Out in the Open (3 page)

Suddenly, he heard a snort immediately behind him and was petrified. He didn't move. All his strength vanished into the void that fear had opened up before him. The goatherd disappeared, along with the bag and the herd of goats, swallowed up by the darkness where his mind had once been. He trembled and his stomach gurgled into life again as he felt something hard pressing against the small of his back and, despite himself, turned round. The dog was poking him with its nose. Between its teeth it was carrying the piece of string from one end of the sausage. The boy took a deep breath, knelt down on the ground and returned to his task.

The bag was made of thick leather. It smelled of dried onions and sweat. He hooked two fingers round the strap and gave a gentle tug. When he felt the weight of the bag, he threw all caution to the wind. His mind filled up with images of food, and everything around him was replaced by what he imagined to be the contents of that bag. He managed to drag his booty a few inches more in almost absolute silence until one particularly greedy tug sent the stiff body of the bag – as if it were a drum skin – thudding over the pebbles.

‘Where do you think you're going with that?'

He froze at the sound of the gruff voice coming from the other side of the fire, which lit up the grimace of fear that was now his face, the face of a silent-film actor or a child caught red-handed for the first time.

‘I'm hungry, sir.'

‘Didn't anyone teach you to ask nicely?'

At that moment, he would have liked simply to run away with the bag and leave the man there, talking from underneath his blanket. He wondered if perhaps the dog was not as friendly as it had seemed. He knew nothing as yet of loyalties or of the time that passes between man and beast, knitting them together ever more tightly.

‘Help me up, boy.'

The boy dropped the leather strap and approached hesitantly. A couple of yards away, he stopped and studied the man's body. His face was still covered by the blanket, but his legs were now visible from the knees down. The man stirred feebly beneath his blanket, perhaps trying to fasten his trousers or feeling for his lighter in order to light his first cigarette of the day, and by the time his head appeared, the boy was once more hidden behind the prickly pears. In the time he remained there, the very faintest glimmer of light began to illumine a few corners of the encampment. He saw that he had been right in thinking that the trees were poplars and could see the effects of the drought on their topmost leaves. He counted nine nanny goats and one billy goat. He also noticed a construction he hadn't seen before: a kind of pyramid-shaped shack made out of branches cut from the nearby trees. From its walls hung straps, ropes, chains, a metal milk churn and a blackened frying pan. It was more like a tabernacle than a shelter. Separating the hut from the poplar trees was a woven fence held up by four posts hammered into the ground.

The goatherd had by then sat up and rolled himself a cigarette. It took him several minutes to get to his feet because the blanket had become tangled around his legs and elbows. Although the boy could still not really make out the man's features, he assumed from the way he moved that he was old. A scrawny old man who slept in his clothes. A dark jacket with wide lapels, a dishevelled mop of grey hair and what looked like a white brush stroke that covered his face from his nose downwards.

The goatherd saw the boy reappear from behind the prickly pear, but barely noticed him because he was too busy blowing on the wick of his rope lighter. When the boy was about six feet away from the man, he stopped. From that distance, he could see the goatherd's hair full of straw, and the holes in the elbows of his jacket. He was sitting on the ground with the blanket covering his legs, and the boy was surprised that he could sit comfortably like that, his back bent. The old man glanced up and sat staring at the boy. He had placed his cigarette behind one ear and was cupping the orange rope wick with the palm of one hand. Then the goatherd made a gesture that the boy would often see him make in the weeks to come. With the tips of thumb and index finger he wiped away the saliva from the corners of his mouth. Then he did the same with just his index finger, as if to smooth aside any hairs from his unruly moustache.

‘Sit down, it's time to eat.'

The man pointed to a spot near his feet, and the boy did as he was told. For a while, the goatherd continued flicking the wheel of his rope lighter and unsuccessfully blowing on the wick. The boy watched in silence, mouth half-open, astonished at the old man's inepitude, for sometimes he missed the wheel altogether or failed to strike it hard enough. The boy's hands began moving of their own accord because he had often used such a lighter himself.

When the old man finally managed to light the cigarette and take his first few puffs, he rested his free hand on the ground and relaxed his shoulders as if he had just completed a very necessary task. He pursed his lips and whistled, and the dog got up and ran to the place where the goats were already beginning to stir. The dog immediately rounded up a group of brown goats and brought them over to where the man was sitting. Without even getting up, the man used his crook to hook a goat round one of its hind legs and drag it towards him. Then, keeping a firm grip on the animal with one hand, he pushed the blanket aside and drew in his legs. The boy watched this manoeuvre, surprised at the old man's sudden show of agility, given that only a moment before, it had taken him an age simply to light a cigarette. When the goatherd had the rear end of the goat in front of him, he placed a metal saucepan underneath its udders. The first drops fell, tinkling, into the pan. When he had enough milk, he gave the goat a slap and it skittered off to rejoin its fellows. Then he held out the pan to the boy, but when the boy didn't move, he set it down on the ground and continued smoking his cigarette.

They sat in silence, gnawing on wedges of greasy cheese, strips of dried meat and a little stale bread. The goatherd took long swigs from his wineskin, and the boy wondered when the man would ask who he was and what he was doing there. He was afraid that news of his disappearance might also have reached this part of the plain, because he was all too aware that, however arduous his adventure had proved up until now, he was still not that far from the village. At one point, it occurred to him that the old man's welcome could be a trick to hold him there while he waited for the search party or even for the bailiff himself to arrive. In that case, he knew exactly what he would do. He would run back to the clump of prickly pears and crouch down among them. The horses would paw the ground around the cactus spines, but would not dare to come near. If the search party wanted to take him home, they would have to drag him out. They would have to risk tearing their shirts and getting scratched or else, still mounted, riddle him with bullets and then, finally, kill the only witness.

When the old man had finished his breakfast, he reached into a pannier and brought out a crumpled sheet of newspaper. He used this to wrap up some food and then offered the package to the boy, who sat staring back at him. When the goatherd grew tired of holding out his arm, he did as he had with the saucepan of milk, and put the package down on the ground. He stowed the rest of the food in the pannier and again asked the boy to help him up. The boy went over and it was only then that he became aware of the mixture of aromas emanating from the man's body: the sickly aura of wine that hung around his head and mouth and the stench of dried sweat given off by his leathery skin. When the man stood up, he wasn't much taller than the boy. His trousers were tied around the waist with a piece of string, and his boots looked as if they were made of cardboard. After helping him to his feet, the boy took a few steps back and stood watching the man, who was becoming more agile with each passing minute. The boy was again surprised by the ease with which he bent down to retrieve the blanket and fold it up. With the blanket over his arm, the old man whistled to the dog, which sprang to its feet and ran off to where the other goats were grazing.

The old man went over to the pyramid-shack and reached in through an opening in the branches that served as an entrance. He returned carrying a cork stool and a metal bucket. He took down the milk churn from where it hung on the wall and carried everything over to a small square enclosure. The dog had gathered the goats together and, by dint of barking and snapping at their heels, was herding them towards his master. When they had all arrived, the man removed one post from the corner of the corral fence, creating an opening through which he shooed in the goats. When they were all inside, he replaced the pole and joined it to its neighbour with the thick wire loop attached to one of them. Crammed in together, the goats were bleating furiously and trying to clamber on top of each other, resembling nothing so much as a pot of boiling stew.

The goatherd placed the bucket next to the section of fence that had served as a gate. The bucket was as wide at the bottom as it was at the top, and reminded the boy of the one they used at home to empty the latrine. The old man made sure the base was firmly embedded in the dusty ground, then from inside the bucket he took an adze and three rusty rods. He cleaned the mud off the blunt side of the blade and began hammering the rods into the ground very close to the outer edge of the bucket. When he had finished, he checked again to make sure that the bucket, like an encrusted jewel, would not move. He placed the stool so that it was facing the bucket and sat down. The boy had observed these comings and goings as if he were witnessing some vision of Our Lady. Open-mouthed, eyes lowered. The only part of his anatomy that moved was his head, which turned from side to side as he followed the goatherd's every manoeuvre.

Sitting on the stool, the old man again lifted one of the posts in the fence to create a narrow opening. He reached in and grabbed a goat by its leg, dragged it out and positioned it with its rear end over the bucket. He then grasped the animal's teats and began milking. While he was working, he gazed up at the sky, as if checking for signs of rain. Echoing the old man's movements from afar, the boy also scanned the sky. Above their heads, the heavens were growing brighter, the glow slowly dousing the last and brightest stars. The sun, still lingering behind the hills in the east, would soon appear. Not a trace of cloud in the sky.

The boy looked back at the goatherd, who now had his head almost pressed against the animal's rear end and was briskly squeezing and pulling at the teats. The old man seemed nervous. When the goat, grown restless, kicked at the bucket and tried to run away, the old man tethered her back legs to two of the rods, only untethering her when he had finished milking. The goat then fled over to the poplars, where she reassured herself by nibbling the tips of the lowest branches.

One by one, all the goats came to the milking pail. As the boy watched it filling up, he wondered what the goatherd could possibly do with so much milk in the middle of that wilderness. When he'd finished, the old man got up and carried the bucket over to the churn, poured the milk into it and put the lid on. That was when he turned and spoke to the boy.

‘You know, it's all the same to me if you've run away or if you're simply lost.'

The remark caught the boy unawares, and he shrank back. There was a long silence.

‘Some men will be coming soon to collect the milk.'

THE BOY SPENT
the rest of the morning in the sparse shade of a withered almond tree, a solitary example that had sprung up on an old boundary line between two now abandoned ploughed fields. From there, he had a panoramic view of the surrounding area and, should the search party come in sight, he could easily hide, or even escape, by crawling along that boundary. A few yards from where he was sitting, the path that had led him to that place continued downhill in a northerly direction. During the time he'd been sitting there, he'd travelled that path over and over with his eyes. To the right, an abandoned olive grove. Beyond that, a descending curve that skirted a small hill topped by a palm tree and, a little further off, what seemed to be a fig tree. And beyond that, the road appeared and disappeared among the waves of landscape until it vanished completely behind the last hill a couple of miles to the north.

He thought back to his meeting with the goatherd: the dog sniffing his hand and the man sitting smoking, bent-backed, his blanket over his legs. At midday, a drop of sweat trickled down his forehead and onto his trousers, where it dried instantly. He took off his shirt, laid it out before him and emptied onto it the contents of his canvas bag. He separated his belongings from the provisions given to him by the old man: three strips of dried goat's meat as taut as a barber's razor strop, a bit of cheese rind to gnaw on, a piece of bread and an empty tin. ‘It will come in useful,' the man had said in the morning, throwing it at his feet.

‘It will come in useful,' the boy repeated to himself as he sat there in the light shade. Why didn't he just give him some water? Were the springs so plentiful in the area that he assumed even a child like him would find them? Or was it an invitation to come back? Would he drink milk in it the next time they saw each other?

Thirst.

When the sun was at its highest point, he put everything back in the bag, pulled on his shirt and set off along the path. He walked as far as the bend and, before it continued downhill, he left the rutted track and climbed the hill to the palm tree. Its trunk was full of holes and up above hung a great dewlap of dead branches. The shade from the tree cast a dark stain on the earth, with the trunk at its centre. He put down his knapsack and cleared the leaves and stones from a patch of ground. Just as he had earlier, he took off his shirt and placed it like a tablecloth on the cleared area. Taking the food from his bag, he arranged it on the cloth and sat down to eat. He gnawed at the cheese rind, trying to drive from his mind the thought that he had no water. The greasy, rancid cheese formed a film on the roof of his mouth and would not let him rest because only water could wash away the sour taste it left behind. Still vainly rubbing at it with the tip of his tongue, he stood up. He inspected the ruins of an old adobe house so eroded by sun and wind that a low rectangle of mud bricks was all that remained of its walls. He could still make out the plan of the house which, like most houses in the province, had only one room, and this made him think of his own house on the outskirts of the village.