War, So Much War

XXIII THE INHERITANCE

IN HIS PAPERS, SENYOR ARDÈVOL EXPLAINED THAT HE HAD RECEIVED an inheritance from his uncle at the age of twenty-two. He was orphaned when he was very young and didn’t remember a thing about his parents. They had both died at the same time, and the circumstances of their death had remained a mystery, at least to him. Nobody had ever told him how or when those who put him on this earth had passed away.

On one occasion, in a chest of drawers at his uncle’s apartment, he had come across a portrait of a beautiful woman with light-colored hair and eyes. It was summer, and the discovery of that portrait would be forever fused in his memory with the smell of wilted flowers and afternoons that seemed to never end. Years later, as a way of shoring himself up when depression struck, he would remember that photograph, hoping it was of his mother. Trying to feel the warm caress of those hands on his forehead, cleansing him of whatever bad he carried within him.

He had had little contact with his Uncle Hipòlit. He was an amiable man, who spent his life calling on others, always arriving with tins of bonbons or boxes of pastries for the ladies, always keen to play cards with their husbands. But he never received anyone in his own home. He lived alone in Barcelona, in an apartment on Carrer Aragó that was richly appointed with fine old furniture, authentic rugs, thick wooden doors, and stained glass windows. His uncle’s fortune consisted of a house in a coastal village, many hectares of land and a more than respectable amount of securities — a term I was not familiar with but I assumed referred to some sort of valuable documents. In his younger years, Senyor Ardèvol had lived with his nanny, a country woman who was worth more than her weight in gold. She had instilled in him the notion that growing wheat was the most important endeavor in the world, and that a well-formed cabbage was of greater merit than a gentleman in patent-leather shoes and a satin-trimmed jacket. As soon as he was old enough, his uncle locked him away in a boarding school. All that had once been skies and open fields, freshwater springs and chirping birds, was replaced by walls with peeling paint and high windows with foggy panes. Expelled for bad behavior, he bounced from one school to the next. When it came time to choose a career, after much thought, he decided on architecture. His uncle then lodged him in a family-run pension uptown. Each month, to cover his expenses, he sent him a sum of money that was neither too substantial nor too paltry. He spent Christmas and his uncle’s Saint’s Day at the apartment on Carrer Aragó. In his papers, Senyor Ardèvol described his uncle as a quiet man, with nervous eyes, droopy eyebrows, a prominent jaw and a short neck, a man of few words, orderly and well-mannered. But then one year the customary Christmas invitation never arrived. He didn’t dare show up unannounced at his uncle’s apartment, and instead waited for an explanation for the unusual conduct. A few weeks later he received a letter from a notary informing him that his uncle had died of heart failure and had left him all of his possessions. Senyor Ardèvol said he quit his studies as though removing a tether from around his neck.

People bored him, and the few friends he had finally tired of him too. They would say: Your mind always seems elsewhere. He had maintained only one friendship, that of Esteve Aran, a man engrossed in the study of the mystery of existence, who was jealous of his knowledge and rarely made any reference to it. The bond between them was so strong that they could almost guess each other’s thoughts. The furniture in Carrer Aragó ended up at Els Encants flea market or in antiques shops: Everything was scattered. Senyor Ardèvol went to live in the house in the village, a place he had loved since his first visit there.

The façade gave onto a quiet road. In the back was a flowerless garden enclosed by a low wall with a door in the middle that was kept open and led to a field bordering a beach of fine sand and clear waters. The house had two floors. On one side was an abandoned vegetable garden, on the other, a derelict shed. On the ground floor, on either side of the foyer, were two rooms that faced the street: a sitting room and an office. At the end of the foyer, a glass door opened onto the dining room, to the right of which was the kitchen and, to the left, a storage room filled with firewood. A spiral staircase in the dining room led upstairs to a large parlor with book-lined walls. The room he had kept for himself was off that parlor. On the street side there were two other bedrooms, one reserved for his friend Aran to use during his visits, the other for storing odds and ends.

The furniture was black, the rugs red and worn in spots. The lights were curious: simple electrical wires that hung from the ceiling and ended in lightbulbs that cast a tenuous yellow glow. The very day after his arrival — he recounted — the doorbell rang while he was still asleep. He dressed in a hurry and rushed to the door sleepy-eyed. Before him stood an old woman who reminded him of his nanny. My name is Isabel. She informed him that his uncle had employed her to cook and clean for him whenever he came to stay. And if Senyor Ardèvol so wished, she would be pleased to serve him as well. She knew he was Senyor Arnau’s nephew and that he had inherited everything; in other words, that he was the master now. He took her on. She arrived at nine in the morning, worked well and cooked well, and after lunch she washed the dishes and left.

Time passed quickly those first few weeks. Little by little he grew accustomed to acting the part of the idle property owner. After living for so long in family-run lodgings and pensions, the house seemed to him a palace. He asked the carpenter to build him more shelves to hold the books he had brought from Barcelona, old tomes with strange names: a book of advice on dealing with the devil, a book about the confessions of the saintliest saints. He moved into the house in mid-autumn. Seated at his desk on the second floor, he had a view of the sea, the choppy waters, the great surging waves.

On turning a page, I came upon a few brief notes explaining his difficulty in recalling a certain dream. Many details had slipped his mind, and others had appeared only to vanish again, all of it welling up from the deepest recesses of his spirit. Wishing to relive a dream is futile, Senyor Ardèvol wrote. He explained that he had never dreamed that he was blinded by the sun, never dreamed of colors, never heard any sounds or people talking or screaming. . and yet on that particular night he had dreamed in vivid colors. He recalled a storm from which he had struggled to escape. The wind upturned leaves he could not see but whose suffering on the branches he could feel. Drops of water fell from every leaf as though the entire orchard were weeping, blinded by lightning, furiously shaken by the winds. But before he could retell that night’s dream, which had left him riddled with anxiety, he said he first needed to discuss the issue of knives and the fear they had caused him as a child.

The mere sight of a knife forced him to close his eyes; it terrified him. There had been a boy, Fermí Baixeres, who was the best student in his class and had stirred many of his classmates’ interest with the odd things he said and did. One morning during recess, near a grotto with a saint’s shrine surrounded by hydrangeas, the boy had stood in the middle of a group of admirers and announced that he was going to cut his hand to the bone to show them how little he cared about physical pain. Fermí had greyish-blond hair and eyes so blue they seemed empty; the clique of boys who disliked him — there were those, too — had nicknamed him “symphony in grey.” He was thin, with broad shoulders and arms that were too long for his body. He had once said in jest that he was clearly descended from the chimpanzee. It was a kitchen knife with a thick handle and a thin, sharp blade. Concentrating, the tip of his tongue between his teeth, Fermí traced a line that started from his palm and ended at the base of his little finger. Over and over he ran the knife along the line, till gouts of blood welled forth. The boys watching him held their breath. And perhaps he would have accomplished what he set out to do, which was to cut deeper until he hit the bone, had he not first collapsed to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

There was no knife in that night’s dream, but there was a dagger with an undulated blade, perforated with five holes. The following day Senyor Ardèvol had the same dream. This time, it was not a dagger but a sword. The first dream had begun with wind rustling the leaves under a sky of black clouds pierced by streaks of lightning. He had never known how to describe a tempest, much less one born of emptiness, one that filled him with forgotten sensations that wiped out everything in their wake, as if calmly tossing everything into a well to meld with time and color. In the dream he found himself walking through an unfamiliar village in a driving rain when he came upon a small square with houses on three sides, none more than two stories high, with tiled roofs. On the fourth side, atop a low wall with an iron railing, sat a grey cat with eyes like Fermí Baixeres’s, looking at him, studying him. He did not know how he had arrived at the square. The rain stopped. Everything was soothing. Decorated with flowering plants, the windows seemed full of people whom he could not see but could feel watching his every move, as was the sitting cat. And suddenly he found he was dressed in a fashion typical of ages past, a loose-fitting frock that covered his shoulders and fell to his feet. Standing in the middle of the penumbral square, with the cat’s eyes glimmering, the thick quietude clouded his senses. Had his perception failed him? The loose-fitting frock, which had appeared black, was in fact white with an embroidered cross in the center of the chest, like the frocks worn by the entourage that accompanied him. He was approaching a shadowy patch. From it slowly emerged a figure, also dressed in white, also bearing a cross in the middle of the chest, with arms wrapped in chain mail, as were all the men’s arms, including his own. When they were abreast of each other, the figure extended an arm. His hand held a moon-colored sword with an iron hilt. The tip of the sword grazed his forehead and the flat of it came to rest first on one shoulder, then the other. And everything faded as if it were somehow being pulled from afar. Around him remained only the houses, the wall with the railing, and the cat staring at him. At that moment he sensed a presence behind him. He wanted to turn around but could not, he felt a dagger sinking into his back. A puddle of blood formed at his feet and he collapsed.

The dreams had shaken Senyor Ardèvol so much that he had to flee. He rushed to Arenys de Mar to visit Aran. He told his friend that he needed to take a long trip; his mental health was at stake, but the idea of embarking on a trip alone made him anxious. Aran had smiled, poured him a large glass of cognac, and confessed that he had had a longstanding interest in Gothic cathedrals and had wanted to visit Chartres for some time. His friend’s need for a trip was the enticement he sought for his own journey.

The two men arrived in the village where they had resolved to spend the night. Everything Senyor Ardèvol saw, the streets along which he walked, the houses on either side of the streets, the portals, the balconies, everything, everything, seemed strangely familiar. He did not mention any of this to his friend, but Aran must have sensed that something was troubling him because he asked him several times if he was unwell. Senyor Ardèvol responded that the journey by car had fatigued him, but that a good night’s sleep should restore him. He had a light dinner and fell asleep shortly after retiring. The sheets had a pleasant smell of old-fashioned wash — lavender, he thought — and the pillow and the thick duvet were stuffed with feathers. He awoke with a start, the night still pitch black. And however much he tried he could not fall asleep again. He was inclined to rise, but what would he do then? And even as he was telling himself that he would not get up, he jumped out of bed and dressed. The streets were deserted. There was not a soul in sight. From a market came the stench of rotting vegetables and stale meat. From atop a belfry, the bell tolled; it was four o’clock. He thought of Henry IV, whose name he had seen engraved on the tower of some palace. An urge that came from deep within prompted him to enter the village square: It was the one in his dream. On three of its sides stood two-story houses with tiled roofs and flowers in the windows. Atop a low wall with a railing, a grey cat stared at him. He planted himself in front of it, but the cat did not move or avert its gaze. Its eyes were fixed on his, and it was he who had to turn his head to escape them. A tempest of thoughts left him paralyzed in the center of the square. He felt as though a steel blade were being driven into his back. He wiped the sweat from his brow. . Toward the east, a tender light heralded the day. His head was spinning as he left the square. The cat was still perched on the low wall. The sky was already pink when he entered the hotel.

XXIV THE MIRROR IN THE FOYER

SENYOR ARDÈVOL COULD NOT RECALL WHEN HE HAD STARTED going out at night. At first he had not ventured beyond the beach, though later he went as far as the village, at an hour when everyone was asleep. Three streets flowed into the church square, the middle one continuing on to the outskirts of the village. Past midnight on one of those many nights, he stopped in front of a window with a light on inside. Standing on a pile of stones, he spotted a girl undressing. He could not see her clearly because the window had curtains which, although sheer, clouded the view of the girl’s face. He liked that vaporous image. She probably had the broad face of a peasant girl, perhaps snub-nosed, healthy, with dreamy eyes, but he imagined a creamy blend of white and pink, eyes that offered a glimpse of the soul, trembling lips. . a girl who came to life against a backlight, so that he might contemplate her without really seeing her, and thus be free to reflect on her remembered image to the point of obsession.

Senyor Ardèvol returned from the trip with his friend Aran more anguished than ever and stayed indoors for several weeks. Until, little by little, he resumed his former routine.

It had all begun one night when the sea was in a swell of fury. He was in such a hurry to return home before the rain came that he started running and arrived at his kitchen door with his heart pounding. As he was stepping inside, a bolt of lightning fretted a thread across the sky. His heart still fatigued, he was making his way to the foyer to hang up his trench coat when he felt as though something were trying to stop him. He could not make sense of it, but it seemed that his legs would not respond and that his heart, so agitated only a moment before, had stopped for the space of a few seconds. It wasn’t exactly that; it was more as though a mysterious force were emptying him of his “I.” That was all. When he finally found himself in the parlor, he downed half a bottle of cognac and, although it was late, he read for a while. He chose a book at random and opened it to the beginning of a page that argued, roughly, that man is the master of his actions, free to desire or not to desire, by the power of his thinking and the virtue of his reason; imagination, it said, turns perilous when we ponder the act of becoming and the conditions that govern it. As I read Senyor Ardèvol’s account of the book, I could not quite grasp the meaning of this. The book stated, and I read it many times over so I would remember it. . or, rather, it didn’t so much state as pose the question: Under what conditions can one become another?

On the night following the events just described it was bitterly cold outside and he had to bundle up. He left the house through the kitchen door, leaving it unlocked. The fields were covered in frost. He sat on a rock facing the sea. Senyor Ardèvol explained that he had never had a meditative disposition, but that he was a contemplative man. Enamored of the mystery of life, he had never felt the need, as his friend Aran had, of attempting to decipher it. He considered it an unassailable mystery. And a mystery must struggle — that is its principal reason for being — so that its great beauty will not be stripped from it. The sea resembled a lake that night. Small waves died on the sand, flat, with a litany of sighs. Suddenly the girl in the window came to mind, a faraway thought lost in time. Why had his interest waned, when so many times before she had been the enticement to go into the village? And he began to think of death. Senyor Ardèvol wrote that when people die they should remain frozen in that moment, like those human shapes that have been perfectly preserved in a vacuum and turn to dust with the slightest puff of air. They should die with their senses fully alive, in the middle of the street while strolling through a sleepy village.

The moon deposited slivers of light on his balcony window. Smudges of brightness that elongated and widened in a dance, phantoms of stripes, shiny blocks, darkened spaces. When he returned, he stopped in the foyer and, while hanging up his coat, was overcome by a powerful urgency to turn around. In front of him hung the mirror. Senyor Ardèvol described it. Beveled. Mottled. A mahogany frame with a garland of flowers and leaves. He had never felt the need to look at himself in the mirror, other than when he shaved or was at the tailor’s trying something on. But that night he looked at himself for a while, as if bewitched, not by his own image but by something within the mirror. His features, he wrote, were not harmonious: his brow too high, his cheeks too sunken, his eyes too small. In the mirror, slightly to the right, appeared a pair of eyes with a disquieting fixity, like those of the cat in the square. Only larger, closer together, the whites of the eye more generous. Questioning eyes. He felt — and the thought anguished him more than anything else — that those were his own eyes, though they were not. Those eyes wanted to convey things he could not understand. With great effort, for the fascination was intense, he looked away and, when his eyes returned to the mirror, there was nothing there. Only, as always, part of the coat rack, the lightbulb that cast a yellow gleam, and his own image. He went to the living room and lit a fire; he needed the company of the flames. He was prepared to read until he fell asleep, so as not to think. But he found he could not read a line. An understandable curiosity compelled him to return to the foyer. The mirror was in its usual place, with its mottled specks and flowers. He tapped the lightbulb to see if the pendular movement would summon a reflection into the mirror. He wanted to see those eyes again.

While he was having dinner he vaguely pondered the last page he had read. To receive in oneself the other’s form without his substance. Later, as he sat facing the sea, he was again consumed by anguish. He soon rose and made his way back, stopping for a while to observe the house from the low wall. He entered and immediately approached the mirror and planted himself squarely before it. After waiting for a few minutes that seemed interminable, he began to perceive those eyes. They came forth slowly, questioning and sad, not on the right side of the mirror as they had the first time, but centered on his own eyes, those eyes that should have been his but were another’s. A smudge, milky at first, then slowly becoming clearer, began to acquire the contours of a shape which he soon recognized as an arm covered with chain mail, at the end of which was a hand with long fingers like his own, the palm open, a wound in the center. Some letters began to form to the side of the arm: Stigmata. He turned his back to the mirror. When he wanted to turn around again, he found that he could not. Until the bell tower in the village struck one o’clock. He then looked in the mirror and found the usual mollifying objects: part of the coat rack, the lightbulb, and himself. Stigmata. Where had that word come from? He had never used it. In his adolescence there had been that knife wound on Baixeres’s hand. . He looked up the meaning of the word. Stigmata: Mark or brand, particularly one made with a hot iron as a sign of infamy or, possibly, slavery. Senyor Ardèvol wrote that a saint — Augustine — had helped him take his mind off the mirror. “I had sunk far away from Thine eyes. In Thine eyes, there was nothing more repugnant than I.”

He looked out onto the garden from the railing at the kitchen window. The moon was golden. He had chosen a book from the library, which he now started to read while making himself a pot of coffee. One of the characters in the book — he couldn’t recall which — had said that those who allow their souls to be populated by terror see things that do not exist. Senyor Ardèvol wrote that he had laughed so hard he had almost choked. He had allowed himself to be frightened by the mottled mirror and by those eyes as he might have been by a lion or giraffe-shaped cloud munching on the blueness of the sky. With the book under his arm and the coffee pot filled to the brim, he marched up to the mirror and stood before it, defiant. His own true self and nothing other than that was what he saw in the mirror, and poorly reflected at that: the right side on the left, the left on the right. He had bid farewell forever to those eyes, to whatever he had been able to glimpse in that mirror. He went upstairs feeling as though he had just been released from prison after years of confinement. He took another book, an essay about Saint Thomas. The human soul begins. . I can’t recall everything Senyor Ardèvol wrote. . through the door. . the embryo. . The father does not create the soul. . reading those papers, written in a handwriting that, more than read, had to be deciphered, it took me some time to understand that the embryo is the beginning of a person. The father creates the bones and the blood, the body. A soul desiring to live again in this world awaits the infant’s first cry, then slips inside him. . It wasn’t altogether clear whether the soul entered at the child’s first cry or when the child was still surrounded by water. . Senyor Ardèvol put down the book and walked to the balcony. The moon glowed golden. Old preoccupations stirred within him: the wound on Baixeres’s hand, the dream in which he had been stabbed with a dagger with a five-hole blade so the wound would stay open. It had been a while since the church bell had chimed midnight, that time of day when the hidden sun slows the flow of blood and turns sleeping men into creatures that invite death. Suddenly, as though ejected from his chair, he sprang up and headed to the foyer. He dragged one of the stools before the mirror and sat down. Motionless. He gazed into the mirror with a steady heart and not a trace of fear, and saw appearing within it those eyes that looked at him and he at them. And that night the face took shape. The face of someone who had suffered greatly. The lips were full, those of someone who had reaped life’s pleasures. Despite the mouth, the face conveyed a deep asceticism that is only attained over the course of an intensely-lived existence. On the bottom edge of the mirror something gleamed that he could not quite recognize. . Here the writing ended.

I went to the cemetery and stayed there a while. As I was returning home along the road, I spotted a bicycle propped against the front door and, standing next to it, a man. He immediately told me his name: Esteve Aran. He explained that, on his way from Arenys, when he was halfway here, a checkpoint patrol had confiscated his car and given him a bicycle by way of compensation. I led him into the house and explained everything that had happened. I spoke about my affection for his friend and, as I had not yet destroyed the papers, I allowed him to read them. The following day I showed him the will and told him I did not wish to keep anything for myself. I already had a house; I wanted to give everything to Senyora Isabel, who was old and poor. He listened, had me write down my wishes and assured me that he would make certain everything was taken care of. Shortly after his departure I, too, left, having first handed a weeping Senyora Isabel the key to the house. She produced a tiny box from her apron pocket: Look inside. Pinned to a piece of cork slept a yellow butterfly with spread wings. As soon as I recovered from the surprise, I asked her who had given it to her. One of the girls who sometimes helps me at night at the castle. She knows you. What is her name, what is she like? She knows you, she has long hair, very long. . she’s a good girl. Her name is Isabel, like mine.

XXV I RETURNED

I HAD ONLY BEEN WALKING FOR A SHORT WHILE WHEN I DECIDED to turn back. I stopped in front of the house: The balcony light was on, as it had been before. The door to the kitchen was unlocked, as before. I stood in the middle of the kitchen and called out a couple of times, Senyora Isabel, Senyora Isabel! There was no answer. I did not understand why I had returned. I inspected the entire house, from top to bottom. The ashes of the papers Senyor Aran and I had burned were still in the fireplace in the library. I took out the tiny box, which I had almost forgotten was in my pocket. I grasped the butterfly and caressed its wings with a finger, turning them to dust. I suddenly felt the desire to wait for dawn so I could return to the crab-infested rock, find Isabel and choke her. Why had she made me believe she wanted to kill herself? Was it worth it to see her again? What was it, in life, that was truly worthwhile? Everything I had experienced in that house had somehow shackled me, everything had the whiff of the man who had taken me in even though he had caught me stealing a piece of bread. Never again would I live in a house such as that by the sea, with the old man still locked inside with his fear. I saw the lightbulb reflected in the mirror. I tapped it so it would swing. Planted in front of the mirror was my own being: the dark shirt, the loose threads where a button had fallen off, the trousers that were a bit short. . The light was swinging back and forth. I held my breath; in the mirror, something seemed to be struggling to emerge. . I bounded up the stairs four steps at a time and jammed the backrest of a chair under the doorknob. Trucks full of men singing war tunes rolled by along the road. Lying on the tiles in front of the hearth, as I had that first night in the house, I finally managed to fall asleep. I awoke at daybreak. I went down the stairs slowly and, without thinking twice, I banged the stool against the mirror until it shattered.

XXVI THE THREE ACACIA TOWN

ANYONE WOULD HAVE STOPPED TO TAKE IN THE VIEW OF THAT dark and dreary valley cleft by a river. Not far from a farmhouse, cows were pasturing serenely under a boy’s watch. Soon both cows and boy started walking. Once they were inside the stable, I made my way down to the river, for I was parched. Beyond the farmhouse, perched atop the hill, was a town with a column of smoke billowing from its center. The smoke issued from a house, the finest in the main square. The second-floor balconies were spitting fire. Everyone was shouting. Women rushed from the portal carting chairs, armchairs, a blue and gold headboard, drawers, three bedside tables, a black rocking chair. . A few old men and children watched the women as they busied themselves emptying the house. I heard a voice saying that if the flames on the ground floor were to emerge from the portal, they would burn the three acacias in the main square. Let everything burn! House and acacias! They aren’t ours. Beside the fountain a man lay sprawled face-down, three crimson holes in his back. That’s the master of the house that’s on fire, an old man in a beret informed me, his wizened face scarcely larger than a fist. All this effort to amass a fortune and look at him now. If it were up to me, I’d toss him back inside so he would serve as kindling and nothing would be wasted.

The old man took me back to his place; he lived alone in a kind of den with recently whitewashed walls and a hearth as black as horror. He fed me and recounted the story of the owner of the burning house: He had arrived in the village as a young man, in search of work, any kind of work, and the wealthiest landowner hired him because he was as strong as an ox and not afraid of hard work. A couple of years later he married the heiress, Rosa, who had skinned knees from kneeling in constant prayer. She had always said she wanted to be a nun. Yet without intending to, the man who was a stranger to the village had frustrated her intentions: Rosa fell in love with him. The father opposed the union, but the girl did not relent until he acquiesced. The word immediately spread that she, who had turned away so many suitors, had been seduced by the drifter who had used his cunning to woo her. But the marriage grew cold. The father died, and all of the property passed into the drifter’s hands. They had a daughter, Eulàlia, despised by her father, who had not wanted children. After a strange malady, Rosa followed her father to the cemetery. The drifter treated his daughter worse than a dog: His sole preoccupation was amassing wealth. No one was allowed a morsel of bread unless he unlocked the cupboard where it was kept. He cut thin slices and let them dry out. He was a nobody who had come into money, a parvenu. He was disliked, but people kept their heads down because they needed him. He did not allow water to be extracted from the well as needed: The rope would be worn thin. He borrowed other peoples’ horses to conserve the horseshoes on his own. He let his teeth rot: Dentists were swindlers. All the fireplaces in his house had their chimneys capped to avoid the use of firewood; he believed that blocking the passage of air did more to heat the place than ruining forests by felling trees. He trimmed his fingernails with kitchen scissors because he had no others. When the barber cut his hair, he paid him with a few miserable pieces of fruit and the promise of more to come, though his trees were bare. Everyone despised him, yet anyone needing money was forced to go to him, though it was clear that the loan would come at a considerable price. Eulàlia had sad eyes and a body so frail she could barely stand. The entire village cried Miracle! Miracle! when she married the eldest son of a neighbor who had discovered her wandering lost in the forest one day, sobbing, saying she was running away. As she walked down the aisle she had the pallor of death. Her father, who did not accompany her that day, cursed her, for he would now be forced to hire someone to run the household. An old woman weighed down by many years and hardships came to serve in his home.

From time to time, he traveled to Barcelona, taking with him a small suitcase that appeared light when he left and heavy upon his return. The villagers all said that he had gone to buy gold. The miser’s house was derelict, yet in people’s minds it was covered with gold. When things finally came to a head, a few young men — the most impetuous in the village — having heard their parents lambasting the miser, broke into his house, seized him, and locked him up. Tiring of their inability to force him to divulge the location of his hidden treasure, they dragged him into the square, placed a paper hat on him and gave him a beating, while the old woman in his service and two neighbors set fire to the house. But first, they inspected the place from top to bottom, every nook and cranny, every crack in the wall. They axed closets, knocked down hollow-sounding walls, emptied wineskins, drove holes into the chimneys. . But the gold did not appear. It was decided that the old men of the village, with the help of the women and children, would dig up the miser’s lands and search the crevices in every rock. . and whoever found the gold would announce the news and it would be divided among them.

At nightfall there were still people in the street. Amid cries, laughter, and insults they threw debris on the miser who had arrived in the village as a young man. At dawn the house was a furnace. The leaves on the acacias were charred and would never grow again. The man in the beret and I moved closer to observe the dead man. Beneath the pile of garbage, only his feet showed.

XXVII THE CAT MAN

I CROSSED THE ESPLANADE. A FIG TREE STOOD IN FRONT OF THE door to the café. Inside, everything was a jumble of broken glass. I sat down at a table to think, but I had no time to reflect on things because almost immediately a man with hunched shoulders and a limp entered. He was carrying a straw basket from which he produced a bottle of wine and half a baguette stuffed with bacon. He looked at me, waiting for someone? As you can see, life has come to a halt here. Did you follow the road or did you come through the village? I came by way of the road. So you haven’t seen all the ashes in the street. There’s not a dog left to wag its tail. Shrugging my shoulders, I said I didn’t care if life had come to a stop and I wasn’t waiting for anyone. He took a bite of his bread and a piece of bacon came out, just like the piece of ham had slipped out of the lethargic man’s sandwich that day on the beach. You should remember to work hard, while you’re young. Hand me a knife: second drawer on the right, under the countertop. I should have given him the knife and left; I wasn’t in the mood for idle talk, but I liked sitting in the café, with the profusion of broken bottles and empty shelves, watching the flies buzzing about. The man with the straw basket was drinking wine straight from the bottle, his eyes closed, one hand under his chin to avoid staining his shirt.

He said it was his café, not by ownership but because he had frequented it for as long as he could remember, his entire life. He earned his keep by neutering cats and rendering small services. When the owner of the café was killed. . sad, huh? Distant relatives had ordered the killing after demanding one hundred thousand pesetas from the owner and being told he didn’t have it, which was the truth. But they thought he was simply refusing to pay up, and when things got heated, out came the rifles. That said, this café has always been mine and always will be, because I have nowhere else to go. Half the ceiling of my house has caved in. He paused for a moment as he looked at me, head lowered, eyes raised. Want to see the cat? I glanced outside, trying to appear distracted. I realize I’m rather dull. Unlike my father. . he made earthenware jugs and bowls. When he touched the clay, an object came to life. As he talked, the man with the straw basket kept looking at me and sniggering as though he thought me some pipsqueak who had just flown the nest, so I told him that his father was not his father. He grasped the bottle and nearly smashed it on my head, but managed to reign himself in. His father, I explained, had only made his body; his soul was a lost soul that had searched for a home for years and had slipped inside his body when he had taken his first breath. With eyes full of rage, he asked me if I had been drinking from the fountain of the moon-pulled water. To shut me up, or so I believe, he removed a package from his basket. Want to see it? It was a stuffed cat with its tail pinned to its body and its ears up. A tabby. My wife couldn’t stand the sight of it and I always put it on her bedside table. . That’s what I’d like to do with a lot of people: Stuff them with straw so they would be still and quiet. Fill them full of straw. This cat — this very cat — had belonged to some neighbors. A fantastic ratter, it was. A regal cat. Its owner lavished it with all manner of attentions: It ate from a porcelain dish and slept on velvet. They were rich, these neighbors, and could afford to keep as many cats as they wished. Every night I would bury my head in the pillow, consumed with envy. And I learned taxidermy so I could make the cat my own. I tied a chicken head with a string and lured the cat to the house by dangling it in front of him. He crept warily into the garden — and then he was mine. I’ve slept with the cat next to me ever since. Even on my wedding night. When my wife died — may she rest in peace — I learned to meow, and before falling asleep, with the cat under the covers, I would meow for a while as if the cat were serenading me. And I still do. It helps me fall sleep.

XXVIII PRIDE

THE DAY WAS BREAKING. I HAD SLEPT POORLY, MY ARMS ON THE table and my head resting on them. The back of my neck was sore and I had a taste of copper in my mouth. Beyond the fog-shrouded esplanade, shadowy figures were getting in and out of a van with its taillights on. Two men were coming toward the café, each with a box on his shoulders. As they were entering, two shots rang out. They’ve finished him off. The cat man woke up, his eyes filled with fear. It’s nothing, grandpa, it’s nothing. Just a salvo. The men started removing bottles of cognac from the boxes and stacking them on the counter.

Other men were approaching, speaking in loud voices. The last man to enter the café, his face drained of color, was the only one who turned to look toward the esplanade. The one who seemed to be in charge was tall, with a small head, a straight nose, and a scar across his cheek. He had a thick mustache and was wearing a shiny jacket and a wide-brimmed hat with a feather. A still-smoking rifle was slung across his shoulder. He had someone open a bottle and downed half of it in one swallow. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. From now on I’ll be able to enjoy what I never had before: a bed ten spans wide so I can sleep lengthwise or crosswise. Whichever way I want. And in the next room I’ll keep myself some captives, two or three rich man’s whores who will pay homage to yours truly with fearful faces and gowns that leave their tiny breasts exposed. He turned to face us: The guy we just dispatched along with his adopted son was my cousin, the owner of all the vineyards in this county. We only intended to kill the old man, but the son wanted to hug his father one last time, so we sent them both to heaven in an eternal embrace.

The man in charge sat down at our table, and after staring at it with a vacant look for a few moments, he gave the cat a kick, sending it tumbling toward the door. I am the heir. And he shouted: A bottle! And glasses! One of the men pointed to the floor. There are no glasses. The man in charge looked at the old man. Instead of parading about with that stuffed animal that’s already given you everything it had, you’d be better off if you came with us and cleaned our rifles, that goes for you too, kid! The barrel of my rifle is always hot and I wouldn’t want it cooling off before this war is won. The cat man laughed so hard he seemed about to break, and everyone stopped drinking to stare at him, and then the cat man said that none of them were their father’s sons. A scrawny man wearing a blue shirt and a red scarf around his neck lunged toward him, brandishing a bottle, threatening to smash it over his head if he repeated such nonsense. It’s not me, it’s that boy who said so; according to him, parents merely create a child’s flesh and bones and with its first cry, the infant is infused with a soul that has been waiting for that moment. The tallest man in the group gave me a cold stare: Show us the soul! I stood up, charged into the scrawny man, who was blocking my way, and bolted out of there, tripping on the cat and sending it flying onto the countertop. The cat man meowed and meowed. Outside the fog had thickened, and perhaps that is why they didn’t kill me, though they shot at me like maniacs.

XXIX THE HERMIT

I SAW HIM AT ONCE, THE MAN TILLING THE FIELD. AND HE SAW me, for, shading his eyes with his hand and shouting loudly, he asked if I was headed to the chapel. Without giving me a chance to respond, he explained that the chapel was farther up, above the holm-oak forest, behind a thicket of strawberry trees and heather. Treading on clods of turned earth, he moved closer, and when he was standing next to me, he pushed his cap back. He’s not like the rest of us. Who? I asked. Aren’t you on your way to see the hermit? No. Well, you should pay him a visit. He’s the grandest man on this earth. A giant. Not even the most angelic of angels can compare to him. His eyes were already filled with God when he arrived in these parts, he already breathed the breath of God. . The chapel was in ruins, the ceiling had caved in, and two of the walls were gone. It was a den of serpents and lizards. The previous hermit had died of old age years ago. And this man, of whom I can only say that he is a saint, arrived here in a wretched state, skin and bones, barely able to stand, but with his sight set on the heavens. I went about helping him at once: Though I never had much of anything to spare, I took him whatever I could. . a sliver of lard, a crust of bread, even if it meant I would have little to feed the chickens that night. Sometimes a few apples, sometimes a pot of honey. One day, without daring to look at me, the hermit told me he had prayed that God would reward me for the good I was doing him, and apparently God had conveyed to him the message that I would be admitted into His saintly glory on the day I breathed my last. And I live in peace. Ever since then, my vegetable garden has been the lushest, without even watering it, really, because as soon as it is thirsty the sky sends down rain. I harvest more grapes than ever. The earth is soft and black. And, as I work, my spirit lifts heavenward toward the blue and the clouds.

A few days after the saintly man’s arrival, he began to gather stones: A wall was going up. He placed one of the stones — the longest and narrowest, which had been half buried near the Pinetell springs — crosswise above the portal, to serve as a lintel. And he covered it all with brick tiles which he had limped over to the abandoned farmhouse to collect. When he had completed work on the chapel, he built an altar from the trunk of an oak tree that had been felled by lightning; he dragged it to the site with a chain I lent him. And on that altar, where he says Mass every day at dawn, he placed a cross like the cross our Savior died on, made from four different kinds of wood: palm, cypress, olive, and cedar. On one side of the cross he keeps a crown of brambles and on the other, three rusted nails held together with a wire, their heads flattened. The Mass he says is unlike most: It seems that an angel — always the same one — serves as his altar boy and blows to enlarge the chapel, sheathing it with a glass veil until it becomes a cathedral. The day he dies, birds will usher him to the heavens — up, up — some pulling, others pushing. . and they will lay him on a shipcloud wreathed in a pearly light. It’ll do you good to see him. They say we are at war, that brothers are killing brothers, but here the God of grass and trees, sky and fog, water and rock continues to bless tender-hearted men. Go to the chapel. Go.

The path winded up among trees with tormented trunks and stiff, shimmering leaves. Through the trees I caught a glimpse of the chapel, entirely of stone, with moss-covered tiles. By the entrance sat a man wearing a garment of sackcloth, with a string around his neck at the end of which hung a cross made of dark wood. A rope, the whole of it a rosary of knots, encircled his waist. He raised his head and greeted me. I heard footsteps. . he stretched out his arm. At his feet lay a basket full of beans. I told him my story. As though he hadn’t heard a word, he issued an order: Help me sort these. The sky above our heads was fretted with small clouds. Along the path I had taken now came a young girl with a large basket. She set it on the ground next to us and took out a loaf of bread and a pot of jam. Without uttering one sad word, she turned and started back down. We cooked the beans on a shivering campfire in the middle of a clearing, in a pot that looked like gold. After lunch I doused the fire with a couple of buckets of water. Then he had me sit beside him and, examining me with his sickly eyes, he began to speak.

My father was a wealthy man. It was my constant misbehavior that put him in his grave. I was always asking him for money, and when he refused to give me any, I forged his signature. I appropriated his name for my own use. I inherited his fortune, but quickly squandered it. Mired in debt, having never worked a day in my life, I saw my friends soon vanish. Scorned by everyone who had surrounded me when my cup overflowed with wealth and plenty, I crumbled. I lodged in a miserable pension until I could no longer afford even that. I could have sought employment only as a stevedore, a porter, a street sweeper, a sign walker. . a house painter? I wouldn’t have known where to start. I stayed indoors during the day to avoid being seen. I wandered the streets at night. In the end, penniless, I took to sleeping fitfully on benches in train stations or in the street, until the first grey streamers of dawn appeared. On one of those nights, a manhole cover slid open, revealing a wreck of a man. With his help I got a job cleaning sewer lines. No one saw me, no one laughed at me. A hatred toward lordly people began to grow inside of me, a hatred toward all those who had money as I once had and whom I now considered my enemy. I loathed sumptuous houses, bejeweled women who were like window displays of rubies and diamonds. The people who had seen me on my knees, at their feet, and with a gesture of a richly ornamented finger and a look that wiped me from the face of the earth, had left me alone with myself.

Like roots whose reach is unknown, the sewer lines coiled beneath the houses of the rich and powerful. My comrades in misery were a resigned lot. . I soon parted ways with them, not because of what they were like, but because I needed to be alone. When I heard someone approaching, I escaped deeper into the sewer. I moved about with a lantern around my neck and carried an iron rod that I banged on the cement vault in my longing to destroy the very foundations of the city. I could feel the remotest sewer lines beckoning me. I spent hour upon hour begrimed, breathing in the foulness of that dark labyrinth that collected the filth of the city. On stormy days the water carried dead rats out to sea. Sometimes my exalted hatred would abate and tears would stream down my cheeks. And then I yearned to breathe the air that I had denied myself. I would search for an exit without finding one. I had no way of knowing beneath which streets, which places I prowled, drenched in putrid water, surrounded by rats that spied on me from hidden crevices. I don’t know how long I lived that way. . until one day I felt the iron rungs of a ladder piercing the soles of my feet. The manhole cover was heavy; my arms were like reeds, my hands like claws. My neck could barely hold my head up. It was a spring night; the air rustled the leaves. I was near the sea and the smell of tar. .

When I came to I was lying on a bunk, all of my senses focused on the sound of lapping water, without the strength to ask myself how I had arrived there. Every now and then I heard the woeful wailing of a siren. I glimpsed a group of officers in a brightly lit room, dressed in white, drinking and laughing. I climbed down a rope ladder and untied the boat.

In the middle of the sea, the sky lulled me, the moon blanched me. Caressed by the sky and the night, alone with my misery, my anger slowly turning into a meaningless word, I discovered what I did not know I had been seeking: to reach God by following the arduous path of life. A beach welcomed me. Kneeling on the sand, I accepted life. I needed to be reborn, to expunge the dictates that men — both the powerful and the powerless — had forced on me. And suddenly, like an immaculate lamb, our Savior, the one who gives all things, revealed Himself to me in the center of the sun.

I traversed village after village, treading upon paths of tender grass, across sowed fields, along riverbanks. I punished myself: I did not eat when hungry, nor drink when thirsty. I drew blood by flogging myself with stinging nettles. . at death’s door, without quite dying, I blessed the tender shoot, the fallen feather, the heart of the flower, the slug and the leech, the green snake and the earth-colored snake, the cascading water, the acorn that satiates the wild boar’s hunger. . and here in this light-infused solitude, gazing at a sun that burns my eyes, in the company of the Cross, upon this friendly earth from which came the clay I was made of, surrounded by life that is robust and secret, I exist in a state of love, so that God might not forsake me.

XXX ANOTHER FARMHOUSE

I CLIMBED AN OLD TREE WHOSE TRUNK, FORTUNATELY, HAD KNOTS that I could use as footholds, for when I found myself near the farmhouse three dogs appeared, barking loudly and charging at me. Below my perch, a table was set for about a hundred people. After a while, the dogs tired of barking and trying to climb the tree and rushed off to greet some girls with baskets who were walking in my direction. They started arranging bread rolls, glasses, wineglasses, and plates around the table. Two little girls who had been hiding behind a well began to scream and plodded over to the tree where I was ensconced. Between two fingers the oldest was holding an earthworm that coiled and uncoiled. She placed it on the ground, and the two of them started poking it with twigs. The slick, red worm kept squirming. They didn’t leave it alone until it had been pulled to pieces. The girls with the baskets were busy coming and going. The little girls again hid behind the well screaming, Another worm! Another worm! Let’s kill it! Let’s kill it! Above my head, a bird watched me, wings spread and head forward.

There was music. Young men and girls arrived in wagons, trucks, and carts. I moved farther up the tree and straddled a branch that, although thick, creaked as though it were about to break. The young people climbed down from the vehicles and started dancing and jumping around the threshing floor. Shortly thereafter, trucks filled with militiamen appeared, one of them loaded with rifles and machine guns. The last to arrive was a truck festooned with white flowers, and from it descended the bride and groom, both in militia attire. She wore a white flower in her hair. Long live the bride and groom! Viva the bride and groom! The guests surrounded them shouting long live the bride and groom. The bride, short and stout, laughed continuously, and the groom, tall and thin, pushing aside those who got too close, kept saying: enough, enough. . Everyone began to take their places at the table. More cries were heard — the parents! The parents! An elderly couple descended from a cart pulled by a palomino. The mother wore a mantilla, the father a black hat. The parents are here! The parents are here! The groom’s parents! The girls who had set the table brought out porrons of wine. Viva the groom’s parents! Soon, women bearing food emerged from the farmhouse and placed on the table platters stacked high with slices of cured sausage, different varieties of ham, mounds of shelled prawns, open muscles with pink sauce, clams drowned in green sauce, and lobster tails garnished with mayonnaise. Two brawny men appeared with bowls of salad — lettuce and tomato with green and black olives — and plates piled with roasted eggplant and red peppers. Everyone talked and laughed, everyone was happy, everyone was hungry, everyone raised porrons and glasses, shouting over and over, long live the bride and groom, so there would be no end to the couple’s happiness or the Perarnau family name. A few young men rose from their chairs, approached the bride, and kissed her on both cheeks. A place at the head of the table remained empty, but everyone ignored it until the bride pointed to it and the two brawny men glanced at each other, sprang up and made for the house. The dinner guests turned their heads to see what was happening. The two men soon reappeared with a lardy man, round as a full moon, holding him by the arms to help him walk. The man, ruddy-faced, with close-set eyebrows, was wearing corduroy trousers that were so wide they resembled a skirt. And espadrilles with black ribbon ties. Arms aloft, he cried: I haven’t eaten for more than two hours, I’m hungry and weak. He walked without being able to see his feet or where he placed them, so large was his paunch. When he reached the well, he stopped to catch his breath and the girls cropped up like two little devils and hurled a worm at his head. Scoundrels! Scoundrels! And he started weeping, saying he was scared to walk because his brothers were unthinking brutes who would let him trip on a stone, and that would be the end of him. There are no stones, there are no stones, said one of the brothers; the other lost his patience and shouted, walk, you fool, walk! I swear there are no stones in your way. Come here, Uncle, come here, shouted the bride, holding up a fork with a prawn speared on it. We want Manel over here! A man as burly as the two escorting the moon-shaped man stepped toward the brothers. Mind the stones! Whenever they take him out for some fresh air, he’s afraid of tripping — said a girl holding a glass of blood-red wine to her mouth — and falling flat on his round belly, and rolling and rolling, with those short little arms and legs of his. The moon-shaped man lowered his head. They plopped him down in his assigned spot, on two chairs that had been pushed together, the backrests and crosspieces held together with wires. A bowl of hors d’oeuvres and another with salad and roasted red peppers was set before him. Women and girls kept removing the empty dishes and returning with food-laden platters. And then it was time for the chicken and the grilled meat, the partridge and the quail. The moon-shaped man, who had eyes only for the food he was ingesting, ate the hors d’oeuvres and salad, followed by two plates of rice with hunks of pork and rabbit legs, two monkfish, two hakes, two chickens stuffed with pears and prunes, half a veal round, three partridges, and two squabs. . a platter of sweets, a ring cake, three dishes of crema catalana and who knows how many flans. After coffee was served, the dance began on the threshing floor. While everyone was dancing, the bride and groom climbed in the truck with the rifles and machine guns and drove away, raising a cloud of dust. When the guests who were dancing realized, they began to reprimand the couple: That’s not fair! You cheats! A girl with a red skirt and a red flower in her hair shouted until she was hoarse, Viva the bride and groom! Viva! as she twirled a bunch of colorful ribbons against the paling sun.

One of my legs ached and I changed positions. The branch groaned. The moon-shaped man glanced up, searching among the leaves. When he spotted me, he seemed fascinated by what he saw, and he raised his arm and motioned for me to come down. He had me sit beside him and asked me to get him a glass of water and sugar; he couldn’t reach the pitcher, much less the sugar bowl. Lunch has made me thirsty. As he gulped down the water, he kept looking at me with pitiful eyes. He told me to eat, he said I looked hungry. I stuffed myself with sweets, with cake, with a bit of crème brûlée that someone hadn’t finished.

Here you have me, a man consumed by a never-ending urge to eat. The men who were holding me by the arms are my brothers: the middle one and the youngest. They are waiting for me to die, claws at the ready. I used to eat like a bird, I had no appetite, my growth was stunted. My mother was always preparing delicacies for me. . here, have some chicken livers, have some lamb brains, have some hen combs, have some rabbit cheeks. All light fare, which I scarcely ever touched. I was scrawny. All skin and bones, arms like matchsticks, legs like matchsticks. Until someone told my mother to feed me honey. I had never tasted it before, and I liked it so much that all day long I would cry for more. I kept pots of it beside my bed and spent my nights dipping fingers into it, licking away. And, being small of frame, I slowly developed a considerable layer of fat. This change went hand in hand with my brothers’ glee as I turned into a ball of lard and they saw how any little effort left me winded. In the end they deemed me worthless, even though I had married and produced a son (everybody shouted Miracle! because no one could understand how I had managed to make the boy). My wife and son soon died, and my brothers cast me aside and managed the property without offering me any explanations, although I was the heir. I have seven months to live; my heart has a casing of fat that is slowly choking it. Suddenly, he ordered me to climb back up the tree because his brothers were coming for him and they would scold him if they saw him talking to a stranger.

The two men took him back to the house the same way they had helped him to the table: holding him by the arms and prodding him occasionally from behind. The dancers had left and everything lay enveloped in the shadows of dusk. As I climbed down from the tree I scared off a clutch of sparrows that were pecking at the bread crumbs around the table. The dogs were eating by the portal; this time they didn’t chase after me, perhaps because after seeing me talking to the moon-shaped man they counted me as one of their own.

I raised my head, baa. . baa. . baa. . those sheep cries intrigued me; I had to see for myself what was happening. Behind the farmhouse, near the vegetable garden, three stout men were shearing sheep. The animals had wide foreheads, pointy muzzles, droopy ears, and legs so covered in wool that you could scarcely see them. The men had rough faces. One of them, with white hair and a deeply furrowed brow, immediately spotted me. When I realized he had seen me I made an attempt to flee, which spoiled everything because then the younger one, in a fleece vest, grabbed me by the arm and shoved me to the ground. I kicked him. But he was the stronger of the two. He dragged me to where the sheep were being sheared and, amid shouts and panting, they pinned me down by the arms and legs and started running the shears over my head.

I awoke at daybreak. I was lying by a hayloft. A hen was pecking at my feet. A rooster crowed. I ran a hand over my head, bald in patches, unshorn in others. I would have stayed there and slept forever, buried in the hay. But I had to leave. I was sore, everything ached. I stood up and started walking, though not without first turning around to bid farewell to the farmhouse where the wedding party had taken place. From a ground floor window the moon-shaped man, his face as red as a partridge, craned his neck forward as he looked at me and blew his nose between two fingers.

XXXI MATILDA’S WHITE BELLY

I TRIED LOOKING AT THE SUN, THE WAY THE HERMIT DID, TO SEE if it would burn my pupils. This game of mine was interrupted by the racket of a motorcycle that came to a sudden halt in front of me. The man on the motorcycle said, if you want me to take you somewhere don’t hesitate to ask, I’m not going anywhere. His mouth warped into a grimace of disgust. He had long teeth, his canines much like a dog’s, and restless eyes that darted around without focusing on anything. Can’t make up your mind? He removed a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket and held it out to me as he said, someone really worked you over, son. He stuck the cigarettes under my nose, determined that I take one; I had to confess I had never smoked before, other than some herbs behind my mother’s back when I was little and trying to act like a man. Smoke! The first drag made me cough. My eyes watered. The motorcycle man said he liked to smoke fast so he could get to the end of the cigarette and light another one. The best part is when you light up. That’s why men who have lost their eyesight don’t smoke. . when I tire of smoking I’ll fix this mess of a haircut you’ve got. Who the hell did that to you? I liked him because his eyes darted from the branches to me, from the road to the grass, from the tip of his cigarette to the tip of mine, which was turning to ash.

He began his story by saying that he had once had a brig inside a bottle and that it was his father’s fault that he had chosen to become a barber: When he was small, his father would have him cut the hair on the back of his neck because he couldn’t reach there. Then I was hired as an apprentice to the barber two doors down, a sad, bald man who had a liver condition and subsisted on a diet of boiled rice. He died when I finished my military service and I took over the barbershop. All the clients knew me, and they continued to come. I had two shop windows, one facing the main street and the other an alleyway. They were lined with empty bottles labelled quinine and tar, and a giant bottle that had once held cologne and that I filled with water. On the corner in front of the barbershop was a bakery. When my boss died, the baker followed suit. Two months later, a flower shop opened where the bakery had been. It took me a while to notice the owner. Then, one Saint Magdalene’s Day, tired of hearing my Magdalena whine that I never brought her any gifts, I went in to buy her a rose. She was a manicurist, Magdalena. She came to the house on Sundays; we’d sleep together for a while and then we’d clean the place. Magdalena was a quiet girl from a modest but decent family.

The owner of the flower shop wrapped the rose in tinfoil and spritzed it with water. Her eyes changed colors and her skin was silkier than the plush petals of the rose she had just sold me. From that day on I started spying on her from behind the giant bottle. She had the appearance of a little girl with sword-like legs. She always wore a black skirt and a white blouse. Until finally I could contain myself no longer and I strode into the shop to buy a begonia that I would put — I told her — in the main shop window. You’ll need to water it often. With the begonia as an excuse, I would stop in to see her every now and then. The leaves are falling off. I don’t think I’m watering it enough. Her name was Matilda. I fell in love with her. I left Magdalena.

I didn’t want Matilda to work. I wanted her all to myself. Sell the flower shop. But no, there she was, as always, with her boxes of flowers and the atomizer she used to spritz them. I won’t recount the wedding night, I’ll only say she was still wearing her black skirt and white blouse when she got in bed. I unzipped her. She had nothing on underneath. I’d never seen a belly as white as hers. It took my breath away. And every night I worshiped it. I never tired of looking at it. I abandoned my friends, I stopped playing billiards. There weren’t enough nights, not enough Sunday afternoons or holidays to worship and worship and worship her belly. I lost clients. I never stopped asking her to give up her shop. It was a silent war. Sell the store, sell the store. But she wouldn’t budge. Until, disappointed and defeated, I learned to keep quiet. One evening, about three months after I had stopped talking to her, she remained standing on the other side of the table after serving me dinner, eyes downcast, and then she suddenly lifted her skirt and stood there with her belly exposed. I continued to eat as if nothing had happened, as if she were in the kitchen preparing something. And from that evening on, every night at dinnertime she would do the same: skirt up and belly showing. I stopped having supper at home. I stopped having lunch at home. I went to the bar, I played billiards, I returned home at dawn. She never relented. She would show me her belly when I climbed into bed, when I came out from washing, as soon as I opened my eyes. I grew sick of her. And then, fortunately, the war started. I enlisted at once. And now I serve as liaison, or at least I did. I deserted, left my battalion. I think I might open a barbershop in France. Want to come with me? I told him I preferred to be on my own so I could consider things slowly, methodically. Clicking his tongue, he strode to his motorcycle and from the haversack hanging on the back brought out a clipper and a razor. He left my head looking like a ball and my face fuzz-free. He departed enveloped by a cloud of dust. When the dust settled I saw a strange man coming toward me.

XXXIITHE MAN WHO WALKED WITH HIS BACK TO THE SUN AND THE MOON

HE WAS IN HIS MIDDLE YEARS. HIS BLACK BEARD CAME DOWN TO his chest and his grey hair reached the middle of his back. He was bare-chested beneath a jacket with moth-eaten lapels. The legs of his trousers had rips of considerable size, one around the knee, the other at thigh-level. He wore new sandals. A rusty key hung from a string around his neck. His eyes sparkled as though made of silver, and his lips were barely visible beneath the tangled hairs of his mustache. A blackbird was perched on his shoulder. He stopped in front of me, stood there for a while, and then asked me if I knew the name of the nearest village. It occurred to me that he was in a jesting mood, but what he really wanted, like most people, was someone to talk to. Someone to lend him an ear. The blackbird squawked. Stop being a nuisance. The sun, he said, is retiring and there will be no shadows. When the moon is out I shall be on my way. My grandmother was very old when she died, but dead and dressed in her Sunday best she had all the freshness of flowers; it was as though she had fallen asleep after coming home from Mass. She taught me to love my shadow. She said: You and your shadow were placed in the saddle of life so that you might gallop together. I have no one in this world, nor do I wish to; I want to live alone with my shadow. I was little then. Haven’t you noticed that you have a shadow? I didn’t move and the shadow didn’t move. It was I who cast that dark smudge on the ground. I make the shadow. I am it. No. It is you. Without it — and she pressed a finger against my forehead — you would not be. If you lose it, you die. Whenever I found myself alone I stood in front of the lamp and slowly lifted an arm, and so did the shadow. I extended the other arm, so did the shadow. I was little. I tilted my head, it did the same. Everything I did, it did as well.

Shadows suck the spirits, the soul-sap, from grass and roots. I want to see the spirits. That cannot be. The shadows also feed on defunct ants and on carcasses of oxen, which infect them with their fury. Examine yours in the moonlight, when frogs are quiet and water snakes slither across the mud. . your shadow will gild the lilies and paint the roses. When you are grown, and in the company of your shadow, you will hear the cries of unborn creatures, the breathing of the world, the screaming of the stars. My grandmother had young hands, and even on the eve of her death her eyes gleamed with mischief. She died, but could not be buried when she should have been: The casket maker was ill, and no one else in the village, or in any of the neighboring villages, could pick up a plane or a handsaw because no one knew how to take wood and turn it into a pine box. One afternoon, at that time of day when the heat is at its most oppressive, I raised the blinds after watching her for a while as she lay dead. A ray of sunlight fell on her. I stood in front of the window and let my shadow keep her company until the sun set.

I studied, I lived, I never again remembered I had once had a grandmother. I became a public defender, working for the poor,

the castaways, those who had been incarcerated for stealing a piece of bread. Always in endless conversations, endless consolations, my nose always clogged by tormented breaths, my ears filled with all the misery and misfortune of the world. The blackbird squawked three times and the man whacked it on the wing. Hush! I lived in a ground-floor lodging with three rooms, all three a pigsty, with dust and spiderwebs everywhere, rubbish never taken out on time, dishes piled on the stovetop and floor, glistening beetles, and dirty clothes strewn over chairs. One night on my way home I realized that I was walking down my street all alone. The doors were bolted, windows too. I passed a street lamp. . my shadow had vanished. I stopped short and instinctively raised an arm: The arm had no shadow. I arrived home riddled with anguish, just as the moon was coming out. I turned my back to it, and the faint glimmer of that winter moon — to see it was to believe it — deposited my own shadow at my feet. As I inserted the key I am now wearing around my neck into the lock, the shadow rested on the doorframe and I stroked it many times. I wanted it to know I loved it. I left everything: wretched prisoners, widows’ tears, orphans’ despair, killers’ remorse. . and from that day on I have lived for my shadow alone. I don’t want to ever lose it again, I want it to be mine, all mine. And that is why it should come as no surprise that, now that the moon is rising, I will take my leave of you and depart accompanied by my shadow. My back to the moon so I can see it at night, my back to the sun so I can see it by day. Farewell—Adéu.

XXXIIITHE BRICKLAYER

IN FRONT OF A BOMBED-OUT HOUSE, ITS BLACKENED WALLS STILL standing, a man paced back and forth, cursing and hitting himself on the head with his fists. More than seeing me, he must have sensed my presence, for he suddenly fell silent. He was bald on top but had lots of hair on the sides, and his bushy brows met in the middle of his forehead. He sat down on a chopping block, rested his hands on his thighs and raised his head: My wife was buried this morning. Mercifully, my son went to his grandparents’ a week ago — yes, that must be why he was spared — and he doesn’t know anything about the bombing or his mother’s death. I was in the vineyard when the bomb fell. But, why? Why did they have to drop a bomb — just the one — here in this godforsaken town where there aren’t even any young people left? His voice cracked: not even that. . they just want to wreck people’s lives. A woman like her, to die beneath the rubble of her own house, alone inside the house, never having harmed a soul. . The day I die, if I go with a lucid mind, I will be thinking of her still, my Eulàlia. And — you see? — my heart aches, but I don’t feel she’s really dead. It can’t be so, I can sense her moving about, conscientious as always, scrubbing, sewing, mending, striving to keep the house as clean as a whistle, everything in shipshape order. . If it weren’t for the fact that my son is still a boy, and as good as his mother, I’d rather just die. Since I married her I have known only joy, never a moment of vexation. And that’s saying a lot. Look at these hands. Clearly the hands of a bricklayer, are they not? The skin cracked and rough from handling bricks, burnt by the cement. We built this house with our own sweat, by saving every cent we had to purchase now a sack of cement, now a couple of sacks of sand, now a batch of bricks. We spared no expense! Poor Estanislau, the plasterer, came and wouldn’t charge me for the material or the work. And Jeremies, the electrician, came and refused his wages. And Manel, the carpenter, came and donated the door and window frames. And Belloc, the painter, turned up and contributed the varnish. And then all of us, electrician, carpenter, plasterer, painter, and myself, went to work painting the whole thing — with blue shutters. Eulàlia made lunch for all of us. It was marvelous. You can’t imagine the glory of building a house from the foundations to the roof. Of seeing it go up. Of picking up a brick, slapping cement on three sides and — plop! — there you have it, ready to set. And one by one, putting up the rafters and covering them, building walls as though it were easy as pie. . Laying shingles, some belly up, others down — there — gutters and paths for the rain to sing through. He eyed me for a while and then averted his gaze. Behind me stood a thin boy, tan from being out-of-doors fighting in the war, for it was plain that that was what he had been doing: His arm was bandaged, forehead too. I, he said, weep for this man’s house and for the death of his wife. Though I’m much younger, we have always been like brothers. My name is Jeremies and I’m an electrician. I had scarcely learned the trade when I was handed a rifle, and from then on it was life in the open for me, hounded by Moors — who are as treacherous as they come — and one day, finding myself cornered without even knowing how to shoot, I pulled the trigger and a bullet came out and the Moor stumbled before falling to the ground. The fright of having killed a man sent me running, and then it was I who stumbled from two bullets that were chasing me, one of which grazed my arm, the other my forehead, and from there it was straight to the hospital, which had been bombed three times despite the white sheet with a red cross on the rooftop. . If this fellow misses putting up walls, he said, I miss doing the wiring, running the wires through the grooves, sliding them along and along so that the lightbulbs will light up. A man younger than the bricklayer and older than the electrician approached us and began speaking in a low voice, as though he were at confession. I volunteered and now I’ve lost everything: shop and tools. Tools I had bought, one by one, as an apprentice, and tools my father had given me little by little, starting with the chisel. Just ask — I had them all: hammer, saw, and handsaw. And the plane, which made shavings so delicate they resembled the ringlets on one of those giant female figures we parade around in processions. . always planing doors that don’t fit or shutters that are too large, so that everything will open and close properly, everything will work as it should. . When I mentioned that I had a carnation field they said that that was all well and good but it was more important to have a vegetable garden, especially in wartime, when you never know if there will be anything to eat the following day. This war is a terrible calamity, can anyone tell me why we are fighting? The bricklayer said it was to beat back the enemy, but then the carpenter pointed out that, to our enemies, we are the enemy. The electrician said: Even if we win this war it’ll be as though we’ve lost it, the way a war is set up, everyone loses. The hearth builder joined us and said that we could cry all we wanted and there would still be nothing to plow, we were all cannon fodder, nothing but cannon fodder. The bricklayer raised his head. Three men were coming our way pushing wheelbarrows loaded with picks and shovels and bricklayer’s hammers. They were the painter, the plasterer, and the carpenter’s son, coming to help rebuild the house. They immediately stepped inside the ruins; I did the same. Until it was dark and the bricklayer said, should we stop for supper? We all went to the church. The bricklayer lit a lantern and set it on the altar. There were no saints. The pews were piled up in a corner; the plasterer picked one up and, with the carpenter’s help, smashed it and used it to build a fire on the floor. When it’s all over I’ll make nicer pews than these. They put a pot of white beans garnished with strips of bacon on the fire.

The carpenter asked the bricklayer if he knew me. No. He was just passing by and we got to talking. Soon the bricklayer and I found ourselves alone. Time for bed now. We stretched out on the floor. I hadn’t been asleep for two hours when a voice woke me. Go home.

At daybreak everyone was back at work. I spent three days helping them pile up the rubble and remove the cement from the bricks, but on what would have been the fourth day I left them, not so much to get away from them, but to get away from the voice that woke me every night as soon as I fell asleep, go home, go home. .

XXXIVA VICTIM

A GIRL WAS CRYING BY A FOUNTAIN. ON HEARING MY FOOTSTEPS she raised her tearful eyes and covered her face with her hands as though wanting to hide her whole being from me. The water sang as it flowed and slipped away among the ferns. I didn’t know what to do, whether to walk on or stop and console the girl. She had her sleeves rolled up, exposing a bruise on both arms, above her elbows. I sat down near her. She backed away, stared at me and — like a shard of glass that suddenly shines in the sunlight — a bolt flashed across her eyes, I couldn’t be sure whether of fear or rage. She stood, sat back down, rose again, drank from the fountain while holding her hair back with one hand, sat down again, stood back up, and just as I was starting to think that she was about to go, she knelt before me and began to weep so helplessly that leaving her then would have required a heart of stone. Between sobs, she told me her name. Lena. Bent over, with her arms on my thighs and her head down, she confided in a low voice that her troubles all stemmed from her marriage. Look! She stood and showed me her bruises. Look! You see? My husband. I didn’t want to get married, I just wanted us to be sweethearts. He insisted we get married. I was only fifteen, I didn’t want to marry. He made me. Then came what I feared most: A husband is not a fiancé. He wasn’t the same person, he had become someone else. Always talking about dinner not being ready, or being too hot, too cold. . or not wanting it reheated. . How can he expect not to find it re-heated, she said, raising her head with a desperate look, if I never know when he’s coming home at night? The fish, he sometimes finds overdone, others undercooked. Vegetables, always overcooked. The meat is never tender enough, you let them cheat you at the shops; the peaches they gave you are bruised, you let them take advantage of you; this oil isn’t olive oil, you let yourself be swindled. You didn’t pull the sheets tight, the wrinkles kept me from sleeping. There aren’t any clean shirts. . why aren’t you doing the laundry? This shirt is poorly ironed, what’s on your mind when you’re handling that iron? And he drinks. He’s turned into a human cask filled with trodden grapes. And he wears me out. It’s true that sometimes I haven’t done the washing because I’ve been ill, and sometimes I’ve had to make the bed in a hurry because I’m behind on my chores. And why is that? Go up to the village, go down to the other village to fetch some potatoes, or beans, or a bit of rice. Go over to that town, go over to that other town to pick up a few chunks of soap. . because the war. . scoldings are my daily bread, they’re making me ill, making me wish to die, and I can only find consolation by talking about my woes at the fountain. . and she wept and wept with her head on my knees.

Through the trees I glimpsed a shadow drawing nearer. It was Lena’s husband — whose name, Magí, I already knew — looking exhausted and disarmingly innocent. He took me by the arm and led me under a willow tree. She’s been grumbling about me, hasn’t she? That’s all she does. I am an upright man, and a teetotaler, whatever she may say. She tells lies. She strings them together, one after the other. I married her because at age fifteen she found herself alone in the world, and I wanted to protect her. What would have become of her if I hadn’t taken her in? And I was desperately in love, too. But I’d been deceived. She wasn’t sweet, she wasn’t good. It was as though she had led a two-faced existence all her life, since childhood, and her duplicity was revealed once we were married. She’s a relentless faultfinder and name-caller, always accusing me of being up to no good, saying that if I come home late it’s because I’m mixed up in some trouble. I’m a mechanic and didn’t go to war because I’m missing a lung. She’s lazy, always about to pounce on me, claws ready, like a frenzied cat. One day a while back, at my wits’ end, I finally slapped her across the face, leaving her cheek flushed. Has she shown you the bruises on her arms? I caused them, yes, by pushing her away after she sprung herself on me trying to gouge out my eyes. She doesn’t put food on the table — she hurls it. The vegetables spill out of the serving dish; the stew flies out of the tureen. But in front of others she plays the poor unfortunate lamb. . and because she has the face of an angel just descended from the heavens, she has everyone’s sympathy. She has gone so far as to make people believe she was forced to marry a crook against her will. I spend nights wandering the streets, afraid to enter my own home. I never know what awaits me there, what she will hurl at me next. I walk the streets aimlessly until the small hours of the morning, by the haylofts, along the vegetable gardens. . dogs follow me, birds take flight when they hear me coming. And I’m always on the verge of pulling out my hair because of the awful mistake I made in marrying poor, poor Lena. Take a look at her — a good, long look. . We stepped closer. Lena was bent over crying, her tears mixing with the clear water that rushed to hide beneath the earth, and she peered at us out of the corner of her eye, with a touch of mischief on her lips that seemed to hold the threat of making her husband’s existence a living hell. I left them. I turned around after a while and saw them walking slowly in the fading light of dusk, their arms around each other.

That night, and for many more nights thereafter, I dreamed of Eva. She was standing in front of the reeds calling my name.