The Boys (12 page)

“What they would have wanted was to not have the accident. Would you want a funeral full of people?”

“I don't know, Iona.”

“Forgive me, Iona,” interjected their mother. “Today's not a day for arguing, but the funeral isn't for them; no one expects it to help or to be meaningful to them in any way. The funeral is for those of us left behind, to be there for their parents and to be there for you, to share in the pain.”

“Pain can't be shared,” said Iona. “And if it could, what would you want, to pass it off on someone else?”

“No, I'd want others to pass it on to me.”

“I don't want to pass my pain on to anyone. It's better if Mireia doesn't come.”

“And what about Jaume's parents?” said Mireia.

“They'll understand that you're grieving so much you can't go. They won't mind at all. What do we know about their suffering? I don't want a funeral. I want to disappear for everyone in the same moment that everyone disappears for me. I don't want to leave annoying reminders as if I were coming back. I don't even want to leave good memories, no kids, nothing. It's pathetic.”

“I'm so sorry. Now I see . . .” said Mireia, “that I've been giving it too much importance. It's just a ritual.”

“It's a lie, at the worst moment. It's not for the dead; it's for the living, out of fear. The burial isn't to see them off; it's for those who are left behind, like Mom said. To be there for me. To make it clear to me.”

“To be there for you and for the four of us, to be together in a difficult moment,” said Mireia. “It would be selfish of me not to go.”

“So, me not wanting a funeral for myself, is that selfish too?”

“The last thing we want to separate from is people. If you forgo a funeral, that means that you're absolutely positive that everything ends in this world.”

“Maybe I just don't want to cling to it desperately. Maybe because I trust that everything doesn't end here.”

“But we even bury our animals.”

“For the sake of hygiene,” said Iona. “No one asks the clinic for their dead animals back. Even here in Vidreres, people call the vet to get rid of a dead dog. I'd rather you didn't come. It's using the dead. We'll parade Xavi and Jaume around, carry them to the church, and have them blessed to
make ourselves feel better. There are fifty thousand better places to take them, Mireia. You think Jaume spent much time thinking about God? You think that was on his mind? And what right do we have. . . But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it does make sense to take them to the church. To show that they're nothing now, and we can do whatever we want with them. To make it clear who's in charge. It's not important, I don't want you to come if you're tired; in fact, I wish you wouldn't. In fact, I wish you'd decided not to come because you have a party to go to, or something else, something that has nothing to do with Jaume and Xavi.”

“Iona . . .” said their mother.

“I'll go,” said Mireia. “I changed my mind.”

“Mireia, if you don't want to use them to make yourself feel better, if you want to waive that right, then everyone should understand.”

“Your father would be very upset.”

“I'm gonna go,” said Iona, “but for me it'll be just as if I didn't. I'll be watching it through a pane of glass.”

“There is no glass,” said her mother.

Her father came in. He had heard the conversation from the entryway. He sat down and said, “Mireia, you will go to the service like everyone else. I went by the funeral home. It's the saddest thing I've ever seen.”

Iona thought about Xavi and Jaume's parents, killed by the accident's shock waves. They'd rather forget about her. She would too. She planned to avoid them. As a future daughter-in-law she was dead too. She didn't want to be a zombie daughter-in-law who said “hi” to her zombie in-laws every time she ran into them. Everyone saw them as
completely devastated—the way they must see her—but that didn't mean the boys' parents weren't denying the accident. Otherwise, how could they have a wake for them? How could they even breathe? The body is perfidious, but it was also that everyone else was now looking at them through a black filter. But for Jaume and Xavi's parents their two sons weren't dead. They just hadn't heard from them in several hours, they were late coming home, that happened a lot when they went out. And the funeral home and the figures in the coffins? A joke in poor taste. There's plenty of malice in the world.

The living dead lined up at Santa Maria church, slow, pallid, dressed in black, praying. Weeping, mute, secretly violent zombies, making a murmur of moans and sighs between the bare stone walls, sitting on the uncomfortable planks of the pews, coming to pieces, flesh falling, avoiding looking at each other in their embarrassment, and because if they moved, they might lose a leg or an arm, and their heads could roll off their necks and onto the floor. They sat and listened in silence to the mass and would stick it out for all the rest of it, too. They watched the two pale wooden coffins pass between the pews, one with Jaume in it and the other with Xavi, and Iona had the feeling that she was the only living person at the funeral; that only she retained, preserved, and maintained life.

Iona saw Nil Dalmau leaving the church. She had dodged her zombies-in-law, half hiding around a corner, waiting for her parents and her sister to finish what she, because of her privilege as the zombie widow, could shirk. That was when she saw him. It seemed that he was looking for her in the
crowd, and was surprised to find her staring at him. She smiled. He was the least strange zombie at the party. The one closest to the world of the living. Everyone should've had to dress as monstrously as him that day—come to the party in costume like clowns to the circus. It had been a while since she'd seen him around town. He hung out with other people, from outside Vidreres, and she'd never seen him with Jaume or Xavi.

She knew him from school, where he was a few grades ahead of her. Later, they'd sent him to private school in Girona. Every once in a long while she'd hear something about what he was up to. She knew he was studying fine arts in Barcelona, or maybe he'd already finished his degree. He was dressed in black from head to toe, he was the blackest of them all, black tie. Outside, he put on a black hat. He wore his hair in two ponytails like an Indian, and had an incipient beard with no moustache. But what turned people's heads, first curious and then repulsed, was his left ear. The lobe looked like the handle of a pitcher. He wore a metal ring inside a large open hole in the earlobe, which was dilated like a tire made of flesh.

If that meant something, Iona wasn't in on it. In the final years of her degree they were studying tropical veterinary science. Recently, iguanas and dragons, snakes, salamanders, chameleons, spiders, and scorpions had become more and more popular; people were tired of the usual four-legged friends. The fad was creatures that were like living fossils, autistic and prelapsarian pets, an incomprehensible world, but, just like those in the know could interpret their friends' terrariums and knew the significance of a certain ophidian,
lepidosauria, or amphibian, every eccentric piece of clothing that boy wore must mean . . . what? What did it mean? Everything he'd added over the years to separate himself from the already somewhat strange little kid she'd known? And the blue tattoo of a star on the back of his hand? And the longer fingernails on his pinkies?

They greeted each other with a glance. She avoided him, but after the burial, at home, while Mireia and their mother sat in the dining room and their father was helping some trucker unload bales of hay for the horses, she opened up the computer and found that Nil Dalmau had started a chat with her. If she hadn't just seen him, she would have thought his photograph was a joke.

How are you?

What can I say

Can we talk?

Yeah

How are you?

I don't know

When you know you won't want to talk to me

Probably not

I want to ask you a favor

What

Tonight

What do you want?

To talk to you

Talk now

I want to show you something

What

Some videos

Send them to me

It's dangerous

I can't go out

Yes you can

Not today

Noon tomorrow at the club

II

First thing in the morning on Wednesday, Iona turned on the computer and got a message. “I really enjoyed meeting you.” That was the second guy to contact her since the accident. Some loser, at least ten years older than her, some guy she didn't know from Adam, had sent her a message he'd written to himself: I did it, I dangled the bait. Period. Wasn't there an understood grieving period, some buffer from the world to protect her from these little violations?

Because there was Nil Dalmau too; she hadn't seen him in years, and now he resurfaced looking a fright, made a date to meet her at the club, showed her the most unpleasant videos ever, and asked her if they were illegal.

“I would turn you in myself,” she'd said, “if I could think past what's happening to me.”

She didn't understand anything, and these two guys were helping a lot with that. The world had lost all logic. It was a desert; it had only been three days since the accident, but there was a growing feeling that a war had been lost. Reality
plowed ahead, establishing laws that had nothing to do with the ones that'd governed it up until then.

That morning she went back to the university. She left Vidreres after seven, just as the sun was starting to shine, and she saw the tree for the first time since the accident. She knew it was on that road, but avoiding it would have meant a fifteen-kilometer detour to the freeway. She had to face up to that route today, or she wouldn't be able to for a long time. She fixed her eyes straight ahead, through the windshield, and avoided looking at the asphalt to keep from seeing any shards of glass glimmering on the ground or any skid marks. She tried to look at the sky—she didn't want to see a wound on the tree's trunk—but it was no use. They had tied a bouquet to it with the whitest ribbon they could find. She saw the wilted flowers for a moment as short as the one when Jaume had seen that same trunk before slamming into its previous flowerless incarnation. The trunk of his own cherry tree. Who had put the bouquet there? Who had taken the liberty of rubbing the tree in her face, with all its bare branches? Didn't anyone think of her or the boys' parents? Change the road's course, erase it from the map, saw down that plane tree, she didn't want to see the accident every time she passed by.

Hidden, up until then, behind Jaume, Xavi started to make his demands. What about me, Iona? Now you're acting like we don't know each other. Do you think I suffered any less than my brother?

Not even the corpses thought twice before violating her space.

I have something important to tell you, Iona. It was all his fault. I had nothing to do with it. It wouldn't have happened to me. He stole my life, Iona. I was his brother, and he stole everything from me. And all because he didn't want to let me touch his car. How was any of this my fault? I wouldn't have killed him, Iona. I've had accidents, sure, but never bad enough to kill anyone, much less kill my brother. I would have been more careful; I would have been able to regain control of the wheel. I was the younger one, more innocent, we were two years apart; think about what two years means, when you only live to twenty. How could I return to the world now? Who would I trust? Did you notice how they looked at you in the church? Not my parents, my poor parents, they lost two sons, one as a punishment for the other. But you dated Jaume for years. No one was as close to him as you were. You are the heiress, the next in line. Think what he left you. He was driving. It was his fault. Why didn't he lend me the car? He always treated me like a little kid. He had to kill me. Imagine, if he'd just killed himself, the little brother would have ended up growing past the older one. Think about me, Iona. I'm here too. Didn't you see how people were looking at you? He was your boyfriend, Iona; I wasn't the one who was supposed to be by his side on Saturday night. Remember me.

The news had spread through the department, and it was worse than she had expected. All morning her fellow students took advantage of her. It was a practical lesson: How will we treat Iona? How do we treat a client who's just lost her dog? Or a dog that's just lost its owner?

“I just wanted to say that I'm so sorry,” said one student, using the exact same words the trucker had the day before.

“Iona, are you okay?” Yes, she's fine, compared to the others.

“Don't worry about not answering my messages, I understand.”

Those looks that wanted and taunted.

She didn't think she had the heart to stay in their shared apartment. She went back home, having to drive over that road again, but this time she was prepared. She knew which tree it was, and she was able to save herself from seeing the wound again. She sped up and went right by.

“What's wrong with guys?” she'd asked her sister. “How is it even possible that they're already hitting on me?”

“Don't ask me, you're the one studying veterinary science.”

In the midafternoon she went out to take a walk through the fields. Studying was impossible. By the door of the house she found Seda, a mutt who'd shown up at Can Bou a year before with a broken paw, probably from the road. It had been shortly after Frare's death. Iona and her sister cleaned her up, took care of her injury, and gave her a name. Seda had gotten used to lying on the porch; she couldn't keep up with the other dogs because she still limped. It was comforting to find her there, day and night; she had a spot reserved for her under the cherry tree.

The bitch wagged her tail with her ears back, and rubbed up against Iona's legs. When she kneeled down to pet her, they looked into each other's eyes. The eyes of an animal are terrible. Riding a horse you get the impression that the horse's legs are your own, you mentally merge with their gait and become a centaur. But through their eyes you go beyond
merging, they are tunnels to a shared world where you can't tell who is what.

A horse neighed softly when it saw Iona was leaving the house without taking the car. She turned around and went past the stables to stroke the horses. Brushing their manes, she saw herself in the well that was the four black balls of their eyes, and then left the building with the dog following her. They went past the two cherry trees, through the gate, and took a dirt road into the fields.

Don't even think about going near town; she didn't want to run in to anyone. The road gently rose and fell again; she could hear the freeway in the distance, but, except for the dog, Iona was quite alone. I wish I could just give in, she thought, kill Jaume right here and now, and lock myself away to cry for fifteen days straight, drop out of school, and change my life. But how could I do that to him?

She took paths that she didn't even take on horseback through the green fields; she followed a dirt trail through the forest to Can Salvi. She crossed under the highway, passed the offices of
El Rec Clar
magazine—the plain was a thin slice of fields—and entered the forest again, following the same path. She knew the way, and went up the hill where, as girls, she and her sister searched for mushrooms with their parents on November Sundays—the only outings they did as a family, right before holing up in the house for winter—and she reached Sant Iscle castle. It was four walls with two circular towers, one of which was reconstructed all the way up to its battlements. They had archeological digs there, last summer they found a children's graveyard, and everyone went to see the skeletons: a dozen skeletons like fish fossils that came
from underground; a dozen little skeletons with earth for flesh; the whole mountain, the whole planet was their bodies. She had gone there with Jaume to see the skeletons of the children, medieval skeletons, from before the castle had been built . . . Why were they buried together, and outside the town? That day she had told Jaume about the cherry tree at Can Bou, expecting him to tell her where their cherry tree was at Can Batlle, or their almond tree, or whatever tree or rock it was. But the question remained: why had they buried those children together, outside of town?

She walked around the castle, which still had its moat; she strolled along its walls with the dog behind her, and at the excavation site she noticed that Seda couldn't go any further, she was limping on her aching, stiff leg. A lame dog, a castle atop a hill with crumpled walls and a view over the whole plain . . .

She sat down, and Seda stretched out at her feet; she'd made her walk too much, poor thing, she hadn't been thinking about her bum leg. Animals don't complain. She reached down to pet her. Seda brought her snout close and wanted to lick Iona's face, but she didn't even have the strength to get up. Iona gradually calmed her. She thought about the boxer she'd helped die, took Seda's snout between her palms, and stroked her head as if she were that boxer. She looked into her eyes again and said to her:

“It was a second. It was only a second, right? You didn't suffer, it was just a surprise. Like a prick. Because . . . Where are you? Xavi is with you, isn't he? Tell him not to be mad at me. And not at you, either, you guys are brothers . . . poor Xavi. We think about him too, he shouldn't worry. . . If you
came back now, it would be like nothing happened. Everyone would act like nothing happened. Really. Your poor parents, you don't know how this is affecting them. If you can leave, you can come back too. . . I'm convinced of it . . . If you came back, it wouldn't be any stranger than it is now. . . and it would be a comfort to everyone . . . Explain it to Xavi . . . but, most of all, don't be upset, don't be upset with me, not that . . . and don't go off on your own, eh, don't leave your brother, stay together, like when you were little, okay? And if you can come back, everything will be the way it was, no one's going to mind at all, don't worry about a thing, really, come back, we'll all be really happy. . . We have those tickets for the summer. . . and your parents will be so happy. . . they're like me, they can't believe it. And my parents will act like nothing happened too. And Mireia. Everyone will. Me too. They'll be so happy, right, Seda? We'll act like nothing happened, right? You don't have to worry about what you did, it wasn't your fault, it wasn't anyone's fault, no one will blame you for anything. All day long I tell myself that you're not dead. But if you are, it doesn't matter. . . What would it change? Being here a little bit longer? Who cares? What does it matter to anyone? Look around. Remember Nil Dalmau? I saw him yesterday, he wanted to meet up, and I didn't know how to say no; he's the weirdest guy in the world, he has a ring in his ear,
in
his earlobe, he collects insects and . . . If you were here, he wouldn't have shown them to me. But don't hold it against him, everyone's taking advantage . . . I guess I should understand, I'm in vet school . . . I didn't go to class yesterday or the day before; I went back today, Jaume, to see if I'd chosen the wrong profession. Everything's so different now. Do
you see poor Seda, how far I made her walk? I wasn't even thinking about her, the poor thing. And now what? How do we get back? But you're okay, right, where you are? Don't be sorry about having to leave . . . I think you're here and you haven't died, not to me and not to anyone . . . Isn't he here, Seda? Your leg's hurting, huh?”

She thought about calling her sister to come pick them up in the car, but the path was bad, and Mireia was working in Girona that afternoon anyway. She tried to carry the dog, but Seda got anxious and scratched her, and she wasn't exactly small. She put her down and walked slowly, stopping frequently to give her a chance to catch up. Seda limped behind her. They passed right by the new cemetery and the still-empty morgue, a concrete mass set down between the fields, because the dead no longer fit into the old cemetery, and if the dead didn't fit there, thought Iona, we could bury them like the dogs, at home, beneath the cherry tree, and when the cherry trees died we could take them to the cemetery, bury them stretched out inside the niches. And she thought about how the two brothers were there, on the other side of the wall, beyond the cemetery gates, among the bricks of the niches and among the wood of the coffins, and that she didn't care at all. She could have walked within a meter of their heads or their feet and not have felt a thing, as if they'd been erased, as if they'd never existed.

They were already nearing the house along the back path, and Iona saw her father coming in from the fields with three black day laborers. She rushed over, coming up from behind without them seeing her.

“They were good kids,” her father was saying. “They were good kids, but they drove too fast. And better now than later.”

Iona couldn't quite catch up with him, Seda was limping more and more. Her father said:

“My daughter will find someone else, it's a tragedy, but you've got to keep going in life, I don't need to tell you guys that, right? You know the boys I'm talking about? Those kids. I'll miss them; no way around that. I would've liked to have a son. But then who'd hire you guys? But that kid wasn't perfect. Where were they coming from, in the wee hours on a Sunday morning? They died coming out of Vidreres. But where were they coming from, at that time of the night? Where were they going? I wonder where all this is going to lead. We won't be able to change Mireia; she'll stay in Girona forever. Real bad luck, shit, you can't even begin to imagine.”

“Dad,” she said, worried that he would think she'd heard him.

“Oh, there you are. I was just coming to look for you.”

Excited by him greeting Iona, the dog trotted as best she could over to her owner. She ran circles around his legs, happy and with her tongue out, but she was in such pain that she wasn't nimble enough and made him stumble. He kicked the dog's belly to get her out of his way, and she cried out, moaned, and lowered her ears as she moved away with her tail between her legs. Ondó, one of the day laborers, was smiling until he saw Iona's expression. Then he looked her in the eye and smiled even wider, revealing all his teeth.