The World's Game

by Jacobo Izquierdo

  “I know nothing about constructing.”

  “You don’t need to. The construction will be carried out automatically by the intelligent platforms that will be previously programed and will take each stone block to its correspondent place. The workers will be in charge of cutting them. If you want, you can ask the residents of the inhabited planets for help. Once finished the first pyramid, you’ll see how the others take you less time.”

  “When will I start the mission?” He asked saddened.

  “Grias and his team have started to modify the ten thousand cabins. They calculate they will be ready to be installed in six months. Don’t take this task as a punishment but as part of the preparation to become a leader.”

  “I promise to do my best to do the job,” he said raising his head proudly. “Which planet shall I start by? Racot?”

  “No!” He answered sharply. “I’ll take care of Racot and its satellite myself.”

  «I don’t have much time. I have to find the reason why grandpa started to hate racots.» Suddenly, the vision turned black and Palac got back to the beginning: that magical place full of memories floating in the environment. Each of them showed a small image of the place where it had taken place. Interesting stories, epic battles, big discoveries and a peculiar character’s extraordinary experiences. He raised his eyes and saw that in one of them it appeared his own body. It was static and leaning on the cylinder. «That must be the exit» As he had guessed, he selected that option and went back inside the Golden Pyramid.

  Chapter 18

  The days went by and their friendship was turning closer and more truly. Nothing remained of the mutual hate they felt for each other when they first met at the cafeteria. They called each other daily. Margaret went to the library to study on every opportunity she had and they chatted. The librarian’s withdrawn behavior was starting to change. The golden-haired girl made him feel confident, and that was something he needed. By her side, he felt at ease and happy.

  One Sunday morning, after finishing watering some plants, Josef sat in the kitchen to have breakfast. Something caught his attention and he stood up. He walked up to the washing machine and saw a tiny piece of graph paper under it. «What’s this?» He asked himself as he picked it up. The paper had written on it Henry’s number and address. He was that old friend of his grandfather who had been recently rescued by his memory. For several minutes, he held it in his hands. «You can come to see me whenever you want,» the old man had told him. «I must have dropped it when I washed the clothes.» With decision, he took he telephone and started to dial his number.

  “Hello,” answered a hoarse voice.

  “Hello. Henry?” He asked nervously.

  “Yes,” he cleared his voice. “Who is it?”

  “It’s me, Josef. Are you at home?”

  “Yes. I was dressing,” he lied.

  “I hope I haven’t woken you up,” Josef said knowing he had actually done so.

  “No… don’t worry. I get up early on Sundays,” he lied again.

  “Can I visit you?”

  “I’ll be waiting for you right here.”

  The old man hanged up without waiting for him to answer. Josef got into the car, indicated the address and twenty minutes later he was in front of the house. A white wooden strip fence did not let see inside it. He rang the bell. As he had no answer, he pressed a second, a third and even a fourth time. «Why doesn’t he open?» Tired of waiting, he took the telephone and called him.

  “What happens?” The old man asked with a livelier voice.

  “Are you at home?” He asked as he rang the bell once more.

  “Of course I am. Where would I be otherwise?”

  Josef shrugged.

  “I’m outside your house ringing the bell.”

  “I haven’t heard it. I’ll come out right now.”

  The door opened. The old man was dressed in a smart black suit and a white shirt.

  «Is he dressed like this to be at home?»

  “Hello, Josef,” Henry said stretching his hand. “Sorry for having made you wait. I’m a bit deaf and I don’t use the hearing aid at home.”

  “You should use it,” Josef answered. “Anyone could break into and you wouldn’t even notice it.”

  “That’s what my kids tell me, but it’s a mania I have and I can’t correct it. You know, manias are not healed by the doctor,” he smiled showing a cinnamon color denture.

  The old man invited him to come in. A wide green sea surrounded the house completely. Some small plants embellished the main entrance, offering a great variety of pleasant fragrances. The house was painted in white and the shingles in dark grey. Josef observed carefully all the details around him. «I think I’ve already been here.» They got to the base of the porch, but just before going up the steps in front of him, the old man stopped.

  “Do you remember when you ran around here?”

  The librarian shook his head no. Despite being sure of having been in that house before, he did not manage to remember anything. Henry raised his forefinger and started to retrace his steps.

  “I’ve got it!” The old man got out of the path. “I’m sure there’s something in this house that you remember.”

  The young man said nothing. He just followed the old man’s steps, surrounding the house towards its back part. When he was about to get to it, he asked him to close his eyes and guided him holding his shoulders. «I don’t like this kind of games.»

  “You can open them,” Henry said with tenderness.

  Two metallic swings were being gently moved by the morning breeze. One was red and the other was blue. The bars that formed the support structure were painted in yellow. A paint layer every two years have perfectly preserved them from rust and wear and tear. Josef’s face fulfilled with illusion. Those old swings had just awoken his oldest memories.

  “Push me harder, grandpa. I want to touch the sky!”

  Mike pushed his grandson softly. Henry, sitting on the other swing, laughed at the little boy’s demands.

  “No matter how hard I push you, I don’t think you’ll touch the sky. One day, when you’re an astronaut, you’ll touch it.”

  “Have you touched the sky?” He asked surprised.

  “I didn’t mean touching the sky literally.” His grandpa did not know how to get out of such crossroads. “I meant…” he hesitated, “… seeing the Earth from outer space. From up there everything looks different.”

  “One day I’ll be up there.”

  “Do you remember this house now?” Henry asked.

  Josef came back from his dreaminess. «One day I’ll be up there,» he thought with frustration. His grandfather’s death changed his future. Sometimes we wondered what it would have happened if he had not died. «Would he be an astronaut now? Would he form part of a planetary colony?» H wondered time and again.

  “Do you remember or not?”

  “Yes, of course I remember,” he said after remaining in silence for some seconds trying to assimilate so many memories that came to his mind like huge waves of the North Sea.

  “I still keep them because of my grandchildren,” he made a slight grimace, “but to tell the truth… they never come to see me. Do you think I should take them away? After all, no one uses them.”

  “No, don’t do it. How’s that that they never come to see you?”

  “They’re too busy,” he answered ironically. “My sons and daughters only remember me in their friends’ meetings. «My father was an astronaut!» They say with proud. What their friends don’t know is that we see each other twice a year. May be once a year,” he added tightening his lips.

  Josef walked on the grass until he reached the swings. His hand rolled down the cold triangle that supported them. He surrounded the structure and stopped in front of the one on the left, the red one. He kneeled down to hold the seat with his hands and he lifted it enough so that the chain allowed him to turn it upside down.

  “What are you looking for, Josef?” Henr
y, who had walked to his spot, asked.

  The young man did not answer. His look was nailed to the red seat base.

  “It’s still marked,” he said in a faltering voice. His eyes were wet.

  JOSEF’S SWING

  This could be read at the top part with uneven calligraphy. Just below it and with a more delicate and accurate calligraphy, there was another inscription.

  YOUR GRANDPA WILL ALWAYS BE BY YOUR SIDE TO PUSH YOU

  Josef got up from the ground. Henry settled on the blue one.

  “I’m very happy to see you again in this house,” the old man said visibly touched. “You can’t imagine the amount of kilometers you’ve done here. You wouldn’t stop. You ran everywhere around without stopping a second.”

  The librarian showed a forced smile.

  “Your grandfather didn’t stop nagging you. This is not your house, you have to behave yourself, he used to tell you. Do you know what I answered him?”

  Josef shook his head.

  “Mike, I consider you my brother and you consider your grandson as your son, so he’s my nephew. He can do whatever he wants, because this is also his house.”

  «If you considered me your nephew, why didn’t you take care of me?» He would have liked to ask him, but he contained himself. He did not want to spoil the reunion.

  “Maybe you’re thinking that I didn’t want to keep you when your grandfather died, but things weren’t like that. I asked to become your legal guardian, but I was denied it for not having blind kinship with you,” he lamented looking at the sky with soaked eyes.

  “I can imagine you did everything possible to gain my custody,” Josef said diverting his look to avoid meeting the old man’s.

  Henry, who continued looking at the sky hypnotized, did not realize about that lie.

  “What has your life been since then?”

  «A constant struggle to survive.»

  “My grandpa’s death was a hard blow. He was the pillar that supported my life, my motivation for studying, for learning, for everything,” the tears interrupted the conversation for an instant. “I still remember the first day at the reception center with anguish.”

  “What’s your name?” A lanky boy asked.

  “Josef,” he answered fearful.

  In the room, four kids of about his age slept together. The decoration was quite simple, a painting showed a summer landscape and blue old curtains were the only element that dressed that dull room.

  “This is your bed,” the woman in charge of the center said kindly.

  “Have you also been abandoned by your parents?” Another boy lying on his bed and holding a book asked.

  Josef didn’t answer.

  “Did your father use to hit you?” The third boy asked smiling. “I’m here because my dad hit me a lot.”

  Henry clapped his hands and made the young man get out from such perturbing thought.

  “What was that place like?”

  “It was a cold, sad, dark place. The fondness and affection demonstrations simply did not exist,” his eyes showed panic at the sole memory of that. “After having been some months there, when I was getting used to my new life, the people responsible of the center conceded me an interview with a family. I acted following the recommendations of some of the kids. «Smile a lot and show good manners.» That allowed me to be accepted. They lived in California and had three children: twin girls of seven years old and a boy, intellectually gifted, by the way, of ten years old.”

  “So I happened to have been informed correctly. Did you move to California?”

  “Yes. At the beginning everything was perfect. As it was a very religious family, they constantly showed fondness and affection. The only bad thing,” he made a gesture of disapproval, “they obliged me to go to Mass every Sunday.”

  “And what happened?”

  “The first months there were very good. The affinity I had with the boy was unbelievable. We slept in the same room and we were always together. But everything changed overnight. The school headmaster came to our house one day and informed his parents about the extraordinary mental aptitudes of the boy. During that very same week, he had a test done to measure his intelligence quotient and the results were astonishing. A ten-year-old boy with a quotient of two hundred!!”

  Henry let out a choked shout. «A quotient like the one of Leonardo Da Vinci.»

  “A select group of experts who were in charge of evaluating him decided that he should start studying at the University of San Diego. That was great news for him, but his parents never assimilated that their little boy left home so early. «He’s only ten!» His heartbroken mother shouted. After their brother Steve departure, the twins took control of the house. They made life impossible for me and did not let their parents approach me. I considered Steve my elder brother. That one I never had and would’ve liked to. A month later I asked to voluntarily come back to the center.”

  “And did you have contact with that family since them?”

  The young man shook his head and wiped away his tears with the sleeve of his sweater.

  “The only one I still keep in touch with is Steve. We call each other once a week and I visit him in California from time to time. I love him as a brother and I think he feels the same for me. Last Christmas I spent some days in his house.”

  “Surely you have more contact with him than me with my sons, daughters and grandchildren,” Henry muttered. “I can imagine such a brilliant mind has a powerful job.”

  “You imagine well,” Josef answered smiling. When he talked about his brother, his mouth only spoke praises. “He studied medicine and he specialized in oncology. When he got his degree, he was full of offers from the main hospitals of the USA. All of which were rejected. He didn’t want to simply be a doctor, his aim was more ambitious. Finding the definite cure for cancer became his obsession. Nowadays, he works in a modern lab of the University of San Diego. He leads one of the most important investigation projects in the world. His life is focused on finding the drug that puts an end to such disease. This weekend is his wife’s birthday, so taking advantage of the fact that it’s a holiday, I’ll go and visit him.”

  “It’s wonderful that you’ve kept in touch with him and his family,” the old man got up from his seat. “How uncomfortable!”

  Both laughed.

  “What happened when you got back?”

  “During some years, I was determined not to go with another family. But life at the center was very boring and I thought that I would have to wait for too long until I was the legal age that would allow me to leave that place. So I decided to roll the dice with another family completely different from the first one. The man was a good guy, we worked as the commercial director in a multinational company and he earned a lot of money. The woman was always alone and spent her time sunbathing in the garden, reading cookery books and watching television. They lived in a large house, well, judging by its sized, it could well have been called a mansion. They didn’t have any children, according to what the woman explained to me. Due to a tumor, she had had her matrix extirpated. For such reason, they had decided to adopt me. Her husband was never with us. He was always working and when he was back from his trips, he compensated his wife loneliness with expensive gifts and good vacations.”

  “That fixes everything,” Henry kidded.

  “The woman was enchanted,” Josef continued, “and I got used to her buying my affection with good presents. The relationship between them was a bit cold and distant. But due to some strange reason, when we attended some event, they wouldn’t stop repeating how much they loved each other, something that they never did at home. Every day, the woman obliged me to play baseball in the garden with one of those machines that constantly throw balls. According to her, that was for me to keep fit,” he added arching his eyebrows. “One fine day, her husband wanted to surprise her and came home a day before planned with a gorgeous red sports car that had bought for their anniversary. The good man asked me to be silent an
d got into the house to give her the surprise. And what a surprise he gave her!” He exclaimed laughing.

  Henry looked at him expectantly.

  He found her in more than a loving attitude with her best friend’s husband. My youth at the time didn’t allow me to become aware of the reality. Years later, I understood it all. That man visited us every day while I was playing baseball and they locked in the attic. She told me that they were making a ship of those which go inside a bottle. Her husband had a collection of hundreds of ships and she asked me to keep the secret since the one they were making was a unique piece. She forbade me to get into that room because she was afraid that I broke it.”

  “Sorry to interrupt you,” the old man said between laughs. “But did the ship exist?”

  “Yes. I managed to enter the attic without her seeing me, but to tell the truth, they never advanced in its construction.”

  “They got divorced, I imagine, didn’t they?”

  “No. After surprising his wife, the man started to shout and insult the woman. Some seconds later, he came downstairs and started to play baseball with me. Later, her best friend’s husband passed through the door and went across the whole garden until he left the house. Next, the crying woman asked us to come into the house. She said she felt very lonely and that it was the first time she was unfaithful. The man showed great understanding and forgave her. He simply asked her to promise him that she wouldn’t do that again. She did it and they kissed each other. They explained to me that what had happened was quite normal. That in order to consolidate their love, several couples needed to be unfaithful. Honestly, this episode provoked a change in the behavior of both of them. It seemed that they were fonder of each other. But my intuition showed me that that wasn’t the house where I had to live. I asked several times unsuccessfully to go back to the reception center. Finally, I chose to modify my conduct so as the woman asked me to go back to the center.”

  “Modifying your conduct?”

  “Yes. I acted as if I was insane. I broke objects around the house. I started shouting in the middle of the night and things like that. I even pissed on my pants while we were eating. All this ended up driving the poor lady mad.”