Out in the Open (6 page)

‘Boy.'

The second time the old man spoke, the boy sprang into action and went to his aid. He took the various objects the old man passed to him and placed them under the trees. When they had unloaded the donkey, the man took one of the flasks and plunged into the reed bed, pushing the reeds and bulrushes aside with his hands. The boy watched him disappear and saw how the goats followed down the path he had opened up. Then he uncorked the flask left in one of the panniers and tipped it into his tin. Not a drop. He looked over at the gap in the reeds into which the goatherd had vanished and, squeezing the tin hard in his hands, he cursed him roundly.

He sat down and leaned his back against the trunk of one of the trees and studied the landscape. He thought of the
reguera
, the stream into which the village poured its sewage. He remembered how it stank, remembered the clumps of bulrushes, the ailanthus trees and the reeds growing along its banks. He regarded the pale little copse of alders as if it were a fossil, then stood up and walked along the edge of the reed bed. The dog remained where it was, lying in the feeble shade provided by the trees. Walking over the surface of the absent water, he felt an unconscious impulse to roll up his trouser legs so as not to get them wet, a desire for cool, clean water that was felt, rather, by his cells, with their different way of perceiving reality. He found signs of moisture at the foot of a willow. A multitude of tiny channels, like a miniature delta, flowing towards the now absent pond. An attempt that led off beyond the shade cast by the reeds only to be frustrated by the sun and the rain-starved earth. A pointless exercise inscribed on the soft, sandy sediment.

When he got back to the encampment, the old man had already sorted out the goats, who, crammed together among the reeds, only stayed there for a while, their noses in the mud, until the old man felt they'd had enough to drink and shooed them out, slapping them on the back. Like a shoal of fish, other goats immediately filled any vacant spaces. When the goatherd saw the boy return, he pointed to the alder tree where the donkey was grazing. Next to it were two flasks. The boy went over and shook them. Then he uncorked one, filled his tin with water and drank. The water tasted muddy. He could feel the grit in his throat and between his teeth, but he didn't care.

They ate, sitting leaning against the tree trunks, surrounded by the goats, the donkey and the dog, who all crowded in under the trees as if, beyond the shade, lay a deep abyss. When they had finished eating, the old man got up and moved a few yards off to urinate, his back turned to the camp. He didn't return immediately and, from his place in the shade, the boy saw him bend down and fiddle with something on the ground. He thought he must be tying the lace on one of his boots. The old man returned, however, carrying a thick aloe leaf. He sat down in the spot where they'd eaten and, with a penknife, peeled the skin off the broad base of the leaf and handed it to the boy so that he could apply it to the burns on his face.

They spent the siesta hours beneath the trees, the boy smearing his burns with the transparent jelly from the aloe leaf and the goatherd carving a new wooden hook for the donkey's cinch strap. Later on, when the sun had lost some of its heat, the old man picked up a sickle and asked the boy to follow him over to a clump of esparto grass growing on the far side of the pond. Before they reached it, though, the boy felt uneasy and stopped. The old man turned, expecting to find the boy behind him. Then, with the sickle in one hand, he beckoned him over. The boy, standing some way off, shook his head. The man shouted:

‘Watch me.'

He crouched down in front of a clump of grass and with two short blows cut off a thick tuft. He held it up so that the boy could see, then put it down at his feet along with the sickle. The goatherd then went back to the camp, and when he passed the boy, told him to make eight or ten bundles of grass and take them over to the alder trees. The boy turned and waited until the old man had disappeared again behind the bulrushes. Then he walked over to the sickle and for a moment contemplated the countryside around him: the little islands of scrub and the stony paths that ran between them. He went hunting for the largest clumps of grass, and when he found what he wanted, set to work. He hadn't said anything to the goatherd when the latter had shown him how to cut the grass, but this was a job he knew how to do well because, at home, he had always been the one who kept the ground around the house cleared.

The boy concluded his labours as evening was coming on. He gathered up the grass and started carrying it in bundles over to the shade. He left the first bundle next to the goatherd and went back for more. The old man, who was milking a goat, briefly stopped what he was doing, then immediately resumed his work. No thanks, no reward. The law of the plain.

They dined on bread and milk and, afterwards, the boy applied more aloe jelly to his face. He fell asleep watching the goatherd making ropes by plaiting the grass he had cut that afternoon. He didn't even hear the distant sound of hooves crossing the dark plain. Nor did he see how the goatherd's hand trembled, startled by this sudden noise cleaving through the arid plain like a stone sword. The only thing he felt, when the time came, was the old man's boot prodding him in the back and his voice telling him to get up.

He did as he was told, thinking that it must be dawn already and that the goatherd would again have prepared his breakfast for him. He felt around him for the bowl, but the only thing he found was the blanket he had slept on. Everything else, including the bundles of grass, was already loaded onto the donkey.

‘Pick up the blanket. We're leaving.'

The crescent moon was still only a yellow sliver on the horizon. The old man tugged at the donkey's bridle and strode off, with the herd following behind. The dog came and went in the darkness, retrieving any stray goats. Clinging to the donkey's halter, the boy stumbled after them. When they left the encampment in the middle of the night, the boy had assumed they were leaving before dawn in order to avoid the crushing noonday sun. To judge by the route followed on the previous days, the boy had assumed that the old man knew the region well and would again stop at midday beside some copse or stream. But as time passed and the darkness failed to lift and the pace at which they were walking remained undiminished, he realised that they were no longer in pursuit of pastures new.

At dawn, they stopped at the foot of a sun-scorched hill, whose top concealed the horizon. The goatherd let go of the bridle and walked on ahead for a few yards. He went first in one direction then in the other, raising and lowering his head as if searching for something among the shadows. He rubbed his face with his hands and massaged his eyelids with the tips of his fingers, all the while huffing and puffing. He closed his eyes and raised his face to the sky to breathe in the faint breeze coming down from the hill. He sniffed at the invisible door opening before him until he found, among all the other smells of daybreak, the thread that had brought them there.

Seeing that they were stopping for rather longer than expected, the boy sat down on the ground to rest. He felt the weight of his body seeking the earth. He would have lain down and slept right there on the baked clay, but a foul-smelling breeze brought him to his senses. He stood up just as the goatherd came striding back. The old man glanced behind him, checked that the herd were all there, then set off again. They climbed up the slope, weaving in and out of long-since withered vines. The wild tendrils twined about each other, weaving a futile, fossil web.

When they reached the top, the horizon reappeared. Beyond, the plateau plunged downwards to form a valley from which there emanated, even more strongly, the same stench he had noticed at the foot of the hill. The boy tried to identify where the smell was coming from, but there was still not enough light at that hour to be able to make out the coral-like shapes of the bone pit that lay beneath them.

They descended via a narrow track, trying to keep the donkey from slipping. The goats made the descent as best they could, scattering shards of slate, which skittered down to the bottom of the abyss. Axes fracturing gleaming white ribs. Bones in every possible state of degradation. Sediments of calcic dust, rows of bovine vertebrae, broad pelvises. Ribcages and horns. An eyeless animal, its skin still intact. A stinking bag of bones in the midst of the new day dawning. A lighthouse guiding them to a safe harbour.

They set up camp some distance from the putrefying ox, in the arching shade of a hawthorn. The goats dispersed among the bones in search of grass, and only the donkey, the dog, the boy and the man remained, like figures in a nativity scene. They breakfasted on bread dipped in wine and lay down to rest. The boy fell asleep almost instantly, with a feeling that his muscles were softening and melding inside his body. Before he succumbed to unconsciousness, his final thoughts were of the sleepless night he'd spent, the drowsiness brought on by the wine, his filthy hands and the pestilential, walled-in pit surrounding him.

When he woke, the old man was no longer by his side. He climbed up out of the crater and saw the goatherd kneeling on the highest edge. He was looking south, shading his eyes with both hands, as if he were wearing spectacles. The boy watched as he made his way gingerly back down the stony slope, half-crouching, half-sitting, so as not to slip. Some of the goats had lain down in the shade and others, unobstructed for the moment by any human presence, were standing on their back legs to reach the higher branches of the hawthorn.

The boy wandered about in the shade to stretch his legs and discovered that, while he slept, the old man had plaited most of the esparto grass into ropes. He squatted down and tested the strength of the ropes and wondered what the old man could possibly want with so much of the stuff. The goatherd returned from his patrol and, without a word, sat down under the hawthorn tree again to continue his work. The boy said he was going for a walk.

‘Don't go far.'

‘I won't.'

He had never seen a place like this before. There were skulls everywhere. Hollow, broken bones like the stems of giant fennel. The worn teeth of ruminants. Noticing the billy goat searching for food near the dead ox, he went over to join it. When he reached its side, however, the goat started and accidentally struck the body with its horns, causing a rat that had been hiding inside to peep out. The rat hid under the ox's pelvis, nervously sniffed the air, then returned to its feeding trough. When the boy rejoined the old man, he told him what he had seen. The man stopped what he was doing, got to his feet and, taking a stick and a blanket, went over to where the ox lay rotting. The boy followed him to within a few yards of the cadaver. For a while, they crouched there in silence, observing the rippling movements of the skin. A crow alighted on the creature's side. The skin undulated over the ribs like the softened hull of a ship. The animal had been emptied of its contents and was now a mere façade with only one opening where the genitals had been. The goatherd got up and walked in a silent arc round to the animal's head. The crow flapped away. The boy watched the old man cover nose and mouth with one arm before walking the length of the corpse to its rear end, using the blanket to cover the one opening in the animal's hide. Then he stamped on the ribs with his boot and the rat immediately scampered out of its cave and into the trap. The old man beat the woollen blanket until the rat stopped moving.

By evening, the goatherd had made some netting out of the esparto grass. He found four stout branches, cleaned them off and with the branches and the netting fashioned a small corral, into which, with the help of the dog, he herded the goats. Once they were all inside, he gave each of them some water to drink from a bowl. When they had finished, only a third of a flask of water was left. The boy asked the old man about this, and the old man told him not to worry. That night they would drink milk, and the following day they would set off in search of a new spring.

Afterwards, the goatherd went to fetch a stool and placed it next to the one corner of the corral that could be opened. He fixed the bucket in the ground with the metal rods and turned to the boy.

‘You're going to help me milk the goats.'

‘But I've never done it before.'

‘You just stand at the gate of the corral and let the goats out one by one when I tell you to.'

They finished milking in a matter of minutes, and the boy was surprised at how little milk the goats had given. The old man explained that at this time of year, what with the heat, and the lack of water or any pasture worthy of the name, the goats didn't have much milk to give.

When night fell, the old man skinned the rat, splayed its body out on a cross made of twigs, and lit a small fire. The boy didn't want to eat the rat, and so the goatherd shared it with the dog. There were still a few almonds and raisins in a small basket, but the old man didn't offer him any and the boy didn't ask.

THE OLD MAN
woke the boy in the middle of the night. They left the bone pit the same way they had entered, then circled around it before setting off towards the north. Unlike the previous day, the boy felt rested and more reassured about what lay ahead. They crossed the plain beneath a moon that was not yet bright enough to light the ground they walked on. As the boy clung to the donkey's halter, the animal's swaying gait seemed to him like a litany as monotonous as the landscape they were crossing. Dark sky, dark horizon and dark, desolate fields. Guided by the old man and supported by the donkey, he abandoned himself to memories of the place he had come from. His village was perched above a river bed, where water had once flowed, but which was now just a long, broad indentation in the midst of an interminable plain. Most of the houses, many of them empty, were built around the church and the medieval palace. Beyond them, like a belt of asteroids, lay a scattering of crumbling walls, all that remained of the fields that had once fed the village. The streets were flanked by houses with whitewashed roughcast walls and gable roofs, with crudely made grilles at the windows and metal doors concealed behind curtains. The gates on yards were kept firmly shut to protect the wooden carts and threshing machines. There was a time when the plain had been an ocean of wheatfields and, on windy spring days, the ears of wheat rippled just like the surface of the sea. Fragrant green waves waiting for the summer sun. The same sun that now fermented the clay and ground it down into dust.