Multiple Choice

We didn’t have to take religion — the grade didn’t affect our averages — but getting out of it was a long bureaucratic process, and Mr. Segovia’s classes were really fun. He’d go on and on in an endless soliloquy about any subject but religion; his favorite, in fact, was sex, and which teachers at our school he wanted to have it with. Every class we’d do a quick round of confessions: Each of us had to disclose a sin, and after listening to all forty-five — which ranged from I kept the change to I want to grab my neighbor’s tits to I jacked off during recess, always a classic — the teacher would tell us that none of our sins were unforgivable.

I think it was Cordero who confessed one day that he had copied someone’s answers in math, and since Segovia didn’t react we all contributed variations of the same: I copied on the Spanish test, on the science test, on the PE test [laughter], and so on. Segovia, suppressing a smile, said that he forgave us, but that we had to make sure we didn’t get caught, because that would really be unforgivable. Suddenly, though, he became serious. “If you are so dishonest at twelve,” he said, “at forty you’re going to be worse than the Covarrubias twins.” We asked him who the Covarrubias twins were, and he looked as if he were going to tell us, but then he thought better of it. We kept at him, but he didn’t want to explain. Later, we asked other teachers and even the guidance counselor, but no one wanted to tell us the story. The reasons were diffuse: It was a secret, a delicate subject, possibly something that would damage the school’s impeccable reputation. We soon forgot the matter, in any case.

Five years later, it was 1993 and we were seniors. One day, when Cordero, Parraguez, little Carlos, and I were playing hooky, we ran into Mr. Segovia coming out of the Tarapacá pool hall. He wasn’t a teacher anymore; he was a Metro conductor now, and it was his day off. He treated us to Coca-Colas, and ordered a shot of pisco for himself, though it was early to start drinking. It was then that he finally told us the story of the Covarrubias twins.

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Covarrubias family tradition dictated that the firstborn son should be named Luis Antonio, but when Covarrubias senior found out that twins were on the way he decided to divide his name between them. During their first years of life, Luis and Antonio Covarrubias enjoyed — or suffered through — the excessively equal treatment that parents tend to give to twins: the same haircut, the same clothes, the same class in the same school.

When the twins were ten years old, Covarrubias senior installed a partition in their room, and he sawed cleanly through the old bunk bed to make two identical single beds. The idea was to give the twins a certain amount of privacy, but the change wasn’t all that significant, because they still talked through the partition every night before falling asleep. They inhabited different hemispheres now, but it was a small planet.

When the twins were twelve they entered the National Institute, and that was their first real separation. Since the 720 incoming seventh-graders were distributed randomly, the twins were placed in different classes for the first time ever. They felt pretty lost in that school, which was so huge and impersonal, but they were strong and determined to persevere in their new lives. Despite the relentless barrage of looks and stupid jokes from their classmates (“I think I’m seeing double!”), they always met at lunch to eat together.

At the end of seventh grade, they had to choose between fine art and music; they both chose art, in the hope that they’d be placed together, but they were out of luck. At the end of eighth grade, when they had to choose between French and English, they planned to go with French, which, as the minority choice, would practically ensure that they’d be in the same class. But after a sermon from Covarrubias senior about the importance of knowing English in today’s savage and competitive world, they gave in. Things went no better for them in their freshman and sophomore years, when students were grouped based on ranking, even though they both had good grades.