The Discreet Hero

VI

“There won’t be any story tonight, Rigoberto,” said Lucrecia when they lay down and turned off the light. His wife’s voice was tinged with anxiety.

“I’m not in the mood tonight for fantasies either, my love.”

“Did you finally hear from them?”

Rigoberto said he had. Seven days had gone by since Ismael and Armida’s marriage, and he and Lucrecia had been worried the entire week, waiting for the hyenas’ reaction to what had occurred. But each day passed and brought nothing. Until two days ago, when Ismael’s lawyer, Dr. Claudio Arnillas, called Rigoberto to warn him. The twins had learned that the civil ceremony had taken place in the Chorrillos town hall and consequently knew he was one of the witnesses. He should be prepared, they’d be calling him any time now.

They did, after a few hours.

“Miki and Escobita asked to see me and I had to agree, what else could I do,” he added. “It’ll be tomorrow. I didn’t tell you right away so as not to ruin your day, Lucrecia. The problem finally caught up with us. I hope to get out of this with no broken bones, at least.”

“Do you know something, Rigoberto? I don’t care that much about them, we already knew this was going to happen. We were expecting it, weren’t we? We’ll just have to swallow the unpleasantness, there’s nothing else to do.” His wife changed the subject. “For the moment, I don’t give a damn about Ismael’s marriage and the tantrums of a couple of parasites. What worries me more, what keeps me awake, is Fonchito.”

“That little brat again?” Rigoberto said in alarm. “Have the appearances returned?”

“They never went away, baby,” Lucrecia reminded him, her voice breaking. “I think what’s happening is that the boy doesn’t trust us and doesn’t talk to us anymore. That’s what upsets me most. Don’t you see how the poor kid is? Sad, absentminded, withdrawn. He used to tell us everything, but now I’m afraid he keeps things to himself. And maybe that’s why misery is eating him alive. Haven’t you noticed it? You’ve been so focused on the hyenas, you haven’t even seen how your own son has changed these past few months. If we don’t do something soon, anything could happen to him and we’d regret it for the rest of our lives. Can’t you see that?”

“I see that very well.” Rigoberto turned over beneath the sheets. “It’s just that I don’t know what else we can do. If you know, tell me and we’ll do it. I don’t know what’s left. We’ve taken him to the best psychologist in Lima, I’ve spoken to his teachers, every day I try to talk to him and win back his trust. Tell me what else you want me to do and I’ll do it. I’m as worried about Fonchito as you are, Lucrecia. Do you think I don’t care about my son?”

“I know, I know,” she agreed. “It’s occurred to me that maybe, well, I don’t know, don’t laugh, I’m so confused by what’s happening to him that, well, you know, it’s an idea, just a foolish idea.”

“Tell me what you’re thinking and we’ll do it, Lucrecia. Whatever it is I’ll do it, I swear.”

“Why don’t you talk to your friend Father O’Donovan? Well, don’t laugh, I don’t know.”

“You want me to go and talk to a priest about this?” Rigoberto was surprised. He gave a little laugh. “Why? So he can exorcise Fonchito? Have you taken the joke about the devil seriously?”

It had all started several months earlier, perhaps a year ago, in the most trivial way. At lunch one weekend, Fonchito, in an offhand manner, as if it weren’t at all important, suddenly told his father and stepmother about his first encounter with that individual.

“I know what your name is,” the man said, smiling at him affably from the next table. “Your name is Luzbel.”

The boy sat looking at him in surprise, not knowing what to say. He was drinking an Inca Kola from the bottle, his school knapsack on his lap, and only now had he noticed the man’s presence in the secluded little café in Barranco Park, not far from his house. The man had silvery temples, smiling eyes, and was extremely thin, dressed modestly but very properly. He wore a purple and white argyle pullover under his gray jacket. He was sipping a small cup of coffee.

“I’ve absolutely forbidden you to talk to strangers, Fonchito,” Don Rigoberto reminded him. “Have you forgotten already?”

“My name’s Alfonso, not Luzbel,” he replied. “My friends call me Foncho.”

“Your papa’s saying this for your own good, honey,” his stepmother intervened. “You never know who could be one of those men who meddle with boys at the school gates.”

“They’re drug dealers, or kidnappers, or pedophiles. So you just be careful.”

“Well you ought to be named Luzbel.” The gentleman smiled. His slow, educated voice pronounced each word as precisely as a grammar teacher. His long, bony face looked recently shaved. He had long fingers with trimmed nails.

“I swear he seemed like a very proper person, Papa.”

“Do you know what ‘Luzbel’ means?”

Fonchito shook his head.

“‘Luzbel,’ that’s what he said to you?” Don Rigoberto became concerned. “Did you say ‘Luzbel’?”

“The one who carries the light, the bearer of light,” the man explained calmly.

“He talked like he was moving in slow motion, Papa.”

“It’s a way of saying you’re a very handsome young man. When you grow up, all the girls in Lima will be crazy about you. Didn’t they teach you who Luzbel was in school?”

“I can see it coming, I can imagine very well what he wanted,” Rigoberto murmured, giving him his full attention now.

Fonchito shook his head again.

“I knew I had to leave right away. I remember very clearly how often you told me I should never talk to strangers like that man who wanted to teach me what that name meant, Papa,” he explained, gesturing. “But … but, I tell you, there was something in him, his manners, the way he spoke, that made me think he wasn’t a bad man. Besides, he made me curious. At Markham I don’t remember them ever telling us about Luzbel.”

“He was the most beautiful of the archangels, the favorite of God on high.” He wasn’t joking, he spoke very seriously, the hint of a benevolent smile on his carefully shaved face; he pointed a finger at the sky. “But Luzbel, since he knew he was so beautiful, became vain and committed the sin of pride. He even felt equal to God. Imagine. Then God punished him, and from being the angel of light, he became the prince of darkness. That’s how it all began. History, the appearance of time and evil, human life.”

“He didn’t seem like a priest, Papa, or one of those Evangelical missionaries who give away religious magazines door to door. I asked him: ‘Are you a priest, señor?’ ‘No, no, me a priest, Fonchito, whatever gave you that idea?’ And he started to laugh.”

“It was irresponsible of you to talk to him, he probably followed you here,” Doña Lucrecia scolded him, caressing his forehead. “Never again, never again. Promise me, honey.”

“I have to go, señor,” said Fonchito, standing up. “They’re expecting me at home.”

The gentleman did not attempt to keep him. As a kind of farewell, he smiled at him more openly, nodded slightly, and barely gestured goodbye with his hand.

“You know very well who he was, don’t you?” Rigoberto repeated. “You’re fifteen now and know about these things, don’t you? A pervert. A pedophile. I suppose you understand what that means, I don’t need to explain it to you. He was looking you over. Lucrecia’s right. It was a mistake to answer him. You should have stopped everything and left as soon as he spoke to you.”

“He didn’t look like a fag, Papa,” Fonchito reassured him. “I swear. I recognize queers on the prowl for boys right away because of how they look at me. Even before they open their mouths, honestly. And because they’re always trying to touch me. This man was just the opposite — very educated, very refined. He didn’t seem to have evil intentions, really.”

“They’re the worst kind, Fonchito,” Doña Lucrecia declared, frankly alarmed. “Hypocrites, who don’t seem to be but are.”

“Tell me, Papa,” Fonchito said, changing the subject. “What he told me about the archangel Luzbel, is it true?”

“Well, it’s what the Bible says.” Don Rigoberto vacillated. “It’s true for believers, at any rate. It’s incredible that at the Markham Academy they don’t have you read the Bible, at least for your general education. But let’s not get distracted. I’ll tell you again, son: It’s absolutely forbidden for you to accept anything from strangers. No invitations, no conversations, no nothing. You understand, don’t you? Or do you want me to forbid you to go out at all?”

“I’m too old for that now, Papa. Please, I’m fifteen.”

“Yes, as old as Methuselah.” Doña Lucrecia laughed. But Rigoberto immediately heard her sighing in the dark. “If we’d only known how far this would go. My God, what a nightmare. I think it’s gone on for a year.”

“A year or even a little more, love.”

Rigoberto forgot about the stranger who talked to Fonchito about Luzbel in the café in Barranco Park almost immediately. But he was reminded and became uneasy a week later when, according to his son, as he was coming back from playing soccer at San Agustín Academy, the same gentleman showed up again.

“I had just taken a shower in the San Agustín lockers and was going to meet up with Chato Pezzuolo so we could ride the jitney together to Barranco. And you won’t believe it but there he was, Papa. Him, the same man.”

“Hello, Luzbel.” The gentleman greeted him with the same affectionate smile. “Remember me?”

He was sitting in the hall that separated the soccer field from the exit door of San Agustín Academy. Behind him was the dense serpent of cars, trucks, and buses moving along Avenida Javier Prado. Some vehicles had their headlights on.

“Yes, yes, I remember,” said Fonchito, sitting up straight. And, in an unequivocal tone, he confronted him. “Excuse me, but my papa has forbidden me to talk to strangers.”

“Rigoberto is absolutely right,” the man said, nodding. He was wearing the same gray suit as last time, but the purple sweater was different, without the white diamond pattern. “Lima is filled with bad people. There are perverts and degenerates everywhere. And good-looking boys like you are their favorite targets.”

Don Rigoberto opened his eyes very wide.

“He mentioned me by name? Did he say he knew me?”

“Do you know my papa, señor?”

“And I knew Eloísa, your mama, too,” the gentleman replied, becoming very serious. “And I also know Lucrecia, your stepmother. I can’t say we’re friends, because we hardly see one another. But I like both of them very much; since the first time I saw them, they seemed a magnificent couple. I’m glad to know they take good care of you and look out for you. A boy as handsome as you is not at all safe in the Sodom and Gomorrah that Lima is.”

“Could you tell me what this Sodom and Gomorrah is, Papa?” Fonchito asked, and Rigoberto noticed a sly gleam in his eyes.

“Two ancient cities, very corrupt, and because they were, God destroyed them,” he replied cautiously. “It’s what believers believe, at least. You have to read the Bible a little, son. For your general education. At least the New Testament. The world we live in is filled with biblical references, and if you don’t understand them, you’ll live in total confusion and ignorance. For example, you won’t understand anything of classical art or ancient history. Are you sure he said he knew Lucrecia and me?”

“And my mama too,” Fonchito specified. “He even said her name: Eloísa. He said it in a way that made it impossible not to believe he was telling the truth, Papa.”

“Did he tell you his name?”

“Well, not that,” Fonchito said, disconcerted. “I didn’t ask him and I didn’t even give him time to tell me. Since you ordered me not even to say a word to him, I ran away. But I’m sure he knows you, knows both of you. If not, he wouldn’t have told me your name, he wouldn’t have known my mother’s name, or that my stepmother is named Lucrecia.”

“If by any chance you run into him again, be sure to ask what his name is,” said Rigoberto, scrutinizing the boy with suspicion. Could what he was telling them be true, or was it another of his inventions? “But don’t talk to him, let alone accept a Coca-Cola or anything else. I’m more and more convinced he’s one of those depraved people who wander loose through Lima looking for young boys. What else would he be doing at the San Agustín Academy?”

“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?”

They’d reached their classroom, and from there it was impossible to see the stands on the soccer field.

“You didn’t see him?” Fonchito grabbed his arm. “A man with gray hair, wearing a suit, a tie, a purple sweater, sitting right next to me. Swear you didn’t see him, Chato.”

“Don’t fuck around,” said Chato Pezzuolo, pointing a finger at his temple again. “You were all alone, nobody else was there but you. Either you lost your mind or you’re seeing things. Don’t be a pain in the ass, Alfonso. You’re trying to fuck with me, right? I promise you can’t.”

“I knew you wouldn’t believe me, Papa,” Fonchito whispered, sighing. He paused and then declared, “But I know what I see and what I don’t see. And I’m sure I’m not a nut case. What I’m telling you is what happened. Exactly what happened.”

“All right, all right,” Rigoberto said, trying to calm him, “probably it was your friend Pezzuolo who didn’t see this Edilberto Torres. He must have been in a blind spot, something blocked his view. Don’t think about it anymore. What other explanation can there be? Your friend Chato couldn’t see him and that’s that. We’re not going to start believing in ghosts at this point in our lives, son, isn’t that right? Forget all that, and especially Edilberto Torres. Let’s say he doesn’t exist and never existed. He’s long gone, as you say nowadays.”

“Another of the boy’s feverish imaginings,” Doña Lucrecia would remark later. “He’ll never stop surprising us. I mean, a man appears and only he sees him, right there on his school’s soccer field. What an extravagant imagination he has, my God!”

But later, she was the one who urged Rigoberto to go to Markham, without telling Fonchito about it, to talk to Mr. McPherson, the director. The conversation caused Don Rigoberto a good deal of grief.

“Naturally, he didn’t know and hadn’t ever heard of Edilberto Torres,” he told Lucrecia that night, when they usually talked. “And then, as was to be expected, the gringo felt free to mock me. It was absolutely impossible for a stranger to have entered the school, let alone the soccer field. Nobody who isn’t a teacher or an employee is authorized to set foot there. Mr. McPherson also believes this is one of those fantasies that intelligent, sensitive boys tend to have. He told me there was no reason to give the matter any importance. At my son’s age, it’s perfectly normal for a child to see a ghost occasionally, unless he’s a dolt. We agreed that neither of us would tell Foncho about the interview. I think he’s right. What’s the point of playing along with something that makes no sense.”

“Well, if it turns out that the devil does exist, it seems he’s Peruvian and his name is Edilberto Torres.” Lucrecia had a sudden fit of laughter. But Rigoberto noticed it was a nervous laugh.

They were lying down, and it was obvious by this time that there would be no stories, no fantasies, and no lovemaking. This had been happening more often recently. Instead of inventing stories that excited them both, they began to talk, and often they enjoyed it so much that time slipped away until they were overcome by sleep.

“I’m afraid it’s no laughing matter.” A moment later she reversed herself and became serious again. “This has gone too far, Rigoberto. We have to do something. I don’t know what, but something. We can’t just look away, as if nothing were going on.”

“At least now I’m certain that it’s a fantasy, something very typical of him,” Rigoberto reflected. “But what’s he trying to do with these stories? Things like this aren’t unprovoked, they come from somewhere, with roots in the unconscious.”

“Sometimes he’s so quiet, so closed within himself, that I want to die of sorrow, my love. I feel that the boy is suffering in silence and it breaks my heart. Since he knows we don’t believe in his apparitions, he doesn’t tell us about them anymore. And that’s even worse.”

“He might be having visions, hallucinations,” Don Rigoberto digressed. “It happens to the most normal people, whether they’re clever or stupid. They think they’re seeing what they don’t see, what’s only in their head.”

“Sure, of course they’re inventions,” Doña Lucrecia concluded. “We assume the devil doesn’t exist. I believed in him when I met you, Rigoberto. In God and the devil, what every normal Catholic family believes. You convinced me they were superstitions, the foolish beliefs of ignorant people. And now it turns out that the one who doesn’t exist has interfered with our family, and what do you have to say to that?” She gave another nervous little laugh and then fell silent. To Rigoberto she seemed quiet and pensive.

“To be honest, I don’t know whether he exists or not,” he admitted. “The only thing I’m sure about now is what you just said. He might exist, I could get as far as that. But I can’t accept that he’s a Peruvian named Edilberto Torres, and that he devotes his time to stalking the students at Markham Academy. Please don’t fuck with me.”

They discussed the matter from every angle and finally decided to take Fonchito for a psychological evaluation. They made inquiries among their friends. Everyone recommended Dr. Augusta Delmira Céspedes. She had studied in France and was a specialist in child psychology, and those who’d placed their sons or daughters with problems in her care had high praise for her skill and good judgment. They were afraid Fonchito might resist and took every precaution to present the matter to him delicately. But to their surprise, the boy didn’t raise the slightest objection. He agreed to see her, went to her office several times, took all the tests Dr. Céspedes gave him, and always had the best attitude in the world when he talked to her. When Rigoberto and Lucrecia went to her office, the doctor received them with an encouraging smile. She was close to sixty, rather plump, agile, amiable, and droll.

“Fonchito is the most normal boy in the world,” she assured them. “Too bad: He’s so charming I would have liked to keep him as a patient for a while. Each session with him has been a delight. He’s intelligent, sensitive, and for that very reason sometimes feels distant from his classmates. But this is absolutely normal. If you can be totally sure of anything, it’s that Edilberto Torres is no fantasy but a flesh-and-blood person, as real and concrete as the two of you and me. Fonchito hasn’t lied to you. Exaggerated things a little, perhaps. That’s what his rich imagination is for. He’s never taken his encounters with that gentleman as either heavenly or diabolical apparitions. Never! What nonsense. He’s a kid with his feet planted very firmly on the ground and his head in the right place. You’re the ones who have invented all this, and for that very reason you’re the ones who really need a psychologist. Shall I make you an appointment? I see not only children but also adults who suddenly begin to believe the devil exists and wastes his time walking the streets of Lima, Barranco, and Miraflores.”

Dr. Augusta Delmira Céspedes continued joking as she accompanied them to the door. When they said goodbye, she asked Don Rigoberto to show her his collection of erotic prints one day. “Fonchito told me it’s terrific” was her final joke. Rigoberto and Lucrecia left her office floundering in a sea of confusion.

“I told you that going to a psychologist was very dangerous,” Rigoberto reminded Lucrecia. “I don’t know why I ever listened to you. A psychologist can be more dangerous than the devil himself, I’ve known that ever since I read Freud.”

“Shame on you if you think we should joke about this the way Dr. Céspedes does,” Lucrecia said in self-defense. “I only hope you’re not sorry.”

“I don’t take it as a joke,” he replied, serious now. “I was happier thinking that Edilberto Torres didn’t exist. If what Dr. Céspedes says is true, and this person does exist and is pursuing Fonchito, tell me what the hell we’re supposed to do now.”

They did nothing, and for a long time the boy didn’t talk to them again about the matter. He continued to go about his normal life, going to school and coming home at the usual times, going to his room for an hour or sometimes two every afternoon to do his homework, and going out some weekends with Chato Pezzuolo. Though he did so reluctantly, pushed by Don Rigoberto and Doña Lucrecia, he also went out occasionally with other boys from the neighborhood, to the movies, to the stadium to play soccer, or to a party. But in their nocturnal conversations, Rigoberto and Lucrecia agreed that even though this seemed normal, Fonchito wasn’t the same boy he’d been before.

What was different? It wasn’t easy to say, but both were sure he’d changed. And that the transformation was profound. A problem of his age? It was a difficult transition from childhood to adolescence: A boy’s voice changes and becomes hoarse, and the fuzz that announces his future beard starts to appear on his face; he begins to feel he’s no longer a child but not yet a man, and in the way he dresses, sits, gestures, and talks to his friends and to girls, he tries to become the man he’ll be later on. Fonchito seemed more laconic and withdrawn, much more sparing in his answers to their questions at meals about school and his friends.

“I know what’s wrong with you, kid,” Lucrecia challenged him one day. “You’ve fallen in love! Is that it, Fonchito? Do you like some girl?”

With no hint of a blush, he shook his head no.

“I don’t have time for those things now,” he replied seriously, without a shred of humor. “Exams are coming and I’d like to get good grades.”

“I like that, Fonchito,” Don Rigoberto said approvingly. “You’ll have plenty of time for girls later on.”

And suddenly his rosy face lit up with a smile, and in Fonchito’s eyes the impish mischief of earlier times appeared.

“Besides, you know that the only woman in the world I like is you, Stepmother.”

“Oh, my God, let me give you a kiss, my boy,” Doña Lucrecia commended him. “But what do those hands mean, my husband?”

“They mean that talking about the devil suddenly sets my imagination and some other things on fire, my love.”

And for a long while they took their pleasure, imagining that the joke about the devil and Fonchito had passed on to a better life. But no, it hadn’t passed on yet.