Humiliation. Paulina Flores

hours from the bed next to mine, but I was engrossed in the encyclopedias. The three of us slept in the same room, a small bedroom that barely fit the bunk beds and a twin that my father had built. My sisters took the bunk beds, Carola above and Andrea below. I had the privilege of a construction one hundred percent my own.

      “Day after tomorrow we’re going to Grandma’s,” said Andrea as I was underlining the phrase “flee furtively in anonymity.”

      My maternal grandmother lived in Tirúa, Arauco, some four hours from Talcahuano. We used to spend vacations at her house in the country. My grandmother and my uncles grew wheat and oats, and their land was bordered by planted forest. When I was younger I liked to wander through the eucalyptus plantations with my mother and sisters. We always ended up losing our way among the thousands of stalks, all identical and planted the same distance apart. Of course, just then I wasn’t thinking about those days in the country; I barely heard what my little sister said.

      “Shut up, Andrea!” shouted Carola from the upper bunk. “You’re such a bigmouth!”

      “What?” I asked, never taking my eyes from the encyclopedia.

      “Stop talking and turn out the light!” Carola protested again.

      “Just wait a little!” I shouted. Her attitude with me recently had been exasperating.

      Andrea spoke now in a quieter voice: “I said, day after tomorrow we’re going to Grandma’s house.”

      “Oh, that’s nice,” I said. “Say hi to everyone for me.”

      “You’re gonna stay with Dad,” she said, speaking even more quietly, a little hesitant, as if she was unsure whether what she was saying was a statement or a question.

      “Andrea!” my older sister scolded her again.

      “I guess,” I said, ignoring Carola’s interruption.

      I put the encyclopedia on the floor and turned out the light. As I got used to the darkness I could see that Andrea was still in the same position as before, lying on her side and looking at me. I could see her eyes shining brightly, and they reminded me of that classic image of little animals hidden in the shadowy forest in animated movies. I smiled at her, thinking she could see me, but if she made a gesture in reply I couldn’t see it. I turned over, closed my eyes, and started thinking about ninjas again.

      “Your dad was military,” Camilo said. “Doesn’t he have a gun or something we could use?”

      “I don’t know,” I replied, uncomfortable. It was true, I didn’t know. I remembered how when I was little I used to play with bullets that didn’t have any gunpowder, but I’d never seen a gun.

      “When’ve you ever seen a ninja with a gun?” Pancho asked his brother. “We’re going to use traditional weapons: ropes, chains, a lot of shuriken.”

      Shuriken were ninja stars. I told Pancho I knew how to make them. My father had taught me to do something similar with a plastic bottle cap and five nails. We used to spend entire afternoons together, throwing them at tree trunks.

      We were walking to the plaza to start our “training” when my mom arrived with my sisters. Each of them was carrying an enormous bag. “You guys moving?” joked Pancho. My mother greeted him affectionately and teased him, asking what he was plotting this time. Again, I noticed she looked very young. Her black hair was loose. She greeted each of us with a kiss on the cheek, gave me a long hug, and said they were going to my grandma Clara’s. My little sister hung from my neck and told me she would miss me a lot, but Carola grabbed her from behind and pulled her away. “I want to say goodbye too” was her excuse, but she barely brushed my cheek with a quick kiss. She gave Camilo a few little pats on the cheek—he’d always had a crush on her—and she told my mom and sister to hurry up, they were running late.

      We used Plaza San Francisco in Santa Julia for training. It was ideal because it had a playground built of metal and wood where we could exercise without anyone bothering us, since the equipment was so old and shabby that almost no kids ever used it. In the end we couldn’t find much more information about ninjutsu; so just like that, with a little knowledge and no sensei, we trained in the things our intuition told us were essential. Supposedly, ninjutsu meant “the art of stealth,” so we focused especially on learning how to slip away, how to make all our movements silent.

      We practiced our balance on the teeter-totter and climbed whatever was in front of us, from the playground equipment to the walls guarding houses or abandoned factories. Sometimes we used ropes, but most of the time we climbed using just our hands. To improve our speed we ran downhill, jumping any obstacle we came upon. The climbing, running, and jumping, though—those were the easy parts. We ended up covered in scrapes and bruises, but we were overflowing with energy, especially Pancho, who jumped higher than anyone in spite of his short legs.

      What was really hard for us was learning to move without making noise. Ninjas were so silent that some castles had floors that were specially designed to squeak at the slightest contact. They were called “nightingale floors,” because the alarm they sounded was similar to that bird’s cry. We split up the day to work on the two skills: in the morning we ran all over, and in the afternoon, once our bodies were more tired and less anxious, we set ourselves to quieting our footsteps.

      We cleared out the Carrascos’ bedroom—they slept in the living room during that whole period—to train on the wooden floor. We left our socks on so the cotton would muffle the noise, and we got into a single-file formation: whoever went first gave the orders and moved around the room with full freedom to make noise. The rest had to imitate his movements, but without making the floorboards creak. Like in a game of Simon Says, except we were raising our legs and walking carefully on tiptoe. The first one to make noise lost. Another exercise: we crouched down without leaning on anything, and competed to see who could stay in that position the longest. I almost always won, and Pancho was the first to give up. Last exercise: we blindfolded one person and put him in the middle of the room. He had to catch us while we moved around him, not breathing, in a kind of blindman’s buff. By nightfall we were exhausted, though we always had more energy for the next day’s work.

      Some nights, or in free time when we weren’t training, I searched among my father’s things for a gun. I don’t know why, but I wanted to know if he had one or not. I went through his drawers, his clothes, some old suitcases, his toolboxes, even my mother’s things. All I found were pieces of wood, and that was strange for him. He had always been so orderly and meticulous, thanks to his military training. Eventually I realized there were bits of wood scattered all over the house. Different sizes and types, almost all useless: broken, old, or burned. I thought he must have been planning to make something, or maybe he was getting materials together to start the workshop my mother was always insisting he open.