Smaller and Smaller Circles

by F. H. Batacan

  No wonder you don’t have CAT pictures.

  When he turns to her, she is looking at him with her head tilted to one side, as though she is seeing him for the first time. There is something in her eyes, a watchfulness that makes him uncomfortable, and he turns back to the frames on the wall. Okay, where was I?

  Scholarships from the city mayor all the way to—all the way to his second year of high school? What happened in the last two years?

  “Was he a scholar all throughout high school?”

  Mrs. Carlos looks absently down at the framed photograph, then turns it over and over in her hands, the way a child does when trying to figure out how a new toy works.

  “If you truly knew my son, wouldn’t you already know most of these things?” she asks quietly. “Why are you really asking me all these questions? Is he in some kind of trouble in Manila?”

  Jerome hesitates a moment. “That’s what I’m trying to find out, ma’am. He’s been coming to see me regularly for the past year or so, but the last few months he seemed under a great deal of stress. And then, he simply stopped coming. I tried to contact him, but he never responded.”

  She lays the photograph on her lap and then looks at Jerome squarely.

  “You’re very concerned about Alex, even for a . . . spiritual adviser. I don’t know anyone who would leave Manila and come here just to check on him.” She’s challenging him now. “If I picked up the phone and called my son right at this moment, would he want to speak with you? Would he even know you?”

  “Mrs. Carlos, you just told me you hadn’t heard from Alex in more than a year,” he says, challenging her as well. “I’m guessing that doesn’t mean simply that he hasn’t called you; it also means you’ve not been able to reach him. Or at least that he hasn’t been answering your calls or letters.”

  Her shoulders slump at this. “Who are you, then? Are you a doctor? Or a policeman? Has something happened to him—is that why you’re here?”

  Jerome uses the most sympathetic tone he can muster. “As we speak, Mrs. Carlos, the NBI are seeking your son’s help in investigating a series of murders of young boys in Quezon City. All of the victims”—he indicates the photograph in her hands—“looked like Alex in that picture. Same build, almost the same age.”

  “What are you saying, then?” She shifts her position, stares at Jerome. Seconds tick by. A fly, round and fat, its thorax gleaming green in the light, lands on Jerome’s hand and crawls slowly, jerkily up his wrist. “They think he killed them,” she says finally. “You think he killed them.”

  The fly darts away when she rises to her feet and sets Alex’s photograph down on the coffee table. “You must be thirsty. I’ll get you some water.” She disappears into the small kitchen. Jerome can hear the creak of a freezer door, the clink of ice against glass, the sound of water from a tap.

  She emerges from the kitchen carrying a glass of iced water with wet hands. She offers it to him. When he accepts, she absentmindedly wipes her hands on her housedress, the imprint of her palms and fingers clearly visible on the material, and returns to her place on the sofa.

  She waits for Jerome to take a sip of water before she speaks again. “I don’t suppose you . . . well, of course not; you’re a priest. You are a priest, aren’t you? That’s what you said, anyway. You probably don’t know what it’s like to have a child.”

  Jerome doesn’t say anything; if she’s in the mood to talk, he knows better than to interrupt her.

  “Alex was such a good boy. So good, I couldn’t believe how lucky we were. And such a beautiful child, with those big eyes, that fine nose. Never gave us trouble a single day in his life. Oh, he’d cry a little when we couldn’t afford to buy him those plastic toys he’d see in the market. Or sometimes he’d run so fast and fall and scrape his knees, and he’d come home to us bawling. But otherwise . . .”

  She reaches for her son’s photograph again and gazes down at it sorrowfully. “You’re given a good child, and you try to raise him well, even though you have next to nothing. And then sometimes . . . something happens. And he isn’t your child anymore.”

  Jerome waits for her to say more, but she slips into silence now, lost in her thoughts. “I don’t understand, Mrs. Carlos,” he says gently. “Help me to understand.”

  The front door opens, and a man walks in. He’s a small man in his late fifties or early sixties, with thinning hair. He is slightly stooped and bowlegged, and Jerome wonders if he has ever worked at a job that required him to lift heavy weights. The man is not surprised to see Jerome—his car is parked out on the street, after all—but his expression is questioning.

  “This is a friend of Alex’s,” Mrs. Carlos tells him.

  Jerome stands, holds out his hand. “Mr. Carlos?” he asks.

  The man looks at the offered hand and does not take it. “A friend?” he asks. Not unpleasant but not friendly either. “What do you want? Alex isn’t here.” His gaze shifts warily from Jerome to his wife and back again.

  “He was asking if we’d seen Alex lately.”

  “Why?” He asks it of both Jerome and Mrs. Carlos.

  “He says the NBI are looking for him.”

  “What for?” The man eyes Jerome up and down. “You don’t look like you’re from the NBI. Or the police.”

  “I’m not—”

  “He’s a priest,” Mrs. Carlos says. “He was asking whether or not Alex liked PE. Weren’t you, Father . . . ? I forget your name.”

  “Lucero. Jerome Lucero.”

  Mrs. Carlos nods. “Father Lucero here was asking if Alex liked PE.”

  At this, Mr. Carlos’s face darkens in anger. “Get out. Get out of here, and don’t you dare come back.”

  Jerome is bewildered. “I’m sorry, Mr. Carlos. I’m just trying to help. Please, just give me a moment, and listen to what I have to say.”

  He doesn’t listen, only glares at Jerome. “How dare you come to our home, sticking your nose into things that don’t concern you? I don’t care if you’re a priest. You’re not welcome here. Get out!”

  “You should just tell him.” Mrs. Carlos is strangely calm. She’s not looking at either of them. Her attention is fixed on the young boy in the photograph.

  Mr. Carlos moves toward his wife and tries to take the picture away from her, but she clings tightly to it. “Stop it,” she pleads. “Stop it. You know why they’re looking for him. We both know.”

  “Be quiet, Flora. You’re talking nonsense. Here, give that to me.” He succeeds in yanking the frame from her grasp, then spins around to face Jerome. “Out. Now. And stay away!”

  Jerome looks helplessly at Mrs. Carlos but realizes he doesn’t have a choice. He excuses himself and heads out the door.

  The heat hits him like a blast from a furnace, but he’s glad to finally be breathing fresh air. Flecks of ground glass in the concrete shimmer in the noonday sun as he makes his way to the car. His shadow on the ground is distinct, its edges sharply defined. When he touches the handle of the car door, it’s burning hot, so he reaches for the towel he keeps in his backpack. That is when he realizes that it’s still inside the house.

  When he turns back to get it, he bumps into Mrs. Carlos and sees her clutching it.

  She thrusts it almost violently into his hands. It’s an angry gesture, but her face tells a different story.

  “San Francisco de Asis,” she whispers. “Wait for me. Please. I won’t be long.”

  Jerome notices that Mr. Carlos is standing in the doorway of the house, waiting for his wife, his brown, lined face stern.

  Jerome nods. “Thank you,” he says.

  He can feel their eyes on him as he gets into his car and drives away.

  41

  About an hour later, Jerome is still waiting inside one of the alcoves at the church of St. Francis of Assisi. It’s oppressively hot, and no one has turned on the elec
tric fans to keep the warm, sticky air moving inside the church. Why bother when the church is practically empty? There are only three or four other people scattered among the pews.

  Sweat trickles down Jerome’s nape, down his back. His undershirt is soon soaked, matted to his skin. He is thirsty again.

  He sees a shadow fall across the pews in the nave nearest him and, seconds later, the slight figure of Mrs. Carlos. She must have dressed in a hurry, because she’s still in her tsinelas, the worn red flip-flops she was wearing at the house.

  “Mrs. Carlos,” he calls out, careful not to disturb the others. She turns and sees him. She’s nervous; that much is plain. Her eyes dart everywhere, making certain she hasn’t been followed, before she enters the alcove.

  “I can’t stay long,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper. “I want to know: are you really trying to help him?”

  “Ma’am, even if you went and checked with my order right now, or with my university, you would know that I’m telling you the truth. I can give you the telephone numbers—”

  But she waves the suggestion away. “There’s no time for any of that anymore.” She looks at him ruefully. “You have a kind face. Do you teach? Young people? Boys?”

  “I used to, yes.”

  “Alex, he . . . Did I tell you he was a good boy?”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “You asked me whether or not he liked PE, or sports. He didn’t. He liked to play when he was a child, but he was never really good at anything—basketball, badminton, none of that.” Now she’s wringing her fingers together in her lap. “Something changed. Something changed him, when he was in his second year of high school.”

  “What was it? What happened?”

  She waits a moment: one final hesitation before the truth. “Sometime last year, he told us he’d seen his old PE teacher from high school. Mr. Gorospe. Isabelo Gorospe.” There’s anger, old and deep, in her voice. “Tell me, Father, do you believe in evil? You must believe in evil—you’re a priest, after all.”

  Jerome has a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach, a sense that he already knows what she’s going to tell him next. “I do.”

  “A few days—maybe a week—after that meeting, he said he wouldn’t be able to see us for a while.” Her large, dark eyes, so like Alex’s, are brimming with tears.

  “Why? What happened between him and Mr. Gorospe?” Jerome asks.

  “Flora!”

  Jerome and Mrs. Carlos are both startled as Mr. Carlos rushes toward them. “What are you doing?” he demands, his voice echoing in the dome of the alcove. He turns to Jerome, as the other people in the nave glance over their shoulders at the commotion. “You again! Didn’t I tell you to stay away from us?”

  “Alex is in trouble. If Father Lucero can help him . . .”

  Mr. Carlos takes her by the wrist and tries to drag her away, but she struggles. “Stop it! Stop it, Papa!” She wrenches free of his grasp, then runs to the back of the alcove, putting distance and a series of pews between herself and her husband.

  “We didn’t do anything,” she sobs to Jerome. “We didn’t ask questions.”

  “That’s enough, Flora.”

  “Mr. Carlos—”

  “We sent Alex to a public school in Quezon City,” she continues, cutting Jerome short. “We couldn’t afford anything better. When it all began—when he started changing—we didn’t know what to do, who to trust. We were too poor, too stupid. How could anyone expect us to know? Who would listen to us?”

  Mr. Carlos sinks down into a pew, cradles his head in his hands. “Mama, please.”

  “Papa, don’t you want to help him?” Mrs. Carlos asks her husband. He looks up and holds her gaze a long moment, their faces creased with deep-rooted anguish, pale with fresh fear. As Jerome watches, they seem to reach a wordless understanding, and then Mr. Carlos turns to him.

  “He became rebellious,” he says. “Withdrawn. We thought he’d begun taking drugs, but physically he was the same—small but healthy. He came home late all the time, and we never saw him with friends.”

  Mrs. Carlos sobs quietly, a leitmotif of misery to the numb drone of her husband’s voice.

  “Of course we started fighting. His mother and I would scream a lot, but we tried, we tried so hard to reach him. One day—” He chokes, and his eyes fill with tears. “One day I woke him up early for school, and I saw him. There was blood on the sheets, on his shorts. Not much, just spots here and there. But I panicked. Started shouting. He tried to get away, but I held him by the shoulders. I couldn’t make him understand that I was trying to help him. I thought he was sick.”

  Jerome puts out a hand, touches the man’s shoulder gently.

  “He begged me not to hurt him. He said he would be good; he would do what I wanted. Then he wriggled free and ran to the bathroom. He locked the door, but I pounded and pounded until it flew open. I made him show me.”

  Jerome is stunned. He imagines that the scenario Mr. Carlos just described might have only served to exacerbate the young boy’s trauma. But he cannot judge them—cannot be perceived to be judging them. “What did you see?”

  “He was bleeding. He was sitting on the toilet seat, trying not to cry, but he was trying even harder to keep himself from flying at me. From killing me.”

  Even after all these years, Mr. Carlos still seems shaken by the memory of that day. He keeps running a hand through his sparse hair, plastering what’s left of it down onto his sweaty scalp.

  “What did you do?” Jerome asks. “Did you tell anyone? Did you try to get help?”

  A harsh little laugh. “Help? From whom?”

  “You didn’t tell anyone?” Jerome looks at the husband, then at the wife, then back again, trying to tamp down his disbelief. “Did you not understand how seriously your son was being hurt?”

  Mrs. Carlos comes closer, her voice now eerily calm. “We were afraid. Nobody talked about such things back then.”

  Jerome doesn’t quite know what to say. “You pulled him out of school, at least?” They shake their heads. “So you let him stay there?” he asks, and he restrains himself in the nick of time from asking, You allowed it to go on?

  “He was on scholarship at Payatas High. If we pulled him out, we would not have had enough money to send him to school.”

  “But the scholarships stopped anyway, right?”

  They both hesitate. “His PE teacher arranged for him to continue,” Mr. Carlos says. “To this day, we’re not sure how.”

  A well-dressed woman—one of the few other people in the church—gets up from her pew and walks toward the exit, the clicking of her heels bouncing sharply off the walls and ceiling of the nave. Jerome waits until the sound has faded away.

  “But the person who did this to Alex—it was the same teacher, yes? Mr. Gorospe?”

  “Yes.” Flora Carlos reaches out blindly for her husband’s hand, and he takes hers. “At the time, after Alex’s grades started dropping and nobody would sponsor his studies any more, Gorospe came and talked to us. He said he’d take care of Alex, that he was just going through a normal phase that all young boys go through. Told us not to give up on our son.”

  Mr. Carlos puts an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “We were so grateful. It wasn’t until years later that Alex told us it was Gorospe who—” and he stops; the words are just too horrific to say aloud, in a church, to a stranger.

  Jerome leans back in the pew, taking stock of what he’s learned. It’s shattering: when the scholarships dried up, Alex’s abuser had manipulated the situation, used the family’s poverty and need to keep him in school so he would have ready access to him.

  “You told me you haven’t seen Alex in more than a year. That was around the time he’d seen Gorospe after so many years. Right? When was it? If you last saw him more than a year ago—that would have been around the middle of l
ast year? May, June?”

  “May,” she whispers.

  “He told you that it didn’t end well. And you . . .” Jerome pauses to consider what he’ll say next. “You decided—again—not to tell anyone or seek help.”

  They remain silent, but their faces say everything. Jerome understands, on an intellectual level, what they are feeling: love and concern for their son, shame at their inability to prevent or seek redress for his suffering, guilt at keeping their son’s secret. But on an emotional level, he’s surprised to find that he’s angry with them somehow.

  “That’s why he said he wouldn’t be able to see you again for a while. That’s why you weren’t surprised when I told you the police were looking for Alex.” He realizes now the implications of what he’s learned. “If I went back to look for Gorospe—would I be able to find him?”

  Mrs. Carlos shakes her head.

  Jerome stands slowly. “Is there anything else you think I should know before I leave?”

  Mr. Carlos also rises to his feet. “We did not want any of this to happen.”

  Mrs. Carlos reaches out to touch his arm. “Father, if there’s any way you can bring him home to us . . . We are not bad people. And whatever he has done, Alex is not a bad person.”

  “You should talk to his friends. The ones who knew. The ones who . . .” and here Mr. Carlos’s voice falters, and he takes a moment or two to regain control over it. “Alex wasn’t the only one.”

  Jerome nods. “I understand.”

  He excuses himself, but the Carloses say not another word to him. They turn instead toward each other, lost in their private torment.

  As soon as he can get a decent signal on his cell phone, Jerome calls Saenz’s faculty office. When he doesn’t get an answer, he tries the phone in the laboratory.

  “Saenz,” says the voice on the other end.

  “I’m heading back now.”