Surrender Read online

  I’m in charge of burning the house because I don’t want her to hurt herself, not for anything in the world. I’ll do it the way they told us to and use the gasoline cans we were given. I don’t understand why so much gasoline is being wasted in times like these, when you think about it I could burn the house with just a bit of alcohol and cardboard and wool, but the orders arrive on officially embossed paper and it’s always best to obey these types of papers without complaints or questions, since not doing so could raise suspicions, especially when there’s a war going on and enemies will take advantage of anything that could harm morale.

  This caring for her so much isn’t new, because I’ve always taken care of her as best I could, when I was foreman of this land, and later when she was widowed, and when, soon after that, she became mine. Horrible things were said in town about our love, but it’s not true that I dared look her in the eyes, nor that I defied her husband while he was still alive; it was her love that gave me this land, not my ambition. She chose me to carry the name of this house, she gave me books to read, she taught me with great patience, until I was no longer the man I’d been and transformed into the one I am today. She never told our children anything about the past, never told them that before I oversaw the laborers, I was a laborer myself. They found this out at school, and if it hurt them we never learned of it, as we raised them to be strong, quiet, and solid, which is why they’re such good soldiers, the three medals on one of their chests and two medals on the other prove it. Medals for courage, not for favors or office work, real medals for real soldiers. When we think they might be dead, which we do every so often, turning our imagination to the medals doesn’t ease our pain or our fear, but I do notice how they pull at the hems of our pride, at the threads of that regal garment every parent wears when looking at their children from a distance, though of course we’d rather have them by our side again, safe and sound.

  When I burn the house, I don’t want her to see it, not even a bit, which is why I told her to wait at the bus stop, which is where we’ve been told the women will gather while the men destroy everything to protect it all from the enemy. That’s what was written on the official notice the zone agent gave us, and that’s what we’ll do, because when it comes to government matters, there should be no nonsense or delay. Each person’s pain is their own business, and there’s no use going around crying like children when what’s required of us is action, courage, and strategy. The zone agent has taken the time to explain everything so as to avoid errors or confusion, and he’s mentioned in a low voice, like a man going beyond the call of duty out of friendship and trust, that for the government’s plan to succeed, the obedience and goodwill of each participant will be of utmost importance. Though we’ll be forming a line, we are not kids, and the final victory depends in great measure on our own effort and tenacity. That’s how he put it to us, and if it sounded like propaganda it wasn’t his fault, but rather the fault of those who taught him to say what he says. Before this zone agent, we had another one who spoke in the same way, but that one was killed because of suspicions, so really, being a zone agent who repeats all the government’s instructions to the letter guarantees nothing; here, the minute a rumor sticks to you, you’re fucked. She’s the one who taught me to question what they tell us, because before I was a man of labor rather than of letters, and she’s also the one who taught me to obey despite my doubts, that one thing doesn’t impede the other. The way she explained it to me, or the way I’ve understood it, is that you obey because it’s to your advantage to do so, and you doubt because you think. And if one of those things saves your life, the other seems to save your soul. That’s how she’s persuaded me to carry forward our little ploy and not tell anyone about our Julio, not what we know and not what we can imagine, and instead to breathe life into the lie we’ve come up with, which she refers to as our story.

  She says that it’s the story that matters and not the reality that binds it. Since she’s much more intelligent than I am, I listen to her about everything, and when it comes to her, I neither doubt nor obey but act out of free will and conviction. Abandoning the boy to his own fate doesn’t seem like a godly thing to do, and we know that caring for defenseless children, whether they have a name or not, is just and good in the eyes of the Lord, and cannot bring anything bad to our hearts.

  She left for town at dusk, suitcase in hand, it’s almost a two-hour walk but she’s strong and her pace is so brisk it takes effort to keep up with her. She’s left the boy with me because I asked her to, I think the house will make a spectacular fire once night falls, and there is no child who doesn’t love to watch a fire.

  The kid has helped me with the gasoline cans, and we’ve splashed every room and then, more carefully, the foundation. I didn’t let him use the lighter, because it’s not like I want him to turn into a pyromaniac or have too much fun with something that, at the end of the day, as important as it might be to the provisional government, signifies the end of everything we were and had.

  As I watched the house burn, surprise rushed in where I thought I’d feel sorrow. It burned so quickly that it seemed to be made of toothpicks instead of sturdy wood, and soon, as the boy and I rubbed the heat and sparks from our eyes, it didn’t exist at all.

  I suppose that’s how everything disappears.

  There was a tremendous uproar at the bus stop, and when the kid and I arrived, lost in a crowd of so many sad faces and all of them the same and so very many people, it took us a good while to find her. How happy it made us to be together again! Like we hadn’t seen each other in a long time, though it’d been only a few hours. Night was well under way and the buses still hadn’t arrived, but according to the zone agent, the first and foremost thing to do was form orderly rows, collect names, and examine suitcases. At first count, thirty extra people had appeared, but they were all gypsies and were immediately removed—not without a racket, of course, these being gypsies, the second you do anything to them they weep and shout like they’re being flayed. It had been made very clear, both in writing and aloud, that gypsies would not be going to the transparent city with the rest of us, so who knows why they made such a scene. In any case, they were removed from the line and despite the big fuss they had no choice but to return to the valley. I’ve never had a problem with gypsies, no good feelings and no bad; if I saw them near the stables, the chickens, or the orchards, I’d take up my shotgun and that would be that. There’s no gypsy in the world who doesn’t respect a shotgun. Once they were gone, another count took place, and that second winnowing yielded only two who didn’t belong, not gypsies but foreigners. They were taken aside and carefully stripped of their suitcases, without a word as to what would happen to them, though I’d guess they would go right to a prison camp. It seemed that nobody knew them, and anyone who did know them pretended not to. I had no need to lie, as I’d never seen them before in my life. They were a young couple, clearly deserters, at least he was, considering that if he’d been from here and as healthy as he looked, at his age he’d be a soldier at war, just like our sons. Nobody has said anything about Julio, it’s obviously assumed that he’s family; we’re from here, and we have some status, with two sons who are, if not heroes, at least soldiers. I pray for everything to go well, and swallow hard.

  They haven’t removed anyone else from the line, though they have confiscated a lot of items from people, because, though the government paper stated each person could bring only one small suitcase, there are some who seem to have brought everything with them except the wall clock and the marriage bed. I even saw a cello confiscated—you’ve got to be off your rocker to try to bring a cello on a bus for refugees. As if we’d try to form a band.

  When our turn arrived, we showed our papers, but the zone agent knew us well, and there were no problems except for the boy, which we’d expected. I let her do the talking, since she’s a lady to the marrow of her bones and could explain it all without a tremble in her voice, and she spoke from such great heights that th
e agent lowered his gaze and even stroked our false nephew’s hair affectionately and with great pity when she said he’d been recently orphaned and was shaken, almost mute with pain. The kid behaved splendidly and put on such a sad face that, had he been a film actor, he’d have won an award. Meanwhile, my hands were clammy with sweat up until the moment the zone agent stamped our papers with the official seal and moved on to the next people in line. While he was talking to us and asking about the kid, I did hear people murmuring, but it’s not like they knew enough about us to understand our affairs, we only came down the hill and into town for holidays, for any major shopping I’d drive to the city in our car. I’ve always known that we were envied, and it should come as no surprise, because aside from the water owners we had the biggest house in the region. As it happened, just as I told her, the water owners weren’t at the bus stop, and though I didn’t say anything, it stupidly made me happy that I’d been right. Just as well, because if I’d said something, I would have ended up looking like a complete idiot. When everyone in line had been registered, the water owners arrived in a car, with a chauffeur and everything. The car wasn’t theirs, it belonged to the government, and had an official license plate and a national flag attached to the antenna. I was so surprised to see them that I pulled on her sleeve, as the agent had requested, or rather demanded, silence. She calmed me by pressing my hand, as if to convey that nothing could surprise her anymore.

  The water owners didn’t get out of the car until everything was ready, nor did they present their papers to the zone agent, and when three buses finally arrived, they got on the first one, cutting to the front of the line we stood in, while the rest of us waited patiently. Once they were inside, the rest of us were told to board one at a time, in the order in which we stood. When she and I boarded, I don’t know why, but it calmed me to see the owners there, and without greeting anyone we settled in as quickly as possible in the back, almost in the last row. The zone agent inspected the three buses one by one, and counted us all one more time. He also congratulated us on fulfilling the procedures with discipline, and encouraged us to relax a bit and chat if we liked, as the trip would be a long one.

  We placed the boy between us, so that the three of us occupied only two seats. We put our suitcases in the compartment over our heads, they were small suitcases, as had been requested. She kissed the boy on the forehead as the bus started to move, then she kissed me on the lips. We now had permission to talk, but I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  We took the road toward the city, and as we passed the hill I saw smoke rising from our house, but on the other side of the forest I saw no smoke at all. The water owners’ mansion had not been burned, so I’d at least been right about that. Soon after we left the valley, we detoured off the main highway onto the region’s old road, passing the harbor, leaving the lake behind us, then crossing into the neighboring region. As we passed through the next town over, we saw that it was empty, it must have been evacuated first, and as we drove on we saw one deserted village after another, and I could tell they’d been depopulated recently because there were still objects on the streets, clothes, furniture, open suitcases, and even lights left on in a window here and there, perhaps more out of forgetfulness than because anyone was still inside, and in this manner towns passed by us like ghosts without names until we were so far from home that I didn’t recognize a thing. The child was sleeping, and the chatter on the bus had died down until almost nobody was talking anymore and only snores filled the bus. She was awake, staring out of the window, it was hard to tell what she was thinking, and when I asked, she said that she wasn’t thinking about anything, except perhaps about what the transparent city would be like and whether it would be made of glass or crystal or some other see-through material, and whether we’d have enough room to be comfortable, and whether there would be a school or other children at least, though the part about a school didn’t bother her too much, as she herself could certainly teach Julio what he needed to learn. She wasn’t wrong about that, before she took me as her lover and then her husband, I barely knew my arithmetic, or how to handle invoices or records, and about the greater world I knew nothing, nothing at all, that is to say, I knew how to work with my hands, and how to read and write in a pinch, but not much more. I could do things but not think about them, and it was she, with her books, who taught me little by little how to imagine and remember, how to clearly express my ideas and emotions. With her help, I learned quickly, though I would never call myself bright. With our sons, who came from her and had her blood, and therefore her superior intelligence, she’d done an even better job, and they talked in a way that made you love to just listen. To me, a man who’s never met anyone of importance, they sounded like princes. Our new kid, Julio, seems pretty smart, though he hasn’t spoken yet, so I have no doubt that she’ll know how to turn him into an able, educated young man. Of course, if he keeps being mute, he’ll run into problems. But all things considered, with the war, maybe not as many problems as those who talk too much.

  Since she seemed tired, I stopped asking her questions and closed my eyes for I don’t know how long, and I dreamed that I was hunting with my real sons and that we were killing a wild boar and a rabbit, and that’s where I was, inside my dream, skinning those animals, when I was woken by the sound of planes. At first, planes buzz, and then immediately the bombs shriek down, and over time you get used to waking up fast, the way people do when children cry in the middle of the night. After the bombs shriek, you quickly say whatever prayers you know, just as you might when you see lightning and fear the thunder that might follow. Three bombs fell. The first two didn’t hit anything, they only left two huge holes one hundred meters from the highway; the last bomb hit the middle bus. Our driver stopped, but the water owner, the husband, stood up and ordered him to go on, and the driver obeyed. I don’t know whether the water owner is still in charge of anything in here, but some people have given so many orders that their voices inspire obedience. The zone agent isn’t with us, and I don’t know whether he’s in the second bus, the one the bomb destroyed, or in the third bus, I don’t even know whether he’s traveling with us or he stayed in town.

  In any case, we’ve kept on, and the planes have left, and we don’t know what happened to the bus that was hit, though most likely all the people in it are dead. She’s clasped me so tightly that I’m sure I’ll have bruises, but the boy Julio didn’t even wake up, and we’ve laughed about that, about how this poor kid can sleep through bombs, although I also think we were laughing out of happiness that the three of us are still alive, that we got on this bus and not the other one. We didn’t look back for a good long while, to avoid seeing the dead, or worse, a wounded person left to his horrible fate.

  When we finally do turn to look, there’s nothing left to see, and the two remaining buses drive on through the night toward wherever it is we’re going. The driver has turned off his headlights, in case the planes return, and he’s going more slowly, even though there’s a nice big moon and you can see what’s ahead. And we’re probably visible, too. Soon enough, we spy the first light of day, and the headlights become useless anyway, nor is there any false darkness under which to hide. The trip is so long that I start thinking we must be near the border, but since we haven’t had any reliable news about the war for months now, it’s hard to know whether the border is in the same place and how much territory still belongs to us versus the enemy. During wars, maps are often good for only a few days, with all the movement of troops here and there, forward and in retreat; the lines are stripped away and only soldiers’ feet mark what’s this or that, yours or mine. With the little I’ve seen of this country, and with what a poor student of geography I was, it’s hard for me to establish where we are exactly, but it seems strange that the transparent city, or the glass or crystal city, or the whatever-it’s-made-of city, could be so close to what until very recently was enemy land. It’s also possible that, despite this evacuation and all the shortages, we’re w
inning this war, that we’re conquering more of them than they are of us. On the bus, breakfast has begun, since everyone brought something for the first day at least, not bread, as there hasn’t been any of that since the baker was found guilty of snitching, but something, a bit of cured meat or dried herring. We’re fine on water, because the water owner brought a nice big six-liter container, which I suppose is why his orders still carry weight and are followed to the letter. He is, without a doubt, the highest in command on this bus, since he’s the one who distributes the water, and because he gave the driver the first drink, you might say he’s got him in his pocket, and well paid. As the second in command—a role he takes up once he’s slaked his thirst—the driver has instructed us over the loudspeaker not to drink more than the cup we’re given, that the journey is long and there’s still quite a way to go before reaching our destination. So that’s what we’ve done. It’s not the water owner, of course, who’s hauled the water container down the aisle between the seats, but rather the man who’d been sitting just behind him, who, thanks to that coincidence, has found himself charged with an important responsibility and has carried it out with all the rigor of a general keeping his troops in order. If someone asked for more water, the good man would immediately raise his hand as if to deliver a blow, and nobody will argue with that. After the little rations of water were distributed, the people exchanged their good mornings and other chatter, but with so many people talking at once, it’s been impossible to understand a thing, and the clamor on the bus was not so different from the clamor in town, the noise people make when they’re together. Julio has woken up very hungry, and we’ve given him a can of tuna and our last strip of bacon. He’s thanked us with kisses. He’d kissed her before, but it’s the first time he’s kissed me. I felt a lot of love for him then, and the urge to take care of him.