The Outcast Son Read online

  The details of the trip remained a mystery until the day of departure. On my way to the airport, I found myself imagining who my new colleagues would be. Were they teachers? Were they just adventurous people in search of new experiences? Or perhaps just a bunch of self-righteous twats looking for self-complacence?

  I pictured myself working with these strangers, getting to know them. It would be easy to pretend I liked them. I had been doing it for my entire life. It might sound false and dishonest, but everybody probably does it to some degree. You cannot tell everybody everything you think about them in every single moment. It’s part of our social contract. If we want to live in society, we need to learn to accept and tolerate things we don’t actually like, even things that irritate us.

  It’s in our nature to feel more linked to people who think or act like us, but in our lives, we have to deal with all sorts of characters, and the best way to be happy and stay out of problems is to be polite and kind. In my case, I had to deal with a few difficult individuals, and I got over harsh situations by keeping my thoughts to myself in most cases. Other situations didn’t end up that happily, though, but it was for reasons that, at that time, I thought I couldn’t control.

  My mind went blank when I saw him again. His outfit was completely different. He wore jeans and a casual jacket, as well as trainers and a fancy hat, but what actually shocked me was the cabin baggage next to him. He was coming with me. I was going to spend the following few months with this man. He approached my cab and opened the door. I’m sure he wouldn’t do it if I were a guy, but I didn’t say anything for the sake of our “social contract” (and also because he was my boss).

  “Thank you, Mr Johnson.”

  “Please, call me Mark.”

  Chapter 3

  An expected call

  “The school just phoned.”

  “Again?”

  “He punched an older boy in the face. We’ll have to meet with his parents.”

  Jaime wasn’t an easy child. He was smart and curious, but sometimes it felt as if we couldn’t get to him. Something wasn’t working. All the joy and excitement of my first months and years as a mother were being swept away by a series of incidents that shook our fragile peace. My dream of starting over and raising a happy family seemed to deflate with every phone call, with every argument at school, with every parental meeting.

  I loved him. More than my own life. And I wanted to help him, to make him happy and enjoy his childhood like any other kid his age, but he didn’t seem to fit. It was his third year at his primary school in Leytonstone, East London, but he didn’t have any friends. On top of that, his teachers were more and more worried about his behaviour. He was already six. A beautiful and healthy young boy with black curly hair, very different from the pitiful being I had found covered in mud four years before. He was tall for his age, and his eyes hadn’t lost any of the light they had when I first met him. However, a shade of sadness grew in his heart, and I couldn’t stop it. Things had happened. Terrible things. Life-changing nightmares which could torment anybody’s dreams forever. And he was just a little boy.

  I used to pick him up from school every day. It was the joy of my life to see his face looking for me among the other parents, my reward after a day at work. I used to quickly forget about the bad things. Each and every one of Jaime’s trespasses meant a new cross in my list of failures as a mother, but my blindness wouldn’t allow me to see the main problem.

  Jaime had already started talking when I found him. And not only a few words: he could build simple sentences, ask some questions and empathise like a much older child by the age of two. I believed he had a gift, a hidden potential, and my objective became to unleash it. And so, when problems arose, I blamed his intelligence as any parent would probably do. But I felt at the same time that something much deeper was going on.

  In the school, nobody wanted to talk about bullying: they hadn’t reported any physical violence or verbal abuse. In fact, Jaime turned out to be the one who resorted to aggression when the pressure made him lose control. It took me some time to realise that his classmates feared him. I was shocked. It was happening again, the same grotesque situation I had seen in his town, although this time the reason wasn’t the same. It couldn’t be the same.

  Every child in the school was afraid of playing or even talking to him, but no teacher understood why. At the beginning, there wasn’t any apparent reason for the other kids to be scared, but after a few months, Jaime grew more violent. Perhaps he didn’t know how to interact or connect with other kids. No one would speak to him. No one would play with him. No one would even look at him if they could avoid it. He didn’t matter at all, again turned into a shadow all wanted to forget. Jaime realised this. How else should he feel if nobody acknowledged his existence? In the end, when everything else failed, the only way he had to be noticed was through violence and misbehaviour.

  However, what happened that morning smashed the limits. He punched someone in the face. No shouting, spitting or kicking, but actually hurting a boy’s face. It saddens me to imagine the kind of desperation he went through to do that and not regret it right away.

  “This isn’t working.”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m doing my best here. And so are you.”

  “We need to find a solution.”

  “A solution? What do you mean?”

  “Don’t get mad. I’m talking about a change. I know you love that school and the teachers are great, but perhaps it’s not what Jaime needs.”

  “That’s nonsense. Where would he be better than there?”

  “Laura, I’m only saying that there is much more to a school than receiving an ‘outstanding’ Ofsted report.”

  “Wow. I didn’t expect you to patronise me here.”

  “Look, I don’t want to start an argument. I’m just saying we could be better off elsewhere.”

  “Elsewhere? Are you kidding? So that’s what this is all about, huh? Dammit, man, if you don’t like it here, just say it!”

  “It’s not that! You know this is not my favourite place in the world, but we agreed to raise a family here, and I was being honest with you when I said it’d work! It’s not fair to throw that in my face now!”

  “You are right. I’m sorry. It’s just that I don’t know what to do anymore.”

  “We need to seek advice. We’ll meet with the other boy’s parents together, and after that, we’ll be able to make a decision, but the kid probably needs a more specific education.”

  Chapter 4

  Finding out the truth

  Mayhem took over Cusco after the flood. They improvised hospitals where they accepted people from small towns and villages around the region, but the conditions were very deficient. They took measures to avoid the spread of infections, although it was difficult to prevent them lacking the necessary equipment and staff to run the centre to an acceptable standard.

  We arrived at the emergencies entrance, where injured and sick people waited for their turn to enter the facilities. There was no queue, just an amorphous mass of human beings moaning and struggling to keep breathing, a vision hard to digest even though I didn’t see anybody seriously injured. But people ignored each other and the world around them, too focused on their own pain. They all needed attention in a hospital under siege, and doctors couldn’t cope, overwhelmed by the flood of victims.

  I left the boy with Mark and entered the reception room by myself.

  “Good afternoon. I’ve brought a kid who needs to see a doctor urgently,” I said after waiting for almost half an hour behind a quite irregular sort of line. The lady behind the glass looked busy, buried in paperwork. Two huge bags tired her eyes out to tell me she had been working long hours.

  “Excuse me,” I said, a bit upset for having been ignored. She raised her head and looked at me with indifference.

  “How can I help you?” she asked without changing her expression.

  “I’ve got a kid outside who needs to see a docto
r urgently.” She didn’t like the tone of my voice. She stared at me for a few seconds without speaking a word, then she took a sheet from under her desk and handed it to me.

  “Please fill in this form. Next!”

  “Sorry, but I don’t think you understand. The boy is very weak and could die if a doctor doesn’t see him soon.”

  “That’s not how this works. You need to fill in the form, give it back to me and then wait for your turn.”

  It was outrageous. That wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. The order in which doctors see patients depends on the gravity of the situation. They can’t let a person bleed out or a pregnant woman give birth at the doorstep of the hospital because of a stupid form. There sure were levels of emergency, and a little boy in that condition should be a top priority.

  “This is not acceptable! You’re going to let him die! How is that fair?” But I hadn’t impressed the lady. She ignored me, and she wouldn’t have changed her mind if it wasn’t for a doctor who was passing by at the moment.

  “What’s the matter here?” she asked.

  “I found a little boy who hasn’t eaten for days, and he’s extremely weak. I fear he could die if we don’t act immediately.”

  The doctor looked at me and then at the receptionist, who shrugged. Then she sighed and looked at me again with sympathetic eyes.

  “Come with me,” she said. “I’ll have a look at him myself.”

  We both walked out the gates to meet Mark and the boy. The poor thing was already too weak to stand, so they were both sitting on the ground. The doctor didn’t have to look twice. She realised straight away the boy needed urgent care. He was struggling to keep his eyes open, and his colour had turned pale.

  “Bring him with me. Quickly!”

  As we followed her, a group of three people who were still waiting outside the building seemed to recognise the boy. It all happened very quickly. The three of them started shouting out loud and getting nervous.

  “Layqa! Layqa!” This word again.

  They seemed to expect the crowd to join them, but it didn’t happen. Instead, one of them convulsed. He didn’t have any injuries, so he probably was there because of a disease or an illness, accompanied by two family members. I assumed they were from the slum where we had found Jaime, and that made me clench my hands and look at them with half-closed eyes. They could even be his own family, and they just stood there screaming at the boy and making a scene.

  “Layqa! Layqa!”

  They wouldn’t stop shouting and trying to come closer. They looked aggressive. My anger turned into a piercing fear throbbing in my chest. Some people in the crowd seemed infected with madness, but most of them looked sensible and stopped the hotheads from getting to us so we could enter the facilities and leave them behind. The next day, I learned that the man who had collapsed had choked out minutes later due to an infection in his lungs. The disease had corrupted his body, and the doctors hadn’t been able to do anything.

  I couldn’t begin to understand that rage, that hatred, and towards a boy who hadn’t done anything to anybody. He was just pure innocence, a forsaken soul left to die in the middle of a hell of sorrow and physical pain.

  It took me a while to calm down and realise we were inside the hospital. We had gone through the entrance and the reception, but the scene wasn’t much better than outside the building. Rusted beds piled up throughout the infinite hall in a rather anarchic manner, and the distribution of patients didn’t look very systematic. It was a Dantesque vision of children crying, injured bodies lying here and there, gauzes covered in blood next to almost every bed and a disturbing smell of faeces, urine and rotten flesh. The walls had lost their paint ages ago, and now just traces of moisture dressed the inner side of the façade. There weren’t any tiles or even paving stones on the floor. Only compressed dust, hard because of the many steps it supported over the years.

  We waited while the doctor talked to a nurse and a bed was prepared for the boy to be examined. A beam of light entered the hall through the roof and reached the chair next to us, making me look up to realise the ceiling needed to be repaired, as many other holes spread spots of sunlight all over. It looked more like an old factory than a hospital, but it was definitely better than nothing and the only chance we had to save the boy.

  “Is he going to be okay?” I asked the doctor.

  “Hopefully,” she answered. “He’s been through a lot and is extremely weak, but apart from that nasty wound on his ankle, I would say all his symptoms are caused by malnutrition, so I’d expect him to recover as soon as his system starts absorbing nutrients. I’m very glad you found him. He wouldn’t have lasted much longer on his own. If you had come a couple of days later, I’m not sure we’d have been able to do anything for him.”

  I sighed and emptied my lungs before I breathed in again. If I could save a single child, the whole trip would’ve been worthwhile. It mattered to me. I wasn’t there to atone for my sins or look for redemption, but this somehow brought peace to my soul. I was becoming the human I wanted to be.

  “Why would they abandon him?” I asked the doctor.

  “Superstition.”

  “Superstition?”

  “They called him ‘layqa’. Do you know what that means?”

  “I’ve got no idea. Sorry.”

  “It’s the Quechua word for ‘witch’.”

  “Witch? You’re telling me they think…”

  “In some villages,” she interrupted, “people believe that the wiser amongst their elders can come back from death and reincarnate.”

  “Oh, dear. That’s madness,” I said. “And why would they abandon him, though? If they think he’s one of their ancestors, it’d make more sense to look after him.”

  “They believe children keep the knowledge they had in their previous existence and that they have learned the secrets of life and death after having died and come back,” she said. “They fear him and blame him for every misfortune that occurred in his village ever since he was born.”

  I had never been superstitious. It even amused me to see how some people let ancient beliefs and fairy tales control their lives and dictate the rules. I couldn’t understand why people put that much energy in making up stories to explain what science can’t.

  Every time I think about superstition, I remember an old friend of mine who wakes up five minutes earlier every morning to walk three times around her house and jump three times next to the window because she thinks that this will bring her luck in life. I talked to her about this once, and I couldn’t persuade her that what she was doing was stupid.

  “Why don’t you skip it for a couple of days and see by yourself everything is going to be the same?” I asked.

  “I did,” she answered. “I accidentally forgot to do it the day my mother died three years ago. I remember my alarm clock went off and I just postponed it because I was feeling very tired. As I was half-asleep, I entered the wrong time and woke up when my boss called me two hours later. I didn’t have a second to waste. She was so angry on the phone that I thought I‘d lose my job, so I rushed to the office without jumping next to the window and without walking around the house as I usually do. At eleven o’clock, I got a very different call. Just one hour after I reached the office, my mother had been run over by a van at a supermarket car park. I will never forgive myself for that and have never, ever skipped what you call my silly superstitions again.”

  “Oh, my! I’m so sorry!” I said. “It wasn’t your fault, you know that, don’t you?”

  “It wasn’t a coincidence. It was the only bloody day I forgot about that in twenty years,” she said with a shadow floating in her eyes.

  “I know it looks strange, but chances are…”

  “Don’t lecture me about chances!” she yelled, her voice cracking with sorrow. And this was the last time we talked about it.

  I spoke no more. I thought she was so wrong, but I came to understand why people act that way. We see patterns. We try to explain
everything based on a cause-consequence principle, and most people believe everything happens for a reason. It’s kind of harsh to think events are just determined by chance, that nothing matters because nothing means nothing, so we connect unconnected facts for them to add up and make sense. However, we only try to explain the “relevant” facts, the facts we think that actually matter. This friend of mine connected those two separate events that took place that day, but strangely enough, it was also the day her husband got a senior position in his company and they started thinking about having a baby. She ignored those facts and didn’t see any relation with her superstitious ritual, even though she now lives with her husband in a new, bigger house downtown and they have a beautiful son, the fruit of the decision they happily made that day.

  We choose what we want to believe. But how many coincidences do we need to make us doubt everything? How many times can you win the lottery the same year and still think it was only chance? How many members of your family can you lose in a month before you consider that there is a pattern, that things happen for a reason? Three? Five? One hundred? There sure is a number for everyone, and according to statistics, no cipher is impossible, no matter how large.

  Chapter 5

  A difficult conversation

  A man in his forties received us and made us wait in the hallway. He walked in an odd fashion, as if he were tired or in pain, bending the left knee too little and moving his head to the left with every step. His tic made me feel uncomfortable, but he looked trustworthy, the type of person who you’d like to be around. There was something I found appealing about him. It could be the expression on his face, his sincere smile or just the way he looked at me.