Like This Afternoon Forever. Jaime Manrique
continued, “I’m here because my first two brothers were stillborn, so my parents pledged to the Virgin of Chiquinquirá that the firstborn son who survived childbirth would be offered to the church. Even before I was born, my parents referred to me as ‘the priest.’”
The angry tone in which Ignacio said these words made it sound as if he had been cursed. Lucas expected him to spit at the ground. The other students did not speak with such vehemence or honesty. Every word that came out of Ignacio’s mouth was like a blow aimed right at Lucas.
A part of Lucas was repelled, but another part was drawn to Ignacio’s magnetism. He represented temptation—everything that Lucas had been afraid of all his life. He sensed he had met someone who was going to be an important figure during his time in Colegio San José. Lucas felt pity for Ignacio because it was obvious he was unhappy. He didn’t seem interested in casual chat. The other students, with their mundane concerns, suddenly became uninteresting to Lucas.
“After I was born,” Ignacio told Lucas the second time they talked, “came five sisters. I was the only son. I wasn’t one of those boys who like going to church and hanging out around priests. But when my parents told me that I should prepare myself to come here, I didn’t argue with them.” He seemed greatly relieved to say these things to Lucas, as if for the first time he had someone he could talk to openly about his feelings for the priesthood. Lucas felt awkward hearing what he thought sounded like a secret. He wondered if this was what priests experienced when they heard confession.
Ignacio rebuffed other boys when they approached him. Lucas quickly realized that he would be Ignacio’s only friend during their years at Colegio San José. The prospect thrilled and disturbed him—he felt it was both an honor and a burden.
After they had chatted a few times, Lucas was gripped by an overpowering need to be with Ignacio. At mealtimes Lucas sat across from him. During recess, they walked by themselves in the yard. They never participated in team sports. Happiness for Lucas was being by Ignacio’s side, even when his friend was quiet, brooding. Lucas began to feel that it was the two of them against the world.
Their teachers discouraged this kind of intimacy; the other boys were wary of the stigma attached to two boys who were always seen together. It was as if Lucas wanted to fuse into one person with Ignacio and disappear into him. With Ignacio constantly in his thoughts, Lucas didn’t feel lonely anymore. For the first time in his life, he felt that he could face any situation—no matter how challenging—as long as Ignacio was by his side.
Lucas knew that their intimate friendship could get in the way of his being ordained, but the physical need to be near this angry boy was stronger than his fears. When he was talking with Ignacio he felt so happy that he told himself he didn’t care about the consequences. Had he perhaps found what he had heard people call a soul mate?
Ignacio always studied his lessons, did his homework, and got the highest marks in the quizzes and exams, yet the teachers didn’t hide their dislike of him because of his intellectual arrogance. In religion class, he constantly questioned the meaning of the Scriptures. One day they were talking about Judas’s betrayal of Jesus. Brother Mariano presented Judas as a despicable creature and the other boys nodded in agreement.
Ignacio raised his hand. “Brother Mariano, with all due respect,” he began, as the classroom became eerily quiet in anticipation of a heated argument, “why is Judas Iscariot considered such a vile creature, when it was written that one of the disciples would betray Jesus?”
“That’s right,” Father Mariano replied curtly. “But when Judas was tempted by Satan, he should have exercised his free will and resisted temptation—that’s what separates man from beasts.”
Instead of backing down, Ignacio became more intense: “But if it was written that one of the disciples was going to betray Jesus, how could any of them have exercised his free will? One apostle had to be sacrificed to agree with the Scriptures. Is that fair? Isn’t God supposed to be all wisdom?”
Murmurs and titters broke out in the classroom. Lucas became agitated when he sensed that Ignacio was getting too reckless. Brother Mariano slammed his open palm on the desk and raised his voice, his face red: “More illustrious and enlightened minds than yours, Gutiérrez, have argued this point for many centuries. If they haven’t come up with a more satisfactory answer, I doubt that you will.”
Ignacio was unwilling to let the subject go. Lucas knew that when Ignacio was defending his ideas, he was like a dog ready to kill for a fleshy bone. “But Brother Mariano, how can I believe in something that makes no sense to me?”
Brother Mariano got up from his desk and walked toward Ignacio, glaring at him. His fists were clenched and the veins in his neck pulsed. He looked like he might punch the student. “That’s where faith comes in, Gutiérrez. Faith! And nobody can be a priest without having faith.” He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and went back to stand behind his desk. “I warn you, Gutiérrez, if you persist in disrupting this class, I will send you to see Father Superior. He doesn’t look kindly on insolent boys.” In an ominous tone, he added, “It especially behooves certain boys here to behave well.” Lucas knew that meant that scholarship students—like Ignacio and himself—were expected to be meek.
The other students began to squirm, and just as Ignacio was about to respond, the bell rang and class was dismissed. That day Ignacio made many enemies, but he seemed not to care about it.
* * *
As Ignacio’s only friend, Lucas knew that he was in danger of being singled out as a troublemaker, or a homo. But he was more worried about his feelings for Ignacio. He tried to convince himself that what he felt for him was brotherly love, and that it was Jesus who had brought them together. He prayed to Jesus to intervene and to remove from his mind all overwhelming carnal desires.
Lucas was sure his religious fervor was genuine and his faith in God was unshakable. Unlike Ignacio, he didn’t feel the need to question God’s acts. He also understood that his deepest relationship should not be with Ignacio but with Jesus. He desperately wanted to embrace what it meant to be a good Catholic worthy of the priesthood. Besides, the students at Colegio San José had been warned about two boys in the class before theirs who had been expelled because of their unnaturally close friendship. Everyone knew what that meant.
Though he had been taught that masturbation would lead to blindness and then madness, Lucas could not stop himself. Despite the painful experience he’d had in Bogotá with Yadir, he still longed to be touched by a man. He could not stop himself from having fantasies about pleasuring Ignacio. As he played with himself, he imagined lying naked with Ignacio, kissing and stroking him, and then waking up from a nap in each other’s arms. Or he fantasized about sneaking over to Ignacio’s bed in the middle of the night and taking his penis in his mouth, while Ignacio pretended to sleep.
Going to confession became agony for Lucas: he knew that he could not mention any of these thoughts to his Father confessor. He had heard other boys say that it was better to deny having masturbated, even if it meant they were committing a mortal sin.
Lucas prayed that he would be strong enough to overcome his feelings for Ignacio, yet how could he when Ignacio sought his company to the exclusion of the other boys? Did that mean he reciprocated Lucas’s feelings? Or did he seek Lucas’s company because he could not trust the other students? Lucas was proud he had been chosen as the best friend of the most intelligent boy in the school, yet he lived in terror that he’d say something that betrayed his feelings for Ignacio and expose himself as homosexual. Lucas made sure he didn’t touch him in any way, just as he had avoided touching his father’s penis, even by accident. Still, he could not stop wondering how Ignacio would react if he made a sudden move and embraced him with lust, or kissed him on his lips. Would he hit him? Reject him? Denounce him to the teachers? Would he lose his friendship forever?
Lucas’s worst fear was that if his teachers had proof that he liked boys, he would be expelled. He could not bear the thought of disappointing his mother, who still grieved intensely that she had had to leave Adela and Lercy behind so she and Lucas could escape Gumersindo’s tyranny. Lucas believed that loving Ignacio was a betrayal of