he says. ‘My time is not important.’ He follows Alyosha to the refectory and sits down at one of the long tables.

  ‘Tea?’ says Alyosha.

  ‘That would be nice.’

  Faintly he can hear the tinkle of a piano. The music breaks off, starts again, breaks off again.

  ‘I am told that señor Arroyo would like to reopen the Academy,’ he says, ‘and that you may take over some of the teaching.’

  ‘I will be teaching the recorder and leading the elementary dance class. That is the plan. If we reopen.’

  ‘So you will persist with dance classes. I had understood that the Academy was going to become purely an academy of music. An academy of pure music.’

  ‘Behind music there is always dance. If we listen with attention, if we give ourselves to the music, the soul will begin to dance within us. That is one of the cornerstones of señor Arroyo’s philosophy.’

  ‘And you believe in his philosophy?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘David won’t be coming back, unfortunately. He wants to, very much so, but his mother is set against it. I myself don’t know what to think. On the one hand, I find the philosophy of the Academy, the philosophy you share, hard to take seriously. I hope you don’t mind my saying so. In particular the astrological stuff. On the other hand, David is attached to the Arroyos, particularly to the memory of Ana Magdalena. Deeply attached. He clings to it. He won’t let go.’

  Alyosha smiles. ‘Yes, I have seen that. At first he used to test her. You must have witnessed it: how he tests people, asserts his will over them. He tried giving her orders; but she didn’t tolerate it, not for a moment. While you are in my care you will do as I say, she said to him. And don’t give me such looks. Your looks have no power over me. After that he never tried his tricks again. He respected her. He obeyed her. With me it’s different. He knows I am soft. I don’t mind.’

  ‘How about his classmates? Do they miss her too?’

  ‘All the young ones loved Ana Magdalena,’ says Alyosha. ‘She was strict with them, she was demanding, but they were devoted to her. After her passing I did my best to shield them, but there were too many stories swirling around, and then of course their parents came and fetched them away. So I can’t tell you for sure how they were affected. It was a tragedy. One can’t expect children to come away from such a tragedy untouched.’

  ‘No, one can’t. There is also the matter of Dmitri. They must have been shaken by that. Dmitri was a great favourite among them.’

  Alyosha is about to reply
when the door to the refectory bursts open and Joaquín and his brother rush excitedly in, followed a moment later by a stranger, a grey-haired woman supporting herself on a cane.

  ‘Aunt Mercedes says we can have biscuits,’ says Joaquín. ‘Can we?’

  ‘Of course,’ says Alyosha. Awkwardly he performs the introduction. ‘Señora Mercedes, this is señor Simón, who is the father of one of the boys at the Academy. Señor Simón, this is señora Mercedes, who is visiting us from Novilla.’

  Señora Mercedes, aunt Mercedes, offers him a bony hand. In her narrow, aquiline features and sallow skin he can find no resemblance to Ana Magdalena.

  ‘Let us not interrupt you,’ she says in a voice so low that it is almost a croak. ‘The boys just came for a snack.’

  ‘You interrupt nothing,’ he, Simón, replies. It is not true. He would like to hear more from Alyosha. He is impressed by the young man, by his good sense, his seriousness. ‘I am just marking time, waiting to see señor Arroyo. Perhaps, Alyosha, you can remind him that I am here.’

  With a sigh señora Mercedes lowers herself onto a chair. ‘Your son is not with you?’ she says.

  ‘He is at home with his mother.’

  ‘His name is David,’ says Joaquín. ‘He is the best in the class.’ He and his brother have seated themselves at the far end of the table with the can of biscuits before them.

  ‘I have come to discuss my son’s future with señor Arroyo,’ he explains to Mercedes. ‘His future and the future of the Academy, after the recent tragedy. Allow me to say how stricken we all are by your sister’s death. She was an exceptional teacher and an exceptional person.’

  ‘Ana Magdalena was not my sister,’ says Mercedes. ‘My sister, Joaquín’s and Damián’s mother, passed away ten years ago. Ana Magdalena is—was—Juan Sebastián’s second wife. The Arroyos are a complicated family. Thankfully I am not part of that complication.’

  Of course! Twice married! What a stupid mistake on his part! ‘My apologies,’ he says. ‘I wasn’t thinking.’

  ‘But of course I knew her, Ana Magdalena,’ señora Mercedes continues, unperturbed. ‘She was even, briefly, a student of mine. That was how she came to meet Juan Sebastián. That was how she entered the family.’

  His stupid mistake has, it seems, opened the way for old animosities to be aired.

  ‘You taught dance?’ he says.

  ‘I taught dance. I still do, though you would not think so, looking at me.’ She raps on the floor with her cane.

  ‘I confess I find dance somewhat of a foreign language,’ he says. ‘David has given up trying to explain it to me.’

  ‘Then what are you doing, sending him to an academy of dance?’

  ‘David is his own master. His mother and I have no control over him. He has a lovely voice but won’t sing. He is a gifted dancer but won’t dance for me. Refuses point blank. Says I don’t understand.’

  ‘If your son were to explain his dance he would not be able to dance anymore,’ says Mercedes. ‘That is the paradox within which we dancers are trapped.’

  ‘Believe me, señora, you are not the first to tell me so. From señor Arroyo, from Ana Magdalena, from my son, I hear continually how obtuse my questioning is.’

  Mercedes gives a laugh, low and hard, like a dog’s bark. ‘You need to learn to dance, Simón—may I call you Simón? It will cure you of your obtuseness. Or put a stop to your questioning.’

  ‘I fear I am past cure, Mercedes. To be truthful, I don’t see the question to which dance is the answer.’

  ‘No, I can see you don’t. But you must have been in love sometime. When you were in love, did you not see the question to which love was the answer, or were you an obtuse lover too?’

  He is silent.

  ‘Were you not perhaps in love with Ana Magdalena, just a little?’ she persists. ‘That seemed to be her effect on most men. And you, Alyosha—what about you? Were you in love with Ana Magdalena too?’

  Alyosha colours but does not speak.

  ‘I ask seriously: What was the question to which Ana Magdalena was in so many cases the answer?’

  It is a real question, he can see that. Mercedes is a serious woman, a serious person. But is it one to be debated in front of children?

  ‘I was not in love with Ana Magdalena,’ he says. ‘I have not been in love for as long as I can remember, not with anyone. But, in the abstract, I acknowledge the force of your question. What is it that we lack when we lack nothing, when we are sufficient unto ourselves? What is it that we miss when we are not in love?’

  ‘Dmitri was in love with her.’ It is Joaquín who interrupts, in his clear and as yet unbroken child’s voice.

  ‘Dmitri is the man who killed Ana Magdalena,’ he, Simón, explains.

  ‘I know about Dmitri. Across the country I doubt there is anyone who does not know his story. Thwarted in love, Dmitri turned on the unattainable object of his desire and killed her. Of course it was a terrible thing he did. Terrible but not hard to understand.’

  ‘I disagree,’ he says. ‘From the beginning I found his actions incomprehensible. His judges found them incomprehensible too. That is why he is locked up in a psychiatric hospital. Because no sane being could have done what he did.’

  Dmitri was no thwarted lover. That is what he cannot say, not openly. That is what is truly incomprehensible, more than incomprehensible. He killed her because he felt like it. He killed her to see what it was like, strangling a woman. He killed her for no reason.

  ‘I don’t understand Dmitri, nor do I want to,’ he presses on. ‘What happens to him is a matter of indifference to me. He can languish in psychiatric wards until he is old and grey, he can be sent to the salt mines to work himself to death—it is all the same.’

  A glance passes between Mercedes and Alyosha. ‘A sore spot, evidently,’ says Mercedes. ‘Forgive me for touching on it.’

  ‘How about a walk?’ says Alyosha to the boys. ‘We can go to the park. Bring some bread—we can feed the goldfish.’

  They leave. He and Mercedes are alone. But he is in no mood for talk; nor evidently is she. Through the open door comes the sound of Arroyo at the keyboard. He closes his eyes, tries to calm himself, to let the music find its way in. Alyosha’s words come back to him: If we listen with attention the soul will begin to dance within us. When did his soul last dance?

  From the way the music kept stopping and starting he had assumed that Arroyo was practising. But he was wrong. The pauses last too long for that, and the music itself seems sometimes to lose its way. The man is not practising but composing. He listens with a different kind of attention.

  The music is too variable in its rhythm, too complicated in its logic for a ponderous being like him to follow, but it brings to mind the dance of one of those little birds that hover and dart, their wings beating too fast to see. The question is, where is the soul? When will the soul emerge from its hiding place and open its wings?

  He is not on close terms with his soul. What he knows about the soul in general, what he has read, is that it flits away when confronted with a mirror and therefore cannot be seen by the one who owns it, the one whom it owns.

  Unable to see his soul, he has not questioned what people tell him about it: that it is a dry soul, deficient in passion. His own, obscure intuition—that, far from lacking in passion, his soul aches with longing for it knows not what—he treats sceptically as just the kind of story that someone with a dry, rational, deficient soul will tell himself to maintain his self-respect.

  So he tries not to think, to do nothing that might alarm the timid soul within. He gives himself to the music, allowing it to enter and wash through him. And the music, as if aware of what is up, loses its stop-start character, begins to flow. At the very rim of consciousness the soul, which is indeed like a little bird, emerges and shakes its wings and begins its dance.

  That is how Alyosha finds him: sitting at the table with his chin propped on his hands, fast asleep. Alyosha gives him a shake. ‘
Señor Arroyo will see you now.’

  Of the woman with the cane, the sister-in-law Mercedes, there is no sign. How long has he been absent?

  He trails behind Alyosha down the corridor.

  CHAPTER 17

  THE ROOM into which he is ushered is pleasantly bright and airy, lit by glass panels in the roof through which sunlight pours. It is bare save for a table with a mess of papers on it and a grand piano. Arroyo rises to greet him.

  He had expected a man in mourning, a broken man. But Arroyo, wearing a plum-coloured smoking jacket over pyjamas and slippers, seems as solid and cheerful as ever. He offers him, Simón, a cigarette, which he declines.

  ‘A pleasure to see you again, señor Simón,’ says Arroyo. ‘I have not forgotten our conversation on the shores of Lake Calderón, concerning the stars. What shall we discuss today?’

  After the music and then the slumber his tongue is slow, his mind befuddled. ‘My son David,’ he says. ‘I have come to talk about him. About his future. David has been growing a little wild of late. In the absence of schooling. We have applied for him to enter the Academy of Singing, but our hopes are not high. We are worried about him, his mother particularly so. She has been thinking of hiring a private tutor. But now we hear rumours that you may be opening your doors again. We are wondering…’

  ‘You are wondering, if we reopen, who will do the teaching. You are wondering who will take the place of my wife. Who indeed! Because your son was very close to her, as you know. Who can replace her in his heart?’

  ‘You are correct. He still holds on to the memory of her. Will not let go. But there is more to it than that.’ The fog begins to retreat. ‘David has great respect for you, señor Arroyo. He says you know who he is. Señor Arroyo knows who I am. I, on the other hand—so he says—do not know and have never known. I must ask: What does he mean when he says that you know who he is?’

  ‘You are his father yet you do not know who he is?’

  ‘I am not his true father, nor have I ever claimed to be. I think of myself as a kind of stepfather. I met him on the ship coming here. I could see that he was lost, therefore I took charge of him, took care of him. Later I was able to unite him with his mother, Inés. That is our story, in a nutshell.’