“Do you want me to tell you something, Rigoberto?” said Doña Lucrecia, pressing her body against his in the dark as if reading his mind. “Sometimes I think he’s making all of it up. Typical of Fonchito and his fantasies. He’s played that trick on us before, hasn’t he? And I tell myself there’s nothing to worry about, that this gentleman doesn’t exist and can’t exist, that Fonchito invented everything to make himself interesting and to make us uneasy and dependent on him. But the problem is that Fonchito is an expert trickster. Because when he tells us about their encounters, it seems impossible that what he’s saying isn’t true. He speaks so honestly, so innocently, so persuasively — well, I don’t know. Don’t you react the same way?”
“Of course I do, just like you,” Rigoberto confessed, embracing his wife, warming himself with her body and warming her. “A great trickster, of course. I only hope he’s invented this whole story, Lucrecia. I hope, I hope. At first I didn’t think too much about it, but now these appearances are beginning to obsess me. I start to read and the little brat distracts me, I listen to music and there he is, I look at my prints and what I see is his face, which isn’t a face but a question mark.”
“Honestly, with Fonchito at least you’re never bored,” said Doña Lucrecia, attempting to joke. “Let’s try to rest a little. I don’t want to spend another sleepless night.”
A few days went by and the boy didn’t mention the stranger to them again. Rigoberto began to think that Lucrecia was right. It had all been a fantasy of their son’s to make himself interesting and capture their attention. Until one cold, drizzly winter evening when Lucrecia greeted him with an expression that startled him.
“Why that face?” Rigoberto kissed her. “Because of my early retirement? You think it’s a bad idea? Are you terrified at the thought of seeing me here at home all day?”
“Fonchito.” Lucrecia pointed to the lower floor, where the boy’s bedroom was. “Something happened to him at school and he won’t tell me what. I realized it as soon as he came in. He was very pale, trembling. I thought he had a fever. I took his temperature, but no, he didn’t have one. He was withdrawn, frightened, he could barely speak. ‘No, no, I’m fine, Stepmother.’ He had almost no voice. Go see him, Rigoberto, he’s in his room. Let him tell you what happened. Maybe we ought to call Medical Alert. I don’t like the way he looks.”
“Damn it, again,” Rigoberto thought. He raced down the stairs to the lower floor of the apartment. In fact, it was the brat again. Fonchito resisted at first. “Why should I tell you if you don’t believe me, Papa?” But finally he gave in to his father’s loving words. “It’s better to get it off your chest and share it with me, my boy. It’ll do you good to tell me about it, you’ll see.” His son was pale and didn’t seem himself. He spoke as if the words were being dictated to him or he might burst into tears at any moment. Rigoberto didn’t interrupt him once; he listened without moving, totally absorbed in what he was hearing.
It was during the thirty-minute recess they had at midafternoon at Markham Academy, before the final classes of the day. Instead of going to play on the soccer field, where his classmates were kicking the ball or lying on the grass and talking, Fonchito sat in a corner of the empty stands reviewing the last math lesson; that subject gave him the most trouble. He was beginning to immerse himself in a complicated equation with vectors and cube roots when something, “like a sixth sense, Papa,” made him feel he was being watched. He looked up and there the man was, sitting very close to him in the empty stands. He was dressed as correctly and simply as always, with a tie and a purple sweater under his gray jacket. He carried a portfolio of documents under his arm.
“Hello, Fonchito,” he said, smiling at him casually, as if they were old friends. “While your classmates play, you study. A model student, as I already imagined you were. Just as it should be.”
“When had he arrived and climbed into the stands? What was he doing there? The truth is I began to tremble and I don’t know why, Papa.” His son had grown a little paler and seemed stunned.
“Are you a teacher at the academy, señor?” Fonchito asked, frightened and not knowing what he was frightened of.
“A teacher, no, no I’m not,” the man answered, as calm as always and with the urbane manners that never left him. “I help out at Markham Academy from time to time, with practical matters. I’m an administrative adviser to the director. I like to come here, if the weather’s nice, to see you students. You remind me of my youth, and in a way, you rejuvenate me. But what I said about nice weather isn’t true anymore. What a shame, it’s begun to rain.”
“My papa wants to know what your name is, señor,” said Fonchito, surprised that it was so difficult for him to speak and that his voice was trembling so much. “Because you know him, don’t you? And my stepmother too, don’t you?”
“My name is Edilberto Torres, but Rigoberto and Lucrecia probably don’t remember me, we met in passing,” the gentleman explained, with his usual circumspection. But today, unlike the other times, the man’s well-bred smile and friendly, penetrating eyes, instead of soothing him, made Fonchito feel very apprehensive.
Rigoberto noticed that his son’s voice was breaking and his teeth were chattering.
“Easy, son, there’s no rush. Do you feel sick? Can I bring you a glass of water? Would you rather finish telling me this story later, or tomorrow?”
Fonchito shook his head. He had trouble getting the words out, as if his tongue had fallen asleep.
“I know you won’t believe me, I know I’m telling you all this just for the sake of talking, Papa. But … but, it’s just that then something very strange happened.”
He looked away from his father and stared at the floor. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, still in his school uniform, shrinking into himself, a tormented expression on his face. Don Rigoberto felt a wave of tenderness and compassion for the boy. It was evident he was suffering. And he didn’t know how to help him.
“If you tell me it’s true, I’ll believe you,” he said, running his hand over the boy’s hair in one of his infrequent caresses. “I know very well you’ve never lied to me and that you’re not going to start now, Fonchito.”
Don Rigoberto, who’d been standing, sat down on his son’s desk chair. He saw the effort Fonchito was making to speak, and how distressed he was, looking at the wall and the books on the shelf to avoid meeting his father’s eyes.
“Then, while I was talking to the man, Chato Pezzuolo came running over. My friend, you know him. And he was shouting, ‘What’s wrong with you, Foncho! Recess is over, everybody’s going back to class. Hurry up, man.’”
Fonchito jumped to his feet.
“Excuse me, I have to go, recess is over.” He said goodbye to Señor Edilberto Torres and ran to his friend.
“Instead of saying hello, Chato Pezzuolo made faces and touched his head as if I had a screw loose, Papa.”
“Are you crazy, compadre, or what, Foncho?” he asked as they ran toward the classroom building. “Who the hell were you saying goodbye to?”
“I don’t know who that guy is,” Fonchito explained, panting. “His name’s Edilberto Torres and he says he helps the school director out with practical things. Have you ever seen him here before?”
“But what guy are you talking about, asshole?” exclaimed Chato Pezzuolo, gasping, not running anymore. He’d turned to look at him. “You weren’t with anybody, you were talking to thin air, like a nut who’s sick in the head. You haven’t gone crazy, have you, compadre?”