Four by Four

by Sara Mesa

  Julia, in her shrill voice:

  “I think we’re more protected this way. The boys are so awful.”

  Celia replies:

  “They’re awful because they aren’t used to us. If we spent more time together, they’d know how to treat us.”

  Julia argues:

  “Yeah, well you don’t even care if they say stupid stuff—you probably like it.”

  The Advisor lifts his hand, calls for quiet.

  “Just a minute, just a minute. Julia has brought up a very interesting concept. She said that you girls are more ‘protected’ this way.”

  The strident ringing of the bell brings the class to a close. Given their new position on top of the desks, the girls can’t stand up but rather have to sit back down in their seats.

  The Advisor doubles down.

  “Protection,” he insists. “Julia spoke of protection.”

  He doesn’t notice Celia’s eyes, violent and wild. Teeny can see her, but he doesn’t; he’s too absorbed in his talent for persuasion.

  Protection as a concept, he says, a concept we will discuss further next class, protection and security versus freedom: is that choice even possible today? How do the scales tip in either direction?

  “Is it better to be free and vulnerable or protected but under control? I’ll leave it there until next class. Think about it.”

  Then they get up and go. The Advisor watches them as they exit one after the other. Celia, the last to leave, stares at the tile floor.

  He goes only after they’ve all left the room.

  SCORN

  He was only occasionally replaced, at first. But lately, Ignacio is often left out of Héctor’s plans and returns to his prior place.

  He offers himself constantly so as not to lose him completely, but Héctor has grown tired of Ignacio and is looking for a successor. One night, Héctor is in the middle of a group of new friends.

  Plans are being hatched right in front of Ignacio, no attempt to hide it. Ignacio hears the whispers, the stifled giggles. He hangs around, waiting to be included, but the rest are tight-lipped. There’s only the muffled laughter, the jostling of elbows, something amorphous that he isn’t a part of. Ignacio senses their scorn.

  “This isn’t your thing, kid,” Héctor tells him. “Better for you not to be involved. You can’t run like the rest of us.”

  He ruffles Ignacio’s hair, a common display of affection toward the littler kids, though Ignacio is only a year younger.

  He curses his limp and moves away.

  Still, he watches as they put something in their pockets, little baggies, lighters, small, unidentifiable packets.

  Ignacio doesn’t know. He has a limp and he doesn’t know what they’re up to, he can’t know.

  He hobbles back to his room, eyes narrowed, and for the first time in a long while, he starts to feel angry.

  The anger is white, blind, it stings his eyes. But it’s also a refuge, now that he’s alone.

  He imagines Héctor with the others, locking themselves behind the heavy metal doors to smoke. He imagines him with his pants down, the hoarse voice:

  “Suck my dick.”

  Ignacio tosses and turns on the bed. He’s on the verge of weeping, but plays it off, swallows his anger down his burning throat.

  He considers the possibility of snitching, of telling the Headmaster during his next visit, but he doesn’t know exactly what to say or how to say it. Gerasim is passive; he rarely speaks. And ultimately, it isn’t even that he wants to get Héctor in trouble. What he wants is to be included in all his plans, forever.

  Forever.

  Ignacio is suffering.

  He only asks not to be excluded, not to be left out.

  He lays face down and covers his head, a pillow pressed over his ears. Even so, he hears them running down the hall, excited and nervous.

  Ignacio was only ever meant for the bathroom, for idle times, for consolation.

  You can’t run like the rest of us.

  It dawns on him at last, in his own way.

  AGREEMENTS

  I did tell Teeny, but she didn’t know what to say, or couldn’t fathom it.

  She still has a runny nose, her permanent cold, even though it’s almost summer. She looks at me with glassy eyes.

  Poor Teeny, she can barely take care of herself, but I tell her nevertheless. I tell her, emptying myself.

  I tell her what Cárdenas is like, the neighborhood where my mother lives now, which is on the outskirts and is like my old neighborhood, only much dirtier, noisier.

  Teeny listens, but she doesn’t get, can’t get what I’m telling her.

  We’re out in the hallway so we can be alone. She looks drained.

  I suggest we go sit outside where no one will see us, on the front steps of the Specials’ ward. The mastiff Cayetana follows us and, as usual, laps my hand.

  The other girls and their grating laughter stay behind, inside.

  With a single gesture, I try to explain the roar of the streets.

  The noise, crowds, lack of space. I had forgotten but now it all comes back, with a few subtle differences.

  My mother shares a room with another woman, in an apartment shared with any number of other women.

  They almost all work cleaning houses. Two take care of sick people, and one—my mother lowers her voice when she tells me—is a whore. They do what they have to because the power and water could get shut off without warning and they’re women who like to wash themselves every day and live with electricity, not in the dark like rats.

  There are a lot of whores in the neighborhood, actually. Pimps and clients that pass by in their cars, the windows closed, prepared to unroll them just a crack, only if there’s a dish to their liking on the sidewalk.

  Teeny blushes when I tell her this. She squirms on the step and I know she must understand some of it, or at least that she’s listening and can imagine.

  Too many people there, too many.

  The puddles are dirty as soon as the rain stops because there was already filth in the street from before. Needles, bits of food, broken, gutted objects.

  In the winter it’s very cold and very hot in summer.

  My mother tells me all of this so I won’t go back. You’re better off at the colich, she says, can’t you see?

  Meanwhile, he waits outside, driving around the blocks of dingy brown apartment buildings, tiny balconies stuffed with junk and clothes hung on the line.

  How to tell her?

  Yes, how to tell Teeny, because Teeny is not my mother and won’t have the same reaction. My mother rejects what I say, even rebels against it in her own way—shaking her head, her eyes damp—but I fear that ultimately she accepts it as the lesser evil.

  Wybrany is a lesser evil. Not even an evil, in fact. A stroke of luck.

  This is what she thinks. Maybe she’s right and I don’t know how to see it.

  He seems nervous on the ride back, anguished somehow. Sadness swamps his retinas and they ache. He rubs his eyes. He feels both discomfort and contentment, from all he’s seen and that he’s lucky enough not to have to see it every day. I know this because he tells me himself, his hand on my thigh, and I tell Teeny, and she nods slightly, understands now. Maybe.

  Okay, I tell him, maybe not every day, but sometimes. I want to come again.

  Come becomes go as the kilometers bring us closer to Wybrany. I appeal to him the whole ride, and I know how to make my plea a demand.

  The request becomes a commercial transaction: when I give him something, I can demand a price. Negotiate or blackmail in exchange.

  “So you’ll go back?” Teeny asks, staring straight ahead.

  “Yes.”

  I’ll go back every chance I get, as often as possible.

  So I don’t forget where I come from.

  THE SUB

  They’re playing a better team today, kids who are just a little older.

  Ignacio is on the bench, waiting to go in. He swings his
feet, observes his surroundings. Héctor doesn’t look at him anymore. Ignacio doesn’t even hope for it. He scrapes at the dirt with the toe of his cleats. The sun warms his bare legs, now darkened by straight, soft hair.

  He looks at the other team, on the other bench.

  There is another boy, a boy like the one he used to be. An outcast. A year older, sure, but hardly any taller, big-boned, brown hair parted to the side, round glasses, and a jutting bottom lip. Ignacio is watching him. The other boy looks down, averting his eyes.

  Ignacio stares at him and stops scuffing the dirt. The other boy, motionless, keeps his eyes on the ground. Ignacio concentrates on him, he sends signals, gives him an order. The boy looks up and sees him. Blushes.

  Other boys run up and down the field, they pant and sweat, but the boys on the bench don’t see them: the players have become gauzy, distant.

  The air clots.

  Ignacio thinks about how the others don’t really know him. It’s time to surprise them, set a new tone.

  The mastiff barks in the distance, the chain chafing her neck, sweeping dust from side to side as she lunges after the ball.

  The air grows thicker. It’s dust, it’s the telepathy, the transmissions between the two boys on the two benches.

  The boy’s name comes back to him: Rodrigo. A Special, one of those kids the others pay to do their assignments. He’s good at math and physics, disciplined and quiet. Ignacio used to do other kids’ work, too. Though all of that stopped a while ago.

  The boys look at each other, and the spectre of Héctor disappears.

  The game plays on, a corner kick results in a goal, the goal in a scuffle, someone touched the ball with his hand. The teacher intervenes. There’s an argument and Ignacio momentarily loses focus.

  When he turns his attention back, Rodrigo is no longer on his bench. Ignacio sees him in the distance, heading toward the locker room, shorts rippling in the warm breeze, thin legs and an uncertain stride, like he’s in a hurry, or afraid.

  Ignacio goes after him. The walk to the locker room is all confusion in his ears: the sounds of the game now faraway, the dog’s bark, the teacher’s voice calling to him, telling him to hurry up, the sub always has to be ready to go in.

  He positions himself in front of the metal door and knocks. He’s careful to make sure his shoes stick under, invade the stall, so the other boy will recognize the gesture and understand.

  It’s not how he imagined. Rodrigo won’t open the door. Instead he asks:

  “What’s up? What do you want?”

  Ignacio is unsure of his next move. He hesitates brief ly and Héctor’s voice swells in his temples, those words that echoed with authority. Ignacio says open up but he thinks suck my dick, he has to insist several times, increasingly urgent, until the other boy slides the latch and looks out at him, confused.

  Ignacio pushes him back inside with a violence that is unfamiliar. Rodrigo’s mouth makes sounds of protest, but a punch silences him.

  Ignacio hits his nose, his lips, stomach, he punches him, insults him at the same time. Rodrigo just cries, he doesn’t defend himself.

  Another goal, they both hear the cheers, and that’s when Ignacio pulls down his shorts and hollows out his voice, makes it as hoarse as possible, as close as possible to that other voice. He gives the command.

  SUMMER

  May marches on, then June. There are more visits and each time the contrast between the two worlds grows deeper every time.

  They have to leave late at night because the days are long and they must go in secret. When they arrive, they are greeted by the spectacle of darkness in both the people and things.

  The looks that pass between mother and daughter have little to say now, and serve as little more than recriminations for their mutual disinterest.

  The mother doesn’t ask how it is that her daughter is able to leave the colich, or who brings her. She might prefer not to know. This hurts Celia.

  “You don’t want to know anything about my life. Does this all seem normal to you?”

  Skinny, wrinkled, the mother scratches her scalp and doesn’t attempt an answer. Her mouth twitches in a way that repulses Celia. She looks at the mother’s straw-like hair, unkempt, the dark roots. Her hands, ruddy and swollen. The dirty tracksuit.

  “You should take care of yourself. You’ll never get a better job like this.”

  The mother responds, nonplussed:

  “My, my aren’t you the little lady.”

  “It’s not about being a ‘lady,’ mamá. You’ve let yourself go.”

  She gestures to the room: pots and pans piled in the sink, grease stains on the walls. The mother turns to her.

  “You haven’t tried the flan.”

  “I don’t want to. I saw that your milk was expired.”

  “The milk’s not bad. What are you talking about? No one around here has died from drinking it.”

  “I didn’t ask you to make me a flan. There are plenty of flans back at the colich.”

  “Okay, then. Fine. Sorry. I just wanted to make you happy.”

  “If you wanted to make me happy, you wouldn’t have left me there. I didn’t want to leave. A flan won’t fix the fact that you abandoned me.”

  But her reproach is no longer valid.

  And she knows it.

  Her perspective has changed and she’s starting to see things in a different light.

  Circumstances that were once commonplace are now tinged with repulsion and pity. What was worn out before is now filthy. Accumulation has become hoarding.

  For the first time, Celia is beginning to have the sense that she’s been saved. She feels a faint gratitude, a fear she could lose her privilege.

  She still doesn’t want to forget, but her thoughts of escape are dissipating.

  Sentimentality—once fanned by distance and separation—cedes to a routine of the already-seen, and the discomfort of returning to see it again.

  And so the transactions start to lose their meaning, and become nothing but torn flesh, pure guts.

  BEHIND

  Teeny goes looking for Celia, whom she hasn’t seen in two days.

  Valen stuffs a pastry under her pillow. With a mouth full of crumbs, she reports:

  “She’s sick. She doesn’t want to talk to anyone.”

  Teeny approaches the lump in the bed, the crumpled body. She says nothing, just stands there, waiting.

  Behind her, Valen mumbles:

  “Where are Julia and Aurori? What are you doing here by yourself? You know you’re not allowed to come alone.”

  Teeny doesn’t answer. She simply coughs and stands beside the bed, observing Celia’s head, her curved back, the whole of her closed off, silent.

  Valen finishes eating in secret and then goes to throw up, look for more food, or both. Teeny takes her chance and leans over Celia, speaking softly:

  “Did you go back to Cárdenas? Did something happen?”

  “Leave me alone.”

  This hurts her, but Teeny doesn’t reply. She looks for a spot to sit and settles behind Celia, curled against her, patient, expecting nothing. Celia rolls over and looks at her with loathing.

  “I told you to leave me alone. You have no idea what’s wrong with me,” she spits. “You have no idea and you never will. What happened to me will never happen to you.”

  “Why not?” Teeny whispers.

  “Because you’re lucky. They don’t want you.”

  Celia’s been crying and her lips are slightly swollen. Teeny looks at her, frightened: Celia seems bigger somehow, stronger, more powerful, despite the pain and tears. Teeny doesn’t argue with her, or even move. She waits as Celia finishes ticking off her insults one by one.

  They are silent. And for a moment, their eyes meet.

  CHILDHOOD

  The Headmaster answers the door, nose still burning from the cocaine. Ignacio folds his hands behind his back and waits patiently for permission to enter.

  “I wasn’t expecting you
just now, Gerasim, but no matter. Has something happened?”

  Ignacio walks in without a response, turns in a circle, taking in the Headmaster’s room, the fortress that is denied to others but which Ignacio is allowed to enter. He feels a sudden twinge of invulnerability.

  He sits down on the sofa, waits for the Headmaster to come to him.

  He commands it with a look, a taunt dancing in his eyes.

  The Headmaster moves in close, looks down at him, tugs at his goatee with satisfaction.

  “You’re changing, Gerasim. I think you’re starting to leave boyhood behind.”

  Ignacio smiles. Yes, it’s true. He’s no longer a boy. He clears his throat.

  “Would you like me to read you something, sir?”

  That’s all he says. The Headmaster hands him a magazine, pointing to an article on extinguished cities. He sinks into the armchair, closes his eyes, and waits.

  Ignacio reads.

  Halfway through the article, without changing his posture, without opening his eyes, the Headmaster interrupts him:

  “When that dying man in the story thinks about the happy times in his life, he realizes that everything he had once enjoyed—wealth, good food, trips, the praise of his subordinates—all of that no longer appeals to him. Only memories of his childhood are able to give him an authentic feeling of happiness. Childhood: the very thing that is lost to us forever.”

  Ignacio looks up, considers this a moment.

  “I don’t have a single good memory from my childhood. I’m just starting to feel happy now.”

  “I know. I know that,” the Headmaster says. “I just wanted to hear you say it.”

  He asks Ignacio to come closer so he can stroke his hair. Ignacio goes to him, knowing that—this time—he can choose whether or not to be stroked.

  THEY MEET

  Celia is still there, at the welcome party for new students held in late June. She’s there with the others but apart from them, and that’s when she tells Teeny about disappearing, about doing it despite the fear, pain, and doubt.