“To Jerez.”
“Or to the port.”
“Or to Sanlúcar.”
“For ice cream.”
“Or to go shopping.”
“Or to the cinema.”
“We’ve got money.”
“Not much.”
“But we’ve got some.”
“Yes.”
“If you don’t feel like it, it doesn’t matter.”
“I hope you don’t think we’re being cheeky.”
“But it’s too cold to play outside.”
“And we’re a bit fed up with going into town.”
“And there’s nothing good on TV.”
“And we can’t think of anything to do.”
“And we’re bored.”
They stood staring at her, while Sara gathered her thoughts. But she soon rewarded their patience with a smile, and invited them inside.As she followed them into the sitting room, she cast a rueful glance at a folder lying on the table, containing the details of a new development that was so expensive Maribel couldn’t understand why Sara even wanted her to look at it. But then she remembered how much she’d missed the children when they’d gone back to school, and although she was reluctant to go out again at this time, now the winter nights drew in so quickly, she sat down opposite them and smiled again, because she had learned from her father that loyalty could overcome lethargy.
“Now, let’s see.Where do you want to go?”
“Well, loads of places really.”This time it was Tamara who spoke first.
“I’d like to go and look at the new computer games so that I can decide which one I’m going to ask for, for Christmas,” said Andrés.
“Me too. And I’d like to buy a Christmas tree, and decorations. We haven’t got one here.”
“I think they’ve set up one of those Nativity scenes at the Corte Inglés store, with those figures that move and speak.”
“Maybe they’ve got things at the other shopping centers too.”
“I bet they have. Last year, at one in El Puerto, they had a big tank of balls with slides and nets to climb up. It was great. I couldn’t go, because mum doesn’t have a car, but maybe they’ll have it again this year.”
“And someone told us there’s a Christmas street market near here.”
“And there’s a really good film, about space, that’s just come out.”
“And one about twins who get lost.”
“That one’s rubbish.”
“Well, I want to see it.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“OK!” shouted Sara, holding up her hands to get them to be quiet. “We can go and see the one about space one day, and the one with the twins another day.”
They would have time to see two more films as well—a big American blockbuster supposedly retelling a medieval legend, and a Japanese animated film—before the holidays ended. For almost an entire month, Sara regained the feeling of not having enough time to do all the things she’d set out to do in a day. On the days the children had to go to school in the mornings, they arrived at her house just after lunch, doing their homework there to save time. Later on, the main novelty was no longer the new timetable, but the fact that there were three of them instead of two.
“We’ve got to bring Alfonso with us, Sara,”Tamara informed her con-tritely, when Sara opened the door to her one day and found her holding her disabled uncle’s hand. “We’ve got no choice,” she went on, still using the plural as if Sara were the one who had been dreaming about going to El Puerto to see if they’d set up the tank of balls.“His center is closed for the holidays and Juan said I’ve got to keep him company, because Maribel doesn’t want to be left on her own with him. She’s scared he’ll go all strange on her. But he won’t, he’s very good, aren’t you?” Alfonso nodded vigorously, three times. “OK, Alfonso, stay here a minute. I’m going to get Andrés.”
Tamara kissed him before letting go of his hand and ran into the house. Sara shrugged slightly, not daring to look directly at this unexpected guest. She’d been around Alfonso Olmedo a few times before, but always when his older brother was there, and she’d noticed the way Juan handled him with a careful combination of strictness and leniency; he was firm when asking Alfonso to do things he knew he was capable of, but forgave him mistakes quickly and easily whenever he tried something new. However Sara wasn’t sure where the line between naughtiness and clumsiness fell, so she was thinking that the best course would probably be to treat him like an ordinary adult, when she noticed that he was staring at her. She held his gaze, and then Alfonso proffered his hand, like a little child who wants to be taken for a walk. Sara took the man’s soft, large, hairy hand and squeezed it, feeling its size and shape and how readily he entrusted it to her.The situation seemed so ridiculous that she let out a nervous giggle.
“It’s fun, eh?” said Alfonso. He spoke with difficulty in a guttural voice that betrayed his disability, no matter how correctly he pronounced every syllable.
“Yes,” said Sara, not knowing what else to say.
“What is?” Alfonso asked then.
“Well, I don’t know.That we’re going for a walk, and having lunch out, and . . .”
She was saved by the arrival of the children, but although she breathed a sigh of relief that she wouldn’t have to answer any more of Alfonso’s questions, Sara suddenly felt that this had to stop, things had gone too far. She wasn’t the mother of these children, and she couldn’t be expected to take them here, there and everywhere all day like an unpaid chauffeur or nanny. She hadn’t thought of it like this until now. She’d found the films amusing, and she’d enjoyed their walks through the winter streets full of lights, and the color and bustle of the street markets, where she’d been so carried away by the atmosphere that she’d bought a wreath of dried flowers to hang on her front door (the only clue that it was Christmas, rather than October or April). She sometimes felt a trifle bored by the children’s endless comparisons of various computer games, but on the whole she’d enjoyed watching them have fun, and took pleasure in having a packed schedule, filled with things to do. So far, all of this, and the pleasure of putting her feet up when she got home, exhausted, had seemed fine, and she would even have said that it had been worth it. It wasn’t as if taking the children out had eaten up valuable time—she had nothing to do that couldn’t wait a couple of weeks, or months, or even whole years if need be. But while it bothered her to discover that she shared some of Maribel’s irrational fear, the addition of Alfonso to the group was simply too much.“After today, that’s it,” she told herself as she got out of the car, oblivious to Andrés’s and Tamara’s delight when they saw the complex edifice of brightly colored plastic. She steeled herself for an odd, disjointed conversation with Alfonso while the two children exhausted themselves, jumping off the seemingly endless number of ramps and spirals, but this wasn’t what happened.Tamara went up to the attendant and gave him a long, pathetic speech about her uncle, and the man let Alfonso in, much to Sara’s surprise.Then she was amazed to see him climb and jump with considerable agility. She realized then that physical exercise must have been part of his therapy since childhood. On the immense and fairly empty apparatus,Alfonso Olmedo stood out only because of his size, and he was having as much fun as everyone else.
By the time their sixty minutes were up, Sara Gómez had calmed down enough to search within herself for the cause of the uneasiness that had almost ruined the day. Her investigation began and ended in the same familiar place: Christmas always put her in a bad mood. Having resorted to a wide variety of tactics for sweetening this troublesome time over the years, she’d eventually opted for simply ignoring the whole business. But this hadn’t worked much better than trying to celebrate it on her own, or eschewing solitude to stay at her sister Socorro’s, or being consumed with sadness at a smart hotel in a village in Castille, where she’d had to eat in a dining room full of single diners, all the other fools from Madrid who’d had the same stupid idea as herself.This was the main reason that she’d submitted so meekly to all of Andrés’s and Tamara’s whims. Self-interest lurked beneath her generous self-denial whenever Juan or Maribel asked her not to pay the children so much attention, when she insisted that she loved taking them to the cinema and driving them around. She hoped that the children’s company, their energy and enthusiasm, their endless capacity to want things, would protect her from her feelings of desolation, the thick sense of failure that flooded her being when the sound of the first Christmas carol forced open the floodgates of her memory. She didn’t hate Christmas, she didn’t have a reason to hate it, or anyone to hate it with—it just put her in a bad mood. A really, really bad mood. Such a bad mood that it took her a whole morning to realize that it wasn’t Alfonso Olmedo’s fault that in more than fifty years she hadn’t found security, a home to return to, with her hands empty or full of gold, when Christmas came around once more.
Apart from anything else,Alfonso was perfectly behaved. He did as he was told and didn’t wander off even once. And Tamara kept a close eye on him the whole time, as if, despite Sara’s attempts to hide her feelings, she knew what was at stake for them all that morning. But later, when Sara rushed to take the only free table in the burger bar,Alfonso immediately sat beside her, with the innocent passivity of one who is used to having everything done for him, and Tamara said she and Andrés would go and get the food. In the few minutes she was away, the only mishap of the day occurred. It made Sara very nervous, but later on she felt pleased that she had been there, because only then did she begin to think of Alfonso Olmedo as a complete being, a person separate from his brother and his niece, a pair of eyes and a voice that had their own story to tell.
The scene seemed perfectly normal, when suddenly Alfonso pushed back his chair and tried to hide behind it. Sara scrambled to grasp what had happened, what had changed, what new element had been introduced into the monotonous landscape of plastic tables and brightly colored signs. But however much she tried, she wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint anything had Alfonso not grasped her arm and whispered a strange word into her ear, a name that sounded quaint, almost funny, like the name of a character in an old-fashioned comedy.
“Nicanorrr,” he said, extending the last syllable out like chewing gum, in a way that would have been comical if he hadn’t looked so afraid. “Nicanor, Nicanor.”
“Who?” asked Sara. She didn’t dare raise her voice and the question emerged as a nervous whisper. She looked around, bewildered. She didn’t understand what was happening; all she knew was that Alfonso was becoming very agitated.“What is it? What do you mean?”
“Nicanor,”Alfonso repeated, as if he thought Sara should understand, and grew increasingly frustrated when he saw that she didn’t.“Nicanor, Nicanor,” he said again, and then suddenly, more precisely: “That uniform—see that? It’s Nicanor.”
She looked towards the front of the restaurant and suddenly began to understand. A pair of policemen, one young, fair-haired, and solid, the other older, almost completely bald and fatter, had been waiting for food for quite a while. Apart from the waiters, they were the only people in uniform in the place, so she guessed Alfonso must mean one of them. Sara turned back round to look at Alfonso and was alarmed to see how pale he was, beads of sweat running down his forehead. Instinctively, she put out a hand to stroke his face.
“The policeman?” she said quietly, still stroking Alfonso’s cheek.“You mean one of those policemen, don’t you? You know him and his name is Nicanor. Is that right?” He nodded, not looking at her, his eyes fixed on the two men in their blue uniforms.“Which one is it? The fair-haired one?”Alfonso shook his head, and Sara corrected herself. “No, the other one, the taller one—he’s Nicanor.”
“Yes. I don’t like him. Juanito doesn’t either. He’s bad, Nicanor, he’s bad, he does tests on me, he hits me, he does tests on me. I hate tests, I hate them.”
“He hits you?”
“Bam, bam.”Alfonso started waving his hand from side to side, insisting on sound effects. “Bam, bam, this is what he does, bam, bam.”
“What’s happening?” asked Tamara, rushing up with a tray. She dropped it down on the table and put her arms around her uncle.“What’s the matter, Alfonso?” She turned to Sara, looking more frightened than Sara or Andrés had ever seen her.“What’s happened to him?”
“I’m not altogether sure. It started when those policemen came in. He seemed very anxious, even frightened, and started saying that one of them was called Nicanor, and that he knows him. I don’t know, maybe he’s seen him at the daycare center, or maybe he looks like one of the security guards there.”