With the same gravity, the same theatricality as always, Villagra went to the door and looked out to make sure he wasn’t being spied on. Then he picked up the eraser and slowly started to erase the options one by one, but before he got to the last one, “all of the above,” he stopped to brush away the chalk dust that had fallen onto his jacket, and he let out a cough that resounded exaggeratedly. Then, from the last row, Vergara — better known to his classmates as Verga-rara—asked if the correct answer was e). Villagra looked at the ceiling as if searching for inspiration, and his face really did take on an expression of enlightenment. “The question is poorly designed,” he said. He explained that options a) and b) were practically identical, as were c) and d), so it was obvious, by default, that the answer was e).
“So the right answer is ‘all of the above’?” asked González Reyes.
“As I said, it is the correct answer by default. Open your books to page 80, please.”
“Aaaaahhhhhh,” said the boys.
“But, sir, what do you think of Pinochet?” insisted a different González, González Torres (there were six boys named González in the class).
“That doesn’t matter,” he said, serenely and decisively. “I’m the Natural Sciences teacher. I don’t talk about politics.”
3
I remember the cramp in my right hand, after history class, because Godoy dictated for the entire two hours. He taught us Athenic democracy by dictating the way you dictate in a dictatorship.
I remember Lavoisier’s Law, but I remember the law of the jungle much better.
I remember Aguayo saying that “in Chile, people are lazy, they don’t want to work; Chile is a country full of opportunities.”
I remember Aguayo failing us, but offering make-up classes with his daughter, who was beautiful, but whom we didn’t like, because in her face we recognized the dog-like face of her father.
***
I remember Veragua wearing white socks to school and Aguayo telling him: “You are trash.”
I remember Veragua’s hair, and his big green eyes that filled with tears as he looked at the ground, in silence, humiliated. He never showed up at school again.
I remember Venegas, the head teacher, telling us the following Monday: “Veragua’s parents withdrew him. He couldn’t hack it.”
I remember Elizabeth Azócar teaching us to write during the final hours of each Friday. I was in love with Elizabeth Azócar.
I remember Rodrigo Martínez Gallegos, and Hugo Puebla, and Álvaro Tabilo.
I remember Gonzalo Mario Cordero Lafferte, who used to tell jokes during our free hours. If any teachers happened to walk by, he would pretend we were studying French: la pipe, la table, la voiture.
***
I remember that we never complained. How stupid, to complain — we had to bear it all like men. But the idea of manliness was confused: sometimes it meant bravery, other times indolence.
I remember when someone stole the money I was carrying so I could make the optional annual payment at the Parents’ Center.
Later I found out who stole it, and he knew I knew. Every time we looked at each other we said, with our eyes: I know you robbed me, I know you know I robbed you.
I remember the list of Chilean presidents who had studied at my school. I remember that when teachers reeled off that list, they omitted the name of Salvador Allende.
I remember saying “my school” with pride.
I remember the Subordinate Noun Clause and the Subordinate Adjective/Relative Clause.
***
I remember the vocabulary exercises, which were full of strange words that we’d repeat later, dying of laughter: commiseration, skirmish, bauble, knickknack, iridescent, vindicate, craggy, succinct.
I remember that Soto got dropped off at school by the chauffeur who drove for his father, a military man.
I remember that the English teacher gave a bad grade to a student who had lived in Chicago for ten years, and later said, ashamed, “I didn’t know he was a gringo.”
I remember stupid teachers and brilliant teachers.
I remember the most brilliant of all, Ricardo Ferrada, who, during the first class of the year, wrote a Henry Miller quote on the board that changed my life.
I remember teachers who wanted to sink us and teachers who wanted to save us. Teachers who thought they were Mr. Keating. Teachers who thought they were god. Teachers who thought they were Nietzsche.
***
I remember that gang of homosexuals in the fourth grade. There were five or six and they always sat together, talked only to each other. The fattest one wrote me love letters.
They never played any sports, and the few times they went out to recess, they got teased and hit. They stayed in the classroom instead, talking or fighting among themselves. They shouted “Bitch!” and threw their backpacks at each other’s faces or onto the floor.
I remember one morning during free time, we were warming up for a math test with no teachers in the room, and the fat one was talking nonstop with his seatmate. Little Carlos shouted at him: “Shut up, you fat faggot.”
I remember the fat one got up, furious, more effeminate than ever, and answered: “Don’t you ever call me fat again.”
I remember smoking marijuana during recess, in the basement, with Andrés Chamorro, Cristián Villablanca, and Camilo Dattoli.
***
I remember Pato Parra, one of four people repeating junior year. I remember his drawings.
I remember he sat on the first bench in the middle row, and the only thing he did during class was draw.
He never looked at the teachers — he was always hunched over, concentrated on his drawing, wearing his coke-bottle glasses, his hair falling over the paper.
I remember the quick movement that Patricio Parra made with his head to keep his hair from messing up the drawing.
None of the teachers scolded him, not for his long hair or for his absolute disinterest in their classes. And if one of them asked him why he wasn’t participating, he would apologize dryly and politely, leaving no room for discussion.
I got to know him only a little, we talked only a few times. I remember one morning that I spent sitting next to him, looking at his drawings, which were perfect, almost always realistic: comics about unemployment, about poverty, all of them straightforward, free of histrionics.