The Farm by Hector Abad

Author:Hector Abad [Abad, Hector]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Steerforth Press
Published: 2018-04-17T00:00:00+00:00

EVA

He had a motorcycle and I came to think there was no better man in Medellín than this boy; I fell madly in love, for at least two years. His name was Jacobo, like my papá, but we called him Jackie. He was Jewish, Jackie Bernstein. He told me Bernstein meant amber in German, burnt stone, and his skin was a perfect amber color, because thanks to his motorcycle, a capricious old wreck, a Ducati racing bike from Italy, he was always tanned. He also wore a pair of killer Ray-Bans. My father had expressly forbidden us from ever getting on a motorbike, he said we could do whatever we wanted except ride on motorcycles, because motorbikes were more dangerous than revolvers, he said. So I had to arrange to meet him far away from the house in order to ride on Jackie’s bike. Back then no one wore helmets; they weren’t mandatory, and I never thought I could get killed; the only thing I was frightened of was running into someone from my family, who would tell my papá they’d seen me on a motorbike. I tied my hair up in a ponytail so my messy hair wouldn’t give me away. When I got home I’d smooth out my hair with my hands and put it back up in a very tight ponytail.

I sometimes got excited when I went horseback riding at La Oculta, by the rubbing of the saddle between my legs, but when I started riding on the back of Jackie’s motorbike, the excitement was double. That trembling, the bike’s vibrations, that potency when he accelerated, braked, went around curves, and me hugging Jackie at the same time, my breasts pressed against his back, all that produced a profound emotion. I was terrified when I got down off the back of the bike that the moistness that inevitably formed between my legs would filter through and be noticeable. It almost hurt, down there, when I went out with him. I was very young and still a virgin, but I wasn’t planning to be a virgin bride, like Pilar. Jackie said he wanted to be my boyfriend, but his family couldn’t find out because they would have disinherited him if they discovered he had a shikse girlfriend, that’s what he called me, a shikse, a Gentile, a Christian.

I told him I was prepared to convert to Judaism if he wanted me to, because I didn’t give a hoot for religion, but for him I’d be able to learn Hebrew and pretend fervor in the synagogue, if he took me, to shave my head and wear a wig, to dress like an eighteenth-century Polish peasant if necessary, but he told me that wasn’t possible, that it didn’t work like that, that Judaism wasn’t interested in conversions. He even told me he’d consulted the rabbi of Medellín, an Argentine, and the rabbi had told him that conversions for love weren’t valid, only for intimate conviction, an illumination, and that they were very cautious about accepting new believers.

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