2085

by Alejandro Volnié

  The support received from community members had exceeded even his highest expectations. He had been subject to the generosity of many, who had provided according to each one’s possibilities. His life plan was beginning to take shape.

  A group of young students who were in their summer vacation had offered to help, contributing with their labor.

  Among them was a boy, around 16, to whom he was becoming especially attached. He could not help it. He remembered him his own youth. Besides having some physical resemblance to him, watching his ways and his attitude before every situation carried him back to those years of his adolescence, when having left behind the shyness that had characterized his childhood he had become a cheerful self-assured lad. He knew him only by his nickname; Ax.

  The young brigade used to show at about nine o’clock on two rickety vehicles, and would normally depart shortly after five in the afternoon.

  34

  Two weeks had gone by and the colossal task of remaking the house was looking somewhat advanced. They have planned for this this day to apply varnish on the newly renovated wooden floor of two bedrooms, but time had run inadvertently. When the time to leave came, the task was still unfinished.

  Along with two other boys, Ax volunteered to stay a while and help him finish the job, which would take them about another hour. In return, he should take them back and drop each one at his house, which would not represent a major inconvenience as he had to go back to the village to spend the night in the house where he was still staying.

  On their way back to town, Ax and he were talking casually.

  “With whom do you live?”

  “With my mother,” said the boy. “She came here a few months before I was born, so I never knew my father.”

  “And what does she do?”

  “She has been an art teacher in the middle school we all attend. She is well known in this place.”

  “You mean that she is a refugee?”

  “As many others around here. I have been told that this population hardly appeared on the maps until 25 years ago, when the first group of refugees arrived. In those days it was very common that people came here escaping from the life they had been forced into in other places. As those who were not used to their ways did not like them because they considered them to be of dubious moral qualities, the refugees finally sought a quiet place to settle down. Since then our town has become the handiest refuge for those who arrive, and we have developed a hospitable attitude toward them in appreciation of all having been helped in our time. And I consider myself one of them because when my mother got here she already was pregnant with me.”

  “I understand. And what do you know about your father?”

  “My mother tells me that she escaped one day because he wanted to force her to replicate while she was carrying me in her womb. She fled even though my father did not know about her pregnancy. If she had replicated, I would not exist. For many years she expected him to follow her. She was convinced that he would come looking for her, to the point that she never married again and she has hardly held any sentimental relationship with a man since then, even though I have encouraged her many times to put an end to her loneliness. It worries me that next year, when I leave for college, she will stay all alone.”

  They were silent for a moment. The memory of Lucy, whom he had forced to replicate the second time, had saddened him. If only he had known then what he knew now they too would probably had become refugees at that time. But the damage was done and now Lucy was living in a world completely apart from his, along with a fake character, who despite having been copied from him had nothing in common with his renewed self and the new way he looked at life.

  The silence into which he had fallen and the sad expression on his face prompted Ax to ask:

  “We never question those arriving about their pasts, but I see that something has saddened you, what happens?”

  “Memories, just the painful memories of my past mistakes that reach me from time to time. It is nothing at all.”

  They had come to the house of the first one of the boys. He got out of the car after casually saying goodbye and pushed the door of the vehicle with excessive force, making it slam.

  The passenger on the backseat let his voice be heard:

  “I’ll stay two blocks ahead, at the yellow house.”

  A minute later they were alone in the car. Then he asked Ax:

  “Where will I leave you?”

  “Near here. You must turn right at the next intersection and move two blocks ahead.”

  “Got it.”

  “I was thinking,” Ax went on, “I have been talking about my mother all the way. Would you like to meet her?”

  “Maybe some other time. Now it is late. I don’t think she will want to have visitors at this time.”

  “Come on!” he insisted. “She will want to know for whom I have been working these days. Besides, right now she must be preparing dinner. I don’t think it would be a problem I you only go to the door to say hello.”

  “Don’t you think that my visit would seem her unwise?”

  “No. She will surely be glad to know you. She is a people person.”

  “Well, but please do not insist that I come in.”

  “Alright.”

  A minute later the car had stopped at the boy’s house. The got off to reach the front door.

  Ax did not keep his word. As he opened the door he began to push his visitor in the back, forcing him to stand inside the hall despite his loud protests while he screamed:

  “Mom! We have a guest for dinner!”

  From the top floor the distant voice of his mother answered:

  “I’ll be down right away.”

  “Sit down a moment. She’ll be here in a minute.”

  “We had agreed that you would not make come in. You make me be ashamed.”

  “In this town we visit without many formalities. I assure you my mother will be happy to receive you.”

  “Yet!” he disapproved as a last answer.

  The house was nice. While not luxurious in any way, it had some warm air that made the visitors feel relaxed. From the kitchen a pleasant aroma arose announcing that dinner was ready. The response of his stomach was immediate.

  The cold lunch he had had earlier this day now was history. The expectation of proving some good homemade cooking now was appealing. In the end he would not regret having come here.

  A few minutes later the woman’s footsteps echoed on the wooden steps as she was descending the upper part of the stairway, which was partially hidden by the roof of the room.

  “Who have you brought this time?” the mother was heard.

  Her voice made him stand up with a jump while the rhythm of his heartbeat had risen to the limit.

  “He’s the man who arrived a few days ago. I want you to meet him,” said Ax.

  The guest’s gaze was now fixed on the staircase, where the legs of the hostess had already become in sight as she was slowly coming from the upper floor.

  Time seemed to have stopped. He knew this could not be true; however, he could not control the reaction that the voice just heard had triggered in his systems. He was feeling his chest about to burst.

  The figure of the woman was revealing little by little after each step. Each moment had become an eternity, and the end did not come.

  One more step and her face finally appeared.

  He felt his eyes coming out of their orbits. From the bottom of his stomach a question came hesitantly:

  “Lucy?”

  She stopped, her eyes staring at his.

  For a moment she stood still, until she finally managed to answer:

  “Is it you?”

  “Lucy?” he repeated, now with a firmer voice.

  “Is it really you?” she insisted.

  Both of them stood stunned, looking at each other without even blinking, until she ran and hugged him.

  Ax was perplexed. He could not understand what was going on, bu
t he could see that both had gathered in an embrace that seemed endless. Words had left them.

  “I knew you would come. I always knew,” she said without loosening the tight squeeze even for a moment. You are exactly the same as when I left; however, I have become old.”

  “Lucy,” he answered. “I did not know you had fled. As soon as you left they replicated you without telling me. I am just coming to know it,” he added.

  “It was so hard,” she went on, “but let me introduce to you the reason for my disappearance.”

  She finally came out of the hug, and squeezing tightly her man’s hand she walked a few steps to face the boy. Then, with a radiant voice she announced:

  “Meet your son. I have named him after you: Axel Leniov.”