The Boys (13 page)

“You mind telling me what's so funny?” she said.

Ondó suddenly stopped smiling. He lowered his gaze and left. There were plenty of people who could work at
Can Bou. These three day laborers shared an apartment in Vidreres with four or five others, and Ondó could ruin it for all of them.

The dog took refuge at Iona's side.

“Why do you let her do that?” her father said. “You're spoiling her, don't they teach you that? What are they teaching you, to give cats manicures?”

Maybe he was right. Maybe they treated animals like humans because they wanted to make them disappear. There was exasperation in her father's face, as if he'd aged five or ten years in the last few days. He was hard to understand on the surface; he was a surly, remote man, and his relationship to the land and the crops made him predictable and simple. You knew there must have been more to him, behind that, and if you were his daughter, you could even rummage through the hidden part, but whatever was there never came to the surface; there were no shadows that hinted at anything more, ever, and so it was as if there was nothing there at all. But the boys' death had touched his depths; he'd known those boys even longer than he'd know Iona, had seen them come into the world, and shared the same skies and seasons with them. More than once they'd come over to Can Bou to lend a hand and, for a man who'd barely had a mother, what had those deaths stirred up? A man who'd had a ghost for a mother must understand what Iona was experiencing. Maybe. Who knew?

“Cals came to see us this morning,” said her father, when they hadn't yet entered the house but had already peeled off from the day laborers, who were pedaling toward town. “They're selling the lands of Can Batlle.”

Yup. She hadn't counted on the ancestral world, the reality that preceded and survived the dead. Cals with his cane, who you ran into in town every time you went and who showed up at Can Bou two or three times every year since before she'd been born, and who'd be showing up after she was dead. He walked through the fields along the dirt path, came through the gate and into the house to say “hi” as if he were owed something, as if he had every right . . . and who knows, maybe he did. They'd invite him in and offer him a glass of wine. They told him what had happened since his last visit. He shared his information. He stroked the napes of the girls' necks when they were little.

Without the boys, the Batlles couldn't take care of their land. Something lurked behind that fact. How and when did she meet Jaume? They'd gone to school together. They'd started dating in high school. Can Batlle was in the same area, behind the little hill. From Can Bou they could see the two poplars at Can Batlle, one on either side of the big farmhouse. They used to send her over to the Batlles' house for tomato seedlings when she was a little girl. It wasn't unusual to see one or both of the two brothers at Can Bou when they were twelve, thirteen, fourteen years old. In those years they ran through the fields, playing in them, working them, or both. Later, they came over on motorcycle, and, before long, the Sureda sisters each had their own horse and would go riding past Can Batlle. They had occasionally all gone out together, and it seemed meant to be—one brother for each of them.

And while the girls' parents hadn't been pleased when Mireia found work in a shop on Nou Street in Girona,
they'd been all smiles when Iona said she wanted to study to become a veterinarian. And while no one but her sister knew anything about Mireia's love life—she'd been dating a boy from Salt for over a year—when Iona started dating Jaume it quickly became common knowledge, not that there was any way they could have hidden it.

The two brothers' deaths had reached the inside of the house; they could be felt beneath the tiles, already settled in their underground rooms.

“Our fields touch each other, over there by the path,” her father said, and she hadn't realized, she'd never thought she could have an even more physical relationship with Jaume, but their lands had been touching before they'd even been born.

He would work the land; she would be a vet. No need to open a clinic, no need to leave home.

“Cals filled my head with talk of that land, and he's completely right. If we want it, we have to act fast. Lluís from Can Dalmau wants it too. Before saying anything to your mother, you and I need to talk. To the Batlles, you're not just our daughter. We aren't just any bidder. You have certain rights.”

“What do you want? My approval?”

“No. Without the boys, they can't take care of the land. They're not like us, who, over the years, have figured things out. They don't know anything about working with the blacks and North Africans, what a hassle it is. And they're old, and even if they did hire people, what would be the point? They can't take any of it with them. And they don't have family to take over the land. In two months it will all be a jungle. They're in a terrible state. But they won't just sell it to the first
bidder who comes along. Cals is totally right about that. You have to come with me. Lluís Dalmau is rich, and he wants the land for his boy.”

“Nil Dalmau? Did you see him? Does it look to you like he wants to spend his life . . .”

“Everybody saw him. That's none of our business. A lot of things happen in life, and Lluís knows that as well as you and I do. Land is land. Isn't Nil older than you? They're not bad folks. They've got a lot of land—the whole Miralles area is theirs. But Can Batlle is here. We've had bad luck, what can I say, but it's just bad luck and nothing more.”

The well was in the toolshed, the shed they'd filled on Monday with bales of hay to feed and bed the two horses. Four more dogs emerged to greet the father and daughter. Seda lay in her spot by the door, and Iona sat in a chair waiting for her father.

“It's all set up,” her father said, coming out of the house. “We can go over there right now.”

The five dogs followed them through the fields. The last one was Seda. It was getting dark. The dogs accompanied them to the end of the path and stopped there. Before turning tail and returning home alone, they sat down for a moment on their haunches, to make sure that the father and daughter were continuing. Iona turned to look at them and was glad for Seda's sake. They sat on the border, as if wanting to convince them to come back.

Can Bou was hidden behind some pine trees. Can Batlle was still far off, but she could see the roof peeking out from behind a small hill, a string of smoke from the chimney, and
the tips of the two poplars. Quickly they made their way out of the no-man's-land. It was a relief to walk without speaking. The dogs must already be back at the house. They were barking in the distance, as they always did at dusk. That was when the dogs barked, every day at the same time, it had always been like that; they'd spend fifteen minutes or half an hour yapping at their ghosts, maybe protesting that the blinds were being drawn before the day was over. Their barking grew increasingly faint, and the dogs at Can Batlle took up the slack.

When Iona was about to turn thirteen, her father prepared a surprise for her. He left certain rows unplanted, making a small labyrinth in one of the cornfields. In August, with her birthday approaching, Iona's parents told her she could invite her friends to the labyrinth. The day of the party, at dusk, the same time it was now, they went in with flashlights. The barking of the dogs was the same, though they were different dogs—Frare, Lluna, and Bobi were still alive. Between cousins and friends there must have been a dozen kids; Jaume and Xavier were there too, fourteen and twelve years old then. They ran with their flashlights through the green leaves and unkempt shadows of the ears. Everything smelled of earth, of the cornstalks and sharp leaves that her father had watered that afternoon, of the dry stubble of the surrounding wheat fields. Ears of corn, narrow rows, the crunching of dry leaves beneath their feet, stalks like bones two meters tall—you couldn't see a thing even if you jumped, not the highway, not a single light in any house, just the half moon in the sky. She got separated from Mireia and found herself alone in the labyrinth. She began to worry
she'd come across animals in the rows: nocturnal snakes or foxes, as lost as she was, who might follow her or be lying in wait among the stalks; rabid dogs; runaway horses whose running widened the narrow rows, she could hear the gallop; or a bunch of boars who crunched dry leaves beneath their feet and would come charging at her; or ghost children; or a glowing alien among the dark stalks. She stopped and held her breath. She realized that a cage doesn't have to be locked. The dry leaves on the ground shone like tinfoil. She could only hear crickets. The fear wasn't entirely unpleasant, and she had a thought that made her brave, and which would always be with her in moments of fear: that the worst thing that could happen was dying. You could die, but that was the worst that could happen to you.

Now that had changed. It wasn't so clear anymore. Maybe it was worse when someone else died.

They were singing happy birthday. They had started suddenly. She saw a dim light around a corner of the labyrinth, the shadows trembling like her; she ran toward it, and there was Mireia with all the other kids and some parents too, and a cake topped with thirteen candles.

Father and daughter walked through the fields that had been abandoned since Saturday and discovered, here and there, the first signs of neglect: a tool out of place, a sack that should have been picked up, a weed growing on the path to the vegetable garden.

Night would fall before they returned home. They could smell the smoke of burning holm oak wood. There were two cars parked on the threshing floor, one was Xavi's, newly
repaired, which would have to be sold too. The dogs knew them and barked more in greeting than in warning. Mateu opened the door for them, and they went into the dining room. The television was on, and a small fire burned in the fireplace with more heat than flame, adding to the oppressive temperature coming from the radiators. Next to the television was a collection of family photographs. The living and the dead from different periods gathered in small, upstanding silver frames—a cemetery crowded with tombstones. There were photographs in black and white and in faded color: weddings, baptisms, vacations, holiday meals; all the subjects were smiling.

Llúcia sat beside the fireplace. She tried to smile at Iona but didn't get up. She kept watching the television show. She and her husband were dressed in black. How long was the grieving period for parents who had lost two sons? That is, if it ever ended, or if they'd even begun, if they'd ever get past the denial. Because they could dress in black, they could go to the funeral and to a thousand masses, sign all the documents and death certificates, cry for weeks and years and decades, and fill the new cemetery with flowers . . . they could both commit suicide one day without ever having given up even an ounce of denial. Because, deep down, they would keep that ace up their sleeve forever.

“I'm so sorry to disturb you, but I think it's best this way,” Iona's father said. “Our great-grandparents were neighbors, and maybe even their great-grandparents as well. There are things that have to be said face-to-face. I guess that coming with Iona says enough. Cals says that you're in negotiations with Lluís Dalmau. I want to make it clear that we are interested.”

It wasn't just the land he was asking for, but his own daughter. Her mother had recovered her body, her father would recover the land—the land wouldn't die when she died. Iona saw a flash of herself buried beside Jaume, between the two brothers, at the castle's excavation site. Unless something really changed for her sister, it would be Iona's husband who would end up working these fields. She was being given up for adoption to Can Batlle.

“We've spoken with Lluís. He called. We don't even have any nieces or nephews. Llúcia is an only child and my brother is unmarried. I understand what you're asking me. But I can't just give it to you either.”

“No one said anything about giving.”

“And not the house, as long as we're alive.”

My God, thought Iona.

“Now think it over,” said her father, as if he were the one giving them something. “And I'll come see you tomorrow at this same time, by myself. You more or less have an idea . . .”

Iona kept running her gaze over the photographs beside the television. She ordered them by date in her mind, there were about twenty. The oldest ones looked like drawings. A farm couple. Some kids on Palm Sunday. A ninety-year-old man, still working the land. Jaume's grandfather. Jaume's father with a fifty-year-old tractor. Babies. Jaume and Xavi dressed for their communions. The two brothers on their motorcycle from the period when she and Jaume started dating. The two brothers with new cars. They were children. She still perfectly remembered that tee shirt and those pants.

Few parents manage to see the entire lives of their children. She knew the photographs from all the times she'd
been in the dining room of that house, but now she was starting to feel the same strangeness with Jaume and Xavi as she'd been feeling with their parents. She saw herself trapped in another life, because she saw that she was in one of the photos too. How was it possible that she'd never noticed it before? Hadn't they shown it to her? Had they put it out recently? It was from Jaume's saint's day, in the summer, half a year ago, after Sunday lunch. Jaume and Xavi were sitting with her at the table in that very dining room where they were now. Iona wanted out from behind that glass, she felt instinctive repulsion, as if she were sitting at the table with two corpses. She grabbed the frame. She wanted to throw it into the fire.

Jaume's mother stood up and took it from her fingers.

“I wanted to ask you for that photograph,” said Iona, but Llúcia placed it back down among the other portraits.

“It's very sad for a son to see his mother die. But for a mother to see her son's death . . . two sons' deaths . . .” And she hugged her husband. She had been thinking about it every minute, been waiting for days to get the courage to say those words. How could she accept her survival? How could a mother not feel guilty, a mother who'd brought two sons into the world and let them leave it all alone?