Diving Board, page 5
He sat down and saw that Mr. Silva was wearing white gloves and holding a scalpel. On the biology teacher’s desk, in a metal tray: the cadaver of a frog. On the chalkboard was the diagram of its body, different-coloured lines indicating the location of bones, tendons, and organs.
Alejo focused on Inés’s shoulders, which rose and fell slowly every time air entered and left her body. He couldn’t look at her without feeling his stomach grumble, a confusing mix of hunger and repulsion. He was three seats behind her, but if he focused hard enough, he could smell her, her bittersweet smell, which barely brushed past his nostrils, though he could distinguish it from the scents and sweat of his other classmates.
This is how it had been all year, from the first day of class. He had been surprised by the new shapes visible under Inés’s clothing. She’d come back from summer changed. The curve of her hips, her breasts beginning to show under her shirt, her long, symmetrical neck, and the contrast between all this and her childlike features: her blonde hair tied in a tight ponytail, her white skin, her pale lips.
* * *
The bell rang suddenly and its metallic clang drew Alejo’s body in with a spasm. He thought he heard laughter and stared at his folder, which contained no notes, while everyone went out into the quad. Then he walked over to the teacher’s desk to look at the frog. When Mr. Silva bent down to pick up a pen that had fallen to the floor, Alejo grabbed a scalpel from its leather case and put it in his pocket. He had never acted with such agility.
He spent recess sitting on the floor next to the staircase, his hand in his pocket, closed around the cold handle.
* * *
The hum began to grow. His classmates returned from the quad, running down the staircases and pushing each other aside. After a minute, he saw Inés’s shoes. She was surrounded by her girlfriends. He waited until she’d passed and then followed her. It was a game. But Inés suddenly broke off from the group and headed for the bathroom. Alone. He halted and two boys bumped into him from behind. Alejo moved aside and followed Inés with his eyes. He was about to go into the classroom when she looked back. For just a second. Their eyes met before she disappeared around a corner. He followed her.
He stopped in front of the bathroom’s closed door and felt a void in his stomach, a pit opening from his core that projected him into an undefined space. Deep down, perhaps, he intuited the gap between his fantasies and reality, the latter being too pragmatic. But none of this mattered, because she’d just opened the door and was looking him in the eye. She seemed surprised. They were very close, still, almost touching. He reached out a hand and brushed her fingers; she came to and moved away abruptly. Alejo forced himself to hold her gaze. Her huge black eyes consumed him. In his pocket, his fingers clutched the handle of the scalpel.
And suddenly it was as though something broke loose. He grabbed her by the wrist and fixed his eyes on her inner elbow, on the blue veins under her translucent skin. Through his fingers he felt her heart thumping, a synchronicity in his chest and hers. He could even hear the rumour of her blood, coming and going through her veins along its endless path. She pulled away, but he tightened his grip. It all happened very quickly, very easily. The scalpel slid from his pocket and sliced his classmate’s skin without resistance. The cut was deep. It began to bleed.
Alejo reacted on time and grabbed Inés before she fell. He laid her on the floor carefully and kneeled down next to her. Then he brought his lips to the wound and felt her blood on his tongue. It was warm, metallic.
* * *
The blood flowed thick. She lay on the floor with her eyes closed, her eyelids twitching as though she were dreaming. Alejo, his arms around her waist, gorged on her blood until he could drink no more. Until his stomach was bloated, like a balloon full of water. Then he raised his head and took a breath. Inés’s blood continued to spurt from her arm, and the flow of it suddenly seemed to him a thing of beauty. A secret.
He heard voices and steps approaching. He closed his eyes and lay down on his back.
* * *
The liquid gurgled unpleasantly in his stomach. Two people were taking him away, kicking and screaming violently. He looked up. Mr. Silva was holding his right arm. He didn’t know who the other person was, but he’d seen him in the hallways. They went down the stairs and passed a mirror in which Alejo glimpsed himself. He was covered in blood. His face, his neck, his clothes, and his hands. The image etched itself in his mind.
That was him.
And now Inés was his.
* * *
They took him to the nurse’s office and locked him inside it. He felt light-headed, euphoric. As though his body were something entirely new to which he’d have to readapt. He struggled to breathe and was cold despite the heat, which was causing him to sweat profusely. The taste still pulsed in his mouth.
He lay down on the cot and surrendered to what was at once abandonment and pure energy. Though he was still, he felt like he was running, moving in every direction. He wondered if he’d remained inside his dream from the night before. But no, he was awake and to some degree aware that between desire and action there should have been a step, one he’d skipped. He’d followed a different logic and that made everything seem more unreal.
* * *
The door opened. Alejo was soaked in sweat. He looked to one side and saw his mother, whose eyes were fixed on the floor and whose lips were pursed in a grimace. She was embarrassed and couldn’t bring herself to look at him. Behind her were more teachers. Alejo sat up, sweat dripping into his eyes, causing them to burn. The skin on his neck and hands was pulled tight by the dried blood, like a plaster. The principal pushed passed the others and entered the nurse’s office. He asked Alejo what he had done.
Alejo looked at his shoes. An opaque red drop had stained the white fabric. Just one, forming a perfect circle. They already knew what he had done, there was no point in answering. The principal kept talking, asking questions, clearly agitated by Alejo’s silence. Alejo raised his eyes and looked at the man’s mouth, at his moist lips moving, at his tongue. The words he spat out made no sense; they were a mass of vowels and consonants that told Alejo nothing. Suddenly he felt nauseous, thick saliva rising in his throat. He focused and closed his eyes, but that made it worse. He swallowed with difficulty and pressed his lips shut until the urge to vomit forced them open. His body doubled over and he threw up, unable to stop himself. Red blood, brilliant and thick. Heave after heave, until he was empty.
Alejo saw the principal’s feet stepping back, moving away from the slowly expanding pool, and he covered his face with his hands so the others wouldn’t see him cry.
* * *
He woke a while later. Someone was pressing on his stomach, and he opened his eyes suddenly. It was a doctor, who now placed a hand on his shoulder to keep him still. The doctor asked him how he was feeling. Alejo said he was fine and looked toward the door. His mother was talking to two police officers and signing forms. Her eyes were swollen and her makeup was running, forming two circles, dark and deep.
* * *
Dusk entered through the window that opened onto the street. When his mother returned to the nurse’s office, it was night. She had brought him old overalls to cover his bloodstained clothes. No one knows what to do with you, was all she said.
The school was empty. The dim quad made him want to run, to lose himself in the semidarkness. But he followed his mother out into the street. She lit a cigarette and smoked, her back to him. She didn’t look at him until Juan Pablo picked them up in the car.
He sat in the back, his forehead against the window’s cold glass, perfectly aware of the silence, of how they were looking at him in the rear-view mirror.
* * *
They entered the apartment, and Alejo went straight to the bathroom. His mother yelled that they had to talk, but he slammed the door shut. She was maybe crying and Juan Pablo was consoling her. Alejo sat under the shower, watching the water turn red and disappear down the drain. His mind was on Inés: on how she tasted, on when he’d see her again. She was also thinking about him—of that he could be certain. Then he locked himself in his room, changed, and put the bloodied clothes in a bag under his bed.
A few hours later, when the house was silent, he got up. His mother and her boyfriend were asleep in each other’s arms. They were dressed, her head on his chest. Their breath in sync. The television on mute.
He watched them for a while in the dim blue light.
Miguel’s Eyes
Hitting someone who doesn’t defend himself, who waits to be hit again, is a strange feeling. It’s like an electrical discharge you long for over and over. That first time I didn’t stop, not until I understood that the elastic sound expanding into the dark hallway was my hand, striking my son’s head.
But the first incident took place long before that, when Miguel was seven. Esther and I were more aware of his presence because of our routine—changing his diapers, giving him his bath, dressing him, feeding him. But Javier and Nahuel ignored him like people do a plant, even though the apartment was small and the three of them slept in the same room. During Miguel’s first years, we encouraged his older brothers to interact with him, but deep down we understood them. There was something unsettling about his light, almost transparent eyes, about the way he looked at you, that was not of this earth, and over time we understood it to be pure absence. His pale and inexpressive face seemed completely oblivious to any stimulus. He didn’t even move on his own. He was able to walk, but we had to pick him up under his arms, or lead him by the hand. And talking to him was like talking to yourself; it made you feel stupid, like you were the one who was sick.
That’s why what happened was so strange. I’d been woken by noises and had gotten out of bed and found him in the middle of the boys’ room, his arms hanging by his sides. Javier was hitting him directly in the face. With a closed fist. Nahuel was in his bed, watching them silently. For a second, I froze at the shock of it. The sound of Javier’s fist was hollow, as though Miguel were a wooden puppet.
For a few seconds I did nothing. I just stood in the door watching, but then suddenly I understood Miguel was enjoying it. The realization felt like choking, it was a second of unbearable clarity. Then I yelled Javier’s name and he looked at me as though I’d just got there. He let his arms fall, sat down on the bed, and burst into tears like a child, though he was fifteen at the time. I went up to Miguel. His thin lips were soaked in blood and seemed to form a smile, and also other things that, to this day, after all that’s happened, I still can’t explain.
Esther had just come into the room. She wanted to know what was going on, and when she saw Miguel, she covered her mouth with her hands. She stood there, unable to react. I told her to take him to the bathroom and treat his wounds. I went over to Javier and asked why he’d done such a thing. He looked at me, unable to stop crying. And though he opened his mouth, nothing came out.
Nahuel was curled up against the wall. I asked him what had happened and he said he’d been woken by noises. He’d seen the same thing I had and couldn’t get the image out of his head.
Indignant and confused, I asked if he’d thought about helping his younger brother. He said he hadn’t. His hands shook.
Miguel’s wounds weren’t serious, just some bruises and cuts on his lips. I ran my fingers through his brittle, almost white hair to comfort him. But he was neither worked up nor frightened; as absent as always, he seemed to be looking through the mirror. We took him to our bed and lay him down between us. I didn’t sleep all night.
* * *
For a while after that, we went back to looking into schools for kids with conditions more or less like Miguel’s. We were told the same thing we had been years prior. They couldn’t take him; they wouldn’t know what to do with him.
His brothers now avoided him more than ever. They spent as much time as possible outside of the house and slept over at their friends’ places whenever they could.
Miguel was always in his room, lying in bed or sitting in a chair, looking at who knows what. Esther fed him and changed his diapers four times a day. I stopped by to say hi in the evenings, but really there was no point.
* * *
Javier finished high school, got a job in sales, and started saving to move out on his own. The following year, when Nahuel finished his final exams, Javier got him a job at the same company and they decided to rent a place together. They said they needed privacy, that our house was tiny and there were too many of us. We had no choice but to accept it. The day they moved out, we bought them a fridge.
Esther began to spend more time with Miguel, but she found this deeply isolating in a way that being alone wasn’t. I called the boys often and asked them over for dinner. They were always too busy and almost never came home. Esther and I couldn’t go anywhere. We couldn’t leave Miguel alone, and we certainly couldn’t take him with us.
* * *
One day at noon, when Javier and I were having lunch near my office, he told me that Nahuel was thinking of leaving the country. A friend of his was working in Canada, serving drinks at a bar, and had said he should come. Apparently, he’d earn a lot of money.
That afternoon I went to see him at their apartment. I tried to convince him to stay, even resorted to manipulating him in awful ways because I was concerned about Esther’s mental health. But Nahuel had already bought his ticket. It was a sad conversation, full of uncomfortable silence.
Esther listened to the news with an expression that at first appeared to be indifference. She said nothing, and when we finished eating she got up to wash the dishes. I sat there looking at Miguel. Frothy yellow drool was forming at the corner of his lips and dripping onto his bib.
I cleaned him with a napkin and took him to bed.
* * *
After his brothers left, he began to get out of bed in the middle of the night. At first, this felt like a major development. It was very strange for him to be moving on his own, with no one holding on to him or leading him by the arm. It seemed to be a sign of his will, the first he’d shown in his life. But after a few days we saw that his movements were just as empty as the hours he spent sitting, without so much as blinking.
I’d wake suddenly, on edge, and find him at the foot of our bed. In the semidarkness, it sometimes seemed like he was looking at us, really looking at us. But then I’d turn on the light and see the same watery eyes as always. I’m not referring to tears, but to a certain hazy depth, like a spoon that appears broken inside a glass of water. I’d get up then and take him back to bed.
But one night something changed. I was leading him by the arm, and he’d stop every two or three steps. When I pushed him he’d start walking, but then he’d stop again. I’m not sure if it was exhaustion, the heat, or something else, but I hit him on the back of his neck with my open palm. Slowly, to get his attention. He wasn’t even fazed. And so I hit him again.
When I was done, I felt my blood pulsing in my fingertips. My hands hurt. There he was, very still, his mouth strangely tense, an almost imperceptible curve on his lips.
I put him to bed and went back to our room. Esther’s eyes were open. Two grey patches, they followed me as I took off my bathrobe and lay down. My breathing slowly normalized. That night I slept deeply, more so than I had in a long time. In the morning, I didn’t hear the alarm go off. I was late to work for the first time in almost twenty years.
* * *
Miguel was erratic; he might get up at midnight or close to dawn. But after that first time, it happened every night, without exception. His forays had a particular texture to them; it was as though the image of him were not that of someone walking in the dark, as though his feet were not touching the ground. He seemed like a shadow, like the projection of a dream.
I also saw myself as though I were someone else, trapped in that routine, in those movements that were both mechanical and pure power. I would wait, awake, until I heard his feet dragging through the hallway, the door’s hinges creaking softly. Then I’d get up in the dark, take him back to his room, place him on his bed. And I would strike him with a closed fist. All of this took place in the most perfect of silences, except for the dampened, sedated sound of my knuckles on his flesh. Esther looked on from the door. Afterward, she treated Miguel’s wounds and lay him down while I washed the cuts on my hands.
We’d go back to bed thinking about the half smile we’d glimpsed, because it all happened in the dark—we never turned on the light. In a way, it was a means of expression, the only one Miguel was capable of. Yet it also entailed a complete lack of meaning. It was a mere reaction, something that activated inside him with no end other than the act itself. A simple muscular movement. Because he didn’t feel pain, or pleasure, or fear. And that, I understood one night, was even worse. He was like a magnetic field that brought out the worst in us, from the very depths of us, and slowly drew it to him until it took on a recognizable form. Something that wasn’t sheer nothingness.
I know Esther and I thought similarly, we circled around the same ideas over and over. We needed only look at each other; the complicity and the guilt, for better or worse, brought us closer every day.
* * *
But that was at night. During the day I didn’t think, at least not at first. I went to work, handled clients, had lunch with my colleagues, and told them about my two sons. About how little I knew of Nahuel’s life in Canada. About Javier and how he was doing at school. About Esther’s mood, which fluctuated.
