How I Reformed Education in South America (4)
"Understood. We will return to San Marcos."
"...Come again?"
I stared at them, completely blank. And I had every reason to. The script I had stayed up all night preparing to persuade them ran to twelve and a half pages — just shy of six thousand characters.
I was even ready to start shouting "Juan, you son of a bitch"...
I had been prepared to offer them five hundred thousand dollars apiece in compensation, too. Whatever else you could say about it, they had been wronged by the state.
But they were saying yes before I had even opened my mouth?
Wondering if someone had threatened them on the way here, I glanced at Isabella. She looked just as bewildered as I felt.
That was when James Miguel, the eldest, opened his mouth, a gentle smile on his face.
"You seem rather puzzled, Your Excellency."
"To be honest... I assumed your resentment toward your homeland would run deep."
"It would be a lie to say we feel none. A lifetime spent fighting for independence, and the reward was exile. But the words you spoke just now are what moved us."
James drew a worn photograph from his wallet. In the faded image, an old man in military uniform was smiling.
"Is this General Aveiro?"
"It is. A memorial portrait of our father."
"...He's wearing the uniform of the independence army."
"Until the day he died, he longed for the country that had cast him out. Even after they drove him away, no one wished more fervently for the nation he had bled to found to prosper."
At James's words, the second brother, William, and the third, Robert, both grew red around the eyes.
"The reason the three of us retired before we had even turned sixty was that we wanted to restore our father's honor. We wanted an apology from the government of San Marcos, and we wanted his remains laid to rest in the National Cemetery. And then, as it happened, an invitation arrived from that very government."
"We thought it over a great deal. Whether they meant to threaten us, or perhaps even kidnap us. But when we actually came, Your Excellency said something we had not expected in the slightest."
James met my eyes.
"You promised to record our father in history as a hero of independence, and at the same time you offered him the finest plot in the National Cemetery. You said you would bear the responsibility of compensation as well."
"That's only natural."
"Haha. Every problem in this world arises because the things that ought to be obvious go unobserved."
I had nothing to say to that.
"As his sons, how could we turn our backs on the grace Your Excellency has shown us? If the knowledge we possess can be of use to our homeland, our father will be glad of it."
"Ah..."
Only then did I understand what was in their hearts — and how much the things I had said had meant to them.
For this family, their father's dying wish was not a mere last request. It was a conviction they were determined to fulfill. And the homeland he had wanted to return to was worth more to them than that.
Not knowing any of it, I had tried to buy them with money. Yesterday's version of me was ashamed of himself.
"...Then at least accept the compensation."
"Haha. We may not look it, but we have put away a fair amount. Put that money toward a scholarship fund instead, and give it to students who cannot afford to study. In any country, there are children who go without an education simply because they have no money."
Truly... admirable to the very end.
When they put it like that, there was nothing left to argue. All I could do was bow my head.
"Thank you."
"I will see to it that your decision is not in vain — that every citizen of San Marcos knows General Aveiro's achievements. To settle a painful past, I will restore to the textbooks the names of the independence fighters who were erased from them, and I will find their descendants and compensate them. And lastly..."
I looked each of them in the eye as I made the promise.
"I will spare no support whatsoever to ensure that the university you three devote yourselves to becomes first-rate."
"...We shall trust you, Your Excellency."
And so Eugene Comprehensive University began, true to its name, in reconciliation and unity.
About ten days later, the three Miguel brothers returned, having wrapped up their lives in America faster than I had expected.
"I didn't think you'd be back this quickly."
"Haha. There wasn't much to wrap up. We simply settled our assets and divided them among our children."
The moment the three doctors came home and took charge of the university founding committee, something remarkable happened. Scholars whose names anyone would recognize declared their intention to come to San Marcos at the three doctors' invitation. Thanks to that golden web of connections, Eugene Comprehensive University was staffed, from day one, with a dazzling faculty.
Then, one day, with the urgent work finally behind him and a moment to breathe, Eugene sat in his office at the Presidential Palace, gazing out at the clear sky, and spoke without warning.
"Isabella."
"Yes, Your Excellency."
"Let's step out for a bit."
"Where to, if I may ask?"
"A school," Eugene said, his voice light. "I want to see the children studying with my own eyes."
"Understood. I shall make the arrangements."
A short while later, the heavy iron gates of the Presidential Palace swung open, and a motorcade of security vehicles filed out, a black bulletproof sedan at its head.
Whee-eeeng—!
Sirens wailed as the roads were sealed off, and citizens stopped along the sidewalks to watch the procession pass. Seated at the heart of that column, Eugene thought:
I was hoping to slip out the way you'd run a quiet errand around the neighborhood.
But for the absolute authority of San Marcos, a quiet outing was a phrase that simply did not exist. At their destination — Libertad 3rd Elementary School — a state of emergency had broken out.
Screech—!
The moment the motorcade rolled onto the playground, the balding principal came bursting out of the main building in such a panic that he did not even notice one of his shoes had come off.
"Y-Y-Your Excellency! It is an honor to have you visit! Had you only given us word in advance, I would have had the children lined up in formation...!"
Eugene stepped out of the car and waved the man off.
"Lined up? And disrupt class for that? I just came to watch the children study. I'll only look and then I'll go — don't mind me."
He meant every word. Reality, unfortunately, declined to cooperate.
"When Your Excellency has come in person, telling us not to mind you is a contradiction in terms."
Eugene looked around. Bodyguards in sunglasses had ringed the school, and a sniper had taken position on the roof of the building opposite.
"Do not bring the bodyguards inside the school. Isabella and I will go in alone."
"...I beg your pardon? But—"
"A school is where the nation's future sits down to learn. I will not walk into a place like that surrounded by armed guards."
Eugene put enough steel into it that there would be no argument. Isabella gave a reluctant nod.
"Understood."
"Shall we, then. Ahem."
Clearing his throat, Eugene stepped inside.
Children were taking lessons under white canvas tents, but fortunately they were too busy studying to pay him any attention. Once inside the main building, Eugene watched them as quietly as he could, determined not to interrupt.
The classroom was packed. Some of the children were sitting on the floor for lack of desks, but their eyes were bright as lanterns.
"All right, this is called multiplication. If you have seven boxes with seven apples in each, how many apples are there altogether?"
A young teacher from Venezuela was pressing chalk hard into the blackboard, teaching mathematics with real fire. The children sparkled as they copied it down, determined not to miss a single thing.
"That child... he has no notebook. He's writing in the margins of a newspaper."
Eugene followed Isabella's gesture. A boy in a worn-out shirt was licking the tip of his pencil and writing with fierce concentration. And yet his face looked more serious, and happier, than Eugene had ever seen on a child.
Something caught in Eugene's chest. He leaned in and whispered to Isabella.
"Tell Senior Secretary Sergio to increase the school-supplies budget. We can't have children studying on newspaper."
"...Understood. I shall see to it at once."
A satisfied smile spread across Eugene's mouth.
That's it. This is what a country done right looks like.
It was the moment he confirmed that none of what he had set in motion had been for nothing.
These children are my retirement... no. They're San Marcos's hope.
Eugene nodded, well pleased.
What he failed to see was his own photograph, hanging at the highest point in the exact center of the classroom, directly above the blackboard. And beneath it, the class motto:
Let us study hard in accordance with the will of His Excellency Eugene Choi, the Great Leader of San Marcos!
Drunk on the sight of children at their studies, none of it entered Eugene's eyes.
The classroom inspection finished, they stepped back outside — and at that very moment a truck rolled onto the playground. On its side, beside a cluster of cheerful cartoon characters, the Tortilla F&B logo was printed clear as day.
Staff began unloading lunchboxes still steaming from the truck and stacking them by class, and the children formed a line. Not one of them cut ahead. Not one of them looked worried they might go without. They had learned to trust that if you came to school, you would be fed. No exceptions.
Eugene watched the scene with quiet pleasure.
That's right. Eat plenty and grow up strong.
Then he turned away.
"I think we've seen enough. Let's go."
"You're leaving already, Your Excellency?"
Isabella sounded puzzled.
"Having come all this way, perhaps a photograph before we depart..."
Eugene waved her off with a laugh.
"The kids need to eat and play soccer. Let's not get in their way — we've got work to do. If we want to keep paying for their lunches, we'd better hustle."
He left the school without a backward glance.
What he never dreamed was what happened the instant he had fully cleared the school gates.
Tweet—!
"Class, attention! Gratitude before the meal!"
At the teacher's word, nearly a hundred children raised their voices as one, as if they had rehearsed it all their lives.
"Great Leader! Your fatherly grace!"
"Let us repay you through study! Viva Eugene! Viva San Marcos!"
Voices that had not yet broken filled the classroom to the rafters. The unison was so complete it might have been a classroom in a certain country on the northern half of the Korean Peninsula.
It was a long, long way from the free and creative education Eugene had dreamed of — something uncomfortably close to indoctrination. And yet every face was filled with nothing but happiness.
"Waaaaaah!"
The dictatorship locomotive was barreling forward, with or without Eugene's consent.