The Childhood of Jesus (15 page)

‘Of course! How is your son doing?'

The white robe is in fact a white towelling bathrobe; her feet are bare. Strange attire. Is there a swimming pool in the Institute?

She notes his puzzled look and laughs. ‘I'm modelling,' she says. ‘I do modelling two evenings a week. For a life class.'

‘A life class?'

‘A drawing class. Drawing from life. I am the class model.' She stretches out her arms as if yawning. The fold of the robe at her throat opens; he catches a glimpse of the breasts he had so admired. ‘You should come along. If you want to learn about the body, there is no better way.' And then, before he can overcome his confusion: ‘Goodbye—I'm late. Say hello to your son.'

He wanders down the empty corridor. The Institute is larger than he had guessed from outside. From behind a closed door comes music, a woman singing mournfully to the accompaniment of a harp. He pauses before a noticeboard. A long list of courses on offer. Architectural Drawing. Bookkeeping. Calculus. Course after course on Spanish: Beginner's Spanish (twelve sections), Intermediate Spanish (five sections), Advanced Spanish, Spanish Composition, Spanish Conversation. He should have come here instead of struggling with the language all alone. No Spanish literature that he can see. But perhaps literature falls under Advanced Spanish.

No other language courses. No Portuguese. No Catalan. No Galician. No Basque.

No Esperanto. No Volapük.

He looks for Life Drawing. There it is: Life Drawing, Mondays to Fridays 7 to 9 PM, Saturdays 2 to 4 PM; enrolment per section 12; Section 1 CLOSED, Section 2 CLOSED, Section 3 CLOSED. Clearly a popular course.

Calligraphy. Weaving. Basketwork. Flower Arranging. Pottery. Puppetry.

Philosophy. Elements of Philosophy. Philosophy: Selected Topics. Philosophy of Labour. Philosophy and Everyday Life.

A bell rings to mark the hour. Students emerge into the corridor, first a trickle, then a torrent, not just young folk but people of his age too and older, just as Eugenio said. No wonder the city is like a morgue after dark! Everyone is here at the Institute, improving themself. Everyone is busy becoming a better citizen, a better person. Everyone save he.

A voice hails him. It is Eugenio, waving from out of the human tide. ‘Come! We are going to get something to eat! Come and join us!'

He follows Eugenio down a flight of stairs into a brilliantly lit cafeteria. Already there are long lines of people waiting to be served. He helps himself to a tray, to cutlery. ‘It's Wednesday, which means it's noodles,' says Eugenio. ‘Do you like noodles?'

‘Yes, I do.'

Their turn comes. He holds out a plate and a counter hand slaps a big helping of spaghetti onto it. A second hand adds a dollop of tomato sauce. ‘Take a bread roll as well,' says Eugenio. ‘In case you need to fill up.'

‘Where do we pay?'

‘We don't pay. It's free.'

They find a table and are joined by the other young stevedores.

‘How was your class?' he asks them. ‘Did you work out what a chair is?'

It is meant as a joke, but the young men stare at him blankly.

‘Don't you know what a chair is?' says one of them finally. ‘Look down. You are sitting on one.' He glances around at his companions. They all burst out laughing.

He tries to join in, to show he is a good sport. ‘I meant,' he says, ‘did you find out what constitutes…I don't know how to say it…'

‘
Sillicidad
,' offers Eugenio. ‘Your chair'—he gestures towards the chair—‘embodies
sillicidad,
or partakes of it, or realizes it, as our teacher likes to say. That is how you know it is a chair and not a table.'

‘Or a stool,' adds his companion.

‘Has your teacher ever told you,' says he, Simón, ‘about the man who, when asked how he knew a chair was a chair, gave the chair in question a kick and said,
That, sir, is how I know
?'

‘No,' says Eugenio. ‘But that isn't how you learn a chair is a chair. That is how you learn it is an object. The object of a kick.'

He is silent. The truth is, he is out of place in this Institute. Philosophizing just makes him impatient. He does not care about chairs and their chairness.

The spaghetti lacks seasoning. The tomato sauce is simply pureed tomatoes, warmed up. He looks around for a salt cellar, but there is none. Nor is there pepper. But at least spaghetti is a change. Better than everlasting bread.

‘So—which courses do you think you will enrol in?' asks Eugenio.

‘I haven't decided yet. I had a look at the list. Quite a range of offerings. I thought of Life Drawing, but I see it is full.'

‘So you won't be joining our class. That's a pity. The discussion grew more interesting after you left. We talked about infinity and the perils of infinity. What if, beyond the ideal chair, there is a yet more ideal chair, and so forth for ever and ever? But Life Drawing is interesting too. You could take Drawing this semester—ordinary Drawing. Then you would get preference for Life Drawing next semester.'

‘Life Drawing is always very popular,' explains another of the boys. ‘People want to learn about the body.'

He searches for the irony, but there is none, as there is no salt.

‘If you want to learn about the human body, wouldn't a course in anatomy be better?' he asks.

The boy disagrees. ‘Anatomy tells you only about the parts of the body. If you want to learn about the whole you need to take something like Life Drawing or Modelling.'

‘By the whole you mean…?'

‘I mean first the body as body, then later the body in its ideal form.'

‘Won't ordinary experience teach you that? I mean, won't spending a few nights with a woman teach you all you need to know about the body as body?'

The boy blushes and looks around for help. He curses himself. These stupid jokes of his!

‘As for the body in its ideal form,' he presses on, ‘we will probably have to wait for the next life before we get to see that.' He pushes the spaghetti aside half-eaten. It is too much for him, too much stodge. ‘I must go,' he says. ‘Goodnight. I'll see you at the docks tomorrow.'

‘Goodnight.' They make no effort to detain him. And rightly so. How must he seem to them, to these fine young men, hardworking, idealistic, innocent? What can they possibly learn from the bitter miasma he gives off?

‘How is your boy doing?' asks Álvaro. ‘We miss him. Have you found a school for him?'

‘He isn't old enough for school yet. He is with his mother. She doesn't want him to spend too much time with me. His affections will remain divided, she says, as long as there are two adults laying claim to him.'

‘But there are always two adults laying claim to us: our father and our mother. We are not bees or ants.'

‘That may be so. But in any case I am not David's father. His mother is the mother but I am not the father. That is the difference. Álvaro, I find this a painful subject. Can we drop it?'

Álvaro grips him by the arm. ‘David is no ordinary boy. Believe me, I have watched him, I know what I am speaking about. Are you sure you are acting in his best interests?'

‘I have handed him over to his mother. He is in her care. Why do you say he is no ordinary boy?'

‘You say you have handed him over, but does he really want to be handed over? Why did his mother abandon him in the first place?'

‘She did not abandon him. He and she were parted. For a while they lived in different spheres. I helped him to find her. He found her, and they were united. Now they have a natural relationship, that of mother and son. Whereas he and I don't have a natural relationship. That's all.'

‘If his relationship with you is not natural, what is it?'

‘Abstract. He has an abstract relationship with me. A relationship with someone who cares for him in the abstract but has no natural duty of care to him. What did you mean by saying he was not an ordinary boy?'

Álvaro shakes his head. ‘Natural, abstract…It makes no sense to me. How do you think a mother and a father come together in the first place—the mother and father of the future child? Because they owe each other a natural duty? Of course not. Their paths cross haphazardly, and they fall in love. What could be less natural, more arbitrary, than that? Out of their random conjuncture a new being comes into the world, a new soul. Who, in this story, owes what to whom? I can't say, and I'm sure you can't either.

‘I used to watch you and your boy together, Simón, and I could see: he trusts you utterly. He loves you. And you love him. So why give him away? Why cut yourself off from him?'

‘I haven't cut myself off from him. His mother has cut him off from me, as is her right. If I could choose, I would be with him still. But I can't choose. I don't have the right to choose. I have no rights in this matter.'

Álvaro is silent, seems to withdraw into himself. ‘Tell me where I can find this woman,' he says at last. ‘I would like to have a word with her.'

‘Be careful. She has a brother who is a nasty piece of work. You shouldn't tangle with him. In fact she has two brothers, one as unpleasant as the other.'

‘I can take care of myself,' says Álvaro. ‘Where will I find her?'

‘Her name is Inés and she has taken over my old apartment in the East Blocks: block B, number 202 on the second floor. Don't say I sent you because that would not be true. I don't send you. This is not my idea at all, it is your idea.'

‘Don't worry, I will make it clear to her it is my idea, you have nothing to do with it.'

The next day, during the midday break, Álvaro beckons him over. ‘I spoke to your Inés,' he says without preamble. ‘She accepts that you can see the boy, only not yet. At the end of the month.'

‘That is wonderful news! How did you persuade her?'

Álvaro waves a dismissive hand. ‘It doesn't matter how. She says you can take him for walks. She will inform you when. She asked for your telephone number. I didn't know it, so I gave her mine. I said I would pass on messages.'

‘I can't tell you how grateful I am. Please assure her that I won't upset the boy—I mean, I won't upset his relationship with her.'

CHAPTER 16

THE SUMMONS from Inés comes sooner than expected. The very next morning Álvaro calls him over. ‘There's an emergency at your apartment,' he says. ‘Inés phoned as I was leaving home. She wanted me to come over, but I told her I couldn't spare the time. Don't be alarmed, it has nothing to do with your boy, it's just the plumbing. You will need tools. Take the toolbox from the shed. Hurry. She is in quite a state.'

Inés meets him at the door, wearing (why?—it is not a cold day) a heavy overcoat. She is indeed in quite a state, quite a fury. The toilet is blocked, she says. The building supervisor came to inspect, but refused to do anything about it because (he said) she was not the legal tenant, he did not know her (he said) from a bar of soap. She telephoned her brothers at La Residencia, but they fobbed her off with excuses, being too fastidious (she says bitterly) to get their hands dirty. So this morning, as a last resort, she contacted his colleague Álvaro, who being a working man ought to know about plumbing. And now she has not Álvaro but him.

She talks on and on, pacing angrily about the living room. She has lost weight since he last saw her. There are pinched lines at the corners of her mouth. In silence he listens; but his eyes are on the boy, who, sitting up in bed—has he only just woken up?—stares at him incredulously, as if he has come back from the land of the dead.

He flashes the boy a smile.
Hello!
he mouths silently.

The boy takes his thumb out of his mouth but does not speak. His hair, naturally curly, has been allowed to grow long. He is wearing a pale blue pyjama suit with a design in red of gambolling elephants and hippopotami.

Inés has not ceased talking. ‘That toilet has been giving trouble ever since we moved in,' she is saying. ‘I wouldn't be surprised if the people in the flat below are to blame. I asked the supervisor to investigate downstairs, but he wouldn't even listen to me. I have never met such a rude man. He doesn't care that you can already smell the stink from the corridor.'

Inés speaks of sewage without embarrassment. It strikes him as odd: if not intimate, the matter is at least delicate. Does she regard him simply as a workman come to do a job for her, someone whom she need never lay eyes on again; or is she gabbling to hide discomfiture?

He crosses the room, opens the window, leans out. The outflow pipe from the toilet leads directly into a sewage line down the outside wall. Three metres below it is the outflow pipe from the flat downstairs.

‘Have you spoken to the people in number 102?' he asks. ‘If the whole line is blocked, they will be having the same problem as you. But let me take a look at the toilet first, just in case the fault is something obvious.' He turns to the boy. ‘Are you going to give me a hand? Isn't it time you got up, you lazybones! Look how high the sun is in the sky!'

The boy squirms and gives him a delighted smile. His heart lifts. How he loves this child! ‘Come here!' he says. ‘Surely you're not too old to give me a kiss?'

The boy leaps out of bed and dashes over to hug him. He breathes in the deep, unwashed, milky smells. ‘I like your new pyjamas,' he says. ‘Shall we go and inspect?'

The toilet bowl is full nearly to the brim with water and waste. In the toolbox he has brought is a roll of steel wire. He bends the end of the wire into a hook, probes blindly down the throat of the bowl, and comes up with a wad of toilet paper. ‘Have you got a potty?' he asks the boy. ‘A pot for wee-wee?' asks the boy. He nods. The boy scampers off and returns bearing a chamber pot draped with a cloth. A moment later Inés rushes in, snatches up the pot, and exits without a word.