Peruvian Tales
"A good book is not the one that thinks for you, but the one that makes you think." James McCosh.
"A good book is not the one that thinks for you, but the one that makes you think." James McCosh.
The substitute teacher
[Story - Full text.]
Julio Ramón Ribeyro
Owards the sunset, when Matias
and his wife sipped a sad tea and complained about the misery of the middle
class, the need to always have to wear a clean shirt, the price of transport,
the increases in the law, in short, what the poor marriages talk about at the
time of twilight, some loud knocking was heard at the door and when they opened
it, Dr. Valencia broke in, a cane in his hand, suffocated by the hard neck.
- My dear Matias! I come to give you great news! From now on, you will be a teacher. Do not tell me no ... wait! As I have to leave the country for a few months, I have decided to leave my history classes at school. It is not a great position and the emoluments are not great, but it is a great opportunity to start teaching. With time you can get other class hours, you will open the doors of other schools, who knows if you can get to the University ... that depends on you. I have always had great confidence. It is unfair that a man of your quality, an enlightened man, who has studied higher, has to make a living as a collector ... No sir that is not right, I am the first to recognize him. Your position is in the teaching ... Do not think twice. In the act, I call the director to tell him that I have already found a replacement. There is no time to lose, a taxi is waiting for me at the door ... And hold me, Matias, tell me that I am your friend!
Before Matias had time to give his opinion, Dr. Valencia had called the school, had spoken with the director, had hugged his friend for the fourth time and had left like a blind man, without even taking off his hat.
For a few minutes, Matias was thoughtful, caressing that beautiful bald spot that delighted children and the terror of homemakers. With an energetic gesture, he prevented his wife from interspersing a comment and, silently, approached the sideboard, used the port reserved for visitors and tasted it without haste, after observing it against the lamppost.
"All this doesn't surprise me," he said at last. A man of my quality could not be buried in oblivion.
After dinner, he locked himself in the dining room, took a coffee maker, dusted off his old study texts and ordered his wife not to be interrupted, not even Baltazar and Luciano, his work colleagues, with whom he used to meet at night to play cards and make jokes against their office bosses.
At ten o'clock in the morning, Matias left his apartment, the inaugural lesson well learned, rejecting with a little impatience the request of his wife, who followed him down the corridor of the fifth, taking away the last fluffs of his ceremony.
"Don't forget to put the card in the door," Matthias said before leaving. Read well: Matias Palomino, history teacher.
On the way, he entertained himself by mentally reviewing the paragraphs of his lesson. During the previous night he had not been able to avoid a tremor of joy when, to designate Louis XVI, he had discovered the epithet of Hydra. The epithet belonged to the nineteenth century and had fallen a bit into disuse, but Matthias, by his size and his readings, still belonged to the nineteenth century and his intelligence, wherever he looked at it, was an unused intelligence. For twelve years, when for two consecutive times he was postponed in the baccalaureate exam, he had not returned to leaf through a single study book or undergo a single cogitation to the slightly languid appetite of his spirit. He always blamed his academic failures on the malevolence of the jury and that kind of sudden amnesia that assaulted him without remission every time he had to show his knowledge. But if he had not been able to opt for the title of lawyer, he had chosen prose and notary bowtie: if not for science, at least for appearance, it was always within the limits of the profession.
When he arrived at the school's facade, he overcame it dry and was a bit perplexed. The large clock on the front is indicated that he had a ten-minute lead. Being too punctual seemed inelegant and resolved that it was well worth walking to the corner. When crossing in front of the school gate, he saw a door attendant with a sullen countenance, watching over the road, his hands crossed behind his back.
In the corner of the park, he stopped, took out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. It was a little hot. A pine and a palm tree, confusing its shadows, reminded him of a verse, whose author tried in vain to identify. He was about to return - the Town Hall clock had just struck eleven - when behind the window of a record shop he distinguished a pale man who was spying on him. With surprise, he found that this man was nothing other than his own reflection. Watching with dissimulation, he winked; as if to dissipate, dispel that slightly gloomy expression that the bad night of study and coffee had engraved on his features. But the expression, far from disappearing, displayed new signs and Matias found that his bald head sadly convalesced between the tufts of his temples and that his mustache fell on his lips with a gesture of absolute expiration.
A little mortified by the observation, he withdrew with momentum from the window. A suffocation of summer morning caused him to loosen his satin bowtie. But when he arrived at the school's facade, without seemingly provoking anything, a tremendous doubt assaulted him: at that moment he could not specify whether the Hydra was a sea animal, a mythological monster or an invention of that doctor Valencia, who employed similar figures to demolish their enemies of Parliament. Confused, he opened his briefcase to check his notes, when he realized that the goalkeeper did not take his eyes off him. This look, coming from a uniformed man, awoke in his conscience as a small taxpayer with dark associations and, unable to avoid it, he continued his march to the opposite corner.
There he stopped resolving. Hydra's problem no longer interested him: this doubt had dragged much more urgent ones. Now everything was confused in his head. It made Colbert an English minister, Marat's hump placed it on Robes Pierre's shoulders and by an artifice of his imagination, Chenier's fine Alexandrian would end up on the lips of the executioner Samson. Terrified by such slip of ideas, he turned his eyes madly in search of a grocery store. An impending thirst burned him.
For a quarter of an hour, he went uselessly through the adjacent streets. In that residential neighborhood, there were only hair salons. After endless laps, he faced the record shop and his image reappeared from the bottom of the window. This time Matthias examined him: two black rings had appeared around his eyes that subtly described a circle that could not be other than the circle of terror.
Puzzled, he turned and stared at the panorama of the park. His heart nodded like a caged bird. Although the hands of the clock continued to turn, Matias remained rigid, stubbornly engaged in insignificant things, such as counting the branches of a tree, and then deciphering the letters of a commercial notice lost in the foliage.
A parochial bell made him come back to himself. Matias realized that he was still on time. Using all his virtues, including those equivocal virtues such as stubbornness, he managed to compose something that could be a conviction and, obfuscated for so long lost, he threw himself into school. With the movement increased courage. When he saw the fence, he assumed the deep and busy air of a businessperson. He was about to cross it when, looking up, he saw a conclave of gray-haired men and insolated swims beside him, restless. This unexpected composition - which reminded the jurors of his childhood - was enough to unleash a profusion of defensive reflexes and, turning rapidly, he escaped to the avenue.
At twenty steps, he realized that someone was following him. A voice sounded behind him. He was the doorman.
"Please," he said, "aren't you Mr. Palomino, the new history teacher?" The brothers are waiting for him. Matias turned, red with anger.
-I am a collector! He replied brutally, as if he had been the victim of some shameful confusion.
The door attendant asked for excuses and withdrew. Matthias continued on his way, reached the avenue, twisted the park, walked aimlessly among the people who went shopping, slipped on a sardine, was about to tear down a blind man and finally fell on a bench, embarrassed, hindered, as if I had a cheese per brain.
When children leaving school began frolicking around him, he woke up from his lethargy. Still confused, under the impression of having been the object of a humiliating fraud, he sat up and took the road to his house. Unconsciously he chose a route full of meanders. He was distracted. Reality escaped him through all the fissures of his imagination. I thought that one day I would be a millionaire for a chance hit. Only when he reached the fifth and saw that his wife was waiting for him at the door of the apartment, with the apron tied at his waist, he became aware of his enormous frustration. However, he replied, tempted a smile and prepared to receive his wife, who was already running down the hall with open arms.
- How you doing? Did you teach your class? What did the students say?
- Magnificent! ... Everything has been magnificent! Matias babbled. They applauded me! -but when he felt his wife's arms linking his neck and when he saw in his eyes, for the first time, a flame of invincible pride, he bowed his head violently and began to mourn in tears.
- My dear Matias! I come to give you great news! From now on, you will be a teacher. Do not tell me no ... wait! As I have to leave the country for a few months, I have decided to leave my history classes at school. It is not a great position and the emoluments are not great, but it is a great opportunity to start teaching. With time you can get other class hours, you will open the doors of other schools, who knows if you can get to the University ... that depends on you. I have always had great confidence. It is unfair that a man of your quality, an enlightened man, who has studied higher, has to make a living as a collector ... No sir that is not right, I am the first to recognize him. Your position is in the teaching ... Do not think twice. In the act, I call the director to tell him that I have already found a replacement. There is no time to lose, a taxi is waiting for me at the door ... And hold me, Matias, tell me that I am your friend!
Before Matias had time to give his opinion, Dr. Valencia had called the school, had spoken with the director, had hugged his friend for the fourth time and had left like a blind man, without even taking off his hat.
For a few minutes, Matias was thoughtful, caressing that beautiful bald spot that delighted children and the terror of homemakers. With an energetic gesture, he prevented his wife from interspersing a comment and, silently, approached the sideboard, used the port reserved for visitors and tasted it without haste, after observing it against the lamppost.
"All this doesn't surprise me," he said at last. A man of my quality could not be buried in oblivion.
After dinner, he locked himself in the dining room, took a coffee maker, dusted off his old study texts and ordered his wife not to be interrupted, not even Baltazar and Luciano, his work colleagues, with whom he used to meet at night to play cards and make jokes against their office bosses.
At ten o'clock in the morning, Matias left his apartment, the inaugural lesson well learned, rejecting with a little impatience the request of his wife, who followed him down the corridor of the fifth, taking away the last fluffs of his ceremony.
"Don't forget to put the card in the door," Matthias said before leaving. Read well: Matias Palomino, history teacher.
On the way, he entertained himself by mentally reviewing the paragraphs of his lesson. During the previous night he had not been able to avoid a tremor of joy when, to designate Louis XVI, he had discovered the epithet of Hydra. The epithet belonged to the nineteenth century and had fallen a bit into disuse, but Matthias, by his size and his readings, still belonged to the nineteenth century and his intelligence, wherever he looked at it, was an unused intelligence. For twelve years, when for two consecutive times he was postponed in the baccalaureate exam, he had not returned to leaf through a single study book or undergo a single cogitation to the slightly languid appetite of his spirit. He always blamed his academic failures on the malevolence of the jury and that kind of sudden amnesia that assaulted him without remission every time he had to show his knowledge. But if he had not been able to opt for the title of lawyer, he had chosen prose and notary bowtie: if not for science, at least for appearance, it was always within the limits of the profession.
When he arrived at the school's facade, he overcame it dry and was a bit perplexed. The large clock on the front is indicated that he had a ten-minute lead. Being too punctual seemed inelegant and resolved that it was well worth walking to the corner. When crossing in front of the school gate, he saw a door attendant with a sullen countenance, watching over the road, his hands crossed behind his back.
In the corner of the park, he stopped, took out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. It was a little hot. A pine and a palm tree, confusing its shadows, reminded him of a verse, whose author tried in vain to identify. He was about to return - the Town Hall clock had just struck eleven - when behind the window of a record shop he distinguished a pale man who was spying on him. With surprise, he found that this man was nothing other than his own reflection. Watching with dissimulation, he winked; as if to dissipate, dispel that slightly gloomy expression that the bad night of study and coffee had engraved on his features. But the expression, far from disappearing, displayed new signs and Matias found that his bald head sadly convalesced between the tufts of his temples and that his mustache fell on his lips with a gesture of absolute expiration.
A little mortified by the observation, he withdrew with momentum from the window. A suffocation of summer morning caused him to loosen his satin bowtie. But when he arrived at the school's facade, without seemingly provoking anything, a tremendous doubt assaulted him: at that moment he could not specify whether the Hydra was a sea animal, a mythological monster or an invention of that doctor Valencia, who employed similar figures to demolish their enemies of Parliament. Confused, he opened his briefcase to check his notes, when he realized that the goalkeeper did not take his eyes off him. This look, coming from a uniformed man, awoke in his conscience as a small taxpayer with dark associations and, unable to avoid it, he continued his march to the opposite corner.
There he stopped resolving. Hydra's problem no longer interested him: this doubt had dragged much more urgent ones. Now everything was confused in his head. It made Colbert an English minister, Marat's hump placed it on Robes Pierre's shoulders and by an artifice of his imagination, Chenier's fine Alexandrian would end up on the lips of the executioner Samson. Terrified by such slip of ideas, he turned his eyes madly in search of a grocery store. An impending thirst burned him.
For a quarter of an hour, he went uselessly through the adjacent streets. In that residential neighborhood, there were only hair salons. After endless laps, he faced the record shop and his image reappeared from the bottom of the window. This time Matthias examined him: two black rings had appeared around his eyes that subtly described a circle that could not be other than the circle of terror.
Puzzled, he turned and stared at the panorama of the park. His heart nodded like a caged bird. Although the hands of the clock continued to turn, Matias remained rigid, stubbornly engaged in insignificant things, such as counting the branches of a tree, and then deciphering the letters of a commercial notice lost in the foliage.
A parochial bell made him come back to himself. Matias realized that he was still on time. Using all his virtues, including those equivocal virtues such as stubbornness, he managed to compose something that could be a conviction and, obfuscated for so long lost, he threw himself into school. With the movement increased courage. When he saw the fence, he assumed the deep and busy air of a businessperson. He was about to cross it when, looking up, he saw a conclave of gray-haired men and insolated swims beside him, restless. This unexpected composition - which reminded the jurors of his childhood - was enough to unleash a profusion of defensive reflexes and, turning rapidly, he escaped to the avenue.
At twenty steps, he realized that someone was following him. A voice sounded behind him. He was the doorman.
"Please," he said, "aren't you Mr. Palomino, the new history teacher?" The brothers are waiting for him. Matias turned, red with anger.
-I am a collector! He replied brutally, as if he had been the victim of some shameful confusion.
The door attendant asked for excuses and withdrew. Matthias continued on his way, reached the avenue, twisted the park, walked aimlessly among the people who went shopping, slipped on a sardine, was about to tear down a blind man and finally fell on a bench, embarrassed, hindered, as if I had a cheese per brain.
When children leaving school began frolicking around him, he woke up from his lethargy. Still confused, under the impression of having been the object of a humiliating fraud, he sat up and took the road to his house. Unconsciously he chose a route full of meanders. He was distracted. Reality escaped him through all the fissures of his imagination. I thought that one day I would be a millionaire for a chance hit. Only when he reached the fifth and saw that his wife was waiting for him at the door of the apartment, with the apron tied at his waist, he became aware of his enormous frustration. However, he replied, tempted a smile and prepared to receive his wife, who was already running down the hall with open arms.
- How you doing? Did you teach your class? What did the students say?
- Magnificent! ... Everything has been magnificent! Matias babbled. They applauded me! -but when he felt his wife's arms linking his neck and when he saw in his eyes, for the first time, a flame of invincible pride, he bowed his head violently and began to mourn in tears.
FINISH
With affection,
Ruben
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