said Robinsón after exchanging a look with Angela, which Pablo could not interpret. “I don’t know if it will hold our weight, we should go one at a time. Do you want to go first, Pablo?”
Pablo had never crossed a frozen river before—he didn’t even know a river could freeze. But he didn’t want to seem like a chicken. He swallowed and nodded.
“Be careful not to slip. Try to go in a straight line and keep looking ahead,” Robinsón advised.
Pablo put one foot on the frozen surface and noticed how the layer of ice strained under his weight as the water flowed beneath it. If I pull my foot back now, he thought, I won’t dare put it there again. So he stepped forward with his other foot, and found himself crossing the Cuerpo de Hombre, with fear and wonder, like Peter walking on the water to meet Jesus. For a moment he felt like he was losing his balance, that the world was trembling beneath his feet, but he lifted his arms and steadied himself like a tightrope walker, recovering equilibrium. He then proceeded forward with determination and reached the other side. Smiling, he turned around, but his smile froze on his face: Robinsón and Angela had disappeared. Then, upstream, someone shouted his name, and turning he could see his two fellow adventurers crossing a small wooden bridge, laughing hysterically. Pablo stayed put until the others reached him.
“Don’t take it wrong,” said Robinsón, wrapping his arm around Pablo’s shoulders. “It’s just the initiation ceremony you have to go through before you can visit my hideout. Right, Angela?”
“Yeah. And you were lucky,” she said to Pablo, smiling. “I tried it in the springtime, and I got sopping wet.”
“Let’s go,” said Robinsón, setting off walking. “We’re almost there.”
They went a few yards and then stopped. Their mouths emitted a dense fog, like the smoke from the textile factories that were the lifeblood of Béjar. The sun came filtering between the branches, and Robinsón approached an oak with a thick, majestic trunk, and pointed toward the top. There, hidden among the branches, Pablo could make out a little wooden house.
“My hideout,” said the innkeeper’s son, proudly, as he walked to the other side of the tree, where a series of branches, cut and nailed to the trunk, served as a ladder. He climbed up these steps and pushed on the door of the hideout. Angela went up behind him, with the agility of Tarzan, who a decade later would replace Robinson Crusoe as the idol of intrepid and adventurous children. From on high, they signaled to Pablo to join them. The tree house was small, but there was enough space for the three of them. The floor was covered in straw and there was a candleholder hanging from the ceiling with a stub of a candle. In a corner there was a sackcloth blanket, a brass canteen, a box of matches, a damp book, and a few basic tools, slightly rusted: a hammer, a handsaw, a box of nails.
“My papa built this place when I was born,” said Robinsón, “Before he lost his hand.”
It was cold, but they covered themselves in the blanket and gradually warmed up.
“What do we play?” Angela asked.
“We can tell jokes,” Robinsón suggested, “Here, I’ve got one. What do you call a girl with a frog on her head?”
“Mmm, I don’t know,” said Angela.
“Me neither,” Pablo gave up.
“Lilly!” said Robinsón, triumphant. “What vegetable is a dog that smells good?”
“Easy,” said Angela, sticking out her tongue. “Collie-flower! My turn. Here’s a joke they tell in Cuba, that everybody thinks is funny: On the street corner I met a little man. I pulled down his pants and ate the best part.”
Pablo and Robinsón found this hilarious, without even waiting for the punch line. When they stopped laughing, Pablo asked, “Alright, alright, who was he?”
“A banana!” Angela shouted, giggling. “Here’s another one: what do you call a deer that can’t see?”
“No eye-deer!” Robinsón replied, laughing. “My turn: between two big rocks there’s a little man who talks—who is he?”
“Mmm, I dunno,” said Pablo.
“Umm, the wind?” Angela ventured.
“No, a fart!” Robinsón shouted, buckling over with laughter.
“Nasty!” Angela shouted, giving him a smack on the head. “What about you, Pablo? Don’t you know any jokes?”
Pablo sat thinking for a moment, and finally said:
“As long as you keep me captive, I exist, but the moment you set me free, I die. What am I?”
Seeing that the others had no guesses, he gave the answer: “A secret.”
And so they spent the morning, goofing around and telling jokes, playing jacks, “I Spy,” and slaps, which helped them keep warm. Then they climbed down from the tree house and played the stick game hinque, and hide-and-seek, and even found a patch of wet earth where they drew a hopscotch and Robinsón showed that he was unbeatable at hopping on one foot. Then they went to the ravine to find some snow and built a snowman, but this turned into a snowball fight, and the half-built snowman ended up in a crossfire of laughter and snowballs hurled with too much accuracy. They looked for frogs on the bank of the frozen river and searched for mole and rabbit dens. When they got hungry, they went to get the canteen and filled it with water from the river, after breaking the ice with the hammer, and ate the bread and chorizo. Angela ate heartily after ten days of nothing but soup, eggs, and milk mixed with sherry. Then they went back up to the tree fort, lay down on the straw, and started telling stories. Robinsón told a scary story that he had heard from Juan the altar boy. Angela told stories from her life in Cuba, and her old Caribbean accent crept into her speech here and there. Pablo told them about the Lumière Cinematograph that he had seen in Madrid, which left them speechless. But, little by little, fatigue got the best of them and they fell asleep. When Pablo woke up, Angela’s head was resting on his chest, as if she were trying to hear his heartbeat. When she noticed that he was waking up, the girl looked at him with her enormous eyes. She lifted her head and was about to say something, but then thought better of it and pressed her ear back down on the left side of Pablo’s chest. Then, she sat up and asked Pablo the strangest question he’d ever heard in his life:
“You’re a vampire, huh?”
Pablo didn’t know what to respond, because he had never heard of vampires.
“You don’t know what a vampire is? Vampires don’t have hearts, that’s why they have to drink blood. And you don’t have a heart.”
“Yes I do,” said Pablo, disconcerted.
“No, you really don’t. I was listening and I don’t hear anything. You’re a vampire.”
“I’m not a vampire!”
“Yes you are, Pablo. Look, put your hand here,” said Angela, pointing to the left side of his chest. “Feel that? No heartbeat. But you can feel my heartbeat, see?” she said, bringing Pablo’s hand to her chest.
“What the heck are you jokers doing?” Robinsón asked, waking up.
“Um, nothing,” said Pablo, taking his hand quickly from Angela’s chest.
“Pablo doesn’t have a heart,” said the girl. “He’s a vampire. Look, feel.”
“Well I’ll be. You’re right,” Robinsón said in surprise.
“You guys are crazy,” said Pablo, standing to his feet. “I’m not a stupid vampire!”
“Yes you are,” Angela insisted, “but it doesn’t matter. I like vampires.”
Pablo felt a burning in his stomach, as if his guts had burst into flames.
“I do too have a heart!” he shouted, putting his hand again to the left side of his chest. Feeling nothing, he grimaced and left the tree house.