The Schooldays of Jesus (6 page)

‘Señor Arroyo, my husband, is not available. We are not in session this week. Classes resume on Monday, after the break. But if you want to discuss practical matters you can discuss them with me. First, will your son be coming to us as a boarder?'

‘A boarder? We were not told you took in boarders.'

‘We have a limited number of places for boarders.'

‘No, David will be living at home, will he not, Inés?'

Inés nods.

‘Very well. Next, footwear. Does your son have dancing slippers? No? He will need dancing slippers. I will write down the address of the shop where you can buy them. Also lighter, more comfortable clothing. It is important that the body be free.'

‘Dancing slippers. We will attend to that. You spoke a moment ago of the soul, the training of the soul. In what direction do you train the soul?'

‘In the direction of the good. Of obedience to the good. Why do you ask?'

‘For no particular reason. And the rest of the curriculum, besides the dancing? Are there books we need to buy?'

There is something disquieting about the woman's appearance, something he has not been able to put a finger on. Now he recognizes what it is. She has no eyebrows. Her eyebrows have been plucked out or shaved off; or perhaps they have never grown. Below her fair, rather sparse hair, pulled back tightly on her scalp, is an expanse of naked forehead as broad as his hand. The eyes, a blue darker than sky-blue, meet his gaze calmly, assuredly.
She sees through me
, he thinks,
through all this talk
. Not as young as he had at first thought. Thirty? Thirty-five?

‘Books?' She waves a dismissive hand. ‘Books will come later. Everything in its time.'

‘And the classrooms,' says Inés. ‘Can I see the classrooms?'

‘This is our only classroom.' Her gaze sweeps the studio. ‘This is where the children dance.' Stepping closer, she takes Inés by the hand. ‘Señora, you must understand, this is an academy of dance. First comes the dance. All else is secondary. All else follows later.'

At her touch Inés visibly stiffens. He knows only too well how Inés resists, indeed flinches from, the human touch.

Señora Arroyo turns to the boy. ‘David—that is your name?'

He expects the usual challenge, the usual denial (
‘It is not my real name'
). But no: the boy raises his face to her like a flower opening.

‘Welcome, David, to our Academy. I am sure you will like it here. I am señora Arroyo and I will be looking after you. Now, you heard what I told your parents about the dancing slippers and about not wearing tight clothes?'

‘Yes.'

‘Good. Then I will be expecting you on Monday morning at eight o'clock sharp. That is when the new quarter starts. Come here. Feel the floor. It's lovely, isn't it? It was laid down especially for dancing, out of planks cut from cedar trees that grow high in the mountains, by carpenters, true craftsmen, who made it as smooth as is humanly possible. We wax it every week until it glows, and every day it is polished again by the students' feet. So smooth and so warm! Can you feel the warmth?'

The boy nods. Never has he seen him so responsive before—responsive, trusting, childlike.

‘Goodbye now, David. We will see you on Monday, with your new slippers. Goodbye, señora. Goodbye, señor.' The swing doors close behind them.

‘She is tall, isn't she, señora Arroyo,' he says to the boy. ‘Tall and graceful too, like a real dancer. Do you like her?'

‘Yes.'

‘So is it decided then? You will go to her school?'

‘Yes.'

‘And we can tell Roberta and the three sisters that our quest has been successful?'

‘Yes.'

‘What do you say, Inés: has our quest been successful?'

‘I will tell you what I think when I have seen what kind of education they give.'

Blocking their way to the street is a man with his back to them. He wears a rumpled grey uniform; his cap is pushed back on his head; he is smoking a cigarette.

‘Excuse me,' he, Simón, says.

The man, evidently lost in reverie, gives a start, then recovers and with an extravagant sweep of the arm waves them through: ‘Señora y señores…' Passing him they are enveloped in fumes of tobacco and the smell of unwashed clothes.

In the street, as they hesitate, finding their bearings, the man in grey speaks: ‘Señor, are you looking for the museum?'

He turns to face him. ‘No—our business was with the Academy of Dance.'

‘Ah, the Academy of Ana Magdalena!' His voice is deep, the voice of a true bass. Tossing his cigarette aside, he comes nearer. ‘So let me guess: you are going to enrol in the Academy, young man, and become a famous dancer! I hope you will find time one day to come and dance for me.' He shows yellowed teeth in a big, all-enfolding smile. ‘Welcome! If you attend the Academy you are going to see a lot of me, so let me introduce myself. I am Dmitri. I work at the museum, where I am Principal Attendant—that is my title, such a grand one! What does a Principal Attendant do?
Well, it is the Principal Attendant's duty to guard the museum's pictures and sculptures, to preserve them from dust and natural enemies, to lock them up safely in the evenings and set them free in the mornings. As Principal Attendant I am here every day except Saturdays, so naturally I get to meet all the young folk from the Academy, them and their parents.' He turns to him, Simón. ‘What did you think of the estimable Ana Magdalena? Does she impress you?'

He exchanges glances with Inés. ‘We spoke to señora Arroyo but nothing is decided yet,' he says. ‘We have to weigh up our options.'

Dmitri the liberator of the statues and paintings frowns. ‘No need for that. No need to weigh up anything. You would be stupid to refuse the Academy. You would regret it for the rest of your life. Señor Arroyo is a master, a true master. There is no other word for it. It is an honour for us to have him among us in Estrella, which has never been a great city, teaching our children the art of dance. If I were in your son's position I would clamour night and day to be allowed into his Academy. You can forget about your other options, whatever they are.'

He is not sure that he likes this Dmitri, with his smelly clothing and his oily hair. He certainly does not like being harangued by him in public (it is mid-morning, the streets are full of people). ‘Well,' he says, ‘that is for us to decide, is it not, Inés? And now we must be on our way. Goodbye.' He takes the boy's hand; they leave.

In the car the boy speaks up for the first time. ‘Why don't you like him?'

‘The museum guard? It's not a question of liking or disliking.
He is a stranger. He doesn't know us, doesn't know our circumstances. He should not be sticking his nose into our affairs.'

‘You don't like him because he has a beard.'

‘That is nonsense.'

‘He doesn't have a beard,' says Inés. ‘There is a difference between wearing a nice, neat beard and not caring for your appearance. This man doesn't shave, he doesn't wash, he doesn't wear clean clothes. He is not a good example to children.'

‘Who is a good example to children? Is Simón a good example?'

There is silence.

‘Are you a good example, Simón?' the boy presses.

Since Inés will not stand up for him, he has to stand up for himself. ‘I try,' he says. ‘I try to be a good example. If I fail, it is not for want of trying. I hope I have, on the whole, been a good example. But you must be the judge of that.'

‘You are not my father.'

‘No, I am not. But that does not disqualify me—does it?—from setting an example.'

The boy does not reply. In fact he loses interest, switches off, stares abstractedly out of the window (they are passing through the dreariest of neighbourhoods, block after block of boxlike little houses). A long silence falls.

‘Dmitri sounds like scimitar,' the boy says suddenly. ‘To chop off your head.' A pause. ‘I like him even if you don't. I want to go to the Academy.'

‘Dmitri has nothing to do with the Academy,' says Inés. ‘He is just a doorman. If you want to go to the Academy, if your mind
is set on it, you can go. But as soon as they start complaining that you are too clever for them and want to send you to psychologists and psychiatrists, I am taking you out at once.'

‘You don't have to be clever to dance,' says the boy. ‘When are we going to buy my dancing slippers?'

‘We will buy them now. Simón will drive us to the shoe shop right now, to the address the lady gave us.'

‘Do you hate her too?' says the boy.

Now it is Inés's turn to stare out of the window.

‘I like her,' says the boy. ‘She is pretty. She is prettier than you.'

‘You should learn to judge people by their inner qualities,' says he, Simón. ‘Not just by whether they are pretty or not. Or whether they have a beard.'

‘What are inner qualities?'

‘Inner qualities are qualities like kindness and honesty and a sense of justice. You must surely have read about them in
Don Quixote
. There are a multitude of inner qualities, more than I can name off the top of my head, you would have to be a philosopher to know the whole list, but prettiness is not an inner quality. Your mother is just as pretty as señora Arroyo, only in a different way.'

‘Señora Arroyo is kind.'

‘Yes, I agree, she seems kind. She seemed to take a liking to you.'

‘So she has inner qualities.'

‘Yes, David, she is kind as well as being pretty. But prettiness and kindness are not connected. Being pretty is an accident, a matter of luck. We can be born pretty or we can be born plain, we have no say in it. Whereas being kind is not an accident. We
are not born kind. We learn to be kind. We become kind. That is the difference.'

‘Dmitri has inner qualities too.'

‘Dmitri may well have inner qualities, I may have been too hasty in judging him, I concede that point. I simply didn't observe any of his inner qualities, not today. They were not on display.'

‘Dmitri is kind. What does
estimable
mean? Why did he say
the estimable Ana Magdalena
?'

‘Estimable. You must surely have come across the word in
Don Quixote
. To esteem someone is to respect and honour him or her. However, Dmitri was using the word ironically. He was making a kind of joke.
Estimable
is a word that is usually applied to older people, not to someone of señora Arroyo's age. For instance, if I called you
estimable young David
it would sound funny.'

‘
Estimable old Simón
. That's funny too.'

‘If you say so.'

Dancing slippers, as it turns out, come in only two colours, gold and silver. The boy refuses both.

‘Is it for señor Arroyo's Academy?' the shop assistant asks.

‘Yes.'

‘All the children at the Academy are outfitted with our slippers,' says the assistant. ‘All of them wear either gold or silver, without exception. If you turn up wearing black slippers or white slippers, young man, you will get very strange looks indeed.'

The assistant is a tall, stooping man with a moustache so thin it might be drawn on his lip in charcoal.

‘Do you hear the gentleman, David?' says he, Simón. ‘It's gold or silver or dancing in your socks. Which is it to be?'

‘Gold,' says the boy.

‘Gold it is,' he tells the assistant. ‘How much?'

‘Forty-nine
reales
,' says the assistant. ‘Let him try on this pair for size.'

He glances at Inés. Inés shakes her head. ‘Forty-nine
reales
for a child's slippers,' she says. ‘How can you charge such a price?'

‘They are made of kidskin. They are not ordinary slippers. They are designed for dancers. They have built-in support for the arch.'

‘Forty
reales
,' says Inés.

The man shakes his head. ‘Very well, forty-nine,' he, Simón, says.

The man seats the boy, removes his shoes, slides the dancing slippers onto his feet. They fit snugly. He pays the man his forty-nine
reales
. The man packs the slippers in their box and gives the box to Inés. In silence they leave the shop.

‘Can I carry them?' says the boy. ‘Did they cost a lot of money?'

‘A lot of money for a pair of slippers,' says Inés.

‘But is it a lot of money?'

He waits for Inés to reply, but she is silent. ‘There is no such thing as a lot of money in itself,' he says patiently. ‘Forty-nine
reales
is a lot of money for a pair of slippers. On the other hand, forty-nine
reales
would not be a lot of money for a car or a house. Water costs almost nothing here in Estrella, whereas if you were in the desert, dying of thirst, you would give everything you owned for just a sip of water.'

‘Why?' says the boy.

‘Why? Because staying alive is more important than anything else.'

‘Why is staying alive more important than anything?'

He is about to answer, about to produce the correct, patient, educative words, when something wells up inside him. Anger? No. Irritation? No: more than that. Despair? Perhaps: despair in one of its minor forms. Why? Because he would like to believe he is guiding the child through the maze of the moral life when, correctly, patiently, he answers his unceasing
Why
questions. But where is there any evidence that the child absorbs his guidance or even hears what he says?

He stops where he is on the busy footpath. Inés and the boy stop too, and stare at him in puzzlement. ‘Think of it in this way,' he says. ‘We are tramping through the desert, you and Inés and I. You tell me you are thirsty and I offer you a glass of water. Instead of drinking the water you pour it out in the sand. You say you thirst for answers:
Why this? Why that?
I, because I am patient, because I love you, offer you an answer each time, which you pour away in the sand. Today, at last, I am tired of offering you water.
Why is staying alive important?
If life does not seem important to you, so be it.'