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His smiling brown eyes shed benevolence generally around the table, and then focused on Ben, a long, sharp inspection. Ben's eyes seemed to darken as he stared back, and then began to dart about the room. He was making as good an impression as he ever could: Teresa had taken him to have his hair and beard cut, he was wearing a good shirt, one made for him, and he was smiling, the wide scared grin people misunderstood. The scientist reached out his hand to shake Ben's, but Ben gri
Luiz sat down, by Inez. Only Teresa knew why Luiz was here: they all knew Inez, at least by name, as a rich girl who gave money to the theatre. Conversation picked up, there was food and wine. Ben sat silent, his eyes on Luiz when they were not apparently looking for ways to escape. As for Luiz, all affability, he did not again inspect Ben as he had at first, but his glances at him were frequent, and each time he took in more information. Ben was not eating. Teresa was afraid he would go next door, and they would hear that thud, thud, thudding. Inez smiled a good deal, and her demeanour when looking at or talking to Teresa was all apology, though she did not know it. This usually so self-possessed, cool young woman was guilt embodied, and Teresa was uncomfortable. It was not an easy occasion. Soon Luiz said he had to return to his lab — yes, there was something he had to check, Sunday or not, experiments did not respect the calendar. He got up, and at his glance Inez, who had been preparing to stay, got up too. The two superior ones went off, in a little fussing of goodbyes and thank yous.
And now people relaxed, and the fun and pleasantness returned to the occasion. But Ben went off to his room, and sat at the window, having put on his dark glasses: the afternoon sun was filling the sky with light, and struck white fire from the wings of seabirds.
When the sounds of the visitors had gone he returned to the sitting room and found Teresa still at the table, and she was crying. She was in a trap and did not know what to do.
'When can I go home?' said Ben. 'When is Alex taking me home?'
Teresa stopped crying, because Ben had mentioned Alex: usually he did not. Ben must be really frightened. She did not reply.
'Who is that man?'
'He is a very clever man.'
'What is he going to do with me?'
This acuteness sharpened her forebodings. She acknowledged he was right with, 'I don't know, Ben, but he wouldn't hurt you.' 'I don't like him.'
Teresa didn't like him either. Between her and Inez, in spite of their so different backgrounds, was the instinctive ease women so often feel with each other, but there was nothing like that with Luiz: his affability, the ever-smiling handsome face put all her instincts on the alert.
Next day he telephoned and Teresa said, 'I don't like that, I don't want to do that.' Then Inez was talking to her, and Teresa said, 'No, Inez. I am saying no.' Ben was in the room and so she was inhibited. In the end she agreed that one Alfredo, a friend of Luiz and Inez, would come to talk to her — to her and to Ben.
She put down the receiver and found Ben's wide grin confronting her.
'Ben, they want you to do something. It won't harm you.' Ben's grin remained, and his eyes were roving everywhere. 'It's nothing much. And I'll do the same things, with you.'
'What things?'
'They want to do tests.' She had to explain what she knew about tests, which was not much. 'They want to take some of your blood and find out something.'
'Why I am different from everybody?'
'Yes. That's it, Ben.'
'I don't want to.'
It was lateish that evening when the doorbell rang: this Alfredo had to come from the research station, which was miles away, in the hills. Teresa saw that Ben was trembling, and said, 'It's all right, Ben. Don't be frightened.'
When the door opened, Alfredo was not a superior person but someone like Teresa, a large, brown man, with the same dark eyes and black hair, and as soon as they set eyes on each other they fell into using the accent of the region both had come from. But he had made the dangerous journey ten years ago: he was older than Teresa. He too had arrived in a favela, had got himself out, done many kinds of work, always bettering himself, using his wits and aided by the luck without which nothing can succeed, even for brave and resourceful souls, and ended up as far from his origins as he could ever have imagined possible: he was an assistant in the laboratory. That was what he was called, but in fact he was a general dogsbody. He drove people around, he cleaned equipment, scrubbed work benches, helped prepare samples, and, like Teresa, had learned some English — a good bit more than she had.
Teresa understood at once that sending Alfredo was a brilliant tactic: they were clever people all right. Not only would she, Teresa, be reassured, seeing one of her own people, but Ben could find this friendly fellow easy to like and to trust. Ben sat with them at the table, trying to understand what they were saying — all animation as they spoke of their childhoods, their vicissitudes, their escape from the favela. Because he did not understand, he used his eyes. He knew this man did not mean him harm, and because Teresa liked him so much Ben did too. But at the end of all that talk Teresa said, 'Ben, they want you to go with me and have some tests. But I'll have them too — first me and then you. You'll see that I'm not hurt, and then you won't be worried.' 'I don't want to,' said Ben.
While all the nostalgic chatter had been going on, Alfredo had been observing Ben, and now he said, 'They want to find out about your people.'
'I don't have any people. I'm not like my family — at home. They are all different from me. I've never seen anyone like me.'
'I've seen people like you,' said Alfredo.
Ben's response was such that what Alfredo might have been going to say next simply fled from his tongue. Ben was leaning forward, his eyes all gratitude, tears were rolling down into his beard, and he was pressing those great fists together: he seemed to have been lit from within by fires of joy.
'Like me? People like me?'
'Yes,' said Alfredo, and knew that he should be going on, but could not destroy that happiness there, in front of him. Ben was letting out now short choking sounds, but those tears were not spilling out because of a heavy-weighted heart, but because he was too happy to bear it, and he got up and began a stamping dance around the room, letting out short barking roars which the two observers knew meant that a lifetime's sorrow was being dissolved away.
Meanwhile Teresa was looking enquiringly at Alfredo: she knew there was more he should be saying, but knew too that like her he was awed into silence by what he saw.
'People like me,' Ben was chanting, 'Like me, people like Ben.' And he interrupted his dance to ask, 'Just like me?' 'Yes, just like you.' 'Will you take me to them?'
And now, this was the moment when Alfredo should come out with the truth, which would put an end to this joy. He simply could not do it. As for Teresa she was thinking that she had had no idea of the weight of sorrowful oppression on Ben's heart, though she had known he was miserable, had been concerned for him. This exultation, this exaltation, it was a reaction to something she had not been able to imagine. This was because she had never experienced anything like it. She had been unhappy, she had been frightened, but what could he have been feeling all this time?
Ben's dance went on, so noisy that Teresa was worrying about the people downstairs: but perhaps they were out. And then Ben came back to the table, sat down and said to Alfredo, 'Will you take me tomorrow?'
'It's a long way off,' said Alfredo. 'A long way from here. In the mountains, a long way.'
'And first we must go to the place to have tests, you and me,' said Teresa. 'We don't have to,' said Ben. 'Yes,' said Teresa. 'Yes,' said Alfredo.