He went home that night, when the pleas and the shrieks and the gunshots became unbearable, when he was surrounded by the echoes of murdered people with blindfolded eyes, feet bound, some with their faces or whole bodies swollen, others who dragged themselves along in burlap sacks, a legion he could not make disappear. They sought him out. They knew he could see them and recognize them. It was instinctive, they were like moths to a flame, except Juan couldn’t shoo them away. Rosario was sitting in the doorway of the house, waiting for him; Gaspar was asleep inside. Don’t do that to me again, she’d told him, and she dug her nails into his arm before she kissed him and started to cry. I’m going to help you improve the protection, I can’t believe this affects you so much, we can move, things are calmer in Puerto Reyes. No, he’d replied, in spite of his desperation. Not Puerto Reyes. In the upstairs bedroom they shared, she had already set out what they needed to reinforce his defenses, his protection. The chalk circles on the wooden floor, the delicately drawn signs that radiated calm and power.
Now, in the car, in the unbearable heat of the Corrientes afternoon, Gaspar talked and talked and Juan tried to guide him to get more information about his abilities, but, he realized, he was failing. If he wanted to know what else Gaspar was capable of, he would have to force it. He could sound him out, certainly. But that was a tricky method, even if his son cooperated. That very night, he was going to find out for sure.
Before they entered the city of Corrientes, another group of soldiers made him slow down. Their expressions were hard as they peered into the car, and, with astonishing intuition, Gaspar smiled at them. Remarkably, one of the soldiers returned the smile; with a wave, he told Juan to keep going. Fifteen minutes later he saw the bridge, which looked delicately drawn on to a cloudless sky, and the pink boardwalk, the lapacho trees in bloom, their flowers a little wilted from the heat. Seven in the evening.
“You want to watch the sunset? We’ll buy something to eat and wait for it.”
It would be an hour, at least: it was January. Juan bought two ice cream cones and took a lot of napkins from the shop: Gaspar was sloppy when he ate ice cream, and in such heat he couldn’t even be blamed if it dripped over his hands and arms. They sat on a wooden bench on the paved boardwalk and looked out. The cement piles were a bit neglected, and the river reflected the sky, bluer than usual, with flashes of silver and brown.
Gaspar got up to collect lapacho flowers, and he made a sticky bouquet. Juan saw him stop and stare down at a cut flower—not a lapacho—that had fallen on to the sidewalk. The boy put his improvised bouquet on the ground and came over to Juan, cupping the strange flower in his hand as if it were a living thing. Juan recognized it right away. It was a passionflower, with its violet filaments, white petals, and erect pistils and stamens that looked like insects. The crown and wounds of Christ, said one of the legends that had given the flower its name. Look, Dad! cried Gaspar, who had never seen anything like it.
“It’s called a mburucuyá. Someone must have dropped this one. Later on I’ll show you a plant with more flowers.”
“There are more?”
“Sure, there are more. What, you think it’s the only one in the world?”
“It’s weird.”
“It has a story, you know. Like the ceiba.”
Gaspar waited for the story with the flower in his hands and his eyes very wide, made even rounder by his suspense.
“There was a Spanish girl who fell in love with a Guaraní boy. Do you know what Guaraní means?”
“Yeah, a native from around here. Like the women on the highway.”
“So, the girl’s father wouldn’t let her fall in love with the boy. Her father was a captain. Do you understand why he didn’t want her to love him?”
“Because captains are bad.”
Juan smiled. That was true, too.
“They’re bad, yes, but here the problem was that she was Spanish. You know that the Spanish didn’t want to mix with the natives?”
“Mom told me they did mix together.”
“That’s true, but not at first. This captain didn’t want his daughter to mix. So he ordered the native boy killed.”
“The boyfriend? Really?”
“Yes. And she drove a feather arrow into her own heart and killed herself.”
Gaspar’s blue eyes were full of tears. He’s so different from me, thought Juan. He’s got a long way to go to toughen up.
“What happened then?”
“From her wound, when she fell down dead, this flower grew.”
“Are all flowers dead girls?”
Juan looked at the sun, which was about to touch the river. He didn’t see any black flowers in the sky. Were they also the memories of dead girls? The sky was orange, wrapped in flames.
“No. Do they make you sad?”
“Yeah.”
“We’re both sad. Come see the sun.”
Gaspar sat down and Juan felt him put a hand under his shirt and rest it, sticky, on his chest. He’s checking my heart, thought Juan. He had caught his son doing this before. When they slept together, for example: sometimes he felt the little hand on his chest, checking for heartbeats. Or else he found Gaspar’s head resting on his ribs, listening. “My little boy,” he said, caressing the anxious hand. Suddenly he felt a vivid desire to drink wine until he got drunk, until he passed out. He could even taste the bitter alcohol on his palate. “Look at the sun, look at the colors in the sky.” Gaspar watched attentively, his eyes half-closed, and took a deep breath. The sunset over the river was brutal, almost unreal, with the purple line of the horizon and the reddened sky.
“Can I keep the flower?”
“There are tons of them around here, we’ll find more. Do you like flowers? Me too.”
“Really? A kid in my class called me a fag.”
“Why did he say that?”
“Because I asked the teacher about the jasmines on the playground. They smell good.”
Next time, you bash that idiot kid’s face in, thought Juan, but he said:
“There’s nothing bad about being a fag.”
“Then, why . . . ?”
Gaspar didn’t know how to finish the question, but Juan understood.
“Because they use it to insult you, because people say ‘fag’ the way they say ‘moron.’ Because people are stupid and mediocre,” said Juan. “But you’re different, and I’m also different.”
“What’s mediocre?”
Juan didn’t answer.
“Come on, we need to find a hotel. We have things to do tonight.”
Gaspar ran to the car clutching the flower, whose cross was already broken, though he hadn’t noticed.
It was less than twenty blocks to the municipal cemetery, but Juan was apprehensive as they walked there. It wasn’t easy to walk with Gaspar, who was in a bad mood after being woken from a deep sleep. Luckily Juan had found another door at the hotel, so they didn’t have to go out the front and draw the night attendant’s attention. He knew they would get there much faster if he carried Gaspar, but the boy was heavy and he couldn’t afford to exert himself. He also couldn’t be sure that the sex with Andrés would work as a propitiatory ritual. He was tired and confused.