Daniel Alarcón - At Night We Walk in Circles

“What do you want from me?” Henry asked. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

The conversation was Jaime’s once more. He pressed his hands together, palms flat.

“Why were you in that prison, Henry? Will you tell my sister that? I’d like her to know the kind of person you are.”

Henry shrugged. “I was accused of terrorism.”

“Falsely,” added Patalarga.

Jaime smiled. “So this terrorist comes to my house, to my family, and tells my mother awful things. Things I never wanted her to hear. She’s sick. She isn’t well.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know you are. Here’s what I want. I want you to tell my mother you were wrong. That you made a mistake. That this was all a misunderstanding.” His eyes narrowed, and there was anger in his voice. “I want you to say you’re very sorry, and I want you to convince that poor woman that this was all your fault, and leave her mind at peace. I want her to have no doubt that her youngest child is alive.”

“I told her that already,” Henry said.

“It didn’t work.”

Patalarga shook his head. “Look at him. Do you really think that going back to her, looking like that, is going to help anything?”

“Put some makeup on him. She won’t even notice.”

“Jaime, be reasonable,” said Noelia.

“I am reasonable. He comes. He apologizes. He goes.”

“I’m apologizing now.”

Jaime shook his head. “You apologize to her. Is this too much to ask?”

Henry dropped his head into his chest. “No,” he said.

THAT NIGHT IN T—,after Jaime and Noelia had gone; after the props had been put away, and the auditorium padlocked; after Eric had said good night; Diciembre trudged back to the Imperial. Everything in town was shuttered, and no one was out. When they got to the hotel, it was as if the man at the front desk had already heard what had happened. He handed them the key with a sad shake of the head.

The three friends went up to their room. The mood was funereal. Without much talk, they prepared for the long trip back to the coast. Henry began by removing the red presidential sash, the presidential eye mask, the white presidential gloves, which were no longer white. These items were all folded and packed away. The presidential dress shirt too, its ruffles now spotted with drops of blood. Patalarga followed: he pulled off the smock he’d worn almost every night for the previous months, untied the colorful pants cinched at the waist with rope, and removed his rubber sandals. Then, Nelson: the riding boots and pants, a wig he wore briefly in the third act. From his bag, he pulled a set of hand cymbals, played by the servant in one key scene, a flourish offered whenever the president wanted one of his own witty statements celebrated. “You sure you don’t want to keep those out for later?” Patalarga said, but no one was in the mood for jokes. The fake knife was put away as well, wrapped in an old pair of socks, as if its plastic blade needed protecting. It was a simple production, really; everything was packed away in a matter of minutes.

Then Henry found his way back to the window.

“Let’s go out,” he said after staring at the plaza for a while. “Can we go out?” and to his surprise, his friends were not opposed. It was early yet, and none were ready to sleep. They seemed to know instinctively that if they stayed indoors, the gloom might overcome them; so they headed out, into the night and toward the school, the same direction that Patalarga and Nelson had gone only a few hours before.

When they were nearing the edge of the town, crossing one of the bridges toward the fields, Henry began to talk. It might have been less an apology, and more a listing of regrets — but it was something, and this was important. It was a start. Nelson and Patalarga listened. We never should have revived his moribund play, Henry said. Another one, perhaps, but why this play, which carried with it so many ghosts? This play, which had caused nothing but trouble since it had been written? He went on: we never should have gone on tour, never should have left the city, where we were safe, or interrupted our lives with these quixotic aspirations toward theater, toward art. He spoke with great feeling, but there was a fallacy at the center of his logic. The idea to revive the play had not been his but Patalarga’s. The idea to take Diciembre out on tour once more — he’d had to be convinced, after all, and the one who’d done that convincing was Patalarga.

“I told them it was my fault,” said Patalarga. “I wanted to take that burden off Henry. He was eating himself alive.”

Of their walk that night, Patalarga remembers most clearly the sky, indigo graced with stars. Clouds had followed them everywhere throughout their travels; they’d suffered cold rain and hail, but now, here was their reward.

“You should’ve told us about Rogelio,” Patalarga said.

He wanted this to come out differently than it did: he hadn’t intended it to be a complaint but an affirmation of solidarity. He didn’t feel betrayed, or even disappointed; only confused. For years, Henry had insisted on believing that he was alone. He’d refused help, refused counsel. His marriage had fallen apart. His life had stalled. It was painful to watch.

“What I mean is, you could have. We would’ve listened.”

Henry nodded. “Thank you,” he said, but he was very far away.

The cold was tolerable; you could even say it was invigorating. They’d come to the school, just five classrooms and an office arranged around a barren courtyard, beyond which lay the vast planted fields of T—. There was a low concrete retaining wall at the edge of a rusting playground, and here, Nelson and Henry sat. Patalarga had his back to them, his eyes trained on the town they’d left behind. Without realizing it, and without much effort, they’d risen in elevation, just enough to sense the faintest glow of light from the plaza. This place is so very small, Patalarga thought. It could be erased in a moment, and it would be as if none of this had ever happened. Not the play. Not this evening. Not Rogelio, or any of us. It would all be a rumor from a far-off place, something folded into the long history of that which has been forgotten. Somehow, Patalarga found this thought comforting.

He turned to share this mundane insight with his friends, and noticed, to his surprise, that they were holding hands. He couldn’t tell if it had just happened, or if they’d walked a long way like this without his noticing. Nor could he say who had reached out for whom, who’d offered comfort and who’d accepted it; but in a sense, it didn’t matter.

Patalarga turned away. He sat on the wall, and kept his eyes trained skyward. When he looked again, his friends had let go.

But for a light breeze, the valley was almost silent.

“Do you want to know?” Henry said.

“Know what?” Nelson asked.

“What he was like. Who he was.” Henry sighed. “I’ll tell you. If you want to know, I’ll tell you.”

ROGELIO WAS THE YOUNGEST OF THREE,the skinniest, the least talkative. As a boy he slept with Jaime in the same room, and his earliest, most profoundly comforting memories were of those late nights, before bed: the chatter between them, the camaraderie. Then Jaime left for San Jacinto, and shortly afterward, when Rogelio was eight, his father died. In the months afterward, Rogelio began to skip school and spend hours walking in the hills above town. He liked to be alone. He gathered bits of wood, and used his father’s tools to carve tiny animals, birds, lizards, that sort of thing, which he kept in a box under his bed. They weren’t particularly lifelike, but were surprisingly evocative, and at age twelve, he presented one to a girl he liked, as a gift. Her name was Alma. With trembling hands and a look of horror on her face, she accepted it, and for the next week she avoided his gaze. The other children whispered about him whenever he came near. There was no need to hear the exact words, for their meaning was clear enough. Alma’s family came from the northwest district. The following year, at age thirteen, Rogelio quit school officially, and his mother and older brother agreed there was no practical reason for him to stay in T— any longer; so he left for San Jacinto, to join Jaime.