by Sara Mesa
The decision had been made and there was little I could do. Let them have at it.
They left together. I watched them zigzag away, avoiding the puddles, until they reached Martínez’s minivan. He helped her in. She bent over excessively getting into her seat.
The word jealousy isn’t sufficient for summing up what I felt. In order to be jealous, an intact sense of hope is even more important than love. But in my case, hopelessness is the constant. I admit, however, I did feel something akin to when I witnessed the assistant headmaster groping Marieta: left out and irreversibly depressed.
The same feeling, more or less. One right after the other.
I went back to my room, locked the door, and swore never to ask Martínez or let him tell me about it. Under no circumstance.
MONDAY, DECEMBER 18TH
And yet, he’s hard to shut up. He comes over during breakfast, arrogant, carrying a tray loaded with sweets and fruit. He takes the seat next to me despite my obvious rebuff.
“Some friend you have, Bedragare.”
“Oh yeah?”
“A real woman from head to toe. She knows how to enjoy a meal and good wine, hold a conversation, and she’s … totally off her rocker.”
“Wow.”
“Really fun, really very fun …”
Then he turns to me, pretending to be puzzled.
“You’re not upset, are you? Don’t go thinking there was anything special between us. I’m too old for that sort of thing. I brought her home after we ate. That was it.”
“Oh, you don’t have to explain anything to me,” I reply.
I believe him. I doubt that anything else happened beyond what Martínez was telling me. He wouldn’t be able to keep it to himself. Still, I’m furious. I teach my classes, not bothering to hide my bad mood: the students are perplexed, but they don’t shrink before my shouting. They’ve probably figured it out: the woman they saw me with yesterday rejected me. I won’t disabuse them of their opinion. I’m humbled by despair.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 19TH
I was supervising study hall when there was a disturbance out on the playing fields. All the students left class to look, leaving their notebooks scattered and laptops open.
Consu tried to restrain the two scholarship students she was tutoring, but they too stood up and craned their necks to see better, the shouts registering in their unfathomable eyes.
“What the hell …” Consu said from the window, hand held like a visor above her eyes, her face wrinkled in disgust.
I looked out, too, but I could only see heads gathered in little cliques, clouds of dust kicked up around them.
Screams of terror.
We went out.
I heard the words first, then saw the images; both were filled with blood and mangled flesh.
Someone had cut off Lux’s head and stuck it on top of one of the paddle court posts. The animal’s purpled tongue lolled in his mouth, his eyes open and glassy. Threads of a blackish, bloody substance seeped from the hewn neck.
His body was found a ways off, legs very stiff and the first of the large flies buzzing around his belly. His spine was crushed. He had likely been beaten first and then decapitated.
The girl who had made the discovery was releasing evenly sequenced, theatrical shrieks. Consu led her away to the infirmary. The others, meanwhile, couldn’t stop looking, moving closer and closer to take in all the details.
Many of them snapped pictures with their cell phones.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 20TH
Señor J. stopped me as I was coming out of the library. It had been a long time since I’d seen him, even at a distance. Martínez had told me that he was spending time away from the colich, but he didn’t know where. Now, under that reigning atmosphere of fear and death, the headmaster had reappeared, looking at me with his signature indolence.
He invited me for a drink.
Unease and alarm on my part, but I didn’t have any choice but to accept.
I followed him to the enormous living room where I had first seen him, and where I hadn’t visited since.
He fixed me a dry martini and sat facing me in a wingback chair, crossing his legs, solicitous and very serious.
He watched me for a long time in silence. I had nothing to say, either.
The fireplace warmed the room and lit his face with a golden glow. A Christmas tree was set in the corner, decorated with ornaments of silver and sky blue. Tiny bulbs blinked on and off, following alternating patterns that I tried to decipher, killing time.
He started to talk, of course, about the assistant headmaster’s cat. Yes, it was obviously an attack on the assistant headmaster’s person, he impassively stated. The assistant headmaster was very close to that little pet—that’s what he said, “that little pet,” stressing the t’s—in any case, it wouldn’t be easy to determine who had perpetrated the attack. The assistant headmaster was investigating and Marieta had helped him with the interviews. They were especially focused on the Goon and Ignacio’s group, but nothing had come of it yet, nothing specific at least.
I expected Señor J. to ask my opinion, but in his mind the matter was already closed: he wasn’t the least bit interested. In fact, he seemed almost satisfied.
“Ignacio? He wouldn’t waste his time,” he chuckled, changing the subject with a wave of his hand.
No, he had brought me there for another reason. He furrowed his brow and asked about Crazy Lola.
I sipped my martini slowly before answering. I fumbled for the right response, unsure if he asked out of curiosity or reproach.
Seeing my hesitation, he hurried to add:
“Of course, anyone who wants to visit you is welcome.”
I smiled, playing the fool.
“I wasn’t expecting her visit. She’s an old friend; I hadn’t heard from her in a long time. I was the first to be surprised, seeing her here. I hope it wasn’t a problem.”
“Of course not. It was good she came on a Sunday, when there’s nothing to interrupt. I saw her sitting with you on the bench, and I saw her leave with old Martínez. Very beautiful girl, your friend.”
I nodded sadly, casting my eyes around the room. Valuablelooking trinkets were arranged in a glass case: African carvings, a pair of religious figurines, urns with gold inlay. The word plunder came to mind. A framed shadow box displaying a string of pinned butterflies hung on the wall.
I really had no idea of how to continue the conversation.
Señor J. served me another martini and scooted his chair a little closer to the sofa where I sat.
Then out it came. All of it.
The exchange was ambiguous, murky, and though I believe I understood his meaning perfectly at the time, I find I’m incapable of reproducing it. I don’t even really remember how it started, or how it developed. Several precise details stick in my mind: Señor J.’s tongue and gums, the glint of the fire off the heavy iron poker, the distant whine of the mastiff, the intoxicating smell of charred firewood.
Like the butterflies pinned in their box, those insignificant details are fixed in place while the overall conversation—so significant—comes back to me suffused with a sense of unreality.
But the conversation happened. It was real.
We talked about women, or rather, he talked about women, but not women, really, because what he talked about was sex.
He assumed I had needs but was embarrassed to confess them.
Magnanimous, he let me know that he was a man of the world, a tolerant man, and that he was drawn to contemplating evil head-on, as the ineluctable complement to good, without moral connotations.
I thought he was simply philosophizing. I nodded and told him that I, too, was interested in the contemplation of evil, under the exact premises he described.
In truth, I would have agreed with any thesis he proposed. I just wanted to escape as soon as possible, escape victorious, having said and done the right thing.
The fire spit. Señor J. added a few more logs and poke
d at it indifferently.
I believe it was then that he started to talk to me about the girls.
He told me there were girls at our disposal, if we required them.
I babbled. I wanted to think he was joking.
“Girls?” I said.
“Well, to call them girls is a bit of an exaggeration,” he said. “They’re all of age, and are more than experienced, of course. We’re not spoiling any apples. Quite the contrary: we remove them from the bushel before they spoil the rest.”
It took me a while to realize that he was serious. Why was he telling me something so private? The situation might have been legal, but it could undoubtedly ruin anyone’s reputation, especially the headmaster of a well-heeled boarding school.
Or maybe he was testing me, intending to unnerve, to piss on his territory and watch me tremble, bound hand and foot, obliged to smile, nod, accept?
I didn’t try to argue. I only managed to ask for details, which he was happy to give. No, the girls didn’t have a direct relationship to the colich. The odd one might have been a former student, perhaps, but always from the groups of scholarship students, those girls who were already corrupted when they arrived, unable to keep up with the others. Sometimes they had boys, too. The offer is as varied as the demand, he added.
Abuse, beatings, drug addiction, alcoholism: they could be saved from all that, thanks to the colich. It’s a simple trade, a healthy, hygienic exchange in which both parties benefit; this exchange has always existed, no point in denying it.
He was smiling. His words had a clean, reasonable texture.
“But where are they?” I asked. “Do they live here?”
“No, no of course not. Sometimes they spend a few days, no more. Then we use the opportunity to help them a bit. We give them money, food, clothes, even letters of recommendation if possible.”
He shrugged. “We can’t do any more than that.”
The conversation was shifting: it seemed we were no longer discussing bodies and exchange, but a kind of solidarity, a concern for those kids who—from time to time—came to visit Wybrany. Señor J.’s points sounded sensible, irrefutable.
What was left for me to say? Was Señor J. about to offer me something? Martínez had told me he was addicted to cocaine. Was he going to offer me a line? A girl? Both? I got up to go, and all he offered was another dry martini.
“The last one,” he said.
I turned it down. I could feel the alcohol, bitter and dry, burning my throat. I’d had enough. Señor J. saw me to the door, somewhat peevishly. I was unsteady. I wobbled across the grounds, imagining lecherous shadows behind every bush. The night was pitch black. Everyone was already in their rooms, doing God knows what.
I shuddered.
The mastiff walked with me the whole way back. Her fur was damp. She looked up at me, her eyes liquid and mute. She didn’t seem to remember the smack I’d given her the other day. I scratched her ears and said I was sorry. Then I went to my room.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 21ST
The morning dawned sunny and cold. Outside, the lawn sparkled, but my nightmares hadn’t faded.
Between dreams and flashes of wakefulness, I had been reliving that conversation all night. García Medrano’s papers suddenly made sense. They came to me—dead cats, fire pokers, tearful children, lines of cocaine. I was unable to reject anything I was offered. I drank, snorted, fornicated with apathy, devoid of desire.
I woke feeling nauseous. I looked outside: at first glance, nothing seemed any different.
But that wasn’t the case; in fact, the entire colich was in festive spirits. The hallways, dining hall, veranda, all had been decorated for Christmas, an ill-timed scene in a Nordic theme: reindeer, snow, golden pinecones, fir trees. Not at all original.
The kids were more relaxed, too. Classes ran smoothly, they completed their exercises without complaint. I observed each and every one of them, seeing them with new eyes. What did they know, how much did they know, why did they keep quiet? They looked up and returned my gaze, surprised, perhaps, by the scrutiny. I sat stiffly, huddled in my seat. My hands shook and my eyes burned. I’m sure they must have noticed.
(…)
I try to put aside my resentment of Martínez and go looking for him in the afternoon. I find him on the bleachers, cheering on the boys in a special pre-Christmas soccer match being held for some kind of charitable cause. I approach him covertly, despite the hubbub. Maybe he thinks that I want to talk about Crazy Lola, because he stiffens and flushes slightly. From pride, not shame.
But he can tell straight away that I have something else on my mind.
I try not to be obvious.
Señor J. didn’t say it was a secret, but still, I prefer to be cautious. I drop hints, one or two telling words.
Martínez stares straight ahead. He appears not to have heard me, but it’s an act. He’s listening, and he catches on right away. He doesn’t say a word either in favor or against, but he gives himself away with a smile. I ask for details. He restricts himself to watching me from the corner of his eye, watching the game unfolding below. Then he turns, shrugs, and mutters vagaries.
His passiveness angers me. I raise my voice, call him out.
“Don’t judge lest ye be judged,” he says.
“I’m not judging! I’m just trying to understand. Everyone seems to be part of something I’m not. I always feel excluded.”
A light sparks in his eyes; his expression changes.
“You want to join in? You?”
“I don’t want to join in. I just want to know. How hard is that to understand, Martínez? I want to be looped in on the rules.”
Martínez shakes his head. He seems annoyed, all of a sudden. He’s winded. With his hands resting on his knees, back hunched, he looks like a broken man, older than usual.
“Nobody knows the rules. That’s a fact of life.”
“I don’t believe you. Someone makes the rules, someone must know them.”
We fall quiet. The game continues to stir up the crowd. The boys play well, they shine with health and happiness. Even Ignacio, ordinarily so weak, looks better today. He runs up and down the field, hiding his limp, getting passes he isn’t always able to trap. No one dares call him out over a bad shot; he is either feared or worshipped by all the boys. A gimpy leader, I think, or a leading gimp. Not much of a difference.
The sun is setting. I get up without saying goodbye. Martínez has already given me everything I need from him.
(…)
Knowledge weighs heavy on me and I want to get to the bottom of things. I want to see what the others see. I want to ask all of them. I want to know why they stay quiet. I want to know.
I try Ledesma. I look for him everywhere, but he can’t be found. I don’t know how he spends his free time. Only occasionally have I seen him wandering by himself—like me—through the grounds or hallways, classroom to classroom, eyes downcast.
Like me, he must spend a lot of time in his room.
I decide to knock on his door for the first time. I need courage to show up unannounced, but he opens his door like nothing is out of the ordinary and steps aside for me to come in.
Ledesma’s room is stark, bare; there’s hardly a trace of him there. Music that sounds like old Tracia cantos pours from his laptop, a sad, deep melody. There are no books or papers on his desk. His room is defined more by emptiness than order. He sits down on the bed and looks at me without a hint of curiosity.
I speak more clearly this time.
Yes, he says. It’s as bad as I fear or worse. It’s been happening for about three or four years. There is nothing I can do to change it. These are the new rules of the game.
“Again with the damn rules,” I whisper.
I know what the world is like. I haven’t lived my life in a bubble. I know decadence, I know evil, chaos. But it should have been different here. One had assumed this place was different; a refuge for civilization, an oasis.
Ledesma, head
bowed, listens and smiles. Despite the cold, he wears only pajama pants and an undershirt that shows his ribs. He’s thin, drawn. I see him and I see the scars on his arms, too. He raises his eyes and notices me studying him. His expression doesn’t change.
He talks to me about Señor J.’s decisions. The great developer, Ledesma calls him. He realized some years ago that Wybrany’s isolation had a flip side. One escapes the external evils, certainly, but monsters are generated inside these walls. Castration, amputation, pain. Ledesma tells me about a certain Celia, a scholarship girl. She set all of this off, he says. Suicide, that’s how it ended.
“Few people know that, very few,” he murmurs.
But he will reveal all. He no longer fears for himself, he assures me. They were able to pass the girl’s disappearance off as an expulsion; she’d been rather disobedient, in the end, and had tried to run away before.
“The assistant headmaster said it was extortion, blackmail. Those were his words. The girl had manipulated him from the beginning, in exchange for certain favors, and well, things got out of hand …”
“What are you talking about? What got out of hand?”
“The corruption spread, everything became tainted, everywhere. More and more people became involved. Maybe she really did start it … but later he couldn’t control himself. He even brought friends here; he wanted to share her, show off his possession. The girl slit her wrists the day before the school year started. There was blood everywhere when they found her, little could be done.”
“And am I supposed to believe that no one noticed? That no one made the connection? No one demanded that somebody take the blame?”
Ledesma shifts on the bed, stretches his legs. He appears to consider this.
“The blame?” he says at last. “No, not exactly. There was a power shift, a change of hands. That’s how things work here. And as for the connection being made … it doesn’t matter. Pointless, unless the conclusions drawn were to be spoken aloud. This is easier for some to handle than others.”