Adam and Thomas

Chapter 3

Adam remembered that his mother had told him, “If I don’t come by the evening, go to Diana’s house.” Strangely, perhaps because of the emotional meeting with Thomas, he had forgotten that instruction.

Diana helped his mother at home, but she was a bitter woman, silent, and it always seemed that she was about to burst out and shout.

“What are you thinking about, Adam?” Thomas asked.

Adam told him.

“My mom also told me to go to Diana.”

“Diana’s going to open a home for abandoned children,” said Adam, and they both laughed.

“I don’t like Diana,” said Thomas.

“Me neither, but there’s no choice. In the ghetto they snatch up children.”

“Let’s wait for our mothers until the evening.Then we’ll see.”

Since first grade, Thomas had attracted Adam’s attention. First, for his nearsightedness, later for his other qualities. Because of his fastidious character and his constant excellence in school, Thomas wasn’t popular. His classmates teased him, and he tried to defend himself with what he knew: the arithmetic exercises, the compositions that he wrote, the books that he read. But those efforts only increased resentment against him. The teachers tried in vain to protect him. In the end his classmates ignored him and acted as if he didn’t exist. Thomas suffered. You could see his suffering in everything he did, even the way he walked. Did Adam also take part in the general ill-treatment? Not actively, but he hadn’t stood up for Thomas.

Once Adam met him in the street and asked how he was. Thomas was surprised that one of his classmates spoke to him, and in his embarrassment he said, “What do you want from me?” Then Adam said to him, “If you don’t do so well, they won’t mistreat you.” That sentence upset Thomas, and he said, “What should I do?”

“It’s very simple. Don’t stand out. Your good grades make the other students uncomfortable.”

“Okay,” said Thomas, and he slipped away.

Right after that meeting, Adam was sorry for what he had said to Thomas. It seemed to him that he’d hurt his feelings, but he didn’t go back to him to apologize.

Since then they hadn’t spoken.

It was strange that Thomas was the one God had sent to him, the thought flashed through Adam’s mind. The religion teacher, Brother Peter, always used to say that there were no coincidences. Everything happens for a reason. If you met someone, that was a sign you were supposed to meet him, a sign that you would get something from him that you lacked. Don’t ignore those meetings. There’s a message of discovery in every meeting with people.

Not only did Adam hear the religion teacher’s words, but he also saw him standing there, dressed in his monk’s habit and different from other people. Meanwhile, Thomas fell asleep.