In any case, Old Man has never touched the nape of her neck, either.

He knows he’s not allowed to talk to children—some policemen warned him about that once—but luckily Soon is no longer a child, so there shouldn’t be a problem, right?, and he furrows his brow. What policemen warned him, and why?, she wants to know. Oh, it happened a long time ago, he says. He didn’t know it was forbidden! That’s what he told the police, too—that he’d never seen it written anywhere that you couldn’t talk to children. The scene was this: Old Man was taking his morning walk one very hot day. He stopped to rest beside a school; on the playground, some small children were playing—they were maybe six or seven years old! He thought they were really funny because they didn’t mind at all about being out under that beating sun, they were immune to the blistering heat. They were jumping, throwing water balloons at each other, and clowning around, while the teacher who was supposedly watching them fanned herself on the sidelines, in the shade. Old Man went up to the fence and called them over with a psst! so he could talk to them. First came one, more daring than the rest, and then came the others—one by one!—shaking off their shyness and giggling. Old Man said to them: throw one of those water balloons at me, too, I’m dying in this heat, I want a water bomb, and the boys threw it at him, rolling with laughter. He sat down on the ground so he could keep talking to them. To get down to their level, he explains, because they really were very small! That was when he saw his neighbor walk past on the opposite sidewalk, and she stared at him in astonishment, although at the moment he didn’t think it was important, he just raised his hand to wave at her and then stayed there with the kids a while longer. They talked about how much water you can get into a balloon before it explodes, and about how the color of the rubber gets lighter as it swells. He told them how something similar happens to a bird’s belly when it stuffs itself with food, but, unlike balloons, bellies never explode. He was so absorbed in the conversation that he didn’t hear the policemen arrive, he only realized it because of the expressions on the boys’ faces!, and then he turned his head and there they were, two policemen, one young and the other older, both very serious, very professional. What are you doing here?, they asked him. I was talking to the kids, he said. You don’t talk to children, said the younger policeman, while the older one shooed them all away, let’s go, go on, get out of here, and they scattered like frightened little chicks, fear spreading from one to the other. Someone must have also told the teacher, because she came running over now all alarmed, exaggeratedly alarmed, almost shouting, my god, my god, she was saying, how awful, it’s horrible, my children, my children, what have you done to my babies?, when the truly horrible thing—says Old Man—was the opportunism of that teacher who hadn’t cared a bit about the kids until the police came!