For my part, I find it more difficult to identify what I inherited from Teresa. Despite all my efforts to be like her, my social conscience has never developed to the level of making me feel passionate about the things that mattered deeply to her—and now matter deeply to Mariana. I even have the impression that, with time, my features have become increasingly less like my mother’s. And, as I’ve already said, my voice has never—in its natural state—had that same neutral tone.
For a time I convinced myself that I’d inherited Teresa’s analytical ability, her way of questioning and distrusting everything. I now realize that I was never sufficiently distrustful.
On the other hand, I have my father’s eyebrows and chin, his explosive temper, and, it seems, a pathetic unwillingness to move from my bed, even for the end of the world.
In material terms, I inherited everything from him, including the money I used to buy this apartment and these spiral-bound notebooks in which I write. When I was emptying the house in Educación I found scarcely anything that might have belonged to Teresa beyond a few photos, some books on political theory, and two letters: the one she left on my father’s night table when she went away and another, which she mailed to him from Chiapas shortly before her death.
6
THE SUN WAS WELL UP IN THE SKY when the driver made a stop and explained that we had fifteen minutes to purchase provisions and use the restrooms. The fact that we took this break made me think that it was still a long way to Villahermosa, but, guessing my concern or reading it in my face, Mariconchi assured me that we were nearly there, with at most two hours to go.
My spirits had flagged after the episode at the military checkpoint—I still wasn’t completely sure it had actually happened. In the light of day, I was convinced that my journey made no sense. I’d never find Teresa. First, because I didn’t know where she was; my plan to search for the man with the pipe and balaclava until I discovered her too—there, in the warzone of the Chiapas jungle—began to seem embarrassingly naive. I was hungry, I wanted to change my clothes and leave behind the smell of piss.
Mariconchi asked me if I had enough to buy something for breakfast, and I extracted from my pocket what little remained of the money Rat had given me. “You hold on to that, sweetie. This is on me. After all, we’re old friends now,” she said, and it gave me a tremendous sense of peace to corroborate that my perception of time was shared: we’d just passed through the longest night in history. Even the military checkpoint (the chemical smell on the soldier’s breath, the echo of his laugh) felt like a distant memory, like something that had happened during the previous school year—an old story everyone already knew and no longer mentioned.
While Mariconchi was standing in line to buy food, I went to the restroom and locked myself in one of the stalls. The toilet was blocked and there was shit-stained paper on the floor. Being very careful not to touch anything, I took off my pants and then my briefs. The moment I threw the briefs into a corner of the stall, I remembered that they had a name tag: a name tag Teresa had sewn onto the inside of the waistband. I considered retrieving them, taking them with me. It would be a mistake to leave a clue to my identity in that stall. As my life appeared to have become a Choose Your Own Adventure book, it was time I started thinking like one of the heroes of those stories.
On the other hand, the briefs were revolting, and I was ashamed of them. The urine had dried, marking out strange continents on the white fabric. A compromise solution occurred to me: I picked up the briefs, pulled off the name tag, and put it in my pocket. Then I threw them back down among the filth. I left the stall and washed my hands with the satisfaction of knowing that I’d acted wisely. I’d covered my tracks. No one would be able to trace me. True, my pants were still a little stiff and smelled of dry piss, but I felt freer. I had neither briefs bearing my full name nor a definite destination. I had no home, no family, no friends. The distinction between vacations and school had lost its meaning. I could have started afresh at that point, changed my identity and persuaded Mariconchi to adopt me: her hugs were warm and she used terms of affection that would have been impossible to imagine on Teresa’s lips. I could have invented a new life for myself, made to the measure of my desires and frustrations. A life in Villahermosa, Tabasco State, in the humidity and tropical sunlight.
If I’d been able to choose a name for my new self, I wouldn’t have had to give it a second thought: Úlrich González. That was the name of a boy who had turned up in Paideia in the middle of the academic year only to then disappear, just as unexpectedly, two weeks later. Úlrich was pale and sickly. The rumor was that his parents traveled a lot. No one at school had managed to become either a friend or rival of Úlrich González, and everyone seemed to forget his existence the moment he stopped coming to class, but his name remained on the register for several months, and some absentminded teachers would read it out as if he were still one of us. That repetition had caused the mysterious appellation to be etched deeply in my memory, and I even sometimes repeated it to myself quietly as a sort of invocation: “Úlrich González, Úlrich González.”
If I took on
