The Big Book of Modern Fantasy

by The Big Book of Modern Fantasy (retail) (epub)

  “How dare you?” she shouted. “Don’t we give you an education, a home, food, so you’re not in the street? This is what you use your artist’s hands for, to write trash and then hide the sheet who knows where?” I wanted to answer back that I had stuck the sheet in my natural sciences book, because “who knows where” referred to a horrible place, imprecise, hidden, if it came out of her mouth, but she didn’t let me speak. “Quiet. Quiet! That’s why you’re here, to be quiet and let me speak, because even Queta got a ten on this exercise, but not you, you who are so smart? Don’t think you’re going to get away with flunking on me ever again. You’re going to stay right where you are, standing there, where I can see you…”

  I don’t know what got into me, I don’t, I swear, I just started to run and rushed out of the room.

  “Heriberto!” my grandmother shouted. “Come here, Heriberto!”

  And I thought that I couldn’t bear it for her to see me, and without stopping to run I covered my eyes. As I ran into the yard (it was the only thing I could think to do) I tripped on the steps, fell to the floor and hit my head. I wanted to cry out, but I held it in, curled into a silent ball on the floor. And I didn’t uncover my eyes as I kept hearing my grandmother’s voice, calling me.

  “Where are you, Heriberto?” she said a few times. “Ay, Heriberto…Heriberto!”

  After a moment I heard her pass beside me, heard her approach then move away, all without stopping. Without feeling a sudden yank of my ears or a pinch. I discovered that the pain continued, and suddenly I no longer knew if I was lying one way or the other, which way my head was pointing, which way my feet, but I continued without speaking nor being discovered.

  She came back and then left, came back and left; I don’t know how many times. And suddenly, while the pain started to fade, I realized (that’s the only way to say it: I realized) that she couldn’t see me.

  “Heriberto!”

  When I covered my eyes (that’s what I thought, that’s what I assumed) I became invisible.

  I wanted to test this theory, and took my hands away from my face and right away I saw her next to me. She grabbed me by my ear, pulled me to my feet and dragged me after her to her room, where she gave me a thrashing in front of Queta, who was in the same room as me and who had given me away. I didn’t like for her to then give her a beating, for being a tattle tale, but I didn’t care very much either, because I had a secret.

  * * *

  —

  After that day I waited a long time: weeks, months, I don’t remember, but at last I dared. I went out into the yard so as not to bump into anyone, closed my eyes and placed my hands over my eyelids. I stopped seeing, of course, and I remained there for a while, without doing anything else. But then I shouted: “Mamá!”

  “Beto?” I heard, in the distance. “Where are you, Beto?”

  I didn’t say anything more and soon I heard her footsteps, going away and coming back, and more voices, “Beto? Where are you, sweetie?”

  I hesitated, at one point, and even thought of showing myself, but just then I heard other footsteps and Queta’s voice, which said, “I’m in the yard, Mamá, Beto isn’t here!” and then, softer, “Fool.”

  She always said “fool” to me, even if my grandmother was nearby, but I knew she was mad: she couldn’t see me either! Her footsteps went away, then came back, and her voice murmurred: “Numbskull.”

  And then again she left, and came back, and she muttered: “Idiot.”

  And the third time, one of those words that adults used: “Imbecile!”

  I laughed, and revealed myself, and called her. She was about to go into the house, she looked back at me, her face betraying her annoyance. I started to dance and sing around her.

  “Nyah, nyah!” I said to her, and laughed, enormous cackles. She wanted to shout even louder, to drown my voice with her own, but in the end she gave up and began to cry. “Nyah nyah, nyah nyah.”

  My aunt Laura, her mother, came with my grandmother right when Queta launched herself at me and said the most horrible thing anyone had ever said to me:

  “You jerk off!” she shouted, and my aunt Laura turned pale, and my grandmother red.

  * * *

  —

  From then on, I started to use my discovery (I called it “my power”) more and more often, especially to escape from berating or chores I didn’t like. I kept putting cream on my grandmother, because that was one thing I couldn’t and shouldn’t avoid in any way, but many other things: going to the store, sitting down to watch soccer, helping one of my uncles clean the cars, all that I avoided by covering my eyes. Sometimes I went to the yard, where I could walk a bit, forward and backward. Other times, if I wanted to be more comfortable, I remained seated in the space under the stairs, where people passed right beside me without realizing it, or in my room, lying down. Sometimes I fell asleep without becoming visible again.

  One day, I shared my secret with Queta; we had already forgiven one another, and besides, I had thought it would make her really jealous. We were in the kitchen, because one of her chores was to wash the plates after each meal.

  “Yeah right,” she said, and she laughed. I covered my eyes and disappeared. “Oh, he’s went away! Where is he? How scary,” and I had to hold in my laughter, but in the end I couldn’t stand it anymore.

  “Did you see that, blabbermouth?”

  “Yes, Beto, I did.” she said, without stopping her washing. “Beto? Anything you do they’re going to blame me.” And when she could see me once more I saw the relief on her face.

  After a while, the novelty wore off, because I was realizing the inconveniences of being invisible. Because I couldn’t see, it was difficult for me to walk or do things, and I sometimes thought that being invisible also turned me into a sort of ghost, because people didn’t bump into me, but I wasn’t entirely sure. I always took care to be in empty places and, to tell the truth, I was afraid to be wrong.

  (For example, I thought, what would happen if one day my cousins Julio and Héctor were to trample over me, because they were always running everywhere and both of them were equally fat and brutish? Or perhaps my uncle Pablo had one of those attacks he had almost every day, and I couldn’t get out of the way like everyone else and he hit me without realizing it?)

  But in the end, my curiosity won. One day, a little before lunch time, I went out into the street on any old excuse and on the sidewalk, I covered my eyes.

  I stood there for a moment, while I heard the voice of my aunt Judith calling different cousins of mine and then calling me. Then I took a step, and another, and around me there were people, the footsteps of those coming and going could be heard, but nobody touched me.

  I kept walking. I had to force myself to not say anything. I felt very strange, but also full of a kind of joy I had never felt before. I was different from everyone else, from the people at home and outside, and could barely contain my urge to tell them, to shout it out: to boast of being able to do that which no one else could…

  Then a voice said: “Careful, you’ve already reached the corner.”

  I was so frightened that I uncovered my eyes and yes, I was already near the corner. But there was nobody around me. I looked back, I looked to one side and then the other, and the only people I could see were far away, on the other side of the street.

  I covered my eyes again and the voice said, “See? I was right.”

  “Where are you?” I asked aloud, nervous. “What’s your name?”

  “That’s not necessary,” said the voice, which was that of a girl, very like Queta’s. “Don’t open your mouth. Say the words without separating your lips, just moving your tongue, without raising your voice. We can understand each other that way.”

  As a test, I did as she’d instructed and said, “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure,” the voice answered. “My name
is Pai and I live on this side. What’s your name?”

  I told her and she laughed. “Heriberto, how strange.”

  “Yeah, right. As if your name was lovely. Pai, you sound like a pastry.”

  “I like it,” Pai said. “But come on, don’t get mad. Then Mogo will come and we can’t talk any more.”

  “Who?”

  “You’re from the other side, right?”

  I got angry. “What do you mean the other side? You twit. I’m very much a guy.”

  “No…I meant, you’re from the side of the people who see.”

  “What?”

  She was the one who explained it to me, of course, that there are two sides: that of those who have their eyes open, and the other one. They’re like different worlds, she told me, although they’re one on top of the other, and it was very strange for someone with open eyes to be able to learn about the other because they needed the power of invisibility.

  “In reality, it’s as if you changed…”

  “Changed dimension?” I already knew the word, of course, and for a long time now.

  “Exactly!” Pai said, and she also told me, “It’s not necessary to cover your eyes with your hands.” I took them away from my face without opening my eyes. And she was right, nothing happened. “It’s enough for you to keep them closed tight and everything’s fine, you see?”

  “No,” I told her. “I don’t see.” And both of us laughed, and I think it was in that moment that we became friends.

  Since then, I looked for any excuse to go out to the street and find her. I knew that she lived in a house two streets down from me, without its visible inhabitants realizing.

  “They don’t see you or hear you?”

  “No.”

  “Why do they hear me in my house?”

  “Because you are from that world, silly.”

  “But I have the power…”

  “But it’s different.”

  “But why?”

  “I don’t know. Mogo says he knows but he doesn’t want to tell me.”

  “Who is Mogo?”

  “Come on, let’s take a walk.”

  At first I was afraid. “A walk?”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I need to get home…I’m going to get in trouble…”

  “Come on,” she told me. “Don’t you want to come? Are you afraid?”

  “Afraid of what?” I replied.

  “I don’t know, maybe that we don’t see, no?”

  “I’m not afraid of that…” I lied, and I went with her.

  Since Pai came from the invisible world, it was as if she were always blind, but it turned out she knew how to move very well: she oriented herself by sound, by touch, and even by smell like dogs do, and she knew where everything was for a few blocks around her house. When she had decided where we should go, she walked quickly, sometimes she even ran. Then she took me by the hand.

  “How smooth the skin is.”

  “My Mamá says I have artist’s hands,” I answered, but instead of saying more about my hands, she pulled and away we went. We crossed the street and nobody ran us over. Many hours passed and nobody stopped us, nobody said anything to us.

  With Pai I had fun like never before: being invisible, we could take sweets or bags of chips from the shop without paying a cent; we could walk in front of anyone and play tricks; we could go everywhere. Sometimes we went into a movie theater that was near our house and I recounted the film to her, as I watched it on and off. Other times I invited her home, to my favorite places, and we talked for a long time.

  Once, sitting with her, my grandmother called me to go put cream on her.

  “Don’t go doing anything there, OK?” I asked her, and she waited, seated on a chair in the room (from time to time I closed my eyes and she told me “I’m still here” or something like that), while I did my chore. And it was something that should be done very slowly: stick a finger in the jar, take just a smidgen of cream, place it on the skin and rub it in until it disappeared, very slowly, without any brusque movements or scratches. And again, as often as needed, until my grandmother’s entire face shone and everything smelled of perfume…

  “Beto,” my grandmother said that time, “you have me worried. Have you behaved yourself?”

  “Yes, Mamá, of course.”

  “You’ve done nothing bad? You’re not hiding anything from me?”

  I was about to tell her, because she was staring at me with a very severe look, but in the end I could tell her, “No, Mamá.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, Mamá.”

  “You know I need to punish you, but it’s because I love you dearly.”

  “Yes, Mamá.”

  “Oh, that feels so good…You know that you can’t have any secrets from me, right?”

  That frightened me even more, but since she had her eyes closed (she loved for me to put cream on her entire face) I could become invisible again without her realizing, and Pai said to me, “You can’t tell her! She’s like Mogo, do you understand? She loves you but…”

  And then I didn’t dare remain with my eyes closed and I opened mine, just in time to see my grandmother open hers.

  “What happened? You’re not done yet.”

  * * *

  —

  And another time we were in the yard, near Queta, who held the rope so some of my cousins could skip, and I asked her, “Pai, then you’ve never seen…anything? Not anything at all?”

  “The way you do, no,” she said. “For me it’s different.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know, I can’t explain it.”

  “Do you see in black and white like dogs do, instead of in color?”

  “I don’t know what that is, color. What is it?”

  I thought for a while and couldn’t think of anything to explain it to her, so I opened my eyes to become visible and asked Queta, “Hey, do you know what colors are like?”

  “What?” Queta replied

  “Yes, do you know what they are?”

  “You’re crazy,” said Luisa, my older sister.

  “Queta, the rope!” my cousin Hortensia ordered.

  “And you shut up, moron,” my cousin Sol ordered. “Better for you to just keep…” and a few of them laughed, and my question was left unresolved.

  “Twits,” I said, and turned invisible again. “Now do you believe me,” I asked Pai, “that they’re just twits?”

  “They’re not so bad,” she answered. “It’s because you’re a boy so you don’t like them. But I think they’d like me. Don’t you think they’d like me?”

  I felt very angry. “So not just I can talk, touch and be with you?”

  “Mogo says that there are ways to speak and touch other people,” she answered, “but that I shouldn’t try to.” And from her voice, I knew that she was sad. When that happened to her, at least to me, she sounded even worse than I did, or Queta, or my uncle Carlos who was always depressed: almost as bad as my grandmother. I thought that it was because Pai didn’t like to talk about that Mogo, who seemed to me as if he must be her brother or father, and so I should change the subject. For example, “Hey, why did you talk to me that time?”

  Pai answered, “Because I had the impression that you felt very lonely…”

  I hadn’t thought about it, but it was the truth and I said so.

  “How did you know?”

  “The world on this side is different but not that much. I know what it’s like.”

  “What? Being alone?”

  “I also feel lonely. Since Mogo is almost always away traveling, the truth is that when you go away I don’t have anyone to talk to. In fact, sometimes I don’t understand why you feel lonely…Isn’t it true what you tell me that there is always someone here in
your house?”

  I didn’t want to explain to her what always being with someone else was like and preferred to give her a hug. With one hand I sought out her face (I’d gotten used to doing that, to thereby know what mood she was in) and my fingers touched her tears.

  “Beto!” said Queta, who (I suppose) had just realized that I had disappeared.

  “You’re crazy!” Luisa said once more.

  I also felt like crying and felt there was no reason to hold back. I caressed her cheek. She hugged me, and caressed me back, and we were quiet for a long time.

  * * *

  —

  One day, my grandmother and my mother called me, made me put on my fancy sweater (which itched and I didn’t like it) and the three of us went out.

  “Where are we going?” I asked them.

  “To the doctor,” my mother said.

  “Be quiet, Carlota,” my grandmother interrupted her, and I thought we must be going to the dentist. But the doctor was one I’d never seen before, who didn’t wear a white coat and was seated behind a desk. He had diplomas hung on the walls, like other doctors, but he also had a black bed (a divan, he said) and he asked me to lie down on it. I obeyed.

  “Do you know why your mother and grandmother have brought you here?” he asked me.

  I felt strange not being able to see him, because he remained seated behind his desk and I would have had to twist around a lot just to see him out of the corner of my eye. “No,” I answered him.

  “They tell me,” the doctor began, “that from time to time you cover your eyes and, according to you…”

  I didn’t hear the rest. Or better said, I heard it, but I barely understood what he was saying because it seemed to me as if the doctor’s voice was falling away, farther and farther, as if he’d only left his face there, his body from the other side of the desk.

  “Is it true what they tell me?”

  I couldn’t answer. I felt cold. I suddenly thought that only Queta, in the whole house, knew of my power, and I was furious. I thought that I needed to do something to her, to bother her while invisible. To beat her up. But fear won over my anger. The doctor spoke some more but I don’t remember what he said. From that time (I don’t know how long it was) the only thing I can remember now is the ceiling of his office, my mother’s face appearing as if in the distance, that of my grandmother which appeared as well and remained watching me. She also took my hand, or cried into a Kleenex.