The Immortal Boy

by Francisco Montaña Ibáñez

  ANUELA HAD ALREADY sucked the four corners of her wool blanket and was getting started on the middle when someone burst in, almost breaking down the door. It was her brother Robert. His nose was bleeding, and one of his eyes was swollen shut. The little girl jumped out of her drawer and ran to look at him more closely.

  “What happened?” she asked, pointing at his face.

  “Some guys beat me up,” Robert muttered. “I didn’t do anything, but they jumped me.”

  He dropped his hand from his nose. It spouted a thick stream of blood.

  Manuela covered her face with her hands. “Robert, are you going to die?”

  “I don’t know,” Robert confessed, pinching his nose again. “Bring me a rag.”

  The girl dropped her damp blanket and found a rag next to the pots.

  “Get it wet,” Robert instructed. The girl obeyed. He took it from her and held it to his eye.

  “Ah, better,” he said, relieved.

  “You’re not going to die now?” asked Manuela.

  “I don’t know,” Robert repeated. Stumbling, he made his way outside to the sink and thrust his head under the open faucet. “But I’m not going back to school.”

  “Then I can go instead,” said his sister behind him. “I don’t want to stay here alone.” She picked up a eucalyptus seed and threw it at a sky blocked by the leafy branches of trees, in the same pointless way her older brothers always did.

  “Sure. You go right ahead. See if they don’t smash your face in too,” Robert challenged her, smoothing his wet hair and squeezing his nose with the rag.

  Offended, Manuela went back inside, picked up her blanket, and started sucking again. She stared at Robert, not knowing what to do with him when he staggered through the door, sniffing loudly.

  “Oh, Manuela, don’t look at me like that. Nobody’s going to touch you. If they do, you come tell me. I’m going to train with this one guy, and then those jerks will learn just who Robert is. Sound good?”

  The girl nodded while still sucking the blanket.

  “So you’re not going to die?” she asked after a while. Her brother had sat down on one of the beds.

  “No, I don’t think so,” he replied. He checked and found his nosebleed had stopped. He pressed the damp rag against his face. “But I can’t see anything out of this eye; maybe I’m going blind?”

  Manuela walked over and looked at him. His eyelid was mottled and red. At the corner there was a blood clot, and the swelling kept him from opening it. But Manuela saw that, under all that mess, his eye twitched about like a healthy animal.

  “Don’t worry, Robert. That’ll go away.” She offered him one edge of her wet blanket. The boy accepted it, and they sat together on the bed, waiting.

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, you’re not going back to school?” asked Hector.

  “If I go back, they’ll kill me,” Robert explained. “They warned me. Besides, it’s better I stay and take care of Manuela.”

  Manuela pressed tighter against his side. The two hadn’t moved in several hours.

  “Can I get some more?” David asked. He had finished his soup.

  “No. Robert still hasn’t served himself,” said Maria. “He has to eat something because with that beating—”

  “But I’m hungry,” David whined.

  “What are you going to eat?” Hector asked Robert. “If you don’t go back to school, what are you going to eat?”

  Robert looked at Maria, realized that his sister was thin and pale. His hands fell to the sides of his body as if he could no longer.

  “But I’m telling you they’ll beat me up again,” Robert complained.

  “I’ll protect you,” David offered. “Nobody messes with me, they know what’ll happen to them. Just point them out to me tomorrow, and I’ll take care of them.”

  Hector smiled and patted his head.

  “But give me your soup, yeah?” David added.

  Robert turned his head to look down at Manuela.

  She pushed him away and took back the blanket they had been sharing.

  WAS BORED WITH NOTHING to do, so suddenly I found myself in front of the psychologist’s office. It was time for her daily sessions, and three kids sat there waiting. None of them was the boy who’d saved me, but one was the girl who dug at her thigh. She saw me, lifted her skirt, and showed me a bandage covering the wound.

  “You don’t scratch anymore?” I asked.

  “Well, yeah, but it’s harder with the bandage, so I realize I’m pinching myself and I stop digging my nail in.”

  “Mind if I join you?” I asked her. She nodded, so I sat next to her and glanced at the other two boys who were silently waiting for their turn with the doctor.

  “What’s it like?” I asked, just to see who’d answer.

  The boys looked at each other and smiled.

  “Who’s in there right now?” I added, hoping it was him.

  “Julian,” said the younger boy. “The one who shoots all the time.”

  “His name is David,” the older boy corrected.

  “David?” I exclaimed excitedly as the girl began to pick the skin at the edge of the bandage.

  “Yeah, David. I mean, that’s what they say,” explained the younger boy. “Nobody really knows. He doesn’t speak to anybody.”

  “He arrived a little while ago,” the older boy confirmed. “Have you heard what kids keep saying about him?”

  I could pretty much guess what was coming, but I told him to go on.

  “That he’s immortal. Bullets don’t kill him,” the older boy revealed with a grin.

  “That’s why he doesn’t speak,” the younger boy said.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, confused.

  The girl and the older boy shrugged, but the little kid looked at me like there were letters scrawled all over my face. He motioned me closer.

  “Because if he speaks, he might reveal his secret,” he whispered in my ear.

  “What secret?” I murmured in his ear.

  “The secret of his immortality . . .”

  The boy pulled away and looked at me, all serious.

  “He’s a real weirdo. Always hungry,” the girl added with a smile. “That’s all he ever says—‘I’m hungry.’”

  None of the news I had just received mattered to me as much as the name of my savior and future friend. My mind repeated it over and over. I was getting ready to ask something else when the door banged open and David came bursting out in a fury, his face red, panting so hard and loud that even when he’d reached the other end of the hallway, he still sounded like some huge, enraged animal. At least to me. I couldn’t take my eyes off his heaving back, trying to read in his movements some hint about this boy who had become my obsession. I was so distracted watching him sway back and forth that I didn’t notice the doctor had walked over and was looking at me curiously. The two boys nudged each other, smiling, and the girl finally sank her nails into her skin, releasing the slight moisture that circulates beneath.

  “What is your name, miss?” the psychologist asked, startling me, just as the others had been hoping.

  “Excuse me?” I replied, confused. She was the first person to be so formal with me in this place.

  “Your name, dear. What do they call you?”

  “Nina,” I answered. I glanced at her green eyes and then fixed mine on the floor.

  “How long has it been since you arrived?” she continued.

  “Two weeks,” I replied, afraid she’d scold me. Recently they’d been getting after me for nearly everything I did. I figured it was their way of teaching me how things worked here.

  “I haven’t seen you, Miss Nina,” the woman said, touching my cheek and then making me look up at her. I liked looking into her eyes. “Anytime you want to come chat, please do. My name is Marcela. I’m the psychologist. I’m here to help you children.”

  “I can come talk to you?” I asked, surprised. I had no idea I could just come. I figured I needed to be shooting peop
le or making myself bleed before she would see me.

  “Of course! All you need is something you want to discuss, something that worries you. Shall I expect you one of these days, dear?” she asked, letting go of my chin and smiling.

  “Okay,” I said excitedly. No one in this place had ever treated me like this. “I’ll come tomorrow.”

  “Not tomorrow. Monday afternoon, after school. Shall I wait for you then?”

  I nodded, and realized that my cheeks were burning. Heck, I was sweating all over. The doctor gestured at the girl with the bandage, and the two of them entered the office.

  “Wait—you really want to come see her?” asked the older boy, terrified.

  I didn’t answer. There was something I needed to do.

  I ran toward the end of the hallway where David’s back had disappeared.

  HE BAGS OF CARROTS WERE not the most comfortable but certainly the only place where they could hide for a few moments from the eyes of the big man, who could not stand to see his employees resting during business hours. So it was there, in that corner, where Hector and the young woman agreed to meet and chat.

  Hector was the first to arrive, pretending to need a bit of air. He sat down, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and tasted the dirt on his lips. His face, his clothes, and his hands were completely covered by a thick, consistent layer of dirt. Once his breathing had slowed, he made sure no one was looking at him, then reached into the nearly invisible pocket of his filthy pants and took out two sticks of gum. He unwrapped one and began to chew it slowly, letting the orange flavor fill his mouth.

  “Why did you take so long?” asked the young woman when she arrived. She sat next to him and brushed her hair behind her ears with her fingers. Hector handed her the other stick of gum and stared first at her bare neck and then her ear with its large earring. She put the gum in her mouth and touched his hand, smiling. At that warm contact, Hector became suddenly aware of the roughness of his own skin. He quickly pulled his hand away. The young woman pushed her hair behind her ear again, letting it show. She stared at him.

  “I said, why were you late . . . ?”

  “I couldn’t get here any earlier,” Hector replied simply, and kept on chewing.

  The young woman got close to his ear and whispered:

  “What do you think I called you for?”

  Hector could feel her sweet, clean breath on his face. He shrugged in response. The young woman took his hand again. This time Hector just let her. He stared at her lips. They were thin and pale. He was strangely fascinated by her oval face and white skin. As long as she had his dirty, blistered hand in hers, he couldn’t stop staring at that face, those intense eyes.

  “Why don’t you say anything?” she continued.

  “I have nothing to say,” Hector replied, pulling his hand from the warm prison.

  “I do. That’s why I called you over. I wanted to know if you’d help me with something.”

  “Sure, whatever you need.”

  “Let’s take all the cash out of the register and run away.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “What, you think they treat us well here?”

  Hector shrugged again.

  “Well, I don’t. I’m going to steal what I can. Today.”

  The young woman’s green eyes shone brightly. Hector remembered that he had not finished organizing the bags of chard and that he had a pending delivery. The young woman smacked her gum, waiting for Hector to say something.

  “Well, if you don’t want to, it’s your loss. We could have run off together, to some warmer place; with that money we could’ve opened a little roadside business, nobody telling us what to do. Doesn’t that sound nice?” she whispered.

  Hector nodded and let her fold her warm hands around his once more. He sighed, spit his gum out, and stood up.

  “I can’t,” he muttered, heading slowly toward the vegetable section, where he was greeted by the shout of the big man asking why he had taken so long.

  “HELLO,” THE WOMAN SAID, peeking her head through the open door of the one-room apartment. Robert set his carrot down and walked toward her.

  “What happened to you, boy?” she asked when she saw Robert’s black eye. He did not answer and instead stared at her with his good one. “I’m here to talk about the rent.”

  “Yeah?” asked Robert.

  “And you? How’s your belly doing?” she asked David, changing the subject as she entered the room.

  “Better, Doña Yeni, thank you,” said the younger boy, shrinking just a little at the presence of an adult.

  “So what about the rent?” Robert prompted her.

  “I don’t have the money to pay you. . . . I wanted to see if you’d let me stay . . .”

  Robert turned to his siblings. Manuela held a carrot in one hand and her blanket in the other. David stared at her, speechless, his eyes wide. Robert thought it wasn’t fair for her to stay in their house without paying rent, but he also knew that the woman had helped David and had taken care of Manuela. Besides, he supposed that if she left, it would be difficult to find another adult to board in the house with them.

  “Well, okay,” Robert said without moving from the door. “But help us out with food.”

  David’s eyes lit up. Manuela sucked contentedly on her blanket, and the three children stared at the woman. She remained silent for a moment.

  “It’s better if I wash your clothes,” she said at last, glancing around.

  “And you have to give us food. We’re hungry,” Robert insisted.

  “When I can,” the woman said, shaking her head. “Whenever I have some, I’ll share it with you. That and much more, now that we’re like a family.”

  The three children glanced at each other, confused.

  “You didn’t know?”

  “What?” asked Robert and David at the same time.

  “Before he left, your dad asked me to look after you,” the woman replied as she began to collect dirty clothes throughout the room, pulling the sheets off the beds and using them to wrap it all up. “I’m going to wash this for you.”

  She moved toward the door, but stopped when she saw that Manuela and David were sitting on a bag of carrots. “And what’s that?”

  “Hector brought it,” Manuela said proudly, “so we have something to eat.”

  “Ah, that’s perfect!” the woman exclaimed, shifting the bundle of clothes to one arm and grabbing a bunch of carrots with her free hand. “I’ll make you some soup in a jiffy.”

  Manuela cheered, but Robert’s hot glare burned into her.

  “Put potatoes in it,” he demanded. “Or don’t bother.”

  The woman, already at the door, looked down at him and exclaimed:

  “Just like his dad, this one!”

  And Robert watched her leave toward the laundry room.

  DIDN’T THINK WE WERE the same, David and me. I just liked him a lot. I don’t know why. But from the moment I saw him and he saved me from those bullies, I couldn’t get him out of my head. I kept dreaming about walking through the garden with him. In the dream there was no wall: right after the ditch, the path continued alongside the pastures. We were holding hands as we walked. That was what I’d been imagining, so I told the psychologist. Other kids warned me it was better not to tell her anything, because whatever I said went into my file. But she seemed like good people to me and I figured I could share stuff with her.

  “Why don’t you tell him that, dear?” she asked, smiling.

  “Well, because he won’t let me,” I replied, choking up. “The minute he sees me, he runs off. I know where he likes to hang out now, but when I show up, he drops everything and hides. I don’t know what he’s doing out there, anyway.”

  “‘Out there’ where?” The woman was interested.

  “Near the ditch, behind the garden, beside the willows,” I said. Then I worried I had betrayed him by revealing what had taken me so many days to discover. Maybe that hideaway was one of his secrets. I
remained silent for a moment until the psychologist continued:

  “And in the dream, there is no wall?”

  I shook my head and asked, suddenly scared:

  “Is he going to get in trouble?”

  I had heard that consequences in this place were terrible and usually unfair. Once a kid in front of me in the lunch line dropped his tray of food and ran back to ask for more. The rest of us just stepped over the mess, without a word, until someone started whining about how gross it was to see mashed potatoes and Jello all smashed together like brains on the floor. A couple of others stopped and made even nastier comments until the teacher in charge noticed the spill and forced the closest boy to clean it up even though it wasn’t his fault. Another kid, with a reputation for being absent-minded, was sent to clean the toilets because he kept staring out the window. Everybody said worse things could happen, horrible punishments that luckily I never saw, but that made me afraid for him, first because I didn’t want anything to happen to him, and second because if he knew the punishment was my fault, any hope we might talk one day would completely disappear.

  “No, don’t worry. He’s not in any trouble.”

  The woman looked at the clock and asked:

  “Would you like to talk about anything else, Miss Nina? We have half an hour.”

  I shrugged and looked at her. I didn’t know what to talk about. Or, I mean, I didn’t know where to start.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “For example, maybe your mother?” she suggested.

  I felt a hole open up in my stomach. If I let it get any bigger, I wouldn’t be able to stop crying for days, I knew it.

  “My mom’s in jail. I don’t like to talk about her,” I said, getting up.

  “Ah, don’t worry, you don’t have to leave, dear. We can listen to music.”

  She slid a CD into the stereo. Out poured the most beautiful, saddest music I had ever heard in my life. Notes from a piano, maybe played by a child. It wasn’t anything fancy: just simple and moving.

  “Do you like it?” she asked.

  I nodded. I couldn’t speak. If I spoke, I would release a flow of tears, and days ago I had sworn never to cry again.