Issue 1

In Santiago in the 1960s, bravery was not measured in heroic deeds or lofty speeches. 151Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2qiKitMfAE

It was measured in a public vaccination clinic on Monjitas Street.

I was seven years old, and it was there that I first understood that boys and girls were probably different species.

From the outside, the building looked like a government office: gray, solemn, and entirely without mercy. Inside, it smelled of alcohol, damp wool, camphor, and fear. The waiting room was enormous, its whiteness offering no comfort. The linoleum, worn by thousands of small shoes, was marked with dark stains, scratches, and a crack near the wall.

That floor had probably seen more frightened children than any other place in Santiago.

The moment we arrived, a woman in a white uniform pointed toward two long lines stretching to the far end of the room.

“Girls on the left. Boys on the right.”

It was not a suggestion.

My mother let go of my hand and left me in the boys’ line.

I looked across the room. The girls waited near the windows; some wore ribbons in their hair, others clung to their mothers’ hands. One hugged a pink sweater to her chest, even though it was warm. Another whispered something urgently to her mother.

From our side of the room, we watched them with the seriousness of soldiers studying an enemy army from a trench. If one of the girls cried, a quiet satisfaction spread through the boys’ line.

“See that?” whispered the boy in front of me, adjusting his shorts with solemn dignity. “That’s why our line moves faster.”

Of course, it was complete nonsense. Half the boys in our line were pale as bedsheets, staring at the ceiling or their own shoes and praying to whatever deity ruled over Monjitas Street. Perhaps, if they stood perfectly still, the nurses would mistake them for coat racks and pass them by.

I had a plan of my own.

I would not cry.

I would not move.

And above all, I would not look at the needle.

The line moved with suspicious slowness. Every time the door at the back of the hall opened, another boy came out. Some walked as though nothing had happened. Others held one arm stiffly against their side, with the gravity of soldiers wounded in battle. One had dry eyes, but his mouth was so tightly set that he fooled no one.

My mother sat across the room with the other mothers. Every now and then, she looked over and smiled as if we had come for ice cream.

I gave her my most professional expression of calm.

Inside, my heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.

The girls’ line, I noticed with growing suspicion, moved with alarming efficiency. Every time one came out, another went in. Almost none of them made a scene. One even came out laughing with her mother, which seemed impossible.

I began to suspect they knew something we did not.

Then it was my turn.

The nurse sat behind a metal table. Her hair was pinned up beneath a starched white cap; her voice was calm, and her hands moved with the ease of someone who knew exactly where everything was. On the table lay cotton, small bottles, a stainless-steel tray, and a glass syringe I had decided not to look at directly.

She looked at me over her glasses.

“Well now, young man,” she said. “Which arm shall we charge first?”

The Spanish word she used was embestir —to charge.

Not attack.

Not jab.

Charge.

Like a bull.

Suddenly, the needle seemed less like a medical instrument and more like part of a rite of passage.

The question left me speechless.

I had not known I could choose.

I looked at my right arm. Then at my left. Both were there, obedient and innocent, with no idea of the betrayal about to befall them.

The nurse smiled.

“You’re still on vacation, aren’t you?”

I nodded. My tongue felt glued to the roof of my mouth.

“Then we’ll charge the right one.”

She said it as casually as my mother said it was time to brush my teeth.

“Next week we’ll do the other arm. That way, when school starts, you won’t have any excuses for your teachers. We know you boys. One sore arm, and suddenly you can’t write, do your homework, or copy from the blackboard.”

I wanted to tell her that I would never use a vaccination as an excuse to get out of my schoolwork.

The truth was that the idea had never occurred to me.

Now it had.

She prepared the syringe with a quick, practiced movement.

“Right arm, then,” she said. “Let’s not waste any more time. There’s a long line behind you.”

That was the masterstroke.

A long line?

Behind me?

Suddenly, I felt a tremendous responsibility. I could not sit there behaving like a coward. There were boys behind me, mothers watching from across the room, and, for all I knew, the honor of the entire boys’ line rested on my shoulders.

I offered her my right arm.

The cotton felt icy against my skin.

Then came the needle.

It was not an explosion. It was not a tragedy. It was not even as terrible as I had imagined. But it went in with a deep, dull thud that seemed to travel straight to the bone.

I did not cry.

Let the record show that.

I clenched my teeth, fixed my eyes on a dark stain in the linoleum, and thought of anything but my arm: soldiers, the boys’ line, the girl who had come out laughing, and how, if anyone asked later, I would say it had been nothing.

The nurse pressed a small ball of cotton against my arm.

“There,” she said cheerfully. “All done, general.”

I looked at her.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

It was a simple answer, but it filled me with a profound sense of injustice. I had waited so long. I had made a plan. I had defended the honor of the boys’ line. And it had all ended with a little ball of cotton.

My mother came to get me.

“See?” she said. “It wasn’t so bad.”

That was exactly the kind of thing mothers said after you had survived something enormous.

We stepped out onto Monjitas Street. The Santiago sunlight seemed too bright. My right arm began to feel strange: heavy, unfamiliar, as if it belonged to another boy, one who had just fought a very important battle.

“Does it hurt?” my mother asked.

“No.”

I lied with considerable dignity.

By late afternoon, the battle had become much more serious.

My arm throbbed as though a mule had kicked it. Then came the fever—slowly at first, then all at once. By nightfall, the fearless soldier of Monjitas Street was tucked beneath three wool blankets, shivering and unable to move without feeling that his own body had betrayed him.

My grandfather came into the room, looked at my miserable face, and smiled gently.

“How’s that right arm, warrior?”

I groaned into the pillow.

I had survived the first charge on Monjitas Street. But as I lay in the dark, watching fever shadows move across the ceiling, I could think of only one thing:

Next Monday… they were going to charge the left one.

A week later, we returned to Monjitas.

The same enormous room.

The same smell of alcohol and damp wool.

The same cream-colored linoleum.

The same two lines.

But this time I knew things I had not known before.

I knew that the boys’ line was not a military unit. I knew that we pretended to be brave because we were afraid. I knew that the girls had probably understood this all along. And I knew that, with an arm that sore, a boy could find plenty of excuses not to write.

When it was my turn, the nurse looked up and smiled.

“Ah,” she said. “The young soldier has returned.”

I did not tell her that I had spent two whole days in bed with a fever.

I held out my left arm.

“This one.”

She smiled.

“Good choice.”

The second time hurts less when you already know the way.

I fixed my eyes on the worn linoleum and waited for the charge.

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