Summary
Olivia Weston, a “temporary house mother” at the Behala Mission School, takes over the narration, as requested by the boys and Father Juilliard. While traveling after university, Olivia visited the Behala dumpsite to drop off sponsorship money. She was struck by the place, and her vacation plans changed. Soon she was teaching reading and writing at the school and became involved in the water sanitation project. She also did basic first aid. She fell in love with the eyes looking at her, and the smiles. She says charity work is one of the most seductive things in the world.
The morning Raphael walks back from the police station, he comes with Rat and Gardo to the Mission School. Olivia assumes it is to discuss what happened to Raphael the night before, but instead Gardo asks her for help. He wants to see his father in prison. She assumes they need money from her for bus fare or bribe money, but the boys reveal that they want her to go into the prison to get information to him. They say she is the only foreigner they know, and she’s a social worker who can gain access. They say Gardo’s father is wrongfully imprisoned because some people are trying to get his house. They need her help.
Olivia comments that she found herself in a taxi heading for Colva Prison because of vanity, stupidity, and because three little boys could break her heart and flatter her, “all the time lying and lying.” On the way, the taxi brings them to a clothing store so Gardo can wear clean clothes for the visit. Gardo chooses his jeans and oversized T-shirt and sneakers carefully, frustrating Olivia with his expensive taste. She puts everything on her credit card, but Gardo is thrilled and confident when he leaves the changing room. He no longer looks like a dumpsite boy. Olivia gulps when they get back in the taxi and she sees the price ticking up on the meter. Father Juilliard’s voice comes in to say he would have been able to see the scam coming and prevented it. Some of the children in Behala are the best liars in the world. Father Juilliard says what Raphael and Gardo did was smart, but what Rat did took his breath away. Things were about to get dangerous.
Outside the Colva prison wall are shacks full of prisoners’ families. They live there in order to get food to their loved ones inside; otherwise, the prisoners will starve. Olivia and Gardo are made to sit for an hour in a waiting room before a social welfare officer named Mr. Oliva arrives. The fact of their names being nearly the same helps break the ice. Mr. Oliva says Gabriel is a very sick man who receives a lot of visitors. He kindly explains that to fast-track the visit will cost ten thousand pesos, a price the government sets, not him. Once she pays, they enter the hellish prison. Instead of cells, there are zoo-like cages too small to stand up in. Olivia is horrified by the cramped and sweltering conditions. She holds Gardo’s hand for support as they walk past all the men—and children—begging her to help or give them money. Gardo is unfazed. She asks Gardo about the children, and Gardo says they’re poor: they steal, or fight. But at least in prison they get some food.
Two guards bring Gabriel from the prison hospital. He is very old and far too sick to be in prison. But he has intense white eyes, which latch onto Olivia like he has been expecting her. It soon becomes apparent that Gardo and Gabriel do not know each other. Gardo asks something in the local language, but Gabriel insists on speaking in English around Olivia. Gabriel informs her that Gardo has used her to bribe his way to seeing him, and that the going rate is 1,500 pesos, not ten thousand. Gabriel explains that he brought corruption charges against Senator Regis Zapanta thirty-five years ago after learning that Zapanta stole thirty million dollars of United Nations aid money. The money was “seed-corn,” meant to be matched by local governments and used to improve conditions for the poor. It would have transformed the city, but Zapanta stole it, and in his pursuit of proving the theft, Gabriel wound up with a life sentence, framed for a murder that happened while he was asleep.
Gardo breaks into the narrative to say he is sorry for misleading Olivia. He, Rat, and Raphael discussed their plan and the others wanted to let her in on the plan, but Gardo didn’t believe they could trust anyone. He is sorry for how things ended and hopes to see Olivia again sometime. Olivia takes over the narration again. Gabriel explains that Zapanta stole the money through bogus contracts and clever accounting. He withdrew dollars and stockpiled them in a safe in his home. Gardo asks the old man questions that pique his interest. Gardo admits he is a dumpsite boy and that he found a letter from José Angelico, addressed to Gabriel, which said: “It is accomplished. Go to the house now, and your soul would sing.” Gardo says he didn’t dare bring the letter with him. Gabriel recoils in pain and cries when he learns the police murdered José Angelico during questioning.
Raphael jumps in to express his remorse for tricking Olivia. He then says that while Gardo is at the prison, he and Rat go to visit the senator’s house in Green Hills. To pay the bus fare, Rat takes from his secret travel savings of over two thousand pesos—a fortune to dumpsite boys. Rat reveals he has been saving up to return to Sampalo, an island in the south. Raphael has heard of it; apparently, it is so beautiful that people cry when they get there, and cry when they leave. Rat needs fifty thousand to buy a boat, then he can fish for the rest of his life. Rat invites Raphael to imagine himself and Gardo living the same dream: a hut on the sand, flowers growing around them. Raphael knows he can’t stay in Behala forever. Rat says he’ll always think the police are coming back for him.
Rat narrates. He is excited to take the bus across the city. He and Raphael relax as they get far from the dumpsite. Zapanta’s house is protected by a fence and armed guards. Rat has to convince a reluctant Raphael to climb a tree to make it over the fence. The house is like a castle surrounded by paradise. They encounter a gardener, which makes Raphael panic. But the calm old man simply asks if they are there to laugh about the houseboy walking out with six million dollars. He offers the boys cigarettes and explains that he’s worked there 22 years and only spoken to the senator twice. He’s delighted to think about the fat senator’s embarrassment as he tried to explain to the police how he let it happen. The gardener says the theory is that José Angelico snuck the money out inside a fridge that was being replaced. He chuckles at the thought and wonders where the money went, hoping José Angelico hid it before the police killed him. He spits on the ground and says he hopes the shock kills the Zapanta, whose been stealing for years—from everyone.
Olivia picks up at the conversation in the prison with Gabriel. Gabriel explains that his son Dante adopted thirteen boys and nineteen girls. José Angelico was a favorite among them, and he always had plans for getting money and becoming successful as a lawyer or doctor. Gardo recites the letter from memory. In it, José Angelico says that “the seed-corn has been planted, but not in the way you expected.” He assures his grandfather that the seeds are safe. Gabriel cannot believe it. He tells Gardo that the numbers on the slip are a code, the numbers corresponding with his Bible. He calls Gardo a young, sainted angel. The guard says the visit is over, but after a discussion, Gabriel tells Olivia and Gardo that the guard, Marco, will deliver the Bible to Behala because nothing can leave with visitors.
Olivia says Gabriel died in the prison hospital. She speculates that the guard understood he had something valuable in his possession. The morning after the prison visit, police arrive at her hostel to question her; the information Mr. Oliva entered into the system alerted the police that people from Behala were visiting the prison. Olivia tells the police the conversation took place in Gabriel and Gardo’s language, so she knows nothing. Because she broke no laws, she is released. Olivia takes a plane out of the country the same day. She ends her narration by saying she left a part of her heart in Behala. The experience taught her more than university could. Chiefly, she learned that the world revolves around money, which people don’t appreciate until they live without it, like so many in Behala. With tears falling on the page, she says it’s a pity she can never return. She thanks the boys for using her.
Analysis
Mulligan builds on the themes of corruption and duplicity in the third part of the novel. Olivia Weston, a volunteer at the Mission School set up at Behala, becomes the primary narrator. As they do with Father Juilliard, the boys lie to Olivia to achieve their goal: this time, the goal of speaking with Gabriel in prison. As children who have learned to exploit adults’—particularly foreigners’—fondness for them, the boys have no trouble fooling Olivia into paying Gardo’s way into the prison. Along the way, Gardo seizes an opportunity to scam himself into a new outfit as well.
Corruption arises when Mr. Oliva, a social welfare officer with an ironically similar surname, speaks with Olivia about going to see Gabriel. All the while feigning helpfulness and sympathy, the man informs her that Gabriel receives a lot of visitors and so money is needed to fast-track her through the system to see him. He claims the corrupt government sets the price at ten thousand pesos, when in fact he is just as corrupt as any other official and will pocket the money she pays—a fact Olivia only learns after Gabriel tells her the prison usually only charges people fifteen hundred pesos to see him.
The theme of systemic oppression enters the story again when Olivia and Gardo walk through the prison, which is packed full of impoverished people of all ages. As a woman from England, the sight of children locked up in cells horrifies Olivia, but Gardo is unconcerned as they move past the inhumane cages. Gardo attempts to reassure Olivia by saying that things aren’t as bad as they appear: at least in prison, these people are given some food. In this instance of situational irony, Gardo’s life of starvation at the dumpsite is, to his mind, not much better than being locked in a sweltering hot cage that reeks of urine and sweat.
When speaking with Gabriel, Olivia learns that Gardo has been misleading her. Gabriel also shares the story of how systemic oppression and political corruption led him to a life sentence when all he sought to do was prove Zapanta stole money that should have gone to aid the poor. Having memorized José Angelico’s letter, Gardo shares the cryptic information it contains. Gabriel cannot believe José Angelico, his adopted grandson, accomplished his goal of exacting revenge against Zapanta.
While Gardo and Olivia are at the prison, Raphael and Rat learn from Zapanta’s gardener that José Angelico allegedly snuck six million dollars out of the house inside a broken fridge. Mulligan builds on the theme of solidarity in this scene. Although the boys have climbed a tree to get inside the mansion grounds, in an instance of situational irony, the gardener doesn’t express any anger at them or try to kick them out. Seeing from a glance that they are poor, he realizes that he has more in common with the boys than he does his rich employer, whose humiliation delights the gardener.
