War, So Much War

I MIDNIGHT

I WAS BORN AT MIDNIGHT, IN THE AUTUMN OF THE YEAR, WITH A birthmark on my forehead no bigger than a lentil. When I made my mother angry, she would stand with her back to me and say, you remind me of Cain. Josep had a scar in the shape of a fish on his left thigh, on the inside; it was funny. Rossend, the son of the junkman who lent us his donkey and wagon to take our carnations to market, had a red-tipped nose that was funny. Ramon, the butcher’s son, had pointy ears that were funny. I wasn’t funny. If they ever teamed up against me to taunt me for not wanting to join in their games, I drove them back by shouting that the Devil was my uncle and he had marked me on the forehead before I was born so he could find me easily, even in the middle of a group of boys. I was as blond as a gold thread. When I was three, everyone mistook me for a girl because Mother had never cut my hair and it fell in ringlets down the sides of my neck. The day Mother took me to see Father Sebastià to have me admitted to school, Father Sebastià gave me a sad look and said: We don’t accept girls. Mother lapsed into all manner of explanations. It pained her to cut such beautiful hair; I was too little and would be cold with my hair all chopped off. And while she was explaining, I, who already knew how to write my name, strode to the blackboard, and grasping a piece of chalk, white on black, scribbled in large, crooked letters: Adrià Guinart. Father Sebastià noticed at once and, clasping his hands together, exclaimed, “A veritable archangel!”

I started school with my hair cropped, distressed by the change but wiser than the other boys. Father Sebastià had me sit beside him when he taught Sacred History; my gaze troubled him if I sat on the bench: too much like an owl, he said. We had a thick folder full of large holy pictures that was kept locked in the cupboard where we stored notebooks, pencils, and chalk. While he spoke, I — it was always I — was supposed to wield a wooden stick to point to the things he mentioned: the Dead Sea, the Staff of Moses, the Tables of the Law, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Adam and Eve wearing fig leaves. Now point to Solomon. I was always mortified when I had to point to the fellow who lost his strength when they cut his hair. Point to the herald angel. Blond, with ringlets like I had before starting school, the blooming lily in his hand, and feathery wings — a blue stripe, a red stripe — the angel hovered in mid-air before Mary. When it was time for the image of the Great Flood, all the boys in the class, even the sleepiest, most distracted, perked up. As I followed the arching rainbow of colors with the pointer, I could feel myself floating between the green and the purple, the yellow and the pink. . Hadn’t Father Sebastià called me an archangel? Archangels flew. Cain and Abel. I held my breath. Abel was grazing his sheep. Cain was sweating and plowing. I was dreaming Sacred History, dreaming angels, dreaming saints, dreaming of myself living Sacred History, crossing deserts and making water flow from springs. On the days when the Crucifixion print was shown, as soon as I reached the field of carnations, I would race from one end to the other, and stand on tiptoes, reaching up as far as I could to hear the stars whispering, poor thing, poor thing, he doesn’t have wings. .

The house was ancient, the sink had a terrible stench, the faucet leaked. On windy days the cold crept in through the cracks, but in good weather the smell of flowers permeated every corner. On the Sundays when my father wasn’t of a mind to visit his cousins, he would take me for a walk. We spent hours sitting by the side of the road, and sometimes the air winnowed threads from the hearts of stunted flowers, and some would catch in my clothes. It seemed to me that people were all the same: with legs, with thighs, with eyes, mouths, teeth. I walked along, straight as a ninepin, holding the hand of my father who was tall and very good. I don’t know why I resented girls; if I ever got my hands on one, I would wring her neck like you would a bird’s. They exhaust motherly love.

A neighbor who worked in the textile factory had a daughter. One Saturday afternoon she asked my mother to keep the baby. I was anxious: Mother had announced that she had gone to buy me a sister and I would never again be alone; we would have a little girl at home who would laugh and cry. When I asked her why she had bought a girl and not a boy, she simply stated that she had received notice that it would be a girl. That Saturday afternoon my mother said she had to go see somebody about selling the carnations; she told me to keep an eye on the neighbor’s baby and to be especially careful not to let the cat near her. When Mother left, I went to peep at the sleeping baby and at the cat, which she had shut in the kitchen. The baby’s name was Mariona; she was pink and had gold earrings. She was lying across two chairs that had been pushed together. I picked her up and put her on the floor. The moan she made took my breath away. I started undressing her the way you would a doll: off with the bodice, off with the panties, off with the swaddling clothes, off with the woolen slippers. I couldn’t remove her earrings because I didn’t know how to unfasten them. When I had her naked as a little worm, I placed her on a towel and, tugging on it, I dragged her to the edge of the field. She was half awake, and the sunlight roused her completely. I curled up beside her and studied her bare gums and her hair — just a few hairs, and very fine. Her eyes were the color of violets, dappled with gold. Intoxicated by the thrill of feeling so old beside she who was so small, I stood up and went to pluck all the violets. Her eyes would be the only violets. In the middle of the field, between two rows of carnations, above the irrigation ditch, I fashioned for her a bed of round, green violet leaves. I carried her there, fearing I might break her, and put her down. She stopped breathing for a moment, and then, all at once, with her mouth wide open, the crying began. I had the urge to take her up to the roof terrace, where the railing was broken, and throw her down. I ran to fetch the cat. I put it down next to her and it sat very still. Look at the cat. . look. . I made her little hand stroke the cat’s back, but suddenly it wanted loose and jumped on her and scratched her chest. My mother once told someone — I don’t remember who — that when children are left to cry for too long they break. Be still, little girl. I was afraid she might shatter the way a cup does when you drop it. The little girl was covered in blood. Mother whacked me. I wanted to die. I climbed onto the roof of the toolshed and threw myself down. I fell on all fours. I spent all that night, that moonlit night, hurling myself from the shed to the ground. Shortly thereafter, my first little sister was born. And on that night I planted myself. When I had dug a deep hole at the foot of the hazel tree, I climbed in and covered myself with dirt up to my knees. I had taken the watering can with me, and I watered myself. I wanted to grow roots, I wanted to be all branches and leaves.

Mother was from the neighborhood of Sarrià in Barcelona, and she had a field of carnations between Sarrià and Sant Gervasi, near the train line to Sabadell. I helped in the tasks of watering, taking cuttings, and picking flowers. We worked from sunup to sundown. My father died when I was eleven. He was a train driver. He had a mustache and large, tranquil eyes. When I was little, to get me to sleep he would sit me on his lap and sing me the song about the wheels that go round and round, round and round. He said there was a fiery moon the first time the man appeared on the tracks. A thick fog lay asleep above the trees to the right. And a man was walking right down the middle of the tracks toward the train. As soon as my father saw him, he blew the whistle. The man, who was small at first but started getting bigger, walked on as though there were no train bearing down on him. He got so close my father could see the clothes he was wearing: light-colored trousers and a yellow-and-black striped shirt. My father braked. There was screaming in the compartments. My father got off the train, followed by a group of passengers. They found no one on the tracks. Father had to give the company an account of what had happened to explain why the train was late. Everything would have ended with that if a year later, in the same spot but on a pitch-black night with snowflakes falling calmly from the sky, the man walking along the tracks had not appeared again, in the same attire: pale trousers and a yellow and black shirt. The train was moving at full speed, the wheels singing that song about wheels that go round and round. The minute my father spotted him, he blew the whistle several times, but the stubborn man kept getting closer. Until, finally, his heart pounding, my father was forced to brake. Frightened screams came from the passenger cars. My father got off the train. There was no one on the tracks. Together with some passengers, they scoured the surrounding area. Nothing turned up. My father sensed that the people didn’t believe him, that they were eyeing him as though he were crazy. Again, he had to notify the company. If they ever came to suspect that the train driver was seeing visions. . And on a moonlit night, an expanse of silvery fields on either side of the track, the man in pale trousers and striped shirt again appeared in the distance, as he had on the two previous occasions. My father said he closed his eyes. . and did not brake. And with every one of his senses he felt the sound of bones being crushed. The company did not fire him, but he was moved to another line. He operated a dilapidated old train that was as subdued as a turtle and only made short hauls. Plunged into the well of that mystery, he died of a heart attack shortly thereafter. Mother did not weep for him. The carnations were hard work and we had to carry on. The house began to lose its color, as if everything — kitchen utensils, furniture, and walls — were bathed in a sickly light.

One day I sassed my mother, and the very next day she spoke of my brother for the first time. When I came home wet and dirty from having diverted the irrigation ditches, she would say, without looking at me: I had your brother brush the junkman’s donkey. Tomorrow at dawn your brother will help me load the carnations. Your brother. . But I had no brother. One evening I thought I saw him hiding in the camellia shed. He looked just like me. I moved closer, there was no one in the camellias.

I started running away at night. I would jump out the kitchen window into the field and squeeze through the parted spikes of the gate to the street. I was suffocating at home. The trains that sped past in the night kept me company. I never left the neighborhood. The locked houses, the dead windows, the balconies with the shadows of hanging flowers, the cool nocturnal water of a fountain in a square, a stone bench at the entrance to a house: They were my companions. The streets with no living soul were my palaces, my joy, my fear. The streets lined with ancient trees, their tall branches on the point of thrusting themselves upon me and sweeping me aloft: They were my nightmares. At daybreak I would return to the prison of my home.

Ever since the war began, Rossend — the junkman’s son, two years my senior — had not stopped talking about it. He told me he was joining up. Why don’t you come with me?

II THE ESCAPE

FRESH AIR STREAMED IN THROUGH THE WINDOW. WHEN THE dining-room clock struck three, I rose and left without even washing my face and, you might say, with only the clothes on my back. I had taken some fifty steps when something made me turn around and glance back at the house. The moonlight fell full on it. My father stood at the door watching me, holding me — still a little boy — in his arms. It was the first night that I roamed alone through streets outside my neighborhood. I ran. Goodbye carnations, adéu!

Rossend and I had arranged to meet at the Jardinets de Gràcia. He was going to show up in a van, but he didn’t explain how he would come by it. I’m friends with a very important captain and we’ll do just as we please. There was no Rossend, no van at the Jardinets. I couldn’t go home again, no matter what happened now. I had taken it into my head to go off to war and that is what I would do. Maybe Rossend, who was also running away, hadn’t been able to slip out. I paced back and forth beneath the blue lampposts for a long time; then I sat on a bench. I got up from the bench. I sat down again. I crossed the street. I hid in a doorway because people were approaching. I sat on a stone bench in front of which were a fountain, plants, trees. The moonlight pierced through the leaves and dappled the ground with light. I stood and headed back to the other bench. For a long while, and then longer still, I wandered from one place to another. Until, finally, a white van with red and black letters smeared across the side stopped in front of me. Rossend and three other fellows jumped out just as the sirens started to wail. Right away flashes from the antiaircraft artillery began to sweep the sky. I would have liked to see a bomb fall. The plane flew low overhead; you could hear its engine just above the houses. The antiaircraft guns spit fire. Run for cover! Everyone, against the wall. Antiaircraft weapons are deadlier than bombs. These sirens. . Rossend covered his ears and closed his eyes. One of the boys, the one who seemed the youngest of the three, said with a grown-up voice, if these sirens bother you, I’d like to see you at the front where they never stop. I’ve just come from the front, said another boy, who had a red scarf around his neck and a dagger in his belt, and they can bomb away all they please, it won’t get them anywhere. We’re stronger. You can’t mess around with the will of the people. Them on the other side, when they catch sight of us, they take off running. I swear. They hide. I stand above the trench with the butt of my rifle propped against my thigh. . So they can take your picture, said the boy with the thick voice. Shut up. Do they shoot to kill? Rossend asked. Shut up. And without looking at us the boy who hadn’t uttered a word the whole time said, but you’ve never even been to the front. Oh, is that so? And this wound on my thigh, what’s that supposed to mean? He rolled up one of the legs of his trousers and showed us a red scar at knee level. You got that when some animal kicked you. You always have to contradict me. Because I know you and I know how you like to string lies together. . The airplane engine rumbled in the distance. The antiaircraft guns were still sweeping the sky. Everyone, in the van! Now we’ll start living, Rossend said as he took the wheel. The boy with the red scarf sat beside him. Me and the others climbed in the back. Half a dozen rifles were stashed in the corner. If I liked the idea of going off to war, it was, among other things, because I would be going with Rossend: I’d known him since I was little, we played together, we were friends, he lived near my house. I didn’t know where the others were from, where they were born, who their parents were.

Their presence made me uncomfortable. If at least Rossend had let me sit beside him, but he was ignoring me. The boys stretched out on the floor of the van, and I did the same. They stank. They were breathing heavily. From time to time the guy with the thick voice made a strange sound with his teeth. The jolting of the van lulled me to sleep. Why did Rossend have to be such good friends with that fellow with the red scarf who stood up in the trenches, when the others said he was a liar? Exhaustion muddled my mind, and I saw my father waving goodbye at the foot of a floating house with a facing of bright, gleaming tiles and blue lampposts, and moonlight streaming through the leaves, until everything began to spin: Father, Father’s hand, gleaming house, moonlight, blue lampposts, lances of light against the sky. I was asleep when we reached the front.

III IN THE WOODS

I LOST MY WAY AND DIDN’T KNOW WHICH DIRECTION TO TAKE, until a carriage road jumped out in front of me, so to speak, and I followed it. It was a fine day, a sunny day, an autumn day as I had never seen before in my short life. Sitting with my back against the trunk of a pine tree, I took several deep breaths. The ground was blanketed with pine needles but I couldn’t contemplate it calmly: The wound in my arm was tender and the bandage was stained with blood. At the entrance to the carriage road I found some rope, almost new and rather long. I’ll keep a piece. I cut it with the penknife my father had given me just before he saw the man walking into the train for the first time. The knife had many different tools: It was a knife, spoon, corkscrew, paper cutter, awl, scissors, and screwdriver. My mother scolded him: It’s dangerous, keep it till he’s older.

At my feet, a row of ants were dragging a beetle belly up; it was wiggling its feet, with nowhere to latch on to. A pinecone landed on my back. I looked up to see where it had fallen from. A flight of birds crossed the sky. The half-dead beetle that the ants were towing was large, black, shiny. Potbellied. I felt the urge to turn it over on its feet and scatter the ants. A cannon shot dispersed the flock of birds. The ants were still dragging the beetle. A second cannon shot went off farther afield, as if borne by the wind. I was standing, on the point of fleeing, when I spotted a boy behind some trees darting by as though possessed; he didn’t seem real. Holding his arm out in front of him, he pointed in the direction of the cannon shot. Before disappearing into the pine trees, he shouted: Go home! For a long, long time I stood there thinking about the boy and what he had said. But I was hungry and hunger distracted me. I crushed the pinecone with a stone; the pine nuts were puny and bitter. I could have eaten a horse. For hours upon hours nothing had entered my stomach except a few clusters of green grapes and water from the river down below. My shoulders hurt from unloading sacks of lentils and potatoes and swinging an axe to chop wood for the soldiers’ kitchen. My wound ached. Everything ached.

Rossend and his friends disappeared right away. Juli-Juli, the plumber who washed pots and plates with me in the kitchen, told me they had been taken away during the night to build trenches in some village. And he said to me: What are you doing here, so young? Beat it! If you can.

The entrance to the ant nest was blocked by the beetle’s carapace, its legs scarcely moving now, and the ants scurried about like mad trying to find a way to maneuver it inside. I tripped on another piece of rope. The first scrap I had cut was in my pocket. My sole possessions were my father’s knife and that bit of rope. A sloping path ran across the carriage way. Standing between the road and the path, I chose the latter because it was narrow, the weeds around it tall. One final cannon shot rang out, even farther away than the second one, and at that moment I heard a man’s voice giving orders: Jump, you fool! Jump!

IV THE HANGED MAN

A LARGE SACK SUSPENDED FROM A TREE WAS SWINGING BACK AND forth, and from it emerged the head of a man with a straight, taut rope behind it. His face was white, his tongue black, his lips purple. By the tree, just beneath the hanged man’s feet, was a rock; I climbed on it and cut the rope. The hanged man crashed to the ground and hit his head, frightening me so much that I was sure I had killed him instead of saving him. He was young, with black hair and bushy eyebrows. Just as I was thinking that he had surrendered his soul to God, he opened one eye and immediately closed it again. He hadn’t the strength to hold my gaze. After a while he sat up halfway, and I helped him as he struggled to climb out of the sack. He snapped at me angrily, with a husky voice that seemed to come from beyond the grave: Why did you cut the rope?

For a long time — who is to say how long — his breathing was belabored. Give me some water. . I’m suffocating. . I rushed down to the river and, using a jar I found in his haversack, brought him some water; I held his head with one hand and poured water down his throat with the other. He coughed with every attempt; the effort was wearing him out, and finally his head dropped to the side. All of a sudden he revived. If I climbed into the sack to hang myself it’s because I wanted a shroud covering me when I died, to keep the vultures from picking the flesh off my bones if my body wasn’t found in time to be buried. And what about your head? I asked. My head, he said, they can have it. For all the good it’s done me. . He grasped his neck with both hands and tightened his grip. Maybe this way it won’t hurt so much. Pour some more water down me. You look hungry. There’s some bread in my bag. I can’t even swallow my own saliva. My tongue is swollen. Keep me company. He had me lie down beside him and we covered ourselves with the sack. As I lay there, half-asleep, surrounded by sylvan scents, I could hear the dull sound of a far-away conversation. I no longer remembered that I was sleeping next to a life I had saved. I would travel the world, I would help others, I would save lives. The stars above us seemed to be ushering away the night, and yet it would be a long time before morning dawned.

. . I made this sack out of four sacks I stole from the mill. Lying with his face to the sky, the hanged man spoke as if in a dream. From time to time he turned his head and looked at me. One whole day it took me to undo the seams and resew them in a different shape, using a sack needle, pushing the string through the holes. I made one sack out of the four. I left two sections unsewed so I could stick my arms through, tie the sack to my neck and slip on the rope collar with the slipknot. The hanged man began to weep with sadness; I gave him a good slap on the back to stop his crying and stood up. Don’t leave me, don’t leave me. . Just when I was resolved to snatch Ernestina away from her scoundrel of a husband, she left me. Went back to him! Her husband came looking for me one day and he broke down. He knelt and confessed that he was lost without Ernestina. Promise me you won’t take her from me. . Give me some water. I told him Ernestina and I had parted ways some time before. And her husband said, she must have someone else then. We embraced and walked out into the street. . when I met her she was wearing a red dress and had a daisy in her hair. . we went from tavern to tavern; in every tavern, a swig. And then, surprise: At Papagai’s, I met Faustina. He coughed, his voice growing hoarser as he spoke. And it was as though Ernestina had never existed. He lay there a while without opening his mouth, and when he said, I curse the day she let me enter her house, I thought his strength had given out, but he went on. The same day Faustina let me in her house and allowed me to kiss her behind the ear, she coiled around me like a snake. Straight away I explained it all to Ernestina’s husband, and he told his wife. To Faustina I confessed that I had loved Ernestina and that her husband and I were like brothers. . and I still don’t know what happened, but shortly thereafter the four of us took to frequenting the taverns together: Ernestina friends with Faustina, Faustina friends with Ernestina’s husband, and all three of them latching on to me. Not an hour went by that I didn’t feel watched, spied on, my steps shadowed. It was me against the three of them. . Them against me. Ernestina was defending Paulina one night when the four of us were walking down a street whose name I don’t recall. . I asked the hanged man who Paulina was and, after giving it some thought, he said he had misspoken, he had never known any Paulina and he meant to say Faustina, not Paulina. . and I just couldn’t take that kind of life any more, he continued. None of us made love, we had only reproaches for each other. I hated that dependency and yet I couldn’t live without it. Until finally the war came and I enlisted right away in hopes of saving my soul. But the war has finished me. Emptied me of everything, surrounded me with death and blood. . I died some time ago; why should I wish to breathe and possess a body that I despise and that persistently demands sleep, food, and sorrow? I mean joy, it asks for joy, even if just a little, but finds only sorrow. . Why, why did you unhang me? He leaned in to punch me and fell backward as if I had punched him instead. I wrapped him in the sack and dragged him behind the rock, near the tree where he had hanged himself. Little by little I covered him with stones. I couldn’t dig a hole to put him in because I didn’t have a hoe, or a pick, or a mattock.

V THE WAGON

THE BREAD THAT WAS LEFT IN THE HAVERSACK AND A FEW HANDFULS of blackberries I had picked nearby were my only meal that day. I didn’t know how to leave the dead man’s side. It was late at night when I lay down, with thoughts of Faustina and Ernestina still in my head. I finally fell into a restless sleep, until daybreak and the loud chirping of birds roused me. One of the birds had an orange belly, the others had green bellies. A sparrow began to squawk on the uppermost branch of the hanged man’s tree. It seemed to have gone mad. A song wafted up from the river; a girl was singing. I looked down from my perch on the hanged man’s rock and saw a strip of blue water. The girl’s voice had divested me of my nocturnal memories. The voice grew loud at times, as if the girl were facing the mountain as she sang; at times it darkened, as if she had turned around. The sparrow continued to squawk. For some reason it reminded me of my dead sisters. Perhaps because of that light, perhaps because the color of the sky that day was the same color that drowsed in the carnation fields, perhaps because. . the oldest one was named Laieta, the middle one Lea. . the voice that drifted up from the river had gone silent. The youngest was called Letícia, like my father’s great-grandmother, who was rich: She had two cars, six horses, wheat fields, a house with twelve rooms and a dozen chimneys. All three girls had long hair and dreamy, almond-shaped eyes. They were known in the neighborhood as the three Ls. Laieta had a temper like a thousand demons; she died of a raging tantrum. She liked to be called just that, Laieta. Where’s Laieta? What’s Laieta doing? Is Laieta still in the garden? And that’s when Mother, not wanting her to become capricious, started calling her La Lala. It made everyone laugh. La Lala. La Lala. But Laieta couldn’t take it, and one day she broke into tears and started screaming, the blood vessels in her temples bulging, her mouth agape as she banged her head over and over against the wall. A vein in her neck burst and she collapsed to the floor as if she’d been steamrolled. The other two succumbed to disease. We buried them, each at her own hour, wearing their First Communion gowns that came down to their feet, with a crown of roses, a veil gathered about them like a cloud, and a rosary coiled around their arms. . They were laid in caskets in the room with the red sofa, and when no one was keeping them company I would go and peep at them. They’re going to heaven, Mother would say. They will all have gone to heaven. And when we get there, she would add with a blank expression, they’ll come to greet us. I caressed their hands, neatly arranged across their chest; they were colder than the month of January. I straightened the crown of roses and studied the closed eyes that had looked at me so many times, glimmering like water. I would have liked to keep them with me forever; they were so still, so white, so free of malice.

I heard wagon wheels and men’s voices approaching. I crouched among the shrubs and made my way to the bend in the road. Two wagons had just stopped. Three men got out of the nearest one, all of them bearded, disheveled, their shirts unbuttoned, wearing baldoliers and red scarfs around their necks. Bare legs ending in waxen feet, some bloodied, dangled from the back of the wagon farthest away. One of the men, the oldest, said he was famished. The other two, and the fourth man who jumped down from the wagon that was carrying the dead men, sat down on the ground. All of them had a knapsack. They dug their teeth into large hunks of cheese and long loaves of bread of a kind I had never seen before. They drank wine from a goatskin. The fat one with a ruddy face and a cleft nose cut the bread and cheese and distributed it. The youngest moaned that he didn’t like cheese and would have preferred lamb chops. No one paid him any mind. The men said that the war might last a lot longer, maybe a hundred years. While there’s cannon fodder, there will be war. A man who looked a bit like my father, but without the mustache, said that it was just the opposite: The war was coming to an end and it was only a matter of months. . enough people had died; the country had been cleared of rabble. And rubble. Everyone laughed. The man with the cleft nose said, even if the war ends I’ll never go home again. I’m sick and tired of always doing the same thing. Fed up with working the same hours every day, endlessly sweeping streets and squares. Me, said the one who craved lamb chops, I’m going to be a shepherd. A shepherd? You’ll spend the rest of your life eating cheese. I’ll kill the sheep! The sight of the men chomping away on their food made my mouth water, and I was swallowing saliva when someone gave me a shove and I tumbled smack into the middle of the group of men. Look at the rabbit I just caught! The man speaking had white hair and a wavy lock that fell across his brow. He had a shotgun slung over his back and wore corduroy trousers and boots that fastened on the sides with three buckles. They studied me as though I were a strange creature. Amusing ourselves by playing spy, are we? One of the men pinched my arm, so you, he said, you just decided to vamoose. I know you. We’d all do the same if we could, and let others break their backs. With that I took off running, but they caught up with me and dragged me back to the spot where I had fallen out of the bushes. The man with the split nose said, I’ve seen you before. . Where did you stash those trousers you stole from Juli-Juli last night? He smacked me hard, with a hand that felt like iron. Spit it out: What’d you do with the trousers you stole? I swore I hadn’t taken anyone’s trousers. Oh yes you did they said, oh no I didn’t I said, till I couldn’t take it any longer and I just shouted: Liars! Big fat liars! For that I received two more blows that rattled my brain. Last night you crept into the barracks while he was sleeping and. . I still had the energy to tell them I had spent the night watching over a man who had hanged himself. They all burst out laughing at that. A man who hanged himself? He says he spent the night with a hanged man. When I made as if to run away again — because when people don’t want to recognize you’re right, it’s better to hit the road — the fellow who divvied up the bread and cheese really worked me over, while I shouted: Coward, coward! They left me fit for the dogs.

VI THE GIRL BY THE RIVER

BITS OF CHEESE RIND AND THREE OR FOUR PIECES OF BREAD crust had been left on the ground. I gobbled them down. I picked some more blackberries and slowly made my way down to the river. The water along the opposite bank wasn’t blue, but green, with clouds drifting by above it. I would have liked to be a river so I would feel strong. I slipped into the water and swam like a fish, no longer feeling the pain from the beating.

My father had cousins who lived on Carrer Atlàntida in Barcelona, in the neighborhood of Barceloneta, down by the sea. We used to hunt for shells with their children and a girl by the name of Mònica. I learned to swim and row with them. Before getting into the water I ripped off the bandage on my arm; the flesh was purple around the gash from the day I fell on a pile of broken bottles. On the other side of the river lay an expanse of rushes and reeds, and that is where I first saw her, more beautiful than life itself, standing naked and holding a pitchfork. Her hair was the same ash blond as mine was when I was little. A tiny waist, each thigh worthy of respect — as my mother used to say of her carnations, each carnation worthy of respect — all of her a ripe peach. I slowly drew closer; she spotted me, and when I reached her side she laughed and poked me with the pitchfork. Her teeth were like little river stones of the very whitest sort. The sun was starting to rise. The reeds and leaves were swaying. She tossed the pitchfork aside and dived into the water. I started swimming upstream and she followed behind me.

We lay in the sun and gorged on blackberries. She looked at me. Her violet eyes were dappled with gold, just like the eyes of the baby girl who got scratched by the cat, the one who lived near us and whose mother asked us to watch her. She said her father was a miller at the mill up the way; he was off at war and she only saw him on Sundays. As she spoke, I never stopped looking into her eyes. Her mother’s name was Marta. Hers, Eva. She would have preferred to be a boy. She hunted birds with a slingshot. The fish that were too small when she caught them she threw back in the river; it was like giving them life and she liked that. Rabbits and partridges she hunted with a dog and a shotgun. If she had been a boy she would have gone off to war. She was aching to, but her father would have insisted on keeping her by his side and wouldn’t have let her do what she wanted. Out of the blue she asked if I liked soap bubbles. The best thing about them was that, after one has waited so patiently to see them emerge from the tip of the reed and admire their iridescence, they burst while floating away, as if they had been pricked. She spoke lying down, with her hands behind her head, looking up at the sky. I wanted to touch her, to lay her on a bed of tender leaves plucked from violets. If this war that has already lasted so long lasts any longer I’ll cut my hair, dress up like a boy, and join them. She stopped talking because on the opposite bank, farther downstream from the spot where I first saw her with the pitchfork, a man was passing by on the back of a donkey, a rifle across his back. It’s my father, which means today is Sunday. It took us a while to raise our heads and by the time we did who could say where the miller was. A slender wisp of air toyed with us; we fell asleep as the moon was coming out.

She woke before me. When I opened my eyes she was no longer by my side; she was swimming. I followed her in. I couldn’t resist grabbing hold of her foot; it slipped through my fingers like an eel. Get out! Three shadows were floating downstream. They’re dead soldiers. To save themselves the trouble of burying, they hurl them off the cliff at Merlot. I prod them with the pitchfork so they won’t get stuck and rot among the rushes and reeds that are my palace.

VII THE MILLER WOMAN

WE STOPPED NEAR THE MILL, BY THE BRIDGE ACROSS A BEND IN the river. Eva asked me to wait for her. She would come for me as soon as possible, but if she didn’t I was to stay away from the mill. Just keep walking. I was hurt that she was leaving me. Here, I said, it’s all I have, I want you to have it. I pulled the knife my father had given me out of my pocket and placed it in her hand.

Beneath the dense canopy of the old trees, with the dark river flowing below, I hardly breathed. One leaf, then another, grazed my cheek like the fingers of a corpse. Shards of moonlight allowed themselves to be carried off by the river. I thought I glimpsed shadows downstream. Someone in need of help. A voiceless someone. The piece of rope kept me company; I felt that those flimsy hemp threads protected me and I tightened my grip around them. The shadows drifting by were dead soldiers that the current had swept close to the reeds. They would cause the leaves to fall, they would cry out to the wind, they would grasp hold of whatever they could to keep the water from carrying them far from the place where they had died. Eva was taking a long time. She was not going to come. I walked on and on, until I chanced upon a well and hid behind it. I was almost to the mill. I could hear hinges squeaking, as though the wind that was just starting to pick up were flinging windows open and shut. All at once the large door to the mill swung outward, a stream of light emerged, and with it a white horse with a recumbent shadow on top. The horseshoes sent up sparks. Shortly thereafter a man appeared out of nowhere. Hunched under the weight of a sack, he entered a shed just as a blast went off in the distance, turning the edges of a cloud red. A truck was approaching; it stopped in front of the portal and two men alighted. The man who had entered the shed came out to meet them and they started unloading boxes.

Soon I heard shouts coming from inside the mill. I stood by the door, listening. A faint voice was saying that his horse, the horse he had left there to be tended, wasn’t in the stable. A louder voice replied that he didn’t know that the horse wasn’t in the stable. Let them yell! A bag lay on the seat of the truck. My hand was still inside it, uncertain whether it had found an apple or a pear, when a blow to the back of my neck knocked me out.

I strained to open my eyes. The rumble of a wheel turning had clouded my mind. Everything was in a haze until a few white patches began to take shape and I was able to make out the walls, the millstone. . a pair of glassy eyes by my face. He’s awake! a woman cried as she snickered and poured a bucket of water over me. The woman drew closer and struck me, kissing me as she hit me. We’ve got you now! She asked me my name while she kicked me in the side with the tip of her shoe. You can return my kisses on another occasion, you sewer rat. . A white horse came to a halt by the portal. It walked over to where the woman stood, stopped, and started pawing the ground.

I guess you know I’m the miller’s wife, the woman said. I’m the mistress around here. My body had been covered with bruises since the day of the beating, the day of the hanged man. The woman uncovered me and started rubbing me with herbal oil. Poor little thing, so tender and so battered. . As soon as she left me alone I tried to get up, but I couldn’t stand.

I had lost all sense of time. The millstone turned and turned. The miller woman would come to check on me and talk nonsense. She didn’t feed me. During the day she left a bottle of water by my side; at night there was nothing. He’s a spy, I could hear them saying. A giant of a man scooped me up, took me to a large, empty room, and dropped me on the floor like a sack of potatoes. At night I could hear the truck, and there were arguments, the smell of smoke and oil, the sound of glasses clinking. During the day the miller woman would sprinkle flour over me; she found it amusing. The man who looked like a giant took me downstairs again and deposited me by the millstone. In the evening, the bats commenced their dance: They flew in and out and clustered together on the ceiling, in the corners, hanging like charred rags.

Today is Saturday, the miller woman said, staring at me as if wishing to pierce through me. Reclining beside me, she started to cover me with kisses. I tightened my lips and shut my eyes. I could have killed her. She finally tired, and with an angry voice she said when I stopped being such an idiot she would teach me how to make love. Have you ever made love? I summoned the strength to kick her in the stomach and she doubled over in pain. She threatened me with a raised fist. When my husband comes back — and he’s probably crossing the bridge right now — you are going to get what’s coming to you. When she heard him approaching, she started screaming that I was a shameless scoundrel. A scoundrel who pretends he can’t even stand, but whenever I get near him. . The miller, red as a chili pepper, eyes bulging out of his head, threw himself on me and started pummeling me while she stood there coldly, egging him on. Kill him! Kill him! When the man had had enough of beating me, he loaded me onto a wheelbarrow, carted me down to the river, and dumped me into the reeds, swearing such terrible things as I would have wished never to hear.

Some kind of animal drew near me. I turned over with a moan. The animal didn’t budge. I stretched out my arm to touch it and felt an icy hand: I was lying next to a dead soldier. My bones ached, but I made an effort to overcome the pain and attempted to roll farther down the bank. The reeds stopped me. It was drizzling. I was starting to fall asleep, I couldn’t understand why everything that was good in this world had abandoned me.

VIII LIKE A SKELETON

I HEARD AN EXPLOSION COMING FROM THE DIRECTION OF THE mill, followed by flames and plumes of smoke. Throngs of soldiers were building a bridge across the river with rowboats and wooden planks. The sound of engines and men shouting was deafening. They must have worked all through the night. Soon trucks and cannons were crossing the bridge, and the white horse — crazed, neighing, rearing — stood in the middle of it all. Two silver planes circled above the bridge. An explosion sent jets of water spewing into the air. The bridge collapsed and four trucks fell into the river. What are you doing here? You look like a skeleton. Juli-Juli stood looking at me, shirt unbuttoned, face bloodied, hands trembling. You escaped a real mess by hightailing it. He asked me what I had done since I left. He was eager to talk, talk about anything. He sat down beside me. Don’t look. The water beneath the bombed bridge has turned crimson. We’re surrounded by dead soldiers. Talk as much as you like, but don’t look. Say something. . quick. Don’t look toward the bridge. He laughed as he wiped the blood off his face with his arm. He laughed louder, closed his eyes, opened them again. His eyes were restless, never still. Did you know there’s a barmaid. . she travels around in a wagon pulled by two horses that are just flesh and bones. Hush, I said, covering his mouth with my hand. Airplanes roared overhead; little by little the sound died away. Her name’s Faustina and she sells peanuts, belts with buckles shaped like skulls, tobacco mixed with grass, and stale drinks. An ambulance approached the bridge. Through the reeds I caught a glimpse of the horse; it was standing still. The water was sweeping away dead soldiers, wounded soldiers, scraps of rowboats, burnt wood. Juli-Juli predicted that the war was winding down and we would soon be returning home, waving our flags amid throngs of girls who would throw flowers at us. It’s in its final throes. Now we have to concentrate on saving our own skin. That, above all. He was quiet for a moment, and then he asked, have you ever flown? I fly at night. It keeps me from feeling hopeless. As soon as I lie down I imagine that, instead of a ceiling of reeds and plaster, above me there is the frenzy of the stars: trails of stars, fields upon fields of stars; and after a while of thinking only of the heavens, I start to float away and begin to fly. I see the mountains, the villages, the sea. . all of it from up above. I had my eyes on the horse, which had started to move toward us. . Then suddenly I couldn’t breathe: Someone was poking me in the back. Two soldiers were standing behind me. Everything is going to pieces and the two of you are jabbering away. Animals! Yackety-yak. Without even entrusting myself to God or the devil, and risking being shot, I gathered the strength to make a dash for the horse and mount it. As if a spring mechanism had been released, it galloped furiously away with me on its back. Two shots rang out. One of the bullets raised a small cloud of dust a few meters from me. We passed through a forest, an abandoned village, a smoldering farmhouse; until the horse came to a sudden halt, sending me headfirst into a trench filled with water. I landed on top of Bartomeu, the cook for the soldiers I had left behind, just as he was emptying a machine gun on the men on the other side, shouting, try that on for size!

IX LICE

THAT SAME AFTERNOON THE ORDER CAME TO WITHDRAW. JULI-JULI gave me the news, though I still don’t know how he found the spot where the horse had thrown me. There were about a hundred men, all of us young, bone-weary, bored. Our column did not stop moving until we were within sight of an abandoned farmhouse surrounded by acacia trees, with a hill behind it. We climbed down from the trucks and began setting up camp. The sense of peace that pervaded the place made it seem as if the world had never been at war. I learned to load and unload a rifle. To shoot. How old are you? Fifteen. You look older. Come on, let’s see if we can teach you how to aim. I didn’t want to. I aimed high or low, to the right or the left of the cardboard man we were supposed to hit. I didn’t want to learn how to kill. The jerking of the rifle butt almost dislocated my shoulder.

I got in the habit of climbing to the top of the hill to ease my bouts of anxiety. Soon a Barcelona boy from the neighborhood of Gràcia started joining me. His name was Agustí. He was born on Torrent de les Flors; his family earned a living by selling milk. He said everything at home had an odor of cow because the stable was at the back of the shop. All those cows inside the house! He said that after he was called up he had trouble sleeping without that smell he had known since the day he was born. His mother would wake him at four o’clock every morning to deliver the milk; he was only eight years old then. With half-lidded eyes and a sleepy heart, he would traipse from one street to the next loaded with pans and measuring cups, sometimes climbing three flights of stairs in the dark to sell a lousy quarter of a liter of milk that only cost five cents. But at seven o’clock sharp he would put everything down: pans, measures, and all the other stuff, and he was off to Mass. The smell of incense overpowered him. . the quietude, the priest’s words that he liked because he didn’t understand them. The chasubles thrilled him — white, rose, yellow, purple — every one of them embroidered in gold. And the lilies on the altar, the crowns of saints whose pink knees showed through a rip in their tunics. A neighbor complained to his mother that for days her husband had gone to work on an empty stomach because he hadn’t delivered their milk; she knew it was on account of Mass. Every day to Mass. My mother, who kept a close watch on the business, slapped me silly and left me without dinner for two nights. But I sneaked down to milk a cow and drink the milk, gulping it down so fast in my haste to get back to bed that I almost choked. One’s obligations above all else! my mother would shout. Piety above all else! declared Father Camilo at school, clasping his hands together, then opening his arms. I didn’t know what to do, but I went to Mass even if it meant getting there in the middle and not being able to see the angel begin his work of covering the floor with little blue and crimson squares. Or seeing him blow the bubble that enveloped the church and created the petals that buttressed it all the way from the high altar to the last pew. What are petals? He looked at me: The leaves of plants are called leaves, the leaves of flowers are called petals. And he understood right away that because he had to deliver the milk he couldn’t witness the scores of angels helping the first angel blow, while rays of light beamed from altar to worshippers and worshippers to altar. Feeling so bound by duty to my family made me want to cry, because it kept me from God who had made the churches. When I think that so many of them were burned down I want to kill the ones who did it, even if killing isn’t allowed. And you — I asked him — who told you all that about the angel that blows and the bubble? He was silent for a moment and then said in a hushed voice, it’s a secret. And, scratching his arm nervously, he added, here we go again: lice. Two days later I was also scratching myself. A shiver that started out sweet as honey and developed into a frenzy. After four days there wasn’t a soldier left who didn’t have his hair and every fold of his clothes mined with lice. Tiny ones, large ones, and eggs about to burst, white as chicken brains. Bartomeu said he could spot their flying shapes against the backlight. Juli-Juli said we thought about it too much. Kill ’em, but stop talking about it. We went down to bathe in a huge tank that collected water that gushed from a spring. But we couldn’t rid ourselves of that plague of lice. They fly! I’m telling you they fly! With great parsimony, Juli-Juli squashed them between two fingernails. Whenever he caught an especially large one he would show it to us. Behold: A louse fit for a king! Lice were king there; they were glued to us and played possum when they had had enough. I saw one fly from Ximeno’s shirt to Viadiu’s back. They were eating us alive. Always ready to put their blood-sucking mouths to use. They don’t have mouths, they have ducts!

One day, while it was still dark, five or six of us walked down the hill to bathe. I lingered behind the water tank, and then slipped away. The fighting had stopped, and it was as if the tranquility were spurring me to go in search of a place, any place, where I could rid myself of lice and soldiers.

There was no place where I felt good. Not in the fields, not beneath the trees, not inside the abandoned houses. Until finally, one afternoon, I saw just three steps in front of me a man in rags with white hair, beard too. He had a skull-shaped belt buckle. He sat down beside me without saying a word, removed two peaches from a dirty old basket — these are rainfed peaches — and handed me one. We looked each other in the eye, and I felt as if we had always known each other, as if I had met him — I didn’t know where or when — one mid-afternoon much like that day’s, sitting by the side of the road. As he bit into the firm, sugary flesh of the peach, he said without looking at me: The important things are the ones that don’t appear to be important. More than wearing a crown, more than having the power to make the world bow at your feet, more than being able to touch the sky with your hands, above all else, there is this: ripe fruit into which you can sink your teeth by the fading light of day’s end. . look at that sunset! He tossed the pit as far as he could, wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and left me alone, my mouth filled with the taste of peach.

X THE GIRL IN THE TWO-TONE DRESS

A LITTLE GIRL DRESSED IN GREEN AND RED, WITH CHOCOLATE-COLORED stockings, stopped in front of me as I was rubbing my face, which was just beginning to be covered with fuzz. She was carrying a basket chock full of Swiss chard. Juli-Juli had given me a shirt and a pair of trousers because the clothes I was wearing when we met again were in such a sad state, old and tattered. I never mentioned to him the lie about the stolen trousers, and he never said anything about it either. I don’t know why, but, as the little girl studied me, I was glad I wasn’t in rags. She stood in front of me, motionless, like a pine tree, looking at me with prying, adult eyes. She placed her basket on the ground and, before sitting down beside me, she brushed the sleeve of my shirt with her fingers. How sweet. . I still had the peach stone in my mouth and didn’t know what to do with it. What are you eating? I didn’t reply. I took the stone with two fingers — when what I really wanted to do was to spit it out as far as I could — and threw it away. A farmhouse stood between us and a village that was a bit farther away. Is that your house? With a wag of the finger she indicated that it wasn’t. I stood up slowly, as if I didn’t want anyone to notice, and started walking; I realized at once that the girl was following me. She trudged along behind me, half dragging her basket of Swiss chard on the ground. The sun was at our back and the girl’s shadow was small next to mine, like my sister Laieta’s when I carried armfuls of carnations to the front of the house to tie them in bunches of twelve. Are you from that village? Yes. Are you lost? She set the basket on the ground, pulled out a yellowing chard leaf and laid it at my feet. How ugly, she said. I turned around and asked her where she had found the chard — there weren’t any vegetable patches around — and why she ventured into the fields all alone and so young. She didn’t answer. She touched my shirt sleeve again, it’s the color of olives, she said as her lips made a little sound of admiration. She maneuvered around to my left side and, taking me by the hand, she said, Papà. We walked on, one step after the other. I’ll take you home, you can show me where it is. We approached the farmhouse. An old woman sat at the entrance sorting lentils. She gave us a dirty look and immediately lowered her head again and continued working. After observing us for a while, a scrawny, docked-tail dog tethered to a ring by a long, rusty chain began to bark. It jerked so hard on the chain as it barked that it risked choking to death. Shut up! Shut up! We left the farmhouse behind and had scarcely taken thirty steps when a boy bolted out of the house, racing in the direction of the village as if the devil were on his tail. The village was an ancient one; the narrow street we headed up was paved with river pebbles that formed a pattern. The houses had small windows and every door had a peep window with iron bars across it. Potted plants hung down over the balconies, green with crimson blooms. Everything held the stench of manure and the smell of carobs. Leaning out of a window, a girl with wet hair and a towel around her neck stared at us and spat just as an old peasant woman dressed in black stepped out of her house carrying two chickens by the feet, their crests redder and curlier than the flower of the pomegranate tree. When she caught sight of us, she stormed back inside and slammed the door. The young boy from the farmhouse ran toward us shouting, his face contorted with rage, they’re here! They’re here! There was an instant uproar. Child snatcher! You’re not going to take this one the way you did the other! She’s a relative of the deceased mayor. He should be lynched! Hang him! Old men and younger men with sticks and pitchforks were coming up the street toward us. She’s a relative of the mayor. Hang him. Hang him. Without thinking twice, I let go of the little girl’s hand that had begun to clasp mine tighter and tighter, and I ran for it. I ran from the village, across a dry riverbed and a field as flat as the palm of my hand. My flight was halted by a ravine that I followed until the village behind me started to resemble the village in a Nativity scene. Just as I was turning around to wave goodbye to it, I tripped over some legs and fell flat on the ground.

XI THE RELIGIOUS MEDALLIONS

THE MAN SLEEPING BY THE DYING FIRE HAD NOT BUDGED. IN THE light of the embers and the fading day, his face looked sweaty, ringed by hair that was part yellow, part some unknown color. His upper cheeks were marked with red streaks and his nose was covered with warts. A thread of saliva oozed from the corner of his mouth. His shins were coal black. He was sleeping on his side on a cushion of grass. As I watched him, he opened his eyes and closed them again. He was heaving, his bronchi clogged with cobwebs. There was a smell of coffee. I found some in a pot and poured it into an empty tin that was lying about. Almost as if those two sips of coffee had been poppy nectar, I fell asleep immediately. People began parading through my spirit, a never-ending procession determined to march up and down. The procession finally entered my house, paying no mind to where it treaded and crushing all the carnations. I kept thinking: They know not what they do. When I awoke, on the summit of an unfamiliar peak, atop some unnamed mountain — real or of fog — an icy moon the color of seashells was shining high above. A meteor shower swept across the sky. I had never seen one before. The stars are weeping because we are at war, said the old man, who had sat up. He seemed to have always known me. The stars fell at a slant; the wind at such heights must have kept them from falling straight down. Many dissolved in midair, others reached the ground. Some were pink, some bluish. They have grown weary of seeing so much death. I’ve always heard, I told the man, that a meteor shower is a harbinger of war; I would never have thought I would see one when there has been a war going on for so long. There are all kinds of meteor showers: those that herald war and others, like this one, that could mean that a war is unfolding and who is to say when it will end. . everyone knows when a war starts, son, but no one can be certain when it will end. Even little children know that, I said. What do you mean? That what is known to everyone isn’t worth repeating. I’ve come to realize that people talk just to hear their own voices and they always say the same thing. And how would you like things to be? I’d like for people to speak only the things worth saying and nothing more. If you didn’t know it already, it’s worth remembering that life is repetition. Why don’t you want people to repeat themselves when they talk? Because I find it tiring. So then you shouldn’t like yourself either, as you are nothing more than a repetition yourself. I haven’t liked myself for years. I am annoyed by my own self. Everything about me annoys me, starting with my hair and all the way down to my feet. . including this spot on my forehead. I’d rather be a plant, the kind that sprouts and sprouts without realizing it’s alive. But they do realize they’re alive; they know in which direction to turn to draw more light and sun, and those that need shade know to turn toward the shade. And seeds always find a way to plant themselves and take root where they should. A mountain plant would never choose to grow in a garden. And if a man moves it to a garden it will die of sadness. . More coffee? How did you know I’d already had some? I always sleep with one eye open, the way hares do; I find that in order to sleep soundly I need to have a hare’s fear about me. We drank coffee, I from my tin and he from a dented pan. I asked him how he managed to procure it, because it wasn’t much of a stretch to say that we hadn’t seen any at home since the war began. From a tattered suitcase he removed a paper cone. He had a roguish gleam in his eyes. Thanks to my religious medallions. Many grocers and many soldiers who are the sons of grocers are still believers. They purvey the coffee and I give them religious medallions in exchange. Mine are the most beautiful. An old woman who lives in the middle of the forest, near the river, makes them; she’s a real beast, worse than ringworm. Look at these — they represent Our Lady of the Angels. You see? Take a good look at them. The Virgin’s dress is lovely, every bit of it is stunning, but I don’t know how she manages to have the Virgin’s faces look as evil as her own. I’ll give you some so a bullet won’t cut you down. Keep them with you always; perhaps some nights you will hold them for a while, and because you will believe in the good fortune they bring, you will be lucky. Remember my words. . We fell asleep with the Big Dipper above us. At dawn there was no sign of the medallion peddler, but around my neck hung images of Our Lady of the Angels holding a blooming lily with seven buds. Soon, even more shell-hued than the previous night’s moon, the new day awoke to eyes that have never tired of seeing the tenderness it brings.

XII EVA

THE HENHOUSE WAS AT THE BACK OF THE VEGETABLE GARDEN. I crept toward it, like a wolf stealing through the artichokes. A hen was clucking like mad. I would eat her egg. The frightened fowl stood over her nest, legs deep in the straw, staring at me. The egg tasted like hazelnuts. Three more hens, still as death, craned their necks forward as they perched on their nests. Their wattles drooped, their combs drooped, they were old hens, had laid many eggs, marched many little chicks around. I heard the sound of a slamming door coming from the direction of the house, followed by the squeak of a pulley. The egg had made me hungry. I left the vegetable garden. There wasn’t a village in sight. I was surrounded by fields. I was suddenly struck by a flash of sadness, and I shook it off in a hurry. Somehow, I would find what I needed. I continued on my way, slit-eyed, blinded by a sun that had a deeper yolk color than the egg I had just swallowed. I was walking in the bright sunlight, my mind on other things, when I tripped and fell, bloodying my knee. The blood was red, redder than a red carnation, redder than the drooping combs of those golden hens.

In an effort to take my mind off my hunger, I tried to get some sleep by the side of the road, among the weaver’s broom. In an effort to take my mind off my hunger and hoping that someone might pass by, like the old man with the peach. . I was dreaming I was little and wasn’t walking yet, that I was watching a stopped train that was very long and shrouded in fog. . when someone took my hand. It was a friendly hand. A hand in the middle of a river with banks graced by rushes and reeds. That hand was Eva, the whole of her; she had spotted someone lying on the ground, wounded perhaps, and had come to help. She was clad in militia overalls, boots, a faded sweater, and a cap. Those violet eyes looked at me as though looking at the world and everything good in it, and that notion sent a wave of shame rushing to my cheeks. She said observing me had calmed her heart. She had seen so many people lose their lives that sometimes when she thought of me she pictured me dead and that pained her. . dead in the attack on the mill that belonged to her parents who were not her parents. She had chosen her real parents; they were the Sky and the Earth, he laden with stars, she with flowers. I wanted to ask her if she had been the one riding the white horse out of the mill that night, and why she had told me down by the river that if she were a boy she would go off to war, and why — being a girl — she had gone to war, and why she hadn’t said as much when we got to the bridge and she told me to wait for her. I wanted to ask her how she knew that the mill had burned down. . But I didn’t say anything because she sat down beside me and, leaning to the side, drew the knife I had given her from her pocket and showed it to me, it’s broken, she said. I tried to open a box using the screwdriver as a lever, and there you have it, a broken screwdriver. She was happy to see me again; in a low voice, she added that she had never liked people who loved her. To love her was to shackle her, it didn’t allow her to move. She needed to be herself and be free to go wherever she wanted and help whomever she wanted, without the sense that doing so was an obligation. I like you. . because you don’t tie me down and because of that look you have on your face. I’ve only been with you for a few hours but I’ve always remembered you; I think of you often, even if I don’t see you. We met in the water. . She remained silent for a while; I couldn’t take in everything she was saying. Sometimes my nature is to run away. . the dead are the only ones who don’t frighten me. They ask for nothing; that’s why I feel sorry for them, and love them, especially because I sometimes think that I’m more dead than alive. . if things made any sense I would have died lives and lives ago, mine and other people’s lives. . They have to be buried deep in the ground so they can rest forever close to the roots. And become trees.

She let go of my hand and I felt a pang of abandonment. She looked down at the ground for a while and then, without lifting her eyes, she explained that she had taken three badly wounded soldiers to a field hospital at the army’s rearguard so they could die in peace. They were young like you, with as much desire to live as you have. See that Red Cross truck by the shrubs? There’s a cross on the sides and on the roof of the truck. See the red of the cross? When I was little my father killed a cat, I don’t know what it had done to him; I witnessed it and it broke my heart. I buried it in the early morning by the bridge where I told you to wait for me. Remember, the day we met? I made a cross of red flowers on top of it. And some evenings, when the setting sun is ringed by clouds and sends fanlike rays of light to Earth, I see myself climbing upward along the ribs of the fan, the cat by my side, glancing at me from time to time. . and. . what’s that?

She noticed the cord I had around my neck and tugged on it. You’re wearing religious medallions? She laughed. She pushed her cap back and it fell to the ground. She wore her hair shorter than I did when I was a young boy. It’s Our Lady of the Angels, I said. She studied the medallions for a while. She’s so ugly. . it would give me the creeps to wear such an ugly Virgin Mary around my neck. I said: A wise man gave them to me and told me that as long as I wore them no bullet could kill me. She laughed again and, before standing, she leaned toward me and kissed the birthmark on my forehead. Want to come? I shook my head. Soon I heard a truck engine. In the waning light I glanced at the embroidered Mother of God. The dresses, lilies and leaves all had lovely colors, but I didn’t want to look at the medallions because the Virgin bore the face of that hideous old woman. I removed them from around my neck and put them in my pocket; but first I superimposed Eva’s face over the old woman’s hideousness. Want to come? No. I said no to please her. Had I not seen the crushed grass where Eva had sat, I would have believed that Eva and Eva’s kiss had just been one of those dreams from which you never wish to awaken.

XIII THE FARMHOUSE

A GIRL A LITTLE OLDER THAN THE GIRL WITH THE SWISS CHARD emerged from a bakery carrying a round loaf of bread with a dark brown crust. She started skipping and the bread tumbled to the ground and ended up almost at my feet. Without giving it a thought I grabbed it and ran. I didn’t even turn around when I heard the girl shouting. That bread never again saw the light of day. At the first fountain I drank my fill of water. Soon I was bloated. As I sat on the ground, my hands holding my aching belly, several trucks carrying soldiers passed by, followed by three wagons pulled by mules. The fighting was close-at-hand. My heart told me to make my way to the road, my head told me to flee. I didn’t feel like moving but I had to go somewhere. Perhaps as I roamed from village to village the war would end and when it was over. . A pair of espadrilles was drying on a windowsill. Mine had lost part of the soles. I crouched down and crept over to the window. I put on the espadrilles behind a hedge, they were just my size. I walked on calmly. Soon a farmhouse with three haystacks by the threshing floor came into view. On one side there were only fields, on the other, rows and rows of olive trees. Pink carnations hung from the middle balcony of the house. I heard shouting and threw myself on the ground. You vile thing! Miserable rascal! A short, fat man was beating a whimpering dog that cowered beneath him. When the man tired of striking the dog, he turned and left it there without even a glance, grumbling as he went. The mangled dog dragged itself over to me, its tail tucked between its legs, snout trailing along the ground, and licked my hand. It was a large black dog, with blond fur on its underside. It lay down beside me with a sad sigh. If he dies tonight, I thought, I’ll bury him.

It had turned dark. From the farmhouse came the smell of rich soup. I crept closer, lured by the smell, until I was standing in the middle of the portal in a stupor, begrudging them the food. The farm woman noticed me right away. She opened her mouth, but no shout emerged from it. The farmer turned his head: His face was the color of the earth, and he had a dark beard and hair cut so short it resembled a brush. Staring at me like a pair of owls, two twin girls with spoonfuls of soup halfway to their mouths were fighting back laughter, as if amused that I was so filthy and that my always-empty stomach was flatter than a carpet beater. With a thunderous voice, the farmer ordered me to come in; he had me tell him where I was from and what my name was. I explained I was lost, I had been separated from the other soldiers by clouds of smoke after a series of explosions. He told his wife to serve me a bowl of soup. The dish was deep, glazed, its rim decorated with painted flowers, which I kept my eyes on as I ate, seated on the stone hearth because the farmer had not asked me to sit at the table. I could have eaten seven whole pots of that rich, warm soup. They gave me two slices of bread larger than my feet, and I kept dipping them in the soup. I saw that the farmer had a wooden leg, which I hadn’t noticed when he was whipping the dog. He asked me what I planned to do. Rejoin the soldiers, I said. There’s time for that. Around here we have more work than we can manage. So, not feeling inclined to start roaming again from place to place, I stayed. They had me wash the dishes and showed me where I would be sleeping: a tiny alcove with a cot and a stool, just beside the hearth. You entered through a small door that didn’t shut well and had a crack in the middle, so if you put your eye to it from the outside, you could see the cot. I pushed the cot against the wall that had the hearth on the other side. The family slept upstairs. I was still working in the kitchen when they went up and left me alone. After I washed the soup pot, I hid the bones in it and then dumped them in a bucket under a pile of potato skins and cabbage leaves.

The night was sweet, blue-black, yet lighter around the edges of the moon. Bucket in hand, I went in search of the dog. I had trouble finding him. He was lying against a low drywall on the edge of a field, his breathing belabored. Without touching him I set the bones down near him, and I saw his eyes gleaming.

After a fortnight at the farmhouse, I had recovered to such an extent that when I studied my image in the goose pond I scarcely recognized myself. I ate mountains of potatoes, heaps of rice, bowls and bowls of pork and vegetable stew. One day the farm woman — her name was Fermina, pale skinned, with moist, sleepy eyes like the dog that was beaten — told me that her two sons, Miquel and Llorenç, had died in the war, after all the effort it had taken to bring them up. Why did they have to die? And who did they die for? She had watched the boys go. She could still see them: two shadows silhouetted against the glory of the sun. Every evening since that day she would stand in the doorway, gazing at the mountains, waiting and waiting, sick with yearning. With tears in her eyes she confessed that I and her youngest son, Miquel — who was an angel — were like two drops of water from the same fountain, so much did we resemble each another.

I had to work hard. I couldn’t handle it all: pulling up potatoes, tilling the vegetable garden and watering it. . You’re doing a good job. I told them about our field of carnations. I had to carry the baskets of laundry to the clotheslines, clean the stable, henhouses, pigeon coop, and rabbit cages, and provide fodder to the old horse with a sore on its left hip that was always covered with flies. I had to wash the dishes, kill hens and chickens, chop wood and pile it up all neat for when the great cold arrived. The only chore the farm woman did not task me with was collecting eggs, because, as she made plain to me, she was afraid I would drink them raw the way Miquelet did; he would suck as many as he could in one sitting, and if the family wanted to have an omelet they had to go buy eggs at the next farmhouse, and each omelet cost them forty eggs. The farmer spent most of his time in the village, glued to a bench in the tavern playing cards. . Little by little the dog began coming closer to the farmhouse; if he caught sight of the farmer, who never even looked at him, the dog bared his teeth and the hair on his back stood up. I always left food for him by the same wall as that first time, and he always waited for me there. After he had eaten, he would sit next to me and the two of us would look at the moon. He was always right there behind me, never leaving my side. He was my greatest companion; we loved each other.

I felt spied on by the twins. The firstborn was named Teresina. The second-born was called Camineta — little walker — because, apparently, as soon as she was born she wiggled her legs as if wanting to walk. Teresina told me that her father had beaten the dog because it had stolen a piece of ham and nothing infuriated him more than thieves. But in reality, they were the ones who had taken the ham. When their father noticed that the ham was missing, the girls blamed the dog and escaped a good thrashing. They burst out laughing as if they had gone mad.

A dull rapping on the wall by the hearth woke me. I pulled on my trousers and opened the door. It was the twins, who started laughing as they always did when they saw me. Camineta, wearing tiny gold earrings, whispered to me to go with them; they needed my help. She was carrying a small lantern. We went up to the second floor, holding onto the banister as we tiptoed up the steps. They led me to a large room that had the sweet scent of lavender. We climbed a ladder that was propped against a hole in the ceiling and entered the attic. The smell there could not be easily described. From the ceiling hung strings of garlics and bunches of onions. I stumbled on a heap of potatoes while trying to avoid some sacks of wheat, the contents of which were waiting to be transferred into large boxes scattered around the room. A rabbit pelt, dry and badly hung, brushed against my cheek. Everything was burning hot. The twins stopped in front of a huge armoire that reached all the way to the ceiling. Slide it away from the wall. Holding up the lantern, Camineta pointed to the bulky object. Move it back without making any noise. I tried to move it, tried with all my strength, but it wouldn’t budge. I kicked it. No noise, I said! Teresa glared at me, her eyes filled with fire. I braced my back against one side of the wardrobe, my feet solid on the ground, and pushed with all my might. It was useless. With Camineta behind me shining her light for me, I searched every corner for a tool I could use as a lever. A long board did the trick: I slid it behind the wardrobe and succeeded in moving it forward a bit. If we shift it a couple of spans, Teresina said, we’ll be able to get into the larder: The door behind the wardrobe opens inward. Suddenly I had the impression that the armoire was slipping and was about to topple on me. If you make any noise, it’s all over. Father will wake up — he sleeps just below us — and none of us will live to see the dawn. Bam! One of the doors to the armoire had swung open. The inside was filled with sacks of rice. Let’s empty it out. We went about it like hired hands employed to remove the sacks and dump them on the floor. After that it was easy to move the armoire. The room Teresina called the larder occupied the entire top floor of the farmhouse, and it was chock-full of food. From the beams hung hams, dried sausages, blood sausages, white sausages, and sobrassada sausages. Camineta showed me around. Bet you didn’t expect this. Large vats of olive oil. Huge jars filled with lard, balls of fat clustered together, as large as the heads of babies. Crocks of confit: goose, turkey, rabbit, chicken. Teresina, perched on the top of a ladder with a pair of scissors she produced from who knows where, started cutting at the rope that was holding a ham. Right away she started carving it up and dishing it out: it was dry, it was salty, it was good. Although we never went hungry, we devoured it as if we were starving. In a corner, apples, persimmons, and figs were scattered about on top of sacks. . We left taking with us the remainder of the ham and pushed the armoire back in place, leaving everything as we had found it.

The following night I wasn’t able to take the dog any food. I heard footsteps going up and down the stairs. The wooden steps creaked; there were muffled, incensed voices, and the atmosphere was permeated by a strange disquiet that for a long time wouldn’t let me close my eyes. I woke from a restless sleep, and rather than the usual thread of light streaming through the crack in the door, I saw the door ajar and the farmer’s shadow in the middle, holding an ash rod. His eyes were fixed on the ham that was on my pillow. He dragged me from the bed, and once he had me out on the threshing floor he began to beat me with the same rage I had seen him use on the dog. With every lash he shouted in a hoarse voice, you little thief! You thief! At one point I raised my head and saw the twins leaning over the balcony with the pink carnations, poking each other with their elbows and snickering. Suddenly the thrashing stopped. The dog had pounced furiously on the farmer and sunk his teeth into the man’s neck.

The forest was thick with small-leaved trees and yellow, moss-covered rocks that were piled into mounds. I lay by the rocks, without the strength to think. A scorpion was crawling in my direction, its stinger raised: It moved slowly but was headed straight for me. In the time it takes to say “Amen,” a large black bird swooped down and carried it off.

XIV A NIGHT IN THE CASTLE

I HID IN THE DAYTIME AND MADE MY WAY AT NIGHT. ONE EARLY morning, half-starved, I came upon a carrot patch. It was wonderful to tread on so many green leaves. They weren’t fully grown carrots, but tender as water, sweeter than honey. “If you play rabbit, I’ll fill you so full of lead you’ll never get up again.” A ruddy-faced man standing at the edge of the forest was aiming his shotgun at me. “Rabbit! Rabbit!” I bolted from the field as if I were being pursued and had the hunter’s dog on my tail, crossing fields, crossing vineyards, until I reached the foot of a hill at the top of which stood a castle. The sea lay before me, a festival of waves.

Not far from the beach, a whale-shaped rock was awash with crabs. I was too exhausted to go and collect some. I climbed the hill and sat with my back against a castle wall full of crevice-dwelling lizards. I heard voices singing a song about rifles and bullets. Through some lavender bushes I spotted the heads of two young men: One was bald, the other had a shock of black hair. Both were missing an arm: The one on the right had no left arm, the one on the left was missing his right arm. Without interrupting their song, they sat down with their backs to me, a good bit below the spot where I was. Their rucksacks appeared full. I couldn’t see what they were eating. They drank straight from the bottle. The black-haired guy wiped his mouth and asked: Did Isabel cry much? Shut up. She must have cried a lot. Shut up. I didn’t think you could possibly leave her. . I don’t want to marry without an arm. I returned the postcard with the pomegranate. The one with the black hair said, when the war’s over we’ll look for a lame fellow who can play the guitar and we’ll sing about her as we make the rounds of the villages. We’ll tell people we laughed at the bullets and the bombs. The other replied, I will mourn my arm for the rest of my life. I will be consumed by rage, the whole of me a bag of envy. Don’t think about your arm. We’ll sing, and our singing will quicken people’s hearts and rouse their minds. They finished eating and walked by without seeing me.

The stone wall was warm from the sun. I paused by the portal. The courtyard was large, with brambles in the corners. By a well lay a tattered flag, its pole broken, and a tangle of blood-smeared sheets. The stained glass in three high windows was ablaze with light. The wind picked up and the panting of waves reached me. The entrance to the castle was a dark mouth with a staircase at the end. Three doors gave onto the landing. I chose the middle one. The room seemed to have been built for giants, with a hearth for giants. Another room followed with a table in the middle in the shape of a counter; some thirty iron soldiers armed with lances were positioned between the huge windows and on either side of the doors. Another room, resembling a corridor, had twelve windows facing the sea; the opposite wall was covered with bits of broken mirror. As I was studying the wall that shattered me to pieces as though I were merely a composite of shards, I noticed the scent for the first time: the smell of the yellow roses from our rosebush at home that climbed all the way up to the railing on the rooftop terrace. A stairway with only a few steps led straight to a small door. I opened it. The room was dark, merely a box with neither window nor balcony. The door slammed shut behind me. With my back to the wall, I scarcely dared to breathe; I heard footsteps approaching, someone walking with the help of a cane. Clack, clack, clack. . The wall I was leaning against swung ajar and I spied a room in penumbra; there was only the light of a hearth. A man seated in an armchair was looking straight at me. Come in. He had sunken eyes, a long beard, and gnarled hands. A pistol lay on the table in front of him. After telling me to sit, he began to speak. The castle has had many visitors, some who wanted to kill me, others who wanted to save me. Between the two, everything I possessed has been taken from me. No more tapestries or valuable, centuries-old furniture. . but I wept most for the loss of the sun. . he pointed to a large nail in the middle of the hood above the hearth, it once hung there, solid gold, larger than my belly. It had a face with a mouth, eyes and nose. Are you listening? Just by reaching out your arm, you could kill me. The gun is loaded. I could also kill you. It must be a grand thing to stem a life that is just beginning, but I won’t because you have that stunned animal expression, and stunned animals have always evoked my respect because of the world’s great need for them. Look, there are some things I need to say: Wise men should not weep for the living or the dead. . Youth is always sad, and it always rests in other people’s hands. . He took my hand. Youth is for stroking wood, stone, the tender skin of one’s first love. Even before sunrise, the sun already knows that it is the sun, and that the dew has been waiting for it long before daybreak, waiting even before it was born. He let go of my hand. The wall at the back of the hearth glimmered, as did the eyes of the old man seated in his chair. In every man we find deep roots that bind him to the great symphony of the world. . I tiptoed out of the room. I crept along, staying close to the wall, finding only closed doors, lightless windows, stairs. All at once, the moonlight illuminated a corner where shadows lay across the floor. I heard groans. I did not know where I was. The bolts on the doors that I tried to open were all rusty. . until finally one yielded. . and a strong hand grabbed me by the ankle. I managed to smother the cry that was about to emerge from my throat.

XV THE PRISONER

I AM IMPRISONED HERE UNTIL THE END OF MY DAYS. I AM THE master of this castle. It was seized from me by a distant relative from a poor side of the family, whom my parents took in while still a child. Everything I had, he had as well. But he was envious of me, and the envy that festered within him could have filled seven wells. With smiles and gentle manners he earned my trust; he was my most beloved friend. But then, as soon as the war began, he robbed me of everything I had. First the gold sun, then the two chalices encrusted with diamonds, rubies, and emeralds, and the candelabras adorned with moonstones. The castle chapel was emptied of valuables. Despoiled of saints, altars, retables, crown-bearing angels. People were paid to loot and rob, taking all the silver and gold, the tapestries with scenes of war, of hunting parties, of raging seas, of love. When armed men arrived at the castle, he turned me over to them to avoid being killed himself, telling them he was the poor one, I the rich. He had my knees broken. I lay for God knows how long in the open grave where the bodies of the executed were dumped. Dragging myself, my belly to the ground like a snake, I was able to make it back to the castle. The hatred in his eyes when he saw me was spine-chilling. His threatening figure towered over me as he looked at me and said that as punishment he would not allow me to die. I was brought to this dark room. Sometimes he brings me food. Other times he forgets. I never see him. He knows how to choose the moment of one’s sleeping death. Feel no pity for me. Do not try to save me. Perhaps I have the punishment I deserve for my lust, for having believed myself more powerful than God. He has made himself the master of my discernment; he has become my lord. I live for him and through him. I am him. I am his wickedness, his cruelty. My prison is not these walls, but my own flesh and bones. Never allow yourself to be defeated. He paused for a moment, then continued in a changed tone. Observe and admire the perfect order of the stars, the passing of time with its retinue of seasons: the gates of summer, the gates of winter. Observe the waves, attend to the grandeur of the winds that the angels blow from the four corners of the pulsating heavens. The lightning that streaks everything with fire, the crawling thunder. . I adored rosy cheeks, turgid buttocks, honey-sweet breasts, dawn-colored thighs, snow-white, nacreous feet. . Books that impart wisdom, blazing sunsets from my windows, the pearly light of the night star. My life had been a perfect jewel, a diamond. What are my broken bones but a way of binding me to the realm of memories, to everything I once had and still retain because it dwells in the darkest recesses of my heart? Tell me, where are the nymphs of old, surrounded by lilies and the water that flows through the deep umbrage of my woodlands, weaving garlands of nightshade, sleeping in dark grottos resonant with the cries of love lost? My flesh is tired, my skin as brittle as glass. I sleep on the floor surrounded by tranquil spiders and the dust that I ingest, the dust that I am and that I will become when, far from the blue cries of the sirens, a blinding light will welcome me to the land of the pure. Pray, pray always that man might behold the marvelous abundance granted him so that he might not destroy it or fling it into the abyss of terror where everything freezes over. .

Half deranged by the words of that madman whose face I had not even glimpsed, I crawled backward, too filled with dread to turn my back to him. And with the sound of his strangely sweet voice still ringing in my ears I found myself rolling down a viscous slope. When I got to the bottom, I tried to stand. My arms could reach from one wall to the other. I crept along the sewer line until a breath of fresh air hit me and I lost consciousness.

XVI THREE GIRLS AND AN ORANGE

LOOK, THERE’S A BOY AT THE MOUTH OF THE SEWER LINE FROM the castle. Is he dead? If he were dead his face would be paler. The voices reached me from afar, slowly waking me. They were the voices of girls. Of girls standing around me. Then a shadow leaned down and something soft, perhaps a blade of grass, perhaps a feather, grazed my cheek. I couldn’t stand the tickle. Don’t give him any love pats. I could see six feet, six legs, six knees. Three girls were observing me, amused. He has one eye open, he’s just pretending to sleep. See how it shines? I sat up, and the girls ran away, laughing and shrieking. A flight of seagulls circled above them. The shrieking girls with their feet in the water, and the seagulls on that bright morning transported me to a very different world. An orange soared through the air. The girls were playing, tossing it back and forth. Nice and round, it surged upward against the blue and then fell swiftly into the two hands at the end of two arms that awaited it. From behind a rock that prevented me from seeing her fully, another girl, who looked like a figurine in a Nativity scene, was approaching. All of her, I later noticed, was the color of a camellia flower; she had large, black eyes and thick hair that fell down her back. The other girls immediately surrounded her. One who was very blonde asked: Are you still crying over him? Forget him. If he wants to travel the world singing, let him, and wish him well. Her fiancé left her? asked the girl who was wearing a yellow blouse. Yes. Isabel was so afraid he would be killed in the war, but it only took one of his arms. And now he says he doesn’t want to marry with just one arm. The figurine girl started explaining to the girl in the yellow blouse what the others already knew. Her fiancé’s father was a blacksmith and he, the son, was strong and brave; he used to help his father forge iron. Hammer and anvil were all sparks. . I moved closer to them. The figurine girl glanced at me, and I don’t know what she saw in my eyes but as she looked at me hers moistened. The blonde girl said, Isabel loved him very much. We’ve known each other since we were little and used to play in front of the castle, making paper boats out of newspapers. Then we’d go down to the beach and float them on the water, lying facedown on the crab rock. The figurine girl looked at me again, and again it seemed that her eyes and mine had no wish to hold any other gaze. So now you know the whole story: He doesn’t want to marry with one arm, it doesn’t matter that I’ve waited for him for so long, dreamed of him for so long. My mother is happy: What would you do with a one-armed cripple for a husband? You’ll find another who’s better, richer and has the right number of arms and hands. . The figurine girl started running toward the waves screaming that she wanted to die. They took her farther down the beach, and the girl in the yellow blouse walked over to me and tossed me the orange.

XVII THE MAN WITH THE SANDWICH

A MAN CAME AND STRETCHED OUT BESIDE ME. HE WAS PORTLY and his skin glistened as if it had been smeared with lard. He folded his hands over his belly. I could only see one of his eyes, beneath an eyebrow with hairs thicker than esparto. The eye studied me, then quickly closed, only to open again slowly. To escape its scrutiny I pretended to gaze at the sky. There were still seagulls in flight; two had come to rest on the rock with the crabs. The man had placed between us a bundle made from a large striped kerchief. Would you untie the bundle and hand me the sandwich? he muttered. It was a huge sandwich with cured ham spilling out of the sides. I can’t say I’m hungry, but one gets an appetite by eating. I handed him the sandwich but straight away he gestured that he didn’t want it. No, no. . put it in my mouth. He opened his mouth: rotting teeth, a short, fleshy tongue covered with white fuzz, the uvula red as fire. I lowered the sandwich to his mouth and he closed it parsimoniously, taking his first bite. The smell of the tomato-rubbed bread and the ham was driving me mad. I let the sandwich drop to the ground, crouched with my nose to the sand, and dug my teeth into the crust. A good long piece of ham pulled out. What are you doing? I can’t see you. I didn’t dare chew, didn’t dare say a word with my mouth full. Dry my lips for me. There’s no more ham? Put what’s left of the bread in my mouth, tiny morsels. And stuff the kerchief in my pocket. He was silent and seemed to be half asleep, but then he started talking. His voice, my hunger, the ebb and flow of the sea were making me drowsy. He spoke about his life, at times looking up at the sky, at others closing his eyes. Sometimes his words came out broken. I’ve been ti. . red for as long as I can re. . mem. . ber, since I was born. I might as well tell you the whole story. My mother was unable to nurse me because I wouldn’t suckle, and if I did, I suckled so slowly that she was forced to spend hours holding me. She fell behind on the housework: clothes always dirty, beds unmade, dishes unwashed. Until, at her wits’ end, she decided to feed me straight from the bottle. Two neighbors were in charge. One of the women opened my mouth, the other stuck the neck of the bottle in and milk spewed out. I cried, I choked, I suffocated. My mother used to say, I still don’t know why he didn’t die. I didn’t walk till I was five years old, if you can call that walking. I had to sit down every couple of steps, I would fall asleep all over the place. Four steps and a nap. I was rejected for military service because I kept nodding off. They said my sleepiness was caused by a disease of the brain. My wife is called Narcisa, and we hadn’t been married three months when she got into bed with the assistant to Senyor Regomir, the lawyer. That’s how it is. I never take off my trousers. Why should I if the following day I have to put them on again? He was quiet for a moment. A soot-colored cloud hastened to hide the sun. The seagulls seemed whiter. The lethargic man slept. A bee circled the cavity of his mouth. I rose, glancing in the direction of the castle to see if there truly was a castle by the beach. When I had walked for a while, I turned around to take one last look at it, but it had receded from view. The wide sea was leaden.

XVIII THE GIRL ON THE BEACH

I SAW SHIMMERING LIGHTS IN THE DISTANCE. THERE WOULD BE poorly guarded chicken coops, egg-laying hens, fruit-laden trees. To my left, a tiny, bright speck hovered above the water: a butterfly. A gentle hand took me by the arm. A girl’s voice asked: Why were you looking at me? The face was pale, partially covered by a cascade of hair. The butterfly drew nearer and nestled into it. Why were you looking at me? It was dark but I could see the wings of the butterfly, seemingly dead. I picked it up and it stayed in the palm of my hand. You silly thing, I wanted to tell her. I tossed the butterfly into the air. Why were you looking at me? I didn’t know what to respond, and the girl on the beach was waiting for me to say something. There was no sign of the butterfly. And you, why were you looking at me? I sat down and she sat beside me. She held her hand in front of her face and peeked at me through her fingers. And she said: You don’t look at someone the way you looked at me this morning unless what you are seeing pleases you more than all else. You have made me yours. I followed you here and from now on I will follow you always. . I have nothing to latch on to. I have only you. I felt revulsion. Revulsion at the idea of losing myself in that voice, of ending up being devoured by a girl’s voice in the midst of that expanse of sea and evening. The frothy waves surged higher. She said the sea frightened her, her whole life had been filled with fear: fear of night, of the moon that made her want to scream as soon as she saw it. Clouds terrified her, lightning sent her hiding under the bed. Later she grew scared of people: tall men, fat women, loud children, old people groping their way along because their eyes had died, barking dogs, birds launching themselves against the wind. Fear. Fear of everything. Fear of moving, dreaming, laughing. Fear that people might see what she was made of inside. Fear of a shout, a scolding, footsteps beneath her window, a piece of furniture that weeps in the quiet of the night. Fear of the dead who creep up on you and snatch the bedsheets. You see? Fear of these waves. But with you by my side I’m not afraid of anything. I listened to her without wanting to. I wished to walk the world alone. I should have stood up and run away. And I defended myself as best I could. I saw Eva riding a white horse where the sea met the distant sky. Eva who wanted nothing and asked for nothing. I will be whatever you want me to be; I will do whatever you want me to do. We will have a little house with a pot of parsley in the kitchen window. A vegetable garden full of turnips and carrots, cabbages and chicory. A cage with rabbits, a henhouse with six hens and six geese running about more vigilant than a watchdog. I will cook you lunch and dinner. You will have your fill of roast chicken, grilled rabbit, soup with monkfish and crabmeat and megrim and mussels. . marmalades made from purple and amber plums, apricots, strawberries, cherries. You will have apple-scented sheets, rain-scented towels, blankets like flakes of fog. What are you thinking? She ran a finger across my cheek. I looked away in anger. She stepped back and I turned and faced her. I love a girl who wants nothing, she wants nothing, she wants only to belong to herself, herself alone. She loves rivers that carry stars, she hangs them up and takes them down, she speaks to them, knows what they are made of. She loves rocks and fire. She is not afraid of anything. Not even of the dead she sends down the river by shoving them with her pitchfork. She needs no one. The girl without a fiancé ran a finger across my cheek. What are you thinking? Her name is Eva and she is the most beautiful girl in the world. Stop, stop! She rides her horse alone. Brave. And lowering my voice I added: So what if I looked at you? She rose and walked a few steps toward the sea, stood there for a moment and then came back. She leaned down, her hair spilling over me, and I heard her voice, almost a whisper in my ear. Remember. My name is Isabel. And she headed toward the waves and strode into the water, deeper and deeper. I never saw her again.

XIX WHAT I SHOULD HAVE SAID

I SHOULD HAVE SHAKEN HER, GIVEN HER A GOOD SHAKE AS I shouted idiot, you idiot, why such desire to die when you have your whole life ahead of you? We lead our lives, all of us, without knowing what awaits us, but the more time you have before you, the greater the hope. It is a fresh life that turns the corner of every new year, and the year that commences might be one of cream or of honey, and then it ends, and the next one is different. I’ve known this since I was a boy: after sorrow, joy. I should have urged her to try to remember the world as it was in the beginning, when none of us knew we had bones, or what they were meant for, or what a worm was for, or the eagle that flies, or the leaf that detaches from the branch unweeping, unlike a human being would if he should fall like that, because the leaf knows, it carries this knowledge in its leaf-blood, that in the spring it will again be a leaf; its spirit will have slipped through the roots of the tree and up the trunk until it again breathes the winds of the rose. Rose under the sun, the rose will again become a rose. Believe me, I know better than anyone: rose when the dew. . No, when the morning light on the dew. . No, when the dew born of the damp night still. . No, when the dew on leaves of grass still. . To want to know the logic of death, whose purpose is to remove people from this world. . there are too many of them. Out, out, out with you. Do not weep, do not wish to die. I was not made for the things you yearn for. I was meant to roam the world. Do not search for death, He will come to you. A good whipping! That’s what I should have given you instead of listening to you babble. You who had all the time in the world to keep Death waiting, with the joy of living, with the taste of apples and pears, of pomegranates with their queenly royal crown that appears when their curly leaves fall and the crown emerges sealing the hard green round box filled with diamonds as red as the blood when you cut yourself and a drop of fire appears like a pomegranate kernel with its wooden seed the color of your lips, not the seed, but the leaves of the flower pursued by the winds so that the tender crown may flaunt itself. That is how it should be: flaunt your tender crown, you who wanted to give your life to the water, a yellow butterfly in your hair. And when you marched into the waves, I should have grabbed you and dragged you to the sand and thrashed you till you were numb, and when you recovered you would no longer have wished to die, for it is true that a good thrashing expunges much sorrow. Do you hear me? I’m mad with rage because you have forced me to think about you and feel the weight of guilt for a death that you alone have chosen. I was at peace and you have thrust upon me the affliction of madness. Isabel.

Lying facedown, arms crossed, head resting on my arms, that person in front of me — that I that was and was not me — moaned: Go home. Mother and I are in the midst of planting cuttings of white carnations for First Communion bouquets and children’s funerals. And with a small thread of a voice that mocked me, she cried, my name is Isabel.

XX THE WOMAN WITH THE CANARY

I WOULD HAVE WEPT HAD I NOT HEARD THE RINGING OF A LITTLE bell approaching. Had I not glimpsed that moving light among the pine trees, coming from the same direction as the sound of the bell. Not until I had her in front of me did I see that it was an old woman carrying a lantern. She stood there, dressed in black, a black scarf around her head. She was holding the lantern, which she placed on the ground, and an umbrella. Hiding behind her was a little boy with a birdcage, a little bell inside it. Are you wounded? asked the old woman. No. She had the same face as my godmother Antònia: a long, lumpy nose, small, calm eyes, a mouth like a slit made by a knife. I hadn’t thought of her for many years because she had died a long time ago. I could picture her seated on the bench in the entranceway, watching me make mud pies, occasionally saying to my mother, poor thing, with no husband. I pictured her doing the laundry, tucking me in at night, all gentleness and sweet words as she explained to me that feathery animals were angels disguised as woodcocks or partridges, but they had to be killed like pigeons in order for us to eat them and, with every bite, become winged angels, and she would wave her hand up and down — onward, onward — like the flapping of wings. When we can, the girls in the village and I go to the castle to care for the wounded, the old woman said. The little boy set the cage down beside the lantern, it’s a canary, he said. It was green, it jumped from perch to perch, and with each jump the little bell rang. The bell keeps him happy and helps him sing. I’m surprised you’re not wounded; all the boys and men I come across who are lost like you have some wound or other. The ones who are in the worst shape are taken to the castle. The old woman had such a hoarse voice that it troubled me. If you were wounded I would send someone for you and have you taken to the castle. I was on the point of yelling that, no, I was not wounded. Did you know there is a poor man at the castle who is coming to his end? He used to have seven canaries. Of the seven only one sang. If only I could hear it, he said when I told him I had a green canary. I promised him I would take it to him today, and I am; but it might be too late. Dead. Most of them die in the early morning. If only I could hear your canary, Senyora Isabel — my name is Isabel — I could believe that mine had not died in that terrible bombing, buried beneath the rubble while I was down at the docks, unloading. She paused and held the lantern closer to me. You can’t fool me. You’re ill. Your face is paler than cream and your eyes red from weeping. I have never wept, I told her, not even when I was little. Something inside me always grabbed hold of my tears and wouldn’t let them out. If you don’t need me, she said, I’ll be on my way to the castle. The first thing I’ll do is go see the baron, who went batty when his brother died with his knees shattered by blows from a rifle butt. He keeps himself locked in the flag room. She picked up the lantern and the umbrella from the ground. The little boy took the cage and dragged it along. As soon as they left it started to rain. And through the turbulence of the waves I could hear the little bell ringing.

XXI A HOUSE BY THE SEA

I COULD ALREADY SEE THE LIGHTS OF A VILLAGE WHEN I NOTICED an isolated house with its second-floor balcony all lit up. Drenched, seeking a place to shelter more than anything else, I entered the garden by jumping over the low wall that enclosed it. I found refuge beneath the balcony, but the wind was driving the torrential rain against me; I searched and searched until I found an unlocked door. The smell did not lie: I had entered the kitchen. I groped around and came across a hanging bag from which I extracted a piece of bread. If I could only find the salt and the cruet of olive oil. . My mouth was beginning to water, while outside the lighting and thunder and clamoring sea locked in a fierce tempest. Footsteps coming from the garden suddenly transformed into a silhouette in the doorway; the door swung inward against me as the shadow reached in to switch on the light. How I wished the ground could have swallowed me up. A man in a trench coat dripping with water — he was clearly the owner — stood there calmly looking at me. Without a word he opened a small cupboard and brought out a plate of sliced ham. If you’re hungry, eat. I see you’ve found the bread. My hunger vanished on the spot. He was neither old nor young, ageless almost. He had a high forehead — it seemed to never end — and cheeks covered with dry, dead skin. His perfectly aligned teeth were green. The look he gave me seemed to come from deep within; it was as if he were returning from another world, and encountering the real world pained him. He had a gold clover pinned to his tie. I gave him the same story: the soldiers, the war, losing my way. You certainly look lost. He said I could spend the night. There’s an extra room upstairs. He helped me light a fire. The rain buffeted the roof, claps of thunder crawled in the distance; yet the storm was fleeing. I lay down on the floor with the bedspread for a mattress. I wanted to be near the hearth. My clothes were drying on the back of a chair. I could hear water dripping on the tin roof. The crackling of the fire lulled me to sleep. I was enveloped by a sense of peace that cannot be explained. . By the low wall over which I had jumped, a boy who looked like me was blowing soap bubbles with a cane that he periodically dipped in a tin can; the bubbles hovered above a drowned girl whose body was being swept in and out by the waves. A hazy figure clutched at the bubbles that did not burst and tossed them into the air as if they were oranges, mumbling something about a vegetable patch with turnips and carrots. Many of the bubbles turned into human heads that floated upward gazing at the sky. They surged and sank with the breathing of the sea. Death, with green teeth, sat on the belly of a cloud. Seven women with feet of gold huddled together blowing seven long trumpets that spewed bubbles into the sea, while Death’s scythe awaited the order to begin reaping the floating heads. . I awoke drenched in sweat. A woman’s husky voice on the other side of the door was calling me to come down to breakfast.

Senyora Isabel, the woman with the canary, was standing by the table waiting for me. She recognized me immediately. I ate breakfast alone and then, not knowing what else to do, I stepped outside and began clearing weeds and briers. At lunch time, the Senyor of the house by the sea knocked on the window and signaled for me to come in. A blue and white gingham tablecloth covered the table, the crockery was white, the goblets of thick glass. What’s your name? As he unfolded his napkin, the man of the house by the sea asked me to stay for the week.

At night we ate in the kitchen. Senyora Isabel prepared the food for us ahead of time and sometimes we didn’t even need to heat it up. With the last bite still in our mouths we would head out for a walk. You forgot to turn off the balcony light. Leaving it on, he said, always makes me want to come home. We would sit on a rock and look at the sea. We returned as the bell in the village tower chimed at midnight, a sound that struck me as strange, for I had not heard it since the war began. We hardly spoke. One evening just as we sat down to dinner, the man of the house by the sea, circling his hand above his head, said: We are all organized energy. The entire universe is energy. Not knowing what to say, I looked away.

He showed me around. The house was large, but I won’t say much about the place because he talks about it at length in the papers he left. But I will speak of the foyer that was rather long and not very wide. On the right-hand wall, coming from the dining room, hung a coat rack with a stool on either side. In front of the coat rack was a mirror that reached almost from the floor to the ceiling; its black frame of burnished wood had a garland of roses, the largest of which was at the top, right in the middle. Scattered among the open roses were little buds, with many carefully arranged leaves around them that someone had painted green and time had partially stripped of color.

XXII A RED LIGHT

SITTING, AS ALWAYS, FACING THE SEA, WE SAW A RED LIGHT BLINKING in the distance, on the village side. Shadows were stirring on the beach not far from where we sat; they were talking, but we could not hear what they said. We noticed right away that they were dragging a rowboat toward the water. While they were still close to shore they began to flash a red light at the red light that was signaling to them from a distance. Not ten minutes had elapsed since the rowboat had headed out to sea when we heard an airplane engine. Both the light in the bay and the distant red light stopped signaling each other. Flares leapt from a large ship into the sky, streaks of fire searching for the airplane. It all ended with several explosions, followed by tongues of fire that licked the sky. The rowboat did not return and the sound of the plane faded away. A spot blazed in the middle of the sea. The bells announced midnight. Shall we go? Yes, let’s.

When we reached the house Senyor led me to the foyer. He stopped in front of the mirror and asked me more than once if I saw anything in it. I found it hard to fall asleep that night. Several times I heard him going up and down the stairs. What did he see in that cloudy mirror that was as old as the one on my mother’s wardrobe, which as a young boy I used to press against until I had no nose?

One night I made an effort not to fall asleep so I could learn what transpired during Senyor’s frequent trips up and down the stairs. I put my eye to the keyhole. The light in his bedroom was on: I could see the reflection on the dining room floor. He walked by, coughing, and suddenly came over to my door. I jumped into bed. All at once I wanted out of that house, but there was something about the look in the man’s eyes — so often filled with unease, so often appearing to beg for mercy — that made me stay. I felt sorry for him.

I had grown tired of the apprehension I experienced every night as we sat in front of the sea waiting for the stroke of midnight. And of the fear I felt on the occasions — and there had been many — when I stood before the mystery of that mirror. And I, who had always carried the religious medallions in my pocket, all dirty and crumpled, now hung them around my neck. Old Isabel also wore some, although the modesty of her dresses meant that I never saw them. But I had caught a glimpse of a black cord like the one around my neck.

Until finally one morning, Senyora Isabel pounded on my door around the time she usually arrived for work. Senyor was lying on the floor in the middle of the foyer with his eyes open, stiff as a board. He was still alive. We struggled to carry him upstairs and get him into bed. Old Isabel asked if she should send for the doctor who lived in a village some ways away. His pleading eyes went back and forth between us. I don’t want a doctor, Adrià.

It was the first time he had called me by my name; he always summoned me with a mere come here, help me, sit down, come upstairs, follow me. And it struck me that perhaps because he uttered it with the voice of a sick person, my name sounded different, it aged me and made me feel stronger. That man trusted me. He stayed in bed for days. I took his meals and bowls of herbal tea up to him. I changed his clothes, I washed him, shaved him, kept him company at night, sitting by the balcony. Don’t leave me. . I drew nearer. Don’t leave me.

One night when he had fallen asleep and was breathing calmly, I went into the foyer. I stood under the bulb that cast a yellow light and studied my reflection in the mirror, which was as old and cloudy as always. In it I saw myself, part of the coat rack, a stool. . I looked at my feet, my legs, my hands at the end of my arms, my chest, neck, cheeks, eyes. My whole person. What did the man of the house by the sea see in the mirror?

Some nights, if he was resting peacefully, I would go into the library and, after gazing at the sea from the balcony, I would take a book. But I could never make much sense of what I read and soon tired of it. One night I braved going out after the chimes had sounded midnight. A light rain was falling, and the scent of the sea was intoxicating. The sand shifted under my feet, mist covered the water and lowered the sky. I walked on and on until I reached the dead, deserted village. I saw a light in a window near a ravine, and as I drew closer I tripped on a pile of stones and bricks. I climbed on the stones and peered into a room with a bed covered by a red quilt and a Virgin Mary with a crown of roses hanging above the headboard. A girl was undressing. She slipped her nightgown over her head, pulled her underskirt down to her feet and stepped out. I couldn’t see very well because the curtains, though translucent, blurred her image. I would have liked to meet her, talk to her, know what she was thinking. Sleep by her side.

When I returned to the house by the sea and was about to climb the stairs I saw a light in the foyer. Wrapped in a robe, Senyor was sitting on a stool in front of the mirror. He did not see me.

He died the following day as evening was setting in. He had had a peaceful night. When he woke his eyes no longer had the frightened look they had on other occasions, but his face was devoid of color. He removed an envelope from beneath the pillow and asked me to keep it. I’m leaving, he said, I won’t be here long. . you’ll find my will in the envelope. My last will and testament. Open it as soon as I’m gone. He ate nothing. When Senyora Isabel saw that I was returning the food tray untouched, she mumbled that it was as if he were dead already. I kept vigil by his bedside all night, as one might for a saint. Little by little his skin wizened in a disturbing fashion. His eyes, fixed on the ceiling, sank farther into the sockets. He had not yet reached true old age, but in a matter of hours all of him changed into a bag of bones that was slowly shriveling up. It was as if there were a child in the bed. The palm of his right hand was turned upward, displaying a bleeding wound, long and narrow.

It fell to me to bury him. Aided by some kindly soul, the rector of the parish had fled the village at the beginning of the revolution. The gravedigger had gone to live with a sister who was as ancient as he was. The church had been emptied of saints, and an old farmer who had been an altar boy as a child had taken it upon himself to ring the hours. Children played in the streets with the candelabras that had stood on the high altar, a gift from the masters of the house where old Isabel had served, people, who like so many others, had died with their faces to the wall.

I dug a pit in the corner of the cemetery, after first removing quite a bit of dogwood. Five spans beneath the earth, bones began to appear; I picked one up as one would a branch. It was blackened and decayed; whether it had belonged to an arm or a leg I could not say. A young boy was watching and asked if he could have it. Will you give it to me? He took it and ran away jumping and shouting, it’s from a dead person! I have the bone of a dead person! The man who brought us wood, having been notified by Senyora Isabel, helped me carry the proprietor of the house by the sea to the cemetery and lower him into the earth. On top we placed a few stones that we took from the pile beneath the window of the girl I saw undressing for bed.

That night, after Senyora Isabel had left, I opened the envelope. Inside was a thick sheet of paper and, in a clear handwriting, the words: “I bequeath all my possessions, furniture and property to Adrià Guinart, who has kept me company until the hour of my death. In exchange I ask one last favor of him: that he shred and burn all my documents. Pere Ardèvol.” Seated at the desk in the library, I began to peruse his papers. There were many, all of them carefully classified in faded folders. Letters to a bank in Barcelona, letters to the village mayor discussing some land Senyor Ardèvol wanted to sell. Letters from a friend, Esteve Aran, dated in Arenys de Mar, in which the friend spoke of the mystery of dreams and the memories of another life. In the last of these letters the friend announced that he would soon be paying Senyor a visit. In a file bound with greater care than the rest was a group of papers that spoke only of mirrors. Senyor Ardèvol stated at the beginning of these that each person is the mirror of the entire universe. Of God. And then I came across some sheets of paper — written in a handwriting that was difficult to make out — that explained how he had come to that house and told the story of the mirror in the foyer. The new day found me still reading.