Like This Afternoon Forever. Jaime Manrique

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СКАЧАТЬ will hear me?”

      “I’ll teach you the Prayer to San Martín, which you must say first thing in the morning and again right before you go to sleep at night.”

      Lucas began to pray with fervor to San Martín to intercede with God on his behalf. He repeated the prayer many times the first day until he fell into a hypnotic reverie. Lucas began to feel so peaceful, weightless, warmed all over, that he wondered whether he was dying.

      On the third day, the sun came out earlier than usual and filled Lucas’s room with brilliant light. He closed his eyes and imagined he was in God’s presence. Lucas heard a door open and a lovely aroma filled the room. He pretended to be asleep. Then he thought he heard someone sobbing softly. He opened his eyes and let out a small scream of joy: his mother was there. Lucas wondered if that meant he was dead and in heaven with her. But when she rushed toward his bed and kissed his forehead and cheeks, Lucas knew she was real. It was like a miracle had happened to her: she looked strong, had put on weight, her arms were not covered with purple bruises, and her eyes were not swollen.

      “I came as soon as I heard, my son. An acquaintance in Güicán wrote me at my cousin’s house in Bogotá,” she told him.

      Lucas began to sob.

      “Now, now, my angel,” Clemencia said. “We must get you dressed without delay. There’s a taxi waiting outside. We’ve got to leave Güicán before your father finds out I’m here.”

      As soon as the taxi left Güicán behind, Clemencia explained to Lucas that she had found a job as a live-in maid for an American couple who were Methodist missionary doctors. “They came to Colombia to work for the poor. They’re good people. I told them about you before I asked their permission to come get you, and they said I could take you to the hospital where they work.”

      * * *

      At the hospital in Bogotá, Lucas had a tendon and a vein removed from his left leg to get blood flowing properly in his damaged arm.

      He remained in the hospital for almost a month. After he was discharged, he went to live in a room his mother rented for him from Ema, her widowed cousin, who owned a house in Barrio Kennedy in Bogotá. Ema worked as a saleswoman in a retail store, so she was gone all day. A gang of drug dealers had killed Alberto, her only son. Clemencia came to visit on Saturday afternoons and returned to her job on Sunday evenings.

      Lucas couldn’t return to school for many months. He worried he might have to repeat the third grade because of the time he had missed. The pain in his right arm was still sharp whenever he tried to lift it above his shoulder. He also limped. A government clinic in Barrio Kennedy offered physical therapy for a low fee to people with injured limbs. He walked to the clinic twice a week to do therapy for one hour. Lucas craved human contact—when the male therapist stretched his arm or leg, despite the pain, he didn’t want the man to stop. The rest of the time Lucas stayed alone in the house. Clemencia would call on the phone every morning, and before he went to bed they had brief chats. But as the weeks went by, his loneliness became more acute. He missed school and not learning new things all the time; and he missed his sisters. He prayed every night that they would be reunited soon.

      Ema had warned him not to let anyone in the house when she was at work. His mother forbade him to go outside to play with the other boys in the neighborhood. Every Sunday afternoon before Clemencia left the house, she would take his hands in hers and repeat the same words: “In Bogotá, there are many boys your age who are up to no good. I want you to go to school and study. It’s the only way you’ll have a better life than mine. Lucas, promise me you won’t make friends with bad boys.”

      Though he longed for the company of boys his age, he promised her he would not.

      Ema didn’t own a TV, but she had many books about the lives of the saints. Lucas spent most of the day on a rocking chair by the front window reading those books and watching the busy street life. He kept the window closed, but he lifted a corner of the curtain so that he could peek out while remaining hidden.

      Among Ema’s books he found a few pamphlets about San Martín de Porres and his miracles. The more Lucas read about the saint, the more his fascination grew. He was convinced San Martín had saved his arm from amputation and had sent his mother to rescue him. His favorite stories about San Martín were those that attributed to him the gift of bilocation. San Martín was seen consoling the dying in remote villages high up in the cordilleras while he was in his cell flagellating himself to atone for our sins. There were reports of his appearances in Mexico, Africa, China, and Japan—sometimes on the same day at the same time.

      * * *

      A year after his accident, Lucas was finally able to return to school. His mother had been saving for his education and she enrolled him in Colegio San Bartolomé de las Casas, a private Jesuit school. Lucas studied hard, did his homework, and enjoyed the company of his classmates. The school day began with Mass, and he found himself enamored by the rituals.

      During his second year, Lucas told Clemencia he wanted to be an altar boy. This decision seemed to please her. Lucas began attending spiritual retreats sponsored by the church. At these events the nuns and brothers would share stories about the Christian martyrs with the boys, and they’d watch movies the church approved of. His favorite was Quo Vadis.

      Some nights he would lie awake in bed reliving in his mind the gory scenes of the lions attacking and killing the Christians in the Roman Colosseum, and he wept for the martyrs.

      Lucas loved the fantastic stories from the Old Testament that they studied in sacred history class. But when he read the New Testament he was moved by Jesus’ miracles and His vow to help the poor and weak. He decided he wanted to do his part to help relieve the pain of the unfortunate and sick. Becoming a priest seemed the best way to go about it, and thus the idea of helping others as a way of life became his dream. He was never as happy as when he was in church during Mass or when he went to the chapel to pray on his own.

      Often, after classes were over, a small group of his schoolmates and a brother went to visit a nearby old people’s home that was run by nuns. When they read the Bible aloud to the old people, Lucas observed their wrinkled faces light up with smiles—even though many of them had no front teeth left—and witnessed the sparkle that came into their weary eyes. To see them momentarily forget the misery of their worn-out bodies and their loneliness as he read to them filled him with joy.

      Lucas also loved drawing maps: he would fantasize about all those faraway places, and wondered if he’d ever get to see them. While he always got high marks in geography, history was his favorite subject with its stories of the past infinitely more appealing and romantic than the life he knew. In Latin, however, he was a poor student. No matter how much time he spent studying and practicing the declensions, he barely squeaked by. And although his mind was made up to serve God, Lucas was afraid he was not smart enough to be a good priest.

      There was something else he worried about, something that could stand in the way of him becoming a priest. He was attracted to his neighbor Yadir, an older boy who played soccer every day after school. Lucas would wait all afternoon for the moment when Yadir went by his window—wearing shorts and a sweatshirt—on his way to the soccer field. Often, Yadir returned home bare-chested and sweaty. His legs and arms were muscular and he had a sculpted chest. Watching him walk by, Lucas relived the excitement of those showers he took with his father.

      At the farm in Güicán, behind his father’s back, Adela and Lercy had sometimes dressed him in girls’ clothes so he could join their dress-up games. Now Lucas started wearing Ema’s blouses and skirts, and covering his head with a scarf. He would sit on a rocking chair and watch Yadir go by, making sure he remained СКАЧАТЬ