The Schooldays of Jesus (20 page)

‘They are all so interested in me, Simón! It amazes me. I'm not interested in me but they are. To me I'm just a common criminal, as common as weed. But to them I am something special.
I have no conscience, or else I have too much conscience, they can't decide which. If you have too much conscience, I want to tell them, your conscience eats you up and there is nothing left of you, like a spider eating a wasp or a wasp eating a spider, I can never remember which, nothing left but the shell. What do you think, young man? Do you know what conscience is?'

The boy nods.

‘Of course you do! You understand old Dmitri better than anyone—better than all the psychologists in the world.
What do you dream about?
they say.
Maybe you dream about falling down dark holes and being swallowed by dragons.—Yes,
I say
, yes, that's exactly it!
Whereas you never needed to ask me about my dreams. You took one look and understood me at once.
I understand you and I don't forgive you.
I'll never forget that. He is really special, Simón, this boy of yours. A special case. Wise beyond his years. You could learn from him.'

‘David is not a special case. There is no such thing as a special case. He is not a special case, nor are you. No one is taken in by the show of craziness you put on, Dmitri, not for one minute. I hope you do get sent to the salt mines. That will put an end to your nonsense.'

‘Well spoken, Simón, well spoken! I love you for it. I could kiss you, only you wouldn't like that, you not being a kissing man. Whereas your son here has always been ready to give old Dmitri a kiss, haven't you, my boy?'

‘Dmitri, why did you make Ana Magdalena's heart stop?' asks the boy.

‘Good question! That's what the doctors want to know most
of all. It excites them, the thought of it—pressing a beautiful woman so tight in your arms that you stop her heart—only they are too ashamed to ask. They don't dare to ask straight out, like you, no, they have to come at it in a roundabout way, like snakes.
Did your mother love you? What did it taste like, your mother's milk?
Or that stupid judge:
Who are you? Are you yourself?

‘Why did I stop her heart? I'll tell you. We were together, she and I, when suddenly a thought came into my head—popped into my head and wouldn't leave me. I thought:
Why not put your hands around her throat while she is, you know, in the throes of it, and give her a bit of a throttle? Show her who is master. Show her what love is really like.

‘Killing the one you love: that is something that old Simón here will never understand. But you understand, don't you? You understand Dmitri. From the first moment you understood.'

‘Wouldn't she marry you?'

‘Marry me? No. Why would a lady like Ana Magdalena marry someone like me? I'm dirt, my boy. Old Simón is right. I'm dirt, and my dirt rubs off on everyone I touch. That's why I must go to the salt mines, where everyone is dirt, where I will be at home. No, Ana Magdalena spurned me. I loved her, I worshipped her, I would have done anything for her, but she would have nothing to do with me, you saw it, everyone could see it. So I gave her a big surprise and stopped her heart. Taught her a lesson. Gave her something to think about.'

A silence falls. Then he, Simón, speaks. ‘You asked about your papers, the papers you wanted me to destroy.'

‘Yes. Why else would I take the trouble to leave my hospital home and come here? To find out about the papers, of course. Go
on. Tell me. I trusted you and you broke that trust. Is that what you are going to say? Say it.'

‘I haven't broken any trust. But I will say this. I have seen what was in the case, including you know what. Therefore I know that the story you tell me is not true. I won't say any more. But I am not going to stand here meekly like a sheep and be lied to.'

Dmitri turns to the boy. ‘Do you have anything to eat, my boy? Dmitri is feeling a bit peckish.'

The boy jumps up, rummages in the cupboard, returns with a packet of biscuits.

‘Ginger snaps!' says Dmitri. ‘Would you like a ginger snap, Simón? No? What about you, David?'

The boy takes a biscuit from him and bites into it.

‘So it is public knowledge, is it?' says Dmitri.

‘No, it is not public knowledge.'

‘But you are going to use it against me.'

‘Use what against you?' asks the boy.

‘Never mind, my son. This is something between old Simón and me.'

‘It depends on what you mean by
against
. If you keep your promise and disappear into the salt mines for the rest of your life, then what we are referring to ceases to be of consequence, one way or the other.'

‘Don't play logic games with me, Simón. You know and I know what
against
means. Why didn't you do as you were told? Now look at the mess you are in.'

‘I? I am not the one in a mess, you are in a mess.'

‘No, Simón. Tomorrow or the next day or the one after that I
will be free to go to the salt mines and pay my debt and clear my conscience, while you—
you
—will have to stay behind with this mess on your hands.'

‘What mess, Dmitri?' asks the boy. ‘Why won't you tell me?'

‘I'll tell you what mess.
Poor Dmitri! Did we really do him justice? Shouldn't we have tried harder to save him, to turn him into a good citizen and a productive member of society? What must it be like for him, languishing in the salt mines while we live our easy lives in Estrella? Shouldn't we have shown him a modicum of mercy? Shouldn't we summon him back, saying, All is forgiven, Dmitri, you can have your old job back, and your uniform, and your pension, only you must say you are sorry, so that we can feel better inside?
That's the mess, my boy. Wallowing in excrement like a pig. Wallowing in your own shit. Why didn't you just do what I told you, Simón, instead of getting sucked into this stupid charade of saving me from myself ?
Send him to the doctors, tell them to screw off the old head and screw on a new one.
And the pills they give you! It's worse than the salt mines, being in the mad ward! Just getting through twenty-four hours is like wading through mud. Tick tock tick tock. I can't wait to start living again.'

He, Simón, has reached the end of his tether. ‘That's enough, Dmitri. Please leave now. Leave at once, or I will call the police.'

‘Oh, so it's goodbye, is it? And what about you, David? Are you going to say goodbye to Dmitri too?
Goodbye—see you in the next life
. Is that how it is going to be? I thought we had an understanding, you and I. Has old Simón been working on you, shaking your confidence in me?
He's a bad man, how can you love such a bad man?
Who ever stopped loving a person because he was bad? I did my worst to Ana Magdalena, yet she never stopped loving me. She hated me, maybe, but that doesn't mean she didn't love me. Love and hate: you can't have the one without the other. Like salt and pepper. Like black and white. That's what people forget. She loved me and she hated me, like any normal person. Like Simón here. Do you think Simón loves you all the time? Of course he doesn't. He loves you and he hates you, it's all mixed up inside him, only he won't tell you. No, he keeps it secret, pretends it's all nice and placid inside him, no waves, no ripples. Like the way he talks, our famous man of reason. But believe me, old Simón here is as much of a mess inside as you or I. In fact, more of a mess. Because at least I don't pretend to be what I am not.
This is how I am
, I say,
and this is how I talk, all mixed up
. Are you listening, my boy? Catch my words while you can, because Simón here wants to drive me away, out of your life. Listen hard. When you listen to me, you listen to the truth, and what do we want, finally, but the truth?'

‘But when you see Ana Magdalena in the next life, you won't make her heart stop again, will you?'

‘I don't know, my boy. Maybe there won't be a next life—not for me, not for any of us. Maybe the sun will suddenly loom large in the sky and engulf us, and that will be the end of us all. No more Dmitri. No more David. Just a big ball of fire. That's how I see things, sometimes. That's my vision.'

‘And then?'

‘And then nothing. Lots of flames, then lots of silence.'

‘But is it true?'

‘True? Who is to say? It's all in the future, and the future is a mystery. What do you think?'

‘I think it's not true. I think you are just saying so.'

‘Well, if you say it's not true then it's not true, because you, young David, are Dmitri's king, and your word is Dmitri's command. But to get back to your question, no, I won't do it again. The salt mines will cure me for good of my badness, my rages and my murderousness. They will knock all such nonsense out of me. So you needn't fret, Ana Magdalena is safe.'

‘But you mustn't do sexual intercourse to her again.'

‘No sexual intercourse! This youngster of yours is very strict, Simón, very absolute. But he'll come round as he grows older. Sexual intercourse—it's part of human nature, my boy, there's no escaping it. Even Simón will agree. There is no escaping it, is there, Simón? No escaping the thunderbolt.'

He, Simón, is mute. When was he last hit by a thunderbolt? Not in this life.

Then suddenly Dmitri seems to lose interest in them. Restlessly his eyes flicker around the room. ‘Time to go. Time to return to my lonely cell. Do you mind if I hold on to the biscuits? I like to nibble on a biscuit now and then. Come and see me again, young man. We can go for a ride on the bus, or visit the zoo. I'd enjoy that. I always enjoy chatting to you. You are the only one who really understands old Dmitri. The psychologists and the psychiatrists with their questions, they just can't work out what I am, man or beast. But you see right through me, into my heart. Now give Dmitri a hug.'

He lifts the boy off the ground in a tight embrace, whispers
words in his ear that he, Simón, cannot hear. The boy nods vigorously.

‘Goodbye, Simón. Don't believe everything I say. It is just air, air that blows where it listeth.'

The door closes behind him.

CHAPTER 15

FROM THE roster of Spanish courses on offer at the Institute he chooses Spanish Composition (Elementary). ‘Students registering for this course should have a command of spoken Spanish. We will learn to write clearly, logically, and with good style.'

He is the oldest in the class. Even the teacher is young: an attractive young woman with dark hair and dark eyes who tells them to call her simply Martina. ‘We will go around the room and each of you will tell me who you are and what you hope to gain from the course,' says Martina. When his turn comes, he says: ‘My name is Simón, and I am in the advertising business, though at a lowly level. I have been speaking Spanish for well over a year and have become fairly fluent. The time has come for me to learn to write clearly, logically, and with good style.'

‘Thank you, Simón,' says Martina. ‘Next?'

Of course he wants to write well. Who would not? But that is not why he is here, not exactly. Why he is here he will discover in the process of being here.

Martina hands out copies of the course reader. ‘Please treat
your reader with consideration, as you would treat a friend,' says Martina. ‘At the end of the course I will ask you to hand it back, so that it can become a friend to another student.' His own copy is well thumbed, with many underlinings in ink and pencil.

They read two specimens of the business letter: a letter from Juan applying for a job as a salesman; and a letter from Luisa to her landlord terminating the lease on her apartment. They take note of the form of salutation and the form of closure. They examine the paragraphing and the form of the paragraph. ‘A paragraph is a unit of thought,' says Martina. ‘It lays out a thought and links it to the preceding and succeeding thoughts.'

For their first assignment they are to practise composing in paragraphs. ‘Tell me something about yourselves,' says Martina. ‘Not everything but something. Tell it to me in the space of three paragraphs, linked each to the next.'

He approves of Martina's philosophy of composition and does his best with his assignment. ‘I arrived in this land with one overriding purpose in mind,' he writes: ‘to protect from harm a certain small boy who had fallen under my care and to conduct him to his mother. In due course I found his mother and united him with her.'

That is his first paragraph.

‘However, my duties did not end there,' he writes.
However
: the linking word. ‘I continued to watch over the mother and child and see to their welfare. When their welfare was threatened I brought them to Estrella, where we have been made welcome and where the boy, who goes by the name David and who lives at present with his mother Inés and his uncle Diego (Inés and I no longer
share a residence), has flourished.'

End of second paragraph. Commencement of third and final paragraph, introduced by the linking word
now
.

‘Now, reluctantly, I must accept that my duty is done, that the boy may have no further need of me. It is time for me to close a certain chapter of my life and open a new one. Opening that new chapter is linked to the project of learning to write—linked in a way that is not yet clear to me.'

That is enough. Those are the required three paragraphs, fittingly linked. The fourth paragraph, the paragraph that, were he to write it, would be superfluous to the assignment, would be about Dmitri. He does not have the linking word yet, the word that would make the fourth paragraph follow clearly and logically from the third; but after the linking word he would write: ‘Here in Estrella I met a man named Dmitri who later gained notoriety as a rapist and murderer. Dmitri has on several occasions ridiculed the way I speak, which strikes him as overly cool and rational.' He reflects, then replaces the word
cool
with the word
cold
. ‘Dmitri believes that the style reveals the man. Dmitri would not write as I write now, in paragraphs linked one to the other. Dmitri would call that passionless writing, as he would call me a passionless man. A man of passion, Dmitri would say, pours himself out without paragraphing.