Read Online The Infinite Plan by Isabel Allende - Free Book Online Page B

practical matters she was much better informed; it was she who would reveal to him the tricks to surviving in the barrio. Gregory was tall, thin, and very blond, and she was small, plump, and the color of golden brown sugar. The boy’s knowledge was out of the ordinary: he could recount the plots of operas, describe landscapes from the National Geographic, and recite Byron’s verses; he knew how to bag a duck, gut a fish, and in an instant could calculate how far a truck would travel in forty-five minutes if it was moving at thirty miles per hour—none of which had much application in his new situation. He knew how to get the boa into a sack but could not go to the corner to buy bread; he had never lived among other children or been inside a classroom; he knew nothing of children’s cruelty or of impassable racial barriers, because Nora had drummed into him that people are good—anything else was an abomination of nature—and all people are equal. Until he went to school, Gregory believed her. The color of his skin and his absolute lack of malice irritated the other boys, who jumped him whenever they could, usually in the bathroom, and pummeled him until he was half stupefied. Not always the innocent one, he often provoked confrontations. With Juan José and Carmen Morales, he invented gross practical jokes, such as using a syringe to remove the mint from chocolate bonbons and then to fill them with the hottest salsa from Inmaculada’s kitchen; they then offered these treats to the Martínez gang: Let’s smoke the peace pipe and be friends, OK? After that trick, they had to hide for a week.
    Every day, as soon as the last bell rang, Gregory ran home like a streak, chased by a pack of boys ready to slaughter him. He was so fast that he often stopped in midcourse to yell insults at his enemies. As long as his family was camping in the Morales patio, he had no fear, because the house was close to the school; Juan José ran with him, and no one could catch him in such a short distance. When they moved to their new house, however, the distance was ten times greater, and the possibilities of reaching his goal in safety were diminished by alarming proportions. He changed his route, learned different shortcuts, and found hiding places where he could crouch and wait until his pursuers tired of hunting for him. Once, he slipped into the parish church, because in the Padre’s religion class he had been told that since the Middle Ages the church had traditionally served as a place of asylum; the Martínez gang nonetheless followed him inside and after a horrendous chase across the pews caught him before the main altar and kicked and beat him beneath the indifferent gaze of plaster saints wearing gilt brass halos. The energetic priest had come running at Gregory’s cries and lifted his enemies off him by the hair of their heads.
    â€œGod didn’t save me!” the boy yelped, more humiliated than hurt, pointing to the bloodied Christ presiding over the altar.
    â€œWhat do you mean, he didn’t save you?” roared the priest. “Didn’t I come help you, you ingrate?”
    â€œToo late! Look what they did to me,” Gregory howled, displaying his bruises.
    â€œGod has no time for such harebrained feuds. Get up and blow your nose,” the Padre commanded.
    â€œYou said it was safe here….”
    â€œIt is, if the enemy knows it’s a holy place; those blockheads don’t even realize the sacrilege they committed.”
    â€œYour lousy church isn’t worth a damn!”
    â€œYou watch what you say, or you’ll be missing your teeth, you young runt!” The Padre’s uplifted hand underlined the threat.
    â€œSacrilege! Sacrilege!” Gregory remembered just in time, a ploy that had the virtue of cooling the Basque blood of the priest, who took a deep breath to compose himself and attempted to speak in tones more appropriate to his holy