The Childhood of Jesus (19 page)

‘Why doesn't Sancho also fight the giant?' asks the boy.

‘Because Sancho is not a knight. He is not a knight, therefore he has no sword or lance, just a pocketknife for peeling potatoes. All he can do—as we will see tomorrow—is to load Don Quixote onto his donkey and convey him to the nearest inn to rest and recover.'

‘But why doesn't Sancho hit the giant?'

‘Because Sancho knows the giant is really a windmill, and you can't fight against a windmill. A windmill is not a living thing.'

‘He's not a windmill, he's a giant! He's only a windmill in the picture.'

He puts down the book. ‘David,' he says, ‘
Don Quixote
is an unusual book. To the lady in the library who lent it to us it looks like a simple book for children, but in truth it isn't simple at all. It presents the world to us through two pairs of eyes, Don Quixote's eyes and Sancho's eyes. To Don Quixote, it is a giant he is fighting. To Sancho, it is a windmill. Most of us—not you, perhaps, but most of us nevertheless—will agree with Sancho that it is a windmill. That includes the artist who drew a picture of a windmill. But it also includes the man who wrote the book.'

‘Who wrote the book?'

‘A man named Benengeli.'

‘Does he live in the library?'

‘I don't think so. It is not impossible, but I would say it is unlikely. I certainly haven't noticed him there. He would be easy to recognize. He wears a long robe and has a turban on his head. ‘

‘Why are we reading Bengeli's book?'

‘Benengeli. Because I came across it in the library. Because I thought you might enjoy it. Because it will be good for your Spanish. What else do you want to know?'

The boy is silent.

‘Let us stop there and go on tomorrow with the next adventure of Don Quixote and Sancho. By tomorrow I will expect you to be able to point out
Sancho
with the big
S
and
Don Quixote
with the curly
Q
.'

‘It's not the adventures of Don Quixote and Sancho. It's the adventures of Don Quixote.'

CHAPTER 19

ONE OF the larger freighters has arrived at the docks, what Álvaro calls a double-belly freighter, with holds fore and aft. The dockers split into two crews. He, Simón, joins the fore crew.

At mid-morning on the first day of the unloading, down in the hold, he hears commotion on the deck and the shrilling of a whistle. ‘That's the fire signal,' says one of his companions. ‘Let's get out quick!'

He smells smoke even as they scramble up the ladder. It comes billowing up from the aft hold. ‘All out!' bellows Álvaro from his position on the bridge beside the ship's master. ‘All ashore!'

No sooner have the stevedores hauled up their ladders than the ship's crew drag the huge hatch covers to.

‘Aren't they going to put out the fire?' he asks.

‘They are starving it,' replies his companion. ‘In an hour or two it will be dead. But the cargo will be ruined, no doubt about that. We may as well dump it to the fishes.'

The stevedores gather on the quayside. Álvaro begins to call the roll. ‘Adriano…Agustín…Alexandre…' ‘Here…Here…Here…' come the responses. Until he reaches Marciano. ‘Marciano…' Silence. ‘Has anyone seen Marciano?' Silence. From the sealed hatch a wisp of smoke drifts into the windless air.

The sailors drag the hatch covers off again. At once they are enveloped in dense grey smoke. ‘Close up!' commands the ship's master; and to Álvaro, ‘If your man is there, it's all up with him.'

‘We are not abandoning him,' says Álvaro. ‘I will go down.'

‘Not while I am in command you won't.'

At noon the aft hatch covers are briefly reopened. The smoke is as thick as ever. The captain orders the hold to be flooded. The dockers are dismissed.

He recounts the day's events to Inés. ‘As for Marciano, we won't know for sure until they pump the hold dry in the morning,' he says.

‘What won't you know about Marciano? What happened to him?' asks the boy, coming in on the conversation.

‘My guess is that he fell asleep. He was careless and breathed in too much smoke. If you take in too much smoke you grow weak and dizzy and fall asleep.'

‘And then?'

‘Then I am afraid to say you don't wake up in this life.'

‘Do you die?'

‘Yes, you die.'

‘If he died he will go on to the next life,' says Inés. ‘So there is no need to be worried about him. It is time for your bath. Come on.'

‘Can Simón give me my bath?'

He has not seen the boy naked in a long time. He notes with pleasure how his body is filling out.

‘Stand up,' he says, and rinses the last of the soap off him and wraps him in a towel. ‘Let us dry you quickly, then you can put on your pyjamas.'

‘No,' says the boy. ‘I want Inés to dry me.'

‘He wants you to dry him,' he reports to Inés. ‘I am not good enough.'

Stretched out on his bed, the boy allows Inés to attend to him, drying between his toes, in the crack between his legs. His thumb is in his mouth; his eyes, drugged with omnipotent pleasure, follow her lazily.

She dusts him with talcum powder as if he were a baby; she helps him into his pyjamas.

It is time for bed, but he will not let go of the story of Marciano. ‘Maybe he isn't dead,' he says. ‘Can we go and look, Inés and you and I? I won't breathe in any smoke, I promise. Can we?'

‘There is no point in that, David. It is too late to save Marciano. And the ship's hold is full of water anyway.'

‘It's not too late! I can swim down into the water and save him, like a seal. I can swim anywhere. I told you, I am an escape artist.'

‘No, my boy, swimming down into a flooded hold is too dangerous, even for an escape artist. You could get trapped and never come back. Besides, escape artists don't save other people, they save themselves. And you aren't a seal. You haven't learned how to swim. It is time you understood one doesn't get to swim or be an escape artist just by wishing so. It takes years of training. Anyhow, Marciano doesn't want to be saved, to be brought back to this life. Marciano has found peace. He is probably crossing the seas at this very moment, looking forward to the next life. It will be a great adventure for him, to start anew, washed clean. He won't have to be a stevedore any more, and carry heavy bags on his shoulders. He can be a bird. He can be anything he likes.'

‘Or a seal.'

‘A bird or a seal. Or even a great big whale. There are no limits to what you can be in the next life.'

‘Will you and I go to the next life?'

‘Only if we die. And we are not going to die. We are going to live a long time.'

‘Like heroes. Heroes don't die, do they?'

‘No, heroes don't die.'

‘Will we have to speak Spanish in the next life?'

‘Definitely not. On the other hand, we may have to learn Chinese.'

‘And Inés? Will Inés come too?'

‘That is for her to decide. But I am sure that if you go to the next life, Inés will want to follow. She loves you very much.'

‘Will we see Marciano?'

‘Undoubtedly. However, we may not recognize him. We may think we are just seeing a bird or a seal or a whale. And Marciano—Marciano will think he is seeing a hippopotamus while it will really be you.'

‘No, I mean the real Marciano, at the docks. Will we see the real Marciano?'

‘As soon as the hold is pumped dry, the captain will send men down to fetch Marciano's body. But the real Marciano will no longer be among us.'

‘Can I see him?'

‘Not the real Marciano. The real Marciano is invisible to us. As for the body, the body that Marciano has escaped from, by the time we get to the docks it will have been taken away. The men will do that at first light, while you are still asleep.'

‘Taken where?'

‘Taken to be buried.'

‘But what if he isn't dead? What if they bury him and he isn't dead?'

‘That won't happen. The people who bury the dead, the gravediggers, are careful not to bury someone if he is still alive. They listen for a heartbeat. They listen for breathing. If they hear even the tiniest heartbeat, they won't bury him. So there is no need to worry. Marciano is at peace—'

‘No, you don't understand! What if his tummy is full of smoke but he isn't really dead?'

‘His lungs. We breathe with our lungs, not our tummies. If Marciano took smoke into his lungs he will certainly have died.'

‘It's not true! You are just saying that! Can we go to the docks before the gravediggers get there? Can we go now?'

‘Now, in the dark? No, we certainly can't. Why are you so eager to see Marciano, my boy? A dead body isn't important. It is the soul that is important. The soul of Marciano is the real Marciano; and the soul is on its way to the next life.'

‘I want to see Marciano! I want to suck the smoke out of him! I don't want him to be buried!'

‘David, if we could bring Marciano back by sucking the smoke out of his lungs, then the sailors would have done so long ago, I promise you. Sailors are just like us, full of goodwill. But you can't return people to life by sucking their lungs, not after they are dead. It's one of the laws of nature. Once you are dead you are dead. The body doesn't come back to life. Only the soul lives on: Marciano's soul, my soul, your soul.'

‘That's not true! I don't have a soul! I want to save Marciano!'

‘I won't allow it. We will all go to Marciano's funeral, and at the funeral you will have a chance, like everyone else, to kiss him goodbye. That is how it will be, and that is the end of it. I am not going to discuss Marciano's death any further.'

‘You can't tell me what to do! You are not my father! I am going to ask Inés!'

‘I can assure you Inés won't tramp down to the docks with you in the dark. Be sensible. I know you like to save people, and that is admirable, but sometimes people don't want to be saved. Let Marciano be. Marciano is gone. Let us remember the good things about him, and let go of his shell. Come now: Inés is waiting to tell you your bedtime story.'

By the time he presents himself for duty the next morning, the pumping of the aft hold is almost completed. Within an hour a team of seamen is able to descend; and soon afterwards, while the dockers watch in silence from the quayside, the body of their deceased comrade, strapped to a stretcher, is borne up on deck.

Álvaro addresses them. ‘In a day or two we will have a chance to say a proper goodbye to our friend, lads,' he says. ‘But for now it is work as usual. There is an unholy mess in the hold, and it is our job to clean it up.'

For the rest of the day the stevedores are down in the hold, ankle deep in water, enveloped in the acrid smell of wet ash. Every single sack of grain has burst; it is their task to shovel the sticky mess into buckets and pass these by relay up to the deck, from where they are dumped overboard. It is a joyless labour, carried out in silence in a place of death. When he calls at Inés's apartment that evening, he is exhausted and in a dark mood.

‘You don't happen to have anything to drink, do you?' he asks her.

‘Sorry, I'm out of everything. I'll make you some tea.'

Sprawled on his bed, the boy is absorbed in his book. Marciano is forgotten.

‘Hello,' he greets him. ‘How is the Don today? What is he up to?'

The boy ignores the question. ‘What does that word say?' he asks, pointing.

‘It says
Aventuras,
with a big letter
A
. The Adventures of Don Quixote.'

‘And that word?'

‘
Fantástico,
with an
F
. And that word—remember the big letter
Q
?—is
Quixote
. You can always recognize Quixote by the big
Q
. I thought you told me you knew the letters.'

‘I don't want to read letters. I want to read the story.'

‘That is not possible. A story is made up of words, and words are made up of letters. Without letters there would be no story, no Don Quixote. You have to know the letters.'

‘Show me which is
fantástico
.'

He places the boy's forefinger on the word. ‘There.' The fingernails are clean and neatly pared; whereas his own hand, which used to be as soft and clean, is cracked and dirty, with grime worked deep into the cracks.

The boy squeezes his eyes shut, holds his breath, opens his eyes wide. ‘
Fantástico
.'

‘Excellent. You have learned to recognize the word
fantástico
. There are two ways of learning to read, David. One way is to learn the words one by one, as you are doing. The other way, which is quicker, is to learn the letters that make up the words. There are only twenty-seven of them. Once you have learned them, you can spell out strange words for yourself, without having me tell you each time.'

The boy shakes his head. ‘I want to read the first way. Where is the giant?'

‘The giant who was really a windmill?' He turns the pages. ‘There is the giant.' He places the boy's forefinger on the word
gigante
.

The boy closes his eyes. ‘I'm reading through my fingers,' he announces.

‘It doesn't matter how you read, through your eyes or through your fingers like a blind person, as long as you read. Show me
Quixote
, with a
Q
.'

The boy stabs at the page with his finger. ‘There.'

‘No.' He moves the boy's finger to the right place. ‘There is
Quixote
, with the big
Q
.'

The boy snatches his hand away petulantly. ‘That's not his real name—don't you know?'

‘It may not be his worldly name, the name his neighbours know him by, but it is the name he chooses for himself and the name we know him by.'