LITMIR.BIZ

      I’ve gotten used to Manuel Arias’s habits with a flexibility and courtesy that would surprise my grandma. She still considers me a little shit, a term of reproach or affection, depending on her tone of voice, but it’s almost always the former. She doesn’t know how much I’ve changed, how I’ve turned into a real charmer. “We learn the hard way, and life’s the best teacher,” is another of her sayings, which in my case has turned out to be true.

      At seven in the morning Manuel stokes up the fire in the stove to heat the water for the shower and the towels, then Eduvigis or her daughter Azucena arrives to make us a splendid breakfast of eggs laid by her hens, bread fresh out of her oven, and foamy, warm milk from her cow. The milk has a peculiar odor, which I found a bit gross at first but now love; it smells of stables, of pasture, of fresh dung. Eduvigis wants me to have breakfast in bed “like a señorita”—they still do things like that in Chile in some houses, where they have nanas, as they call domestic servants—but I only do that on Sundays, when I sleep in, because Juanito, her grandson, comes and we read in bed with Fahkeen at our feet. We’re halfway through the first Harry Potter book.

      In the afternoon, once I’ve finished my work with Manuel, I jog into town; people give me strange looks and more than one has asked me where I’m going in such a hurry. I need exercise, or I’ll be a blimp, since I’m eating like I’m making up for all the meals I skipped last year. The Chilota diet has too many carbs, but you don’t see anyone obese around here, probably because of the physical effort everybody’s always expending. You really have to move here. Azucena Corrales is a little overweight for thirteen, but I haven’t managed to convince her to come running with me. She’s too embarrassed—“What will people think?” she says. She leads a very solitary life, because there aren’t many young people in the village, only a few fishermen, half a dozen idle teenagers high on marijuana, and the guy at the Internet café, where the coffee is instant and the Internet is capricious, and where I try to go as little as possible to avoid the temptation of e-mail. The only people on this island who are incommunicado are Doña Lucinda and me: in her case because she’s really old and in mine because I’m a fugitive. The rest of the villagers have cell phones and access to computers at the Internet café.

      I don’t get bored. This surprises me, because I used to get bored so easily I’d even yawn during action movies. I’ve gotten used to empty hours, long days, and spare time. I amuse myself with very little—my work routine with Manuel, Auntie Blanca’s terrible novels, my neighbors on the island, and the kids, who travel in a pack, unsupervised. Juanito Corrales is my favorite. He’s like a doll, with his skinny little body, his big head and black eyes that seem to see everything. People think he’s slow because he never says more than he needs to, but he’s really smart: he realized early on that nobody cares what anyone else says, that’s why he doesn’t bother to speak. I play soccer with the boys, but I haven’t been able to interest the girls, partly because the boys refuse to play with them and partly because they’ve never seen a women’s soccer team here. Auntie Blanca and I have decided this should change; as soon as classes begin in March and we have all the kids captive, we’ll take care of that.