Surrender Read online

  The two of us didn’t say a peep. We have our own problems.

  We don’t know how to hide the boy who isn’t ours, we’re trying to come up with a story that justifies his presence and sounds believable. When the roar of bombs dies down, suspicions grow into rumors. Every day another neighbor is arrested. No explanations are given, the guilty know perfectly well what they were up to, while the innocent are safe. Only those free of blame will go to the transparent city. Snitches are ratting out their fellow snitches. Yesterday the postmaster was taken, they say he read and resealed letters before delivering them. They say the enemy never sleeps, and could be anywhere, be anyone. We have two sons fighting in the war, and this gives us peace for now, as our sons’ bravery ensures our safety and earns us respect from our neighbors. We are the parents of soldiers, and for this reason the town doesn’t doubt our loyalty; nobody would betray their own children. Our problem is the boy, and we know it. We hid a boy without knowing where he came from, and that could make us appear guilty. Something must be done about the kid. As we pack our suitcases, we also plan. We speak to each other quietly at night, with the lights out, as if someone were spying on us. I think we’re both afraid.

  She has agreed to passing him off as our nephew, it seems the most sensible plan. Many people have died in this war, and it’s not unusual for us to care for the children of our dead. I don’t have any siblings, but she has two in the capital, and though they aren’t the right age to be soldiers, they could have been bomb victims. You don’t have to be a particular age, or fit a certain profile, to be killed by a bomb. Anyone will do. She hasn’t heard from her siblings for some time now, they could be dead. The telephones stopped working more than a year ago, the mail takes a long time (and arrives already opened, it seems), so in theory anything is possible. Obviously, we’re trying to think of a name for the boy, something he’ll answer to or at least turn his head for. If you turn at the sound of a name, it’s yours.

  We can’t seem to agree on a name, but we do agree that the sooner he learns it, the better, the poor kid has to get used to it. I like Julio, but she prefers Edmundo, which to me sounds long and complicated, like a fake name. If I keep insisting, I think Julio will win out. She chose our real sons’ names, so it only seems fair that I get to pick the name for this stranger.

  The week of our departure has arrived. At night we look at the house from the outside, from the dead garden, to start getting used to being gone. We’ve fucked a couple of times since they told us we’d have to leave, we don’t know whether we’ll be able to keep fucking in the transparent city.

  Everybody knows that transparency affects intimacy.

  A rumor reached us this morning, and in the afternoon the zone agent confirmed it: we can only take a very few things to the city. No furniture, as there will be no trucks, and no books either, since they have books there. Two photographs are allowed: one of your parents and one of your children, for those who have children, but only one photo of each child per couple, no more. In the transparent city, almost everything has to start over. No cleaning supplies, because the provisional government is in charge of cleaning, and nothing that stains, so as not to make their work harder, one sports-related item, a ball, a tennis racket, a chess set, though many people mock the idea of chess as a sport, no weapons, because the city will protect us, no skis, because there’s no snow. One swimsuit per person, because there’s a pool, eyeglasses and contact lenses are permitted, but no medications, as those will be prescribed there after a brief review of our ailments. The zone agent says we’ll be as happy there as we could be anywhere else, and that—above all—we’ll be safe. She doubts it, and I’m worried too, but what can we do? The government must be trusted, as provisional as it might be. The only alternatives are anarchy or death. Two things that neither of us really wants. I’m almost hopeful about this adventure that sounds so secure.

  While we pack, we try out both names on the boy, Julio and Edmundo, and he doesn’t turn for either of them, he must have a name, but we still don’t know what it is because he won’t say a word . . .

  She shouts Edmundo and I shout Julio, but the kid pays us no mind, in the end she’s worn down and gives in. He’s Julio from this moment on.

  We’re leaving very soon, they’ve told us that we have to burn down the house so it can’t harbor any enemies, but the land will remain in our name, and after the war, the government will send official help for reconstruction if it sees fit to do so. Someone asked whether that means we’ll be able to return, and the zone agent replied that it didn’t mean anything, not yet, and another guy asked whether our WRISTs would be returned, and the pulse units, and the agent stated flatly that the WRIST system will never return, as it’s been proven to cause sedition, and in response to the next question—whether we’d be washing clothes by hand or with machines—the good man got fed up, not without reason, and began replying to everything the same way, saying that the question is beyond what he knows or can do.

  It’s clear that the zone agent doesn’t have much more information than the rest of us about what’s going on or where we’re headed. I have to admit that I figured this out a long time ago, which is why I don’t ask any questions. I won’t take any delicate clothing, to be safe. Who knows if everything will get washed together, or what.

  They’ve given us two cans of gasoline to burn down our home. Of course I’ve thought about using them to fill the tank of our car and driving off on our own, but the cars were seized yesterday, because they’d thought of the same thing. We’ll be going to the transparent city in air-conditioned buses. The train tracks have been sabotaged.

  Burning down our house won’t be easy. She cries just thinking about it, and I try to console her, not because I’m not sad too, but because over the years I’ve become the one who provides comfort. Also, the house is hers, and before that it belonged to her first husband’s family, so it’s understandable that this would really crush her soul.

  She, like all women, is stronger than any man, but sometimes she breaks and I hug her. I do it without thinking, it’s what I’ve done all my life. My father did the same with my mother.

  Julio smiles like none of this has anything to do with him, his innocence protects him, at least for now; if one day they discover that he isn’t ours, he’ll learn . . . well, may God keep him from it.

  We only have two days left to burn everything and get out of here, the suitcases are packed. We’ve slept terribly, but that’s something anyone in their right mind could understand, you don’t abandon the place that’s been your home just like that, plus the moon has been full. Last night, the white light slid between the curtains and we had no choice but to stare at what was until very recently ours, and to see it all with unbearable clarity.

  At dawn we finally surrendered to sleep.

  We woke to Julio’s cries. Sometimes when he’s having nightmares, Julio weeps like a baby. We don’t know what he dreams, because he still won’t say a word, but he calms down when he’s in her arms. Children and animals have a hard time adjusting to change, and he senses that we’re leaving, he’s seen his suitcase, he’s also seen the cans of gasoline in the living room, though I can’t tell whether he knows what we must do with them.

  He’s had a good breakfast, we’ve given him almost everything we had left although she’s hidden a few cans among our clothes, though we’ve been assured that there will be food. She’s not quick to trust, and I don’t blame her. After washing up, we took a walk around the property, all the way to the forest. We don’t know when we’ll be able to return, which made the walk strange. Not for Julio, he was happy, climbing trees, chasing flies; squirrels have been gone for some time. It’s hard to know what a child is thinking, but it’s clear that daytime doesn’t scare him, only his dreams do. We are scared of the days, of real things, of knowing that we may never return, of not knowing who we’ll be when we come back if that day ever arrives. Of course I took my shotgun to the forest, and I even shot at a sparrow. I
don’t usually shoot birds, but there isn’t anything else left in the forest now. I don’t know when I’ll be able to hunt again, weapons are forbidden in the transparent city. In any case, I have no intention of burning my shotguns along with my house, I’ve decided to bury them in pillowcases when she and the boy are asleep. I won’t tell them about it—not them, not the zone agent, not anyone. A man does what he likes with his shotguns. As it should be.

  Julio has gotten lost in the forest a couple of times, we’ve called to him with his new name and he’s returned. At least I’ve hit the mark on one thing. Julio is a good name.

  We’ve gathered berries and a few flowers, we want our last dinner to be special. Anything that doesn’t happen often is special, and the most special things are those that might never happen again.

  I don’t know whether I’ve mentioned this, but she’s a formidable cook. The old potatoes have a bitter edge, and her sweet tomato sauce blunts it. She has many other talents beyond the kitchen, she often helps me not to cry, and at other times she entertains me with her over-the-top stories. That’s something I admire in her that I never learned: how to make up stories. It’s no wonder that Julio is almost always by her side now that he knows his name, and even before he knew it. Our children did the same thing. People who know how to tell stories always have company.

  After a lot of folding and pressing, hiding and removing, choosing and tossing, we packed our three suitcases with the essentials for our life in the transparent city. We’ve left them next to the front door.

  This is the house where our children were born, and where they had their first sip of milk from a wet nurse who died before the war but because of this war. She was a foreigner, from the enemy’s land, and she was displaced as tension was rising, soon after the murder of the Twelve Righteous Ones. The Twelve Righteous Ones were murdered for their faith, which is strange when you consider that nobody around here ever believed in much of anything at all, but the Twelve Righteous Ones prayed and were the first to fall. A single bomb took them all out, and though the guilty party was never found, the enemy was immediately blamed for the tragedy. The newspapers declared that war was imminent, and deportations began. Our wet nurse died in a refugee camp near the border. Our children had forgotten her by the time they left for war, and we never told them about her. When the war broke out, Augusto was nine and Pablo was eight. They’ve spent most of their lives in wartime, but we did what we could to shield them. It’s only been three years since bombs became audible nearby, before that it was easy to make them believe that this war didn’t exist. For a long time, we lived far from the misfortune. This was before misfortune spread across mountain and valley, town and forest, and all over the land, before fear invaded our whole region, before news arrived that the capital had fallen, before all that.

  She and I understood that our sons would be soldiers if the war dragged on, which is why we secretly followed the news and hoped for a truce that never came. The war has lasted more than a decade, the longest one we’ve seen in our lives. The wet nurse had a sweet face, weathered in the way of someone who’s worked outdoors from sunup to sundown since childhood, and her breasts were pale and generous. We never believed she could harm us, but the government thought differently. It’s easier for a man to be trusting, but a government has to be careful, protect its long-term interests. Those with the most responsibility must be the most vigilant. That’s how it should be, I think, and that’s why I put up no resistance when they took the wet nurse, and that’s why my wife didn’t say anything in her defense either, though the wet nurse had so tenderly cared for our boys and had never, to our knowledge, wished us harm.

  Little by little they took all the domestic workers, the immigrants who cared for the garden and the land, and then the boys lined up and left, and in the end we were alone until the arrival of this kid, Julio, whom we don’t want to lose. I look out at the land and don’t see any of what we cultivated with our own hands. No harvested grain, no baskets of fruit, no wood to chop, no weeds to pull among the rose bushes, all of it overrun with the same weeds now, formless, not a flower in sight. Nor do any weasels or dormice poke their heads between the plants, no vermin hide among the roof tiles, no wasps bang against the windows. There aren’t even any robbers to ward off with my gun, nor any foreigners left to hang. Nobody comes through here anymore except the zone agent, and his mere presence seems to keep away all beasts, large and small. All that’s left of what was ours is the shadow of our house, and the house itself. The names of those who’ve slept under our roof and in the stables are slipping from memory, and we can’t remember anyone but Augusto and Pablo, our two soldiers. We used to get letters from Augusto occasionally, but never from Pablo. Any day now they’ll kill our boys, if they haven’t already. That’s what she’s always saying: any day now they’ll kill our boys. She says it constantly, and I tell her no, woman, no, but she repeats it as if she hasn’t heard me. Once she puts her mind to something, no one can stop her, she’s as stubborn as a mule. If she wants to make cakes, she does it, even if there isn’t any sugar, and then she gets angry if I don’t eat them. But she’s a good woman, capable and clean, and though she was raised as a lady, she can do backbreaking work like a champ. When our mares were taken, she turned the lever at the well with her bare hands. They blistered, but she didn’t stop until we had enough water to get through the day. Running water was cut off at the beginning of the war, maybe before that, when war was no more than a word spoken over and over as if it were the only word left.

  The first zone agent told us the water was going to stop running, so we filled the bathtubs and all our pitchers like they would last forever, then lived off rainwater caught by the well and prayed there would be no more droughts, and when drought came anyway, we bought water from the tanker trucks with her four remaining pieces of antique jewelry. We have no jewelry left now, nor barely anything that could be used to barter with, and the little we do have covers only potatoes and milk. The earth is becoming barren as no one is farming it, and soon there won’t be anything left to eat in the valley, which is why it’s not so bad that they’ll be taking us away from here and burning down our house, or making us burn it down. It’s almost certain we’ll be better off in the government’s care than on our own, since taking care of ourselves in this barren land isn’t possible anymore. A man who doesn’t provide for his family shrinks and shrinks until he no longer exists, and before that happens he must accept in good faith what the government offers. In the new city, they’ll tell us how we can earn a living, and it seems from what the zone agent says that tasks and jobs have been planned for everyone in accordance with our abilities, so that no one freeloads or gets restless for lack of things to do, because laziness is bound to lead to problems. When we arrive we’ll be given employment, nothing important at first, but enough for us to have a place and not disturb the overall flow of things, the normal, the necessary, since in that city, according to what’s being said, noise and disturbances are strictly forbidden, which I must admit puts my mind at ease, because all good things require an atmosphere of order, and the rest is a breeding ground for good-for-nothings, bums, and petty thieves, who, the second you let your guard down, multiply among citizens who wear decency on their sleeves. If one thing has been made clear about what we’re to find in the new city, it’s that no excess or ruckus will be allowed, that there will be people who monitor us to make sure everything is as it should be, since, with many people living in close quarters, the crooked shatter under pressure, and these shattered pieces become splinters or kindling for a larger fire. Back when people worked the land, each person took care of his business and there was room for everyone, but if we have to live together, cramped and unarmed, it’s better that we be monitored and not have to pay for what others get up to. She says she can’t imagine what life will be like there, and I tell her it doesn’t matter, there’s no point trying to imagine what will soon come to pass. We’ve told the boy Julio about the move, and he either
doesn’t care or doesn’t understand, because he’s kept on smiling as if none of this has anything to do with him. He hasn’t been in our home long enough to be attached to it, and he never saw our land when it was rich and beautiful, so that’s not a loss to him. He never played with the horses or hunted in the forest, and the fact is he’s barely seen the best of what this house or the two of us have to offer. He’ll have nothing to compare to the future, nor will whatever’s coming bear the shadow of our past. He won’t lose any friends in the move, since there are no children left on any of the nearby farms or even in town, the last of them were taken by hunger or the flu; the older kids are off at war, and the only adult males left are the old men from town, the gypsies of the valley, and, on the hill beyond the forest, the water owners, husband and wife, who sell us water from tanker trucks during droughts, but the water owners are very important people, the kind you see only during public holidays, and even then you barely say a word to them out of respect, or perhaps out of fear, which everyone has for them. In all this time I’ve barely exchanged more than a good morning or good afternoon with the water owners. She, on the other hand, has something of a friendship with the water owner’s wife, also referred to as the water owner, because the water was actually hers first, inherited from her father. She used to have my wife over for tea in her mansion once in a while, but her husband didn’t want her to be so friendly with the neighbors, and after that my wife never set foot in the water owners’ luxurious rooms again. Our house is very nice, I’m not complaining or anything, but theirs is a mansion as God intended, with so many servants that, when they gather for a hunt, they look like an army. She’s asked me whether the water owners’ mansion will also be burned down, and I’ve told her I don’t think so, because such important people would surely be treated differently, despite the war and the evacuation; plus, I’ve heard the postmen in town gossiping that the water owners might not be relocated at all, and that if they are, they won’t go with the regular group but with another one headed to a different place, a better one I suppose, given their importance. All kinds of things are said in town and no one knows what’s really true, and people always say strange things about the rich, mostly out of envy. It doesn’t make sense to go around making predictions, because soon enough we’ll all find out what’s what, when we get in line to leave we’ll see who’s coming with us and who isn’t.