1

I’m still here, lying at the entrance to the threshing floor, looking up at the sky with closed eyes, my arms spread open and a leg stretched out, sprawled over the damp grass.

Nothing hurts. Nothing at all. True, the pain had its moment, but now all I feel is nothing.

The plank gate remains open, swinging gently against its stone frame. Moino is making circles around me. Sniffing me.

It’s been an hour and no one’s come by. Above the house the smoke from the chimney has faded somewhat and the wind makes a soft, continuous hum among the branches of the eucalyptus trees.

The clouds rest in an invisible sky. Gray, dark, cloaking clouds. Motionless clouds, heavy and low, lying in malevolent wait for events on the earth below, as if settling like dew upon the early morning. As if onto a cold, silent bed.

I can’t see him, and I can’t see her either. Those two! I don’t know what his face was like when… when did it all start? When the baby arrived, maybe? Or before that? What I did see was the rest, full on. But that doesn’t matter.

Dinner was still in the pot. The plates were on the table, the knives and forks beside them, and the uncut country loaf in its cloth bag.

It’s like wine, like wine. Wine splashing into china drinking bowls, painting them.

Moino is snuffling at my boots and rubbing his muzzle into their mud-covered soles, nipping at my corduroy trouser legs, at the ragged cuffs of my woolen sweater. He lifts his enormous head and a gust of air arcs his whiskers. Whining, the dog eyes the unpaved path, the horizon, the tiny villages scattered along the valley, where people are coming home to their dinners.

Nothing hurts. Nothing at all. My black beret is soaking in a puddle nearby, in some tire tracks carved up in the dirt by passing carts. My straight, brown hair is collecting weeds ripped up by the rain.

The dolled-up lady in black walks lightly down the path leading to Abelares. She looks like a young girl, lively and smiling in her party dress. She passes me as if dancing a jig, her arms in the air and her fingers close together. She reaches the house, steps into the orchard and turns to face me. She smiles, showing her white teeth and painted lips, and walks leisurely down the path to the enclosed forest.

The fig trees did well this year. An aroma of apples rises from under the straw and wafts from the closets, and the chestnut trees are beginning to blanket the ground with half-open seed cases. The cool night wind hums as it drives raindrops from the leaves on the trees. The plume of smoke from the chimney has faded away, although there are still embers in the fireplace – inside, under the cauldron with the ruined dinner.

The animals lie in the dark inside their pen, settled in for the night. The hens wander among the cows, pecking at their gorse bed.

Moino licks my nose and lips, lies down beside me, rests his head on my chest and snuggles up against it, eyes wide open.

There’s a man lying in the cold, wet grass at the entrance to the threshing floor. It’s me.

2

Carballeira, or Oak Grove, is part of Riba parish, in the municipality of Laracha. It’s at the end of a narrow, bumpy lane that stops at the old Monteiro farmstead and intersects with a cart trail. A little further on, the trail forks – one track leading to the Monteiros’ oak grove, from which it takes its name, and the other to the Riba valley.

The farmstead is a two-story stone building. On the bottom floor is the kitchen area with its open fireplace, a stable for the cows, and a long-abandoned oven that was once used for bread-making. Above this are the bedrooms, their wide beds covered by white linen quilts, a dining room commanded by a ‘Last Supper’ in silver relief, some old, retouched photographs, a large oak table in the center, and a bathroom. From the end of the corridor one gains access to the attic only to be met by cobwebs, broken bits of slate, and the wooden, termite-ridden beams and lintels that hold up the roof.

Outside the stable, on the same side as the pen, is a stone shed where hay is packed top to bottom for storage; it also serves as a shelter for such things as firewood and a cow-drawn cart. From its plank walls hang all kinds of tools, contraptions and curios waiting to be put to good use. Outside the kitchen window is the laundry area, and further along, beyond the shed, the grain store and the orchard are surrounded by a wall covered with brambles and ivy.

A spring rises up at Curuto Point and, shaded by chestnuts and birches, flows around the area’s hills and farmlands, meeting them at every turn.

Chucho Monteiro, the father, had planted the oak grove back in the forties when he was still a lad, on terrain that until then had been wild and mountainous, buffeted by the winds and studded with hard stone. In the fullness of time he married and, since he had no siblings to share it with, he inherited the entire estate. On the fifteen acres encompassed by his land, a vast confusion of chestnuts grows among the pine, cork and other trees that the late Chucho and his son Daniel had planted over the years.

The grove is a home to hares, squirrels and goshawks, and the now-departed Chucho had devoted most of his attention to it. As he wandered among the oaks, he would write down his plans for the grove in a suitable notebook of graph paper with a red, oval, penknife-sharpened carpenter’s pencil.

When old Monteiro died, nearly nine years ago now, Daniel was already married and living with his wife in the farmstead together with his brother Chucho, who was two years older and who then left with his wife for Carballo to take up a job in construction, never again to be heard of in the village.

Daniel took care of the estate and his mother until she passed on, two years after her husband. That was when Chucho returned, with just enough luggage to fit into a sports bag, a cigarette between his lips, barely a word to say, and a crooked tie. During dinner, after their mother’s funeral, he suggested to Daniel that he might lend a hand with the fieldwork and live at the farmhouse.

Their father had stipulated in his will that the two of them were to be ‘beneficiaries’ of the oak grove, although neither of them would be designated its owner unless a natural course of events were to decide otherwise. He requested that, should this occur, the grove, which had taken forty years to mature, be permitted to witness his grandchildren coming into life and passing on in turn, with the same wish he himself now cherished.

So Chucho stayed on, more living at the farmhouse than lending a hand with the fieldwork. He roamed around the estate in search of nobody knew what, sleeping in any meadow next to a riverbank and happily imitating the whistling of the birds. Taking a few drinks against the night and avoiding having anything to do with anybody except himself.

Lola, Daniel’s wife, kept insisting to her husband that he shouldn’t let Chucho get away with this, stating that her brother-in-law was a lazy, no-good tavern hound who was taking advantage of them, but Daniel was either unwilling or unable to confront his own flesh and blood and tell him no.

That’s the way things were. And that’s how they should be told.

3

Moino scares the hens.

‘Moino! Come here! Come on, Moino, give me a handshake! Where’s Poppa? In the cornfield, right? Lick this wound for me. Good dog, Moino! See? I got it at school.’

The dog licks young Daniel’s scraped knee.

‘It was Matías’ fault. Corncob, they call him. That kid’s as rough as they come. That’s right, Moino, good job! See how nice and clean it’s getting, it’ll heal much faster now. Because, you know, you dogs probably have medicine or something on your tongues or in your spit. Poppa told me that. And it brings good luck, too. Do you like it? Okay, that’s enough. Let’s see if you’ll give me a paw now.’

Moino looks attentively at him and the boy gently flicks his fingers at one of the dog’s front paws, takes it in his hand and lifts it up.

‘Come on now, shake! Hello, Mr Rojo, how are you today?’

The dog lifts its paw almost imperceptibly and the boy, all enthusiasm, grasps it.

‘Hey! See? You knew all along you could give me your paw, didn’t you? Good boy, Moino! What a clever, clever dog I have! Let’s do that again. Hello, Mr Moreno, how are you today? Again! Very good! Now your other paw – don’t you know how? You’ll soon see how quickly you learn, you’re such a clever boy. Shall we go inside so the others can see you?’

‘Uncle, look!’

‘Daniel! Doesn’t your uncle have a name?’

‘Sure he does! It’s Chucho.’

‘Well then?’

‘Moino, show uncle you can shake hands!’

The dog obeys and is rewarded when Daniel gets down on the floor to cuddle him. Leaning against the wall and smoking a cigarette, his uncle watches them.

Momma is washing the dishes, looking out the window for the milk truck.

‘Moino, let’s go play on the path,’ the boy calls, patting the dog’s leg. Moino pricks up his ears and starts leaping around his master.

‘Daniel!’ his mother calls. ‘Bring me an armful of firewood for the hearth, will you?’

‘What, again?’ replies the boy impatiently. ‘Why can’t…?’

‘Shhh! Don’t talk back to me or I’ll warm your butt!’

Daniel is now four years old and was born five years after his parents were married.

‘Let’s see who’s got the coldest ears – you or me!’ he says to Moino, feeling the dog’s ears. He then leans over, letting the dog lick his. ‘Mine are colder, but I’m bigger!’ Alert, the dog looks up at him, cocking his head.

‘I’ll race you to the shed! Ready, go!’

As Daniel comes in with the firewood, his uncle is lighting another cigarette.

‘Here’s your firewood!’ the boy announces, setting it down. ‘Let’s go, Moino!’

From outside the house he sees his mother and his uncle at the window.

‘We’re off to get Poppa,’ he shouts to them. ‘We’ll ride back with him on the cart!’ From inside, the child’s voice sounds muffled. Lola looks at her brother-in-law wordlessly, her face expressionless.

His father has the cart loaded with corn. Moino scampers up and leaps into it, jumps out again and bursts into a run among the stalks. The boy arrives, completely out of breath.

‘What’s up? Been running around like crazy, eh?’

‘We sure have,’ answers Daniel, panting.

‘Well, take a little rest, guys, both of you, and catch your breath.’

The dog rushes over and grabs hold of one of the man’s shoelaces.

‘Hey! Hey! Quit that, you big dummy! Or are you thinking I should go barefoot?’

‘He’s happy. Do you know why, Poppa?’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Because I taught him to shake hands. Look. Moino, come here! Calm down now, good boy. Here we go. Hello, Mr Blanco, how are you today?’

This time the dog has forgotten the trick and doesn’t raise his paw.

‘He needs more practice, son,’ his father consoles him. ‘He’ll do it again later.’

‘But he did it just now back in the shed, and in the house, too. Come on, Moino, what’s the matter with you?’ persists Daniel, somewhat discouraged.

‘And your mother?’

‘Washing the dishes.’

‘And your uncle?’

‘Him too,’ says Daniel. The dog finally raises a paw and the boy shakes it. ‘There you go!’ he exclaims gleefully to his father.

‘Okay. Come on, let’s go in.’

4

Chucho Monteiro stops at the side of the road to Castrillón, by the ruins of the ancient settlement. Carrying a green laurel branch in his hand, he has walked slowly uphill to the oak grove and is now sitting on a stone boundary marker at its edge. Strolling around the countryside in peace and quiet is something his body seems to need and is one of the activities that occupies most of his time. He tucks the branch under his arm, rubs his hands together to dust them off, takes out some tobacco and some matches, rolls a cigarette and lights it. From there he can just see the Riba valley and further on, in the Lendo foothills, the hamlets of Raposeira, Muíño, and Pitoques’ sawmill on the road from San Román to Noicela.

He rises to pick up a half-dried chestnut seed case. Sitting down again, he breaks it open with the sole of his shoe and puts the chestnuts away in his trouser pocket. Feeling his penknife there, he pulls it out. He removes his beret, places it over his knees and begins to strip the laurel branch, stuffing the leaves into his beret and then putting it back on his head. Then he continues to strip away the bark from the branch, smoothing out the knots, sharpening one of its ends to a point and rounding out the other. Finally he dries it off on the lining of his jacket, which he then flaps back and forth between his thumbs and forefingers.

Off in the distance he hears a kind of mechanical backfire, as if from an old motor chugging along. He follows it with his eyes as he hears it coming closer and closer until it is finally identifiable as a tractor on its way down the road toward where he’s sitting. Chucho glimpses the vehicle as it rounds a bend in the road. It is an old John Deere towing an empty trailer, driven by a small, red-faced woman of about thirty-five with her hair pulled back into a ponytail under a headscarf.

‘What’s up, Chucho! How are you doing?’ she yells above the commotion, slowing down to a stop in the middle of the road a few yards ahead. She’s wearing a half-impish, half-knowing smile and keeps her hands on the steering wheel.

Chucho rises slowly to his feet and discards his cigarette. He crushes it underfoot, gives his stick a couple of whacks against the side of his leg and, waving as he goes, takes a few steps toward the tractor.

‘What’s new, Carme?’

‘Well, here we are!’ she answers.

‘So now your old man lets you run around the countryside all by yourself, does he? With all its perils.’

‘And what might those be?’

‘You never know.’

‘Well, yeah, he does let me run around, as a matter of fact. No problem, I won’t get lost. I know my way about and there’s always somebody you can ask for directions. And how about you? Do you have a lot to do?’

‘Well, so far so good. I get it done. And I still have time to give you a hand if you’d like.’

‘Or what are friends for, right?’

‘You tell me.’

‘Thanks, man, I’ll take you at your word. If I need anything, you’ll be the very first to know.’

‘I might not want to by then.’

‘Oh, come on! There’d have to be a major disaster for that to happen! But hey, what can you do? Some get all the luck and others wait in vain for it until their dying day.’

‘Stop acting all angry, we’ve known each other for a long time…’

‘Too long.’

‘And the years have straightened us both out, haven’t they?’

‘Oh, right! And we’ve both been turning over new leaves, as the saying goes. But I’m not trying to act angry or anything else, it’s just that a bad temper can hurt and you have to take care how you dish it out.’

‘And we did get some good dancing in, right?’

‘We sure did, you’re right there, too. We weren’t young for nothing, and you were one uninhibited guy.’

‘And doesn’t all that still count for something, sweetie?’

‘No way! That’s water under the bridge, pal! Anyone can go dancing, and we never got much further than that!’

‘But not because I didn’t want to.’

‘Oh, okay, if you say so… But you know what they say: “Let bygones be bygones.”’

‘Get down off that tractor, girl, let’s talk for a while.’

‘You wish!’

‘I sure do. And you too. Or what do you take me for?’

‘Do you think I’ve got nothing better to do, or what?’

‘Nothing better to do… All you people think about is breaking your damn backs,’ answers Chucho sarcastically. ‘When I think of all the great stuff you could be doing with your body…’

‘Believe it or not, I still do have time for this and that. And it’s not like I don’t have anyone to have fun with.’

‘Yeah, sure!’

‘Of course, you probably get many more opportunities than I do, or else…’

‘Oh, come on, honey, come down here and we’ll have a little chat. I see you’ve still got a good tongue in your head and you know how to put it to good use.’

‘Not even if God and the Virgin Mary appeared out of the blue and told me to!’ she replies, laughing as she restarts the engine. Then, turning back to face him, she adds, ‘And be careful, people get to hear everything.’

Chucho watches her disappear and begins carefully peeling a chestnut. Standing in the middle of the road he pries out its inner husk with his penknife and crunches half of it between his teeth. He spots a beetle near his shoe. He impales it with the sharp end of the laurel stick, pinning it to the ground. He spits out a fragment of husk and proceeds quickly down the wooded hill as if in a hurry to get somewhere, tramping firmly along the pathways and sinking his huge leather boots into the dark earth.

5

I did warn him, I swear to God. I truly did warn him.

He drones on and on, saying nothing at all – ‘and I don’t know… and I can’t…’ and so on. He has nothing at all to say to me. Not for the love of God. He knows that as well as I do. And I’m getting really sick of him staring at me all the time, looking me over as if to say I should be wearing a girdle or my wedding ring or something, or that I never leave the house anymore, blah, blah, blah… And meanwhile he’s completely in his own world, looking down at the floor, mumbling about his fear of something or other. Like an old man without a walking stick, defeated, avoiding people. He won’t say a word to anybody but the boy, not for anything, as if that weren’t tragedy enough.

He runs away from us and everybody else like a terrified dog, always hiding under his beret, turning away… He’s got no gumption at all. Who knows what’s going on in that head of his? And to be perfectly honest, he does talk, but only when he feels like it or when it suits him. ‘Have you seen the washbowl, Dolores?’ ‘Cut me a little piece of bread.’ ‘Will you be going to Cortizo’s funeral?’ ‘Come over here, girl, or can’t you stand being near me?’ And here I am, sucking it in, giving way to him each and every damn time, because if it’s not that, it’ll be something else! I wish to God I hadn’t ever set eyes on this place. So I answer, ‘It’s outside, in the laundry area.’ ‘The bread’s over there.’ ‘Yes, I’ll be going, don’t worry.’ ‘This’ll just take a minute, I’ll be right there.’ ‘Are you really in the mood?’ And I have to put up with all this crap for what I get in return, and then he walks around grumbling and sulking, and reproaching me for something he doesn’t have the slightest right to reproach me for – he’d have more of a right if he knew about certain other things…

But I did warn him, God knows.

‘Well, hi there, Suso, honey! Good Lord, how you’ve grown!’

‘Yes, he has.’

‘So… how old’s he now, dear?’

‘He’s just turned five.’

‘And you’re going to school now, aren’t you, Suso?’

‘My name isn’t Suso. That’s short for Xesús.’

‘Isn’t it? What was it again, Lola?’

‘Daniel.’

‘Ah, now I remember! You’re right of course, quite right. Named after his father, wasn’t he…? I thought you’d named him Chucho. You know – after his grandfather, may he rest in peace!’

Men! Them and the devil that made them! They tell you how much they love you and how they’ll take care of you and be with you. And before you know it, there you are, thinking what the heck did I do wrong? Just what he wanted, that’s what! That’s all!

Who else but him would’ve set me up like that? And who left me to deal with it? If he’d only done what I told him from the very beginning, if he’d only taken my advice, he wouldn’t be in such a mess now, believe you me!

‘People in the village are talking.’

‘Hmm?’

‘They must know something’s up.’

‘Like what?’

‘Today in the store. Something about the boy.’

‘What are they saying?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Let ’em talk.’

Sitting on a bench by the fire, he sharpens his penknife with a whetstone and shuts one eye against the smoke from the cigarette hanging from his lips. ‘They’ll have plenty more to talk about soon.’

She turns around and looks at him, dries her hands on her apron as she approaches, her eyes locked on his. He sets down the whetstone and puts his hand under her skirt, stroking her inner thigh. With his other hand still holding the penknife, he draws her close, his arm around her rear.

‘Oh, no!’

‘What’s up?’

‘My heart’s about to burst,’ she says. ‘I’m scared to death!’

‘Shall we go upstairs?’

‘I can’t. I’ve just got my period.’

‘Today?’

‘Yes, today! Wasn’t I clear enough?’

‘That’ll do, girl, that’ll do. No harm done!’

‘No, no harm done. And it’s just as well…’

‘Calm down, there’s no need to worry.’

She lowers her head and they kiss. Moino, lying on his back next to them, is warming his belly. He looks at them, blinks an eye and goes back to sleep.

6

‘Those damn paths! The sergeant’s going to say we screwed up his car.’

‘You can bet on it!’

‘Mufflers, wheels, whatever. And we won’t even have enough left for a cup of coffee!’

‘It must be down there, right? The house at the end?’

‘Yeah, that’s probably it, there’s a crowd outside.’

‘They say he’s been dead since yesterday and he’s as stiff and cold as a plank in the snow. And that you could see it coming.’

‘You could see what coming?’

‘That one way or another, what had to happen happened. What do you think, sir?’

‘What is there to think? I don’t know any more than you gentlemen do. Or should I say any more than you and the sergeant have told me?’

‘Will it take you long?’

‘It shouldn’t – not if what you gentlemen and the sergeant tell me is true.’

‘They say he was all hacked up.’

‘That’s what I heard too. Even so, I’ll have to take a look at him to see if the victim offered any resistance and to verify the time it occurred.’

‘Will somebody just take that dog away from him? Hey, you! Do me a favor, will you? It’s creeping me out!’

‘Forget it, he wouldn’t hurt a fly!’

Moino is walking around me in circles, sniffing at me. He barks every time anybody speaks or comes near me. He’s doing it now, as he watches a car coming down the path.

‘Look, here comes the Civil Guard.’

‘There’s not much they can do.’

‘Not here there isn’t, but they’ve got to find those men.’

‘They can’t have gotten too far.’

‘So what do you know about it?’

‘They should both be killed!’

‘They might even have killed themselves!’

‘They might have…’

‘What about the boy?’

‘Poor little thing!’

‘Murderers!’

The Civil Guard Land Rover pulls up in front of our house. The men and women standing around me forget me for a few seconds, cancel their unfinished conversations and even take a step back. Everyone watches the green vehicle, waiting for its engine to be shut off and its occupants to emerge.

The driver gets out and puts on his cap. He is followed by the other officer and the coroner, an elderly, white-haired man in a light gray suit wearing tiny round glasses with pebble lenses. He’s carrying a briefcase in his right hand.

‘He’s over here,’ says one of the locals, pointing at me to demonstrate the obvious.

‘I’m sure everyone can find some business of their own to attend to. There are plenty of us officials here. Understood?’ commands the officer, holding a machine gun in both hands.

People start moving backward, widening the circle around me, crossing themselves as they leave.

‘Hey, dog, scoot!’ yells one of the officers.

Moino flees to the middle of the threshing floor and sits there, waiting and watching as they examine my corpse, as the hearse arrives, as I’m placed inside it and as everybody leaves. Then he goes back to where I was lying, smells the cold, wet grass and lifts up his head, feeling the wind as it passes.

7

The sweat, the beating of his heart, the high breeze in the setting sun and the dense trees encircle him like a gigantic, watery, disembodied eye – round, shifting, like a dead, stopped clock. Inside of him, outside of him. Glancing at itself once and again, following itself – the eye of the world, of things within the world, that opens at nightfall and says nothing. That sheds no light and absorbs nothing, merely looking at us like some stunned, bored, disconcerted fool. Up, down; unblinking; forward and backward. Wherever we go, it’s already there, wearing us down with its inexorable presence. Within us when we are night and miss the moon and are everything and nothing. For then we would see nothing and wouldn’t see anything else again but for that invisible eye that surrounds us from the trees, from the hilltops, in the waters of the streams and the dry leaves on the ground.

Chucho in the wilderness. Chucho unshaven. on the construction site. as a child. having a drink. with his hand on his axe. smoking a cigarette. morning. in his Sunday best. tucked into bed. dancing. making love. Chucho Monteiro. his father. the land. his chapped hands.

Spying eyes that bear the name of fear, call out to fear and are fear themselves.

But that will come with the night, and by then he will be far away, on tangled, criss-crossing, endlessly forking paths and trails, which he recreates blindly without a scratch from the gorse or the wetting of a foot. Cutting through enclosures, leaping over fences, springs and gates until he finally limps into the outskirts of Coruña, then to find a merchant ship to take him even further away – to Brazil or Cuba, or to Arabia or Japan. And by then he’d be in disguise, nobody would know who he was, and he would start walking, anywhere he could.

From the heights of Lendo he surveys Baldaio’s valleys and swamps, and beyond that the wild seas of the Coast of Death, seas that will let him rest on his way to who knows where. He sees the cement bridge, its sluices covered in rust, and the dunes that lead to Razo. He takes out his penknife and opens it. Out of the corner of his eye he sees his deformed reflection in the iron of the blade; he cleans it off using two fingers and his pants and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He closes the weapon and starts to urinate.

Nobody will know until tomorrow! he thinks. Nobody will know until tomorrow and there’s a whole night to go before then.

The further he can get away, the better. He’ll change his name and his clothes and live a normal life, like on television. Shaving every day or else letting his beard grow. That’s how you escape after a murder – on a merchant ship that’s heading somewhere far away and drops you off at a foreign port where you can find work and the Civil Guard won’t bother you – and that would be it. No drama. True, lots of people get arrested on TV, but most of them will probably get away; and also, he wouldn’t be running around with expensive whores, attracting attention and spending money he didn’t have. The further he can get away, the better. And the big ships sail far. very far. on the open sea.

His photo would probably appear in all the newspapers and magazines, probably the one taken with Perucho at Pitoques’ wedding, and it might even be shown on television, but that man wouldn’t be him anymore. The people in the parish would watch the news, look at the photo and swear it was him, but by then he’d be a merchant seaman in a wool cap, and after that a bricklayer in Sao Paulo or Havana, living in a rented room and going down to the tavern at night to drink and have a good time. Goodbye, Chucho Monteiro.

8

Ramón de Elvira, better known as Moncho, gazes in amazement at the crows flying beneath him. He sees the sky darkening. He sees the wind dragging the clouds along and smiles because he can feel it and he’s there.

The foliage on a pine branch brushes against his curly, unkempt beard. He chops at the branch with a small axe and watches it fall. The pine leaves and the grass are sodden and have wet his shoes. The canopies of the other pine trees are there, making their music as they sway gently and serenely in the air.

The canopies of the other pines.

The wind! thinks Moncho. My face. I’m here, up above, wearing my old clothes and scarf. See how shiny my black shoes are! thinks Moncho de Elvira. This blade is good and sharp. Godfather sharpened it for me on the grindstone.

He chops off another branch and watches it fall near the bag of pine cones. It falls straight down, landing on the grass and moss that carpet the ground. He feels dizzy and stiffens.

Moncho is nearly thirty-six years old, but it’s hard to tell whether he looks his age or not. Nobody notices. He didn’t go to school for much more than a week; that wasn’t his thing. He whistles with a master’s flair and has a wide, wonderfully refined repertoire with ambitious riffs. And he smiles when spoken to.

He wears brown corduroy and a winter beret. He knows the hillsides and rivers, caves and cliffs of the entire region, the barking of the dogs, their owners, the crags, the hidey-holes. He observes the birds when they’re silent and still and knows where they nest. And although he was conscripted, he didn’t do his military service. When he was three he was taken to the beach to get his feet wet and never again wanted to have anything to do with the ocean and its waves unless they were off in the distance with pine trees in between.

The ocean likes playing tricks, he thought. All that water coming and going…

He climbs the most denuded trees, making little nicks in the bark with his axe and carrying the pine cones in a small bag on his shoulder.

Dogs look at him, but don’t follow him or wag their tails at him. They don’t bark at him either, even at night when he walks alone among the houses and the orchards. They know it’s him. Children greet him when they’re alone, and he smiles with pleasure. If there are several children together, they laugh and scare him off into the forest, where he runs in his special way – one hand on each of his trouser pockets so nothing will fall out. The children know that if they frighten him, Moncho will always run off in bewilderment to the hillside.

Hidden among the greenery he listens to their laughter, alert and surprised. Weeping, he bites at whatever he finds at hand and walks among the ferns and gorse until the whistling returns. Then he sits on a rock and sharpens the blade of his penknife with the little whetstone his godfather bought him at the fair.

He remembers when the knife-grinder would come by the houses in the village, riding his motorbike and blowing his whistle. And the sparks from his wheel. And the steel’s shrill squeak.

‘The g… g… gorse in Abelares is r… r… ready to be cleared,’ he says to a passer-by.

‘The p… p… plague is getting c… closer.’

‘Hey, Ramón, when are you getting married? We’ll be invited, right?’ the young men would ask when they all got together to hang out. Intimidated, Moncho would laugh, hanging his head to conceal his red face.

‘I d… d… don’t know,’ he’d say.

Amid the branches of a pine tree, Moncho is picking off the largest cones and dropping them near the bag onto the wet grass. The cones give a little bounce and roll a few inches away. He tucks the handle of the axe into his waistband and gets ready to climb down. Then he spots a man coming along the path toward him at high speed. He looks nervous and is clearly running away from something. The man stops almost immediately beneath him, pulls a penknife out of his pocket and wipes it on his pants. He then unbuttons his fly, urinates on some ferns and throws away a government-issued identity card like Godfather’s. Then he goes away, panting and sweating. He takes off his beret, wipes his head with his hand and puts his beret back on.

Chucho Monteiro, thinks Moncho from his position in the tree. What a wonderful oak grove Chucho Monteiro had!

9

nnff! nnff! nnff! nnff! nnff!

The damp melancholy of the night steadily blurs the outlines of the trees.

The darkness and the gorse prevent him at times from seeing the man he’s pursuing.

The absence of the eyes now lying on the ground, eyes that he knows can no longer see.

The deathly sight of still-warm blood trickling slowly among the weeds.

There he is, the man that blood axe on the ground.

I behind.

I saw how this man… I saw… There he goes. nnff! nnff!

I was loved by the hands of those eyes.

These hands and these eyes beat the gorse and brambles on the narrow, uneven path and look back. His feet make the ground tremble. I hide and see everything.

First I see how this man smells. I see the pine-cone man up in a tree. Quiet there. Like me. The pine-cone man sees me, happy, and pretends to whistle. I follow the man that jumps up, that smells, axe and goes.

Far away he goes. Far.

I don’t want him to go. I want his eyes to speak. These eyes don’t speak. Ever. The hands don’t love. They’re going far away. Me too. Far away in front, far away behind.

nnff!

Far away the eyes sleep.

nnff! nnff! nnff!

I stop and look behind.

nnff! nnff!

The man’s going and doesn’t speak.

The eyes! Moino thinks. The eyes that loved me! And he begins to backtrack along the path, dissolving into the night. Too small for so much wilderness, such harsh cold, and the invisible winds proclaiming his negligible presence.

10

Fratricide in Laracha!

Man flees after murdering brother

The event that has left the whole neighborhood in an uproar occurred in Riba, located in Lendo parish in Bergantiños municipality, a very isolated, depressed area, as the scenes of murders of this sort often are.

The body of Daniel Monteiro, thirty-seven, an agricultural worker, was discovered yesterday evening by day laborers on their way to clear some gorse on a nearby hill. Alerted by the barking of the victim’s dog, they approached Monteiro’s residence only to be confronted by his lifeless body at the entrance to a threshing floor.

According to the initial opinion of Dr Antonio Malvar Saborido, the coroner, the death occurred during the late afternoon the day before yesterday, caused by several large incisions on the head, chest and ribs, possibly inflicted by a sizeable sharp object such as an axe.

After contacting neighbors and other residents of the parish, our reporters learned that Xesús Monteiro, the victim’s brother and alleged murderer, had lived with his brother, this man’s wife and their son for the past seven years with no apparent source of employment. It has been suggested that the crime may have been carried out by mutual agreement between Xesús Monteiro and his sister-in-law, which would account for their disappearance and that of the woman’s son soon after the murder. These reports have not been confirmed by the Civil Guard, which is conducting the investigation, nor by the judge in charge of the proceedings, who has placed a gag order on the case.

The corpse was transferred to the town of Carballo, where an autopsy is to be conducted, and will be buried today (Sunday) at 5 p.m. in the cemetery of the parish church.

As we go to print, nothing is known regarding the whereabouts of the fugitives, although the search will continue if necessary throughout the night.

11

Slowly, as in a dream, an angel rests on the cold riverbed.

Above him, a cloud of mosquitoes hums in the darkness.

Dispassionately, peacefully, the river flows on its nonchalant way, amiably singing the music of life and its comings and goings.

He wonders, agape and open-eyed, at all the new aspects of that cushioned, translucent world, real as memory.

The mud-covered stones on the riverbed. The rootstocks, also covered by the same slimy mud, on the riverbed. The elongated weeds waving silently in the water, in slow motion. The water flowing motionlessly, impossibly. And all this cannot be seen in the darkness of night.

Surprised, Moino wags his tail.

The hue of the skies turns to purple and slant-eyed sylphs dance lingeringly in the visible air.

Green,

Slowly, like a slow, liquid dream

An angel rests.

Above, on the surface, like some magic trick, the moon goes on its silvered way.

And time goes on too, gently and unhurried. Like a child on his grandfather’s lap, listening to stories whispered in his ear – neither lies nor truths, they are stories from other times, the kind of times in stories told by grandparents to children.

The bogeyman himself would be scared tonight. The owl and the cuckoo are silent in the depths of the forest. It’s bedtime and the children are all quietly asleep between warm, colorful sheets, their young heads resting softly on clean pillows.

He’s sleeping too.

(dreams of dust floating in the water)

… and he dreams that he trips and falls face first into the brambles. And cries when someone helps him to his feet. A resolute, ferocious hand seizes his arm near the shoulder and tugs at it, hurting him. It delivers him a slap that throws him to the ground. The hand of a man that lifts him up by the scruff of his neck, shouting something at him that he doesn’t understand. A man’s bloodshot eyes.

Everything here is in the past. Everything is dreaming. Momma isn’t here. Poppa isn’t here. Moino isn’t here. Not even fear. Not even himself. Everything sleeps at night. His tears dissolve in the cold, dark water. Mayflies skim the surface of the river.

He saw Momma slip on the sodden dirt and fall to the ground in total silence. Uncle was fussing about behind him and Poppa wasn’t there. The gorse pricked his legs and he wanted to cry and he did cry. ‘Momma! Momma!’ he called out.

And intense fear pounded in his chest with all the force of childhood.

If he had not been face down, if the night had not blindfolded him, he would have seen the trout swishing their tails, like his dog when he was nervous – for example now, as he looked at the river, listening and snuffling far beyond where the water bugs skate.

12

This is what I get for poking my nose into other people’s business. Then they’ll tell me it was me who offered to do it, so they simply did what they could themselves.

But I’ll know what to do next time – businesses are for the living and there’s no reason why mine should be any different.

‘There are some people outside who’d like a quote, Mr Ventura.’

‘What people?’

‘I don’t know. An old man, and one a bit younger, in a suit.’

‘Tell them to hold on! I’ll be there in a minute. Berta!’

‘Yes?’

‘Any word from the town hall?’

‘Nobody’s been by.’

‘Nothing in the mail either?’

‘I’ll go get it if you like.’

‘What time is it?’

‘Twelve fifteen.’

‘Wait until I get the total added up, and we’ll send it by certified mail.’

‘As you wish.’

‘I’ll have to get reimbursed, but this way they’ll know. Bring me the receipt book and the calculator, and tell them I’ll be there right away.’

SAINT MARY UNDERTAKERS, INC. 3B Colón Street, Carballo (Bergantiños) Tel. 700976 No. 0134
SERVICES	COST
CASKET   1 Adult. Varnished pine. A5. 1 Child. Painted pine. A3.	168.00 132.00
CONDOLENCES
WREATHS
BOUQUETS   Carnations. 2. No ribbon.	24.00
HEARSE
RELIGIOUS SERVICE  Parish Church.	30.00
OTHER
TOTAL	354.00
VAT 15%	53.10
TOTAL + VAT 15%	407.10

13

‘Shit,’ he mutters into the dirt path after falling and injuring his knee on a rock. He lifts up the leg of his pants and sees the dark red blood flowing from the gash, sliding down his shin and blending into the filthy water of the puddle. He sits up, and the pain in his leg makes him groan and bite his lip. He spreads the cut open between his thumbs to get an idea of its depth and is relieved to see that the bone isn’t broken. This time he gradually increases the weight on his leg until the pain decreases and becomes tolerable.

In the distance, at the edge of the night, shine the colored lights of the Sabón factory complex, lights that crawl up the chimneys and scatter along the Atlantic shore. The man sees columns of white, black and gray smoke – streams of death rising into the sky against the blue background of the ocean.

He takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and knots it around his knee. He lowers his trouser leg and is walking again, limping and cursing along the intersecting tracks between pine trees and crags.

Behind him are the yellow lights of the Carballo highway, now almost deserted, slithering snake-like from the crest of Lañas Hill. And on the other side, invisible, lies the valley that leads to the sands of Barrañán. Closer, in the foothills, are the town of Arteixo, the hamlet of Figueiroa with its ancient, ruined towers, and the lands of the interior.

Chucho is fleeing among the hillsides of Mt Subico. He’s fleeing from himself, from cuckoos, from owls, from the night, from memory, from unseen labyrinths of fear and silence, from weariness. Like all labyrinths, these are open doors and lights in the distance that lead to further labyrinths.

The stone and dirt paths that extend toward the valley form a labyrinth in the night, which is a labyrinth in time, which is a labyrinth in fear, which is a labyrinth in silence, which is a labyrinth without words, which form another labyrinth without walls, entrances or exits.

Chucho Monteiro is approaching Arteixo, which is a place, early one Saturday morning, which is a time. Nocturnal creatures are dozing, dreaming of sunrise. Thousands of other places share time, maps and laws. Never running, never stopping, Chucho advances among trees and rocks, and, motionless, they watch him pass. And it all seems true – the truth, another confining labyrinth of lies and desire. And we read these words and go on, praising the labyrinth, fleeing from those doors and lights, seeking distance as we hide within our cages. At a distance.

Tonight all the cuckoos are one; the owls are one, with a host of open eyes on every branch, following his dragging footsteps, the chill sweep of the wind in the treetops, the tepid magic of the waters of the spas, each of his falls and his enraged, restrained oaths, his sweating body. The other bodies that existed and passed through here were also sweating and just as wild.

When he descends the hill he will have to climb another, on the way to the Meicende quarries. But before dawn comes he will get to the city, the kindly, magical labyrinth that will make him invisible and will send him on to another – the labyrinth of yes or no.

14

‘Corporal! Over here!’

‘Yessir!’

‘The flashlight! Get the flashlight!’

‘Here!’

‘Let’s see what we’ve got here, God help us!’

‘Holy shit!’

‘Son of a bitch! Son of a bitch!’

‘Hey! Come over here, it’s right here!’ yells the corporal to the other guards as he picks up the flashlight his superior has thrown down. ‘Over here, in the river!’

The Civil Guardsman is already in the brook and the other men approach him to help.

‘Get out of there!’ yells the sergeant. ‘That motherfucker! Not that his mother had anything to say about it! The perverted bastard! Hortas, get the Land Rover right now and take ’em to Carballo. Tell the lieutenant to call Coruña for some backup and not to wait till daylight. And to keep the railway station and the port under watch, just in case.’

‘Yessir! Where will you and the others be?’

‘Shit, Hortas, how the fuck do I know? Come back with two vehicles and wait for us, either up here at the crossroads or on the Caión road before the detour to the Pedra do Sal cliffs.’

‘Yes, sergeant, sir!’

‘We’ll stay here, do you hear me? All of us! We’ll get that son of a bitch if it’s the last thing we do. We’re gonna grab him, yank his balls off and feed them to him, understand?’

‘We’ve only got the one flashlight, sergeant. The other one’s running out of batteries and we didn’t bring any extras.’

‘Well, we’ll set fire to the hillsides then, goddamn it! You’re pissing me off!’

The Land Rover advances slowly along the cart track to where they’re standing. The luminous swath projected by its headlights flashes in multiple directions as the vehicle bumps through the terrain’s many potholes. Some of the guards are muttering under their breath, ‘This is bad shit!’ as they watch the vehicle pull away.

‘Let’s see! You and you come with me, and the other three stand down, but don’t lose sight of our flashlight, understood? And if you see that son of a bitch, empty the clip into his head.’

‘To kill?’

‘Wait, Méndez, how about we try it out on you and see what happens… Well, of course to kill, you moron, but in self-defense!’

‘Yessir!’

Text © Xurxo Borrazás

Translation © Carys Evans-Corrales

This title is available to read in English – see the page “Novels”.