Mouthful of Birds

THE DIGGER

I needed a rest, so I rented a big house near a coastal town far from the city. The house was ten miles from the town on a gravel road that led to the sea. The final stretch was just two dirt tracks, almost impossible to see in the tall grass; soon they disappeared entirely and I couldn’t go any farther in the car. I could see the upper floor of the house in the distance, so I steeled myself to get out, take the essentials, and continue on foot. It was growing dark, and though I couldn’t see the ocean, I could hear the waves crashing on the shore. I hadn’t walked far when I tripped over something.

“Is that you, sir?”

I started backward.

“Sir, is that you?” A man stood up with difficulty. “I didn’t waste a single day, eh… I swear it on my own mother…”

He spoke hurriedly while he smoothed the wrinkles in his clothes and arranged his hair.

“The thing is that just last night… You can imagine, sir, that being so close I wasn’t going to leave things for the next day. Come, come,” he said, and he climbed down into a hole amid the scrub, just a step away from where we were.

I knelt down and put my head in. The hole measured over a yard wide, and I couldn’t make out anything inside. For whom could this worker be working, when he couldn’t even recognize his own boss? What was he looking for, digging so deep?

“Sir, are you coming down?”

“I think you’ve made a mistake,” I said.

“What?”

I told him I wasn’t coming down, and, as he didn’t answer, I went to the house instead. Only when I reached the front stairs did I hear a distant “Very good, sir, as you like.”

The next morning, I went out to get the luggage I’d left in the car. The man was sitting on the veranda of the house, nodding off, a rusty shovel propped between his knees. When he saw me, he put the shovel down and hurried to catch up with me. He carried the heaviest luggage, and, pointing to some packages, he asked if they were part of the plan.

“I’m sorry, but I need to get organized,” I said, and when we reached the door I took what he was carrying so he wouldn’t come inside.

“Yes, yes, sir. As you like.”

I went inside. From the kitchen windows I could see the beach. There were hardly any waves; the water was ideal for swimming. I crossed the kitchen and looked through the front window: the man was still there. He alternated between looking toward the hole and studying the sky. When I went out, he corrected his posture and greeted me respectfully.

“What are we doing, sir?”

I realized that one gesture from me would have sufficed to make the man run to the hole and start digging. I looked toward the fields, in the direction of the pit.

“How much is left, do you think?”

“Not much, sir, not much at all…”

“How much is not much, in your opinion?”

“Not much… I wouldn’t know for sure.”

“Do you think it’s possible to finish tonight?”

“I can’t promise anything… You know: it doesn’t depend only on me.”

“Well, if you want to do it so badly, do it. Finish it once and for all.”

“Consider it done, sir.”

I saw the man pick up the shovel, go down the stairs from the house toward the field, and disappear into the hole.

Later on I went to town. It was a sunny morning and I wanted to buy bathing trunks to take advantage of the sea; when it came down to it, I had no reason to worry about a man who was digging a hole at a house that didn’t belong to me. I went into the only store I found open. When the clerk was wrapping up my purchase, he asked me:

“And how is your digger doing?”

I was silent for several seconds, maybe waiting for someone else to answer.

“My digger?”

He handed me the bag.

“Yes, your digger…”

I handed the man the money and looked at him, surprised. Before I left I couldn’t help but ask him:

“How do you know about the digger?”

“What do you mean, how do I know about the digger?” he asked, as if he couldn’t comprehend what I was saying.

I went back to the house and the digger, who was waiting asleep on the veranda, woke up as soon as I opened the door.

“Sir,” he said, getting to his feet, “there’s been great progress, I do believe we’re getting closer and closer…”

“I’m going down to the beach before it gets dark.”

I don’t remember why it seemed like a good idea to tell him. But there he was, pleased at my comment and ready to go with me. He waited outside for me to change, and a little later we walked toward the sea.

“There’s no problem with you leaving the hole?” I asked.

The digger stopped.

“Would you rather I go back?”

“No, no, I’m just asking.”

“It’s just that if anything happened”—he seemed poised to go back to the hole—“it would be terrible, sir.”

“Terrible? What could happen?”

“Just got to keep digging.”

“Why?”

He looked at the sky, first to one side, then the other.

“Well, don’t worry.” I went on walking. “Come with me.”

The digger followed me, hesitant.

Once at the beach, a few yards from the sea, I sat down to take off my shoes and socks. The man sat next to me, put his shovel aside, and took off his boots.

“Do you know how to swim?” I asked. “Why don’t you come in with me?”

“No, sir. I’ll just watch, if you don’t mind. And I brought the shovel, in case you come up with a new plan.”

I stood up and walked toward the sea. The water was cold, but I knew the man was watching me and I didn’t want to back out.

When I returned, the digger wasn’t there.

With a doomed feeling, I looked for footprints heading toward the water in case he had followed my suggestion, but I didn’t see anything and I decided to go back. I looked in and around the hole. In the house, I made an uneasy tour of the rooms. I stopped on the landings of the stairs and I called to him from the hallways, a bit embarrassed. Later, I went outside again. I walked to the hole, looked in, and called to him again. I couldn’t see anything. I lay facedown on the ground, stuck my hand in, and felt the walls: this was a meticulous job. The hole was approximately three feet wide and seemed to go down toward the center of the earth. I entertained the possibility of getting in, but right away I ruled it out. When I put one hand on the ground to push myself up, the edge crumbled. I held on to the scrub, and, paralyzed, I heard the sound of the earth falling in the darkness. My knees slipped on the edge and I saw the mouth of the hole break apart and disappear inside it. I stood up and observed the disaster. I looked fearfully around me, but I didn’t see the digger anywhere. Then it occurred to me that I could fix the edges with a little damp earth, although I would need a shovel and some water.

I went back to the house. I opened the closets, went through two back rooms that I was entering for the first time, and searched the laundry room. Finally, in a box with other old tools, I found a trowel. It was small, but it would be a start. When I went out of the house, I found myself face-to-face with the digger. I hid the trowel behind my back.

“I was looking for you, sir. We have a problem.”

For the first time, the digger was looking at me with distrust.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Someone else has been digging.”

“Someone else? Are you sure?”

“I know the job. Someone has been digging.”

“And where were you?”

“I was sharpening my shovel.”

“Okay,” I said, trying to be decisive. “You dig as much as you can and don’t wander off again. I’ll keep an eye on the surroundings.”

He hesitated. He took a few steps away but then stopped and turned back toward me. Distracted, I had let my arm fall and the trowel hung alongside my legs.

“Are you going to dig, sir?” He looked at me.

Instinctively, I hid the shovel. He seemed not to recognize in me the man I had been for him up until a moment before.

“Are you going to dig?” he repeated.

“I’ll help you. You dig for a while and I’ll take over when you’re tired.”

“The hole is yours,” he said. “You can’t dig.”

Then the digger lifted up his shovel and, looking me in the eyes, drove it into the ground again.