I AM…

Balbino. A boy from the village. In short, a nobody. And poor, as well. Manolito is also from the village, but there’s no putting up with him, despite what he endured on my account.

I walk barefoot in summer. The hot dust of the roads makes me take long strides. The sand hurts, and there’s always a tack or two to get stuck in my feet. I get up in the dark, at two or three in the morning, to take the cattle out, to plough or gather sheaves. By the time the sun rises, my back and legs are already aching. But the day has begun. Thirst, sun, mosquitoes.

In winter, cold. A wish to be by the fire. Mills not working. Talk of snow and wolves. The arms are like coat racks for hanging rags. Fire stains, wounds, numb fingers.

What do town children know about all of this!

They have no idea what I’m thinking as I wash down some cornbread with a bit of broth. Or what I feel when I’m on the hillside, dripping wet, frozen, catching sight through the rain of a misty ghost on every tree.

The village is a mix of mud and smoke, where dogs howl and people die ‘in God’s own time’, as my godmother would say. We children are sad. We muck about, run after fireworks, even laugh sometimes, but we’re sad. Poverty and working the land fill our eyes.

I would like to see the world. To cross seas and lands I do not know. I was born and grew up in the village, but now it feels kind of small, a little suffocating. As if I lived in a beehive. I have thoughts I cannot share with anybody. There are some who wouldn’t understand, and others who would think I’d lost my mind. Which is why I write. And then sleep like a log. I feel somehow relieved, liberated, as if a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. That’s just the way I am! Smith as well, this captain who went to war and, when he came back, started writing down everything that had happened to him. It’s in this book Landeiro gave me.

What if I were to write a book? No way! I just hope no one gets hold of my diary. I’d feel ashamed! You bet I would. You see, this is where I keep all my feelings. Very few people do that, you know. People open their mouths for only two reasons: to tell the truth or to stray from the truth.

They never understood me at home. It’s more or less the same at Landeiro’s place. That’s the worst thing that can happen to you, though many people just can’t do it.

Perhaps I’m losing my mind. I see the world around me and just want to understand it. I see shadows and lights, travelling clouds, fire, trees. What is all this? Nobody can tell me, just to give an example, what stars are for, or where birds go to die. I know for certain that, long before I was born, the sun existed, there were boulders, and the river was full of water. I’m quite sure it will all stay the same after I have died. More and more people will come, trampling on top of each other, deliberately forgetting those who’ve died, as if they’d never lived.

Writing things down in a notebook – who would have thought it! – is like emptying out your heart. It’s like a miracle. At the end of the day, it’s a bit like having a conversation with yourself. You see, for me, everything is a miracle. From drops of rain to chirping crickets.

Even if I were to think about making a book, the way Smith did, what I had to say wouldn’t be worth much. Smith went to war, and I’m just a ‘littlun’, as they call me at home. I am Balbino. A boy from the village. A nobody.

LOST

‘Littlun…!’

‘Balbino!’

Those are the first calls I can remember. My mother and Aunt Carme were marching across the fields. Their shouts echoed back from the quarry on the other side of the river. They didn’t pay attention to paths or tracks, they just kept on running, trampling down the maize. It was after lunch. The sun was burning. Horseflies kept fizzing about.

‘What can have happened to that child?’

‘Do you think he might have fallen into the river?’

‘Oh, St Anthony help us!’

The previous evening, my father had lain into me for smearing soot all over the face of the landlord’s son. A smart little boy who eats wheat bread, drinks milk with coffee and doesn’t have to get up early to take the cattle to graze. My father never wanted to know what Manolito had done to me first. ‘He’s the landlord’s son, and that’s all there is to it.’ He may well be, but that doesn’t give him the right to kick me in the shins with his spanking new shoes, to spit at me or say we’ll have to leave our house and lands if they want us to.

I was so annoyed I went to bed without dinner and stayed awake all night, crying. I felt sorry for myself because I was a poor child. Those who are really poor, who go from door to door in rags and sometimes even steal potatoes or corn to eat, are better off. They put up with outsiders, but not with people at home who want to suck up to the landlord. They may eat or not, they may have clogs or not, but they don’t have to put up with the landlord and Manolito.

The following morning, I got up along with everybody else. I accompanied my father to the hillside. He could see I wasn’t happy, but kept quiet. And I pulled a long face. We came back, without saying a word, when the oxen started flicking their tails on account of the flies.

After lunch, I headed out to the threshing floor. Aunt Carme followed me but, when she saw me lying in the shade of the barn, she went back inside. So I opened the gate, crossed the road and slipped into the field. I walked through the rows of maize. I walked slowly, being enveloped by the maize. Nobody could see me. The earth was hard. Clods crumbled beneath my feet. I just kept on walking. I must have been close to the river because I could hear the water roaring in the mill race.

I sat down. Took off my clogs and unbuttoned my shirt. I was tired and soon fell asleep. I slept for a good while, I couldn’t say how long, and woke up during a dream in which Manolito was chasing me with a shotgun.

‘They might be looking for me,’ I thought. But I didn’t care. My father had beaten me for no good reason, and I wanted to show him I wasn’t afraid. That was why I had run away. I already wanted to get far away from there. Not to have to put up with Manolito.

I started making piles of earth. I always loved playing with the earth. The topsoil was warm; underneath was still a little damp. First of all, I made a wall, then a bridge. A bridge with maize leaves and husks on top, by way of a deck and parapets. That was when I heard them calling to me. I got straight up, but quickly bent down again.

‘Littlun!’

The first shouts came from the road; then they seemed to come from the barnyard.

I carried on piling up earth with my hands. I built an oven with pebbles and tore up some grass to sprinkle around it. I wasn’t going to move from that place. I promised myself I would leave home for ever if my father beat me again.

‘Balbinoooo!’

I felt sorry for my mother and Aunt Carme, but it was their own fault. They also used to hit me, and they made me pray as well. Everybody is against me. From my godfather to my brother, Miguel, who on the eve of his departure for America pulled my hair for rummaging through his toolbox.

By evening, all the members of my household, together with a few neighbours, were looking for me. They shouted near and far, in the fields and on the paths. My name travelled through the air all over the village. The sun went down, and they still hadn’t found me. Lots of people who didn’t really care for me were out looking for me. It was like they were after the fox or wanted to hunt down the wild boar. In the meantime, I carried on building bridges and ovens, gathering pebbles, crushing clods.

It was getting dark when I heard the sound of panting behind me, after the slight creaking of some maize leaves. I turned around. It was Pachín, our dog. Pachín had come looking for me as well. And he’d found me. His tongue was lolling out, and he was tired. He approached me affectionately, and we started frolicking about. He wanted to talk to me. Somehow to tell me that they were out looking for me. I let him know that I was aware of this and didn’t care. Pachín leaped up all around me. He destroyed my bridges. I told him off, and he crouched down, as if to say sorry.

Night fell abruptly over the fields. Crickets and frogs started chirping and croaking like mad. I stretched my limbs. Put on my clogs and slowly traipsed uphill. Pachín let out a friendly bark and came alongside me. I was crossing the vegetable garden when I heard a distant shout calling to me. I went inside the house. There was nobody there. It was like a cemetery. An empty plot.

I lay down on the bed. I dreamed of Manolito and my father. The two of them were mucking about, making the landlord laugh. All I could do was cry. I cried, but nobody paid me any attention. Nobody noticed the tears glistening on my cheeks, falling to the ground and trickling down to the river, in between the rows of maize. Pachín stayed beside me, as if wanting to talk to me or share my tears.

When I opened my eyes, I saw more than ten faces peering down at me. I wiped my tears on my shirt. Pachín gazed at me from the side of the bed. I patted him on the neck and fell asleep again.

THE JEW

A man went in front with the cross. He was followed by the standard-bearer. And then the banner, saints, the priest, old women praying, children… what do I know! Like every year.

The bagpipers were playing a march. The same as always. Every now and then, a man would light a triple-break shell. The children would go running after the stick and, when they got it, feel victorious, as if they’d come across a treasure. They wanted the thread for making kites. The sexton quietly tinkled the bells. Quietly, so people would pay attention to the procession; so the prayerful old women could go through the beads of the rosary and hear each other, labouring side by side as if doing the reaping or threshing.

I also was dying to go after the rockets, but they never let me. My godfather kept telling me the story of a boy who’d lost his hands because he’d picked up an unexploded grenade. And my mother would hug me close. ‘Pray and look to the saints,’ she would say. I’m the only one in all the parish who has to keep up with the adults. They want me to become a man before my time. I’m keen to grow up, but that of itself is not enough. The years still have to pass. And, in the meantime, I’m not allowed to have fun with the other children.

The saints swayed about on top of the platforms, above people’s heads. Our Lady of Mt Carmel has this bright halo given her by Mosteiro from Cuba. The Jew reckoned this emigrant ‘would have done a lot better to give the money to the parish poor or to buy books for the village school’. But nobody ever gives the Jew credit. What he says, it’s as if the devil himself has said it.

Other saints passed by in the procession: St Anthony holding the infant Jesus; St Roch with his little dog; St Raymond, who apparently was never born or only arrived in this world after his mother had died, or something like that. My aunt didn’t know or didn’t want to give me a proper explanation.

Having gone around the churchyard, the retinue passed through the gate and paraded into the village. The bagpipers kept belting out the same tune, while the sexton, bent over his clappers, continued tinkling away. At this point, something happened to one of the four girls carrying St Anthony, and my mother went to help. I got out of there. I escaped the procession. The rocket man let off another firework. As soon as it exploded, I looked up and started running. Across country, frisking like a new horse, bounding over hedges, streams and allotments. Without knowing how, I ended up at the Jew’s threshing floor. I couldn’t remember the rocket I’d been pursuing. A wire creaked, and immediately this dog appeared – a red, fierce dog. I took a step backwards to stop it grabbing me, and that was when my eyes came to rest on the owner of the house.

‘What are you doing here?’ he said with an unfriendly look.

I didn’t know what to reply. I thought about the firework, the procession, my mother.

‘Were you coming to steal some peaches?’

‘No, sir, I’ve been told stealing is a sin.’

The Jew took me by the arm and led me across the floor to the kitchen. I let myself go. The dog followed behind, licking the grease off my clogs.

We each sat down on a stool. It was all very clean. The kitchen was whitewashed, no soot or cobwebs, and had this huge sink that drained outside.

‘So you haven’t come to steal?’

‘It’s a sin,’ I repeated.

‘Were it not a sin, would you come?’

I was lost for an answer. The Jew lit a cigarette, rubbed his hands and gave me a smile.

‘You’re Balbino, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Your parents are good folk, but they’re far too attached to wax, too fond of that priest and his saints. Were you at the procession?’

‘I’ve just come from there,’ I replied.

‘And what did it make you feel?’

I explained about the bells, the bagpipers, the muttering of the prayerful women…

‘No, no,’ he interrupted me. ‘I mean, did it make you think about God and his saints?’

‘It made me think about fireworks,’ I said.

‘There you have it! People who pray aren’t really paying attention, either. Some are thinking about the empty granary, their taxes, the potato blight; others are cooking up all sorts of atrocities or feeling jealous of the fine clothes others are wearing. You are young and have yet to comprehend the depths people can sink to. If the clog-maker, to give an example, doesn’t watch what he’s doing, when the blade of his axe or chisel approaches his hand, he’ll cut himself. Prayer is like talking to God – and he’s worth much more than a pair of clogs. If God’s the way they say he is, he’ll have prepared a hell for all who make fun of him like that.’

I started trembling.

‘Has anybody ever told you why they call me the Jew?’ he asked.

‘No, sir.’

‘I was given that name because I’m always banging on about such things. Everybody, deep down, knows I’m right. But, on the outside, they insult me. I don’t mind. I feel sorry for them, they’re like sheep instead of men and women. Each one of them has given their soul to the priest for safekeeping, and all he does is mess it up. Nobody thinks for themselves. Thinking is a sin. Demanding justice, real justice, is a sin. It’s also a sin to have your own ideas or to go in search of the truth. But you’re still very young to understand all this. Do you go to catechism?’

‘I do, sir,’ I said.

‘And what does the priest teach you?’

‘He talks about the Holy Trinity, prayer, Mass, the four hells…’

‘Does any of that make sense to you?’

‘…’

‘They’re not all like that. The priest in Ribán, he catechizes children. He has to, otherwise the bishop would put him out to pasture. But he also teaches them geography, history, the customs of people from other times and places. He tells them how to plant vines, the best time for grafting, and so on. The parishioners love him. He goes down the bar with the young folk, plays a round of whist, and they sing Mass for him on feast days. Now that’s…’

We heard a dog bark. The Jew got up and opened the door. I recognized my mother’s voice.

My whole body ached. My father beat me with the rope. I didn’t cry, but I felt as if something that doesn’t usually hurt was hurting. I don’t know! As if my soul was hurting.

MOURNING

My Uncle Braulio died of misfortune. It’s true, even though it wasn’t me who pushed him in that direction. Three years have gone by, and still his name is on everyone’s lips. He was never keen on working, ever since he got back from the army. He was fun-loving and sociable. Enjoyed parties and the like. He died in the end. And we all had to put on mourning. All of us like priests. My everyday trousers are black. Well, less and less so, because we use whatever’s to hand for the patches. I have dark buttons on my shirt as well. It’s not dressing like this that bothers me. What bothers me is having to stay at home on feast days.

When it’s St Peter’s, or Our Lady of Mt Carmel, there’s me, caged up like a turtledove. And all on account of my uncle. Now that’s a misfortune! My father says that mourning isn’t going to resurrect anybody, but then my godmother starts bawling for her poor Braulio, he was such a good lad, so quick off the mark, a slice of bread, stuff like that! And the mourning continues.

I remember perfectly well the time my uncle came back from Africa. He was as black as coal. He knew stories about witches and a heap of ridiculous games. He was like a chatterbox. The local boys and girls would come running to our house just to listen to him and play around. Some of them would copy his manners and imitate him out and about.

And yet, even though he longed to remain sitting down, my uncle knew he would never be given bread just for sleeping or sounding off. So he got himself a job. It hurt him to do so, but he went ahead. Since he wasn’t used to working and had no real interest, it made him very downhearted, he kept doing things in a bad temper. And then that business with the cart happened. He went to Guillal Hill for some brushwood and, coming down, put the cattle in front so he could manage the load with his pitchfork. The cows turned around, left the road, and the cart was upended. My uncle got trapped under a wheel. He couldn’t even shout. Two men from the courthouse looked after him for a whole day. The doctor cut his head open to ascertain the cause of death. You would think he wanted to steal his brains, it was pretty obvious he’d been crushed to death. The end of the axle was still stuck in his belly! And yet he insisted, it was his duty, and so on. He argued with my father, and my father argued back, but the doctor got his way. Lots of people attended the funeral, and the misfortune is still discussed to this day.

But I wasn’t to blame for the cart turning over. Three years ago, I was made to put on mourning, and here I am, unable to join in a sing-song or to get dressed up as an old man during carnival. I never protested, however, I didn’t want my godmother to cry. She thinks the black buttons on my shirt make Uncle Braulio’s purgatory more bearable.

During Lent, I felt happier than usual. The opposite to everybody else. Some say Lent is a time for being sad because it reminds us of death: our own, and that of Our Lord. I reckon such thoughts are good for old people. I never wanted to die young but, on reflection, I’m not sure I mind so much. They say we children are angels. When Pepiño de Candau died, they put him in a white coffin because he was an ‘angel’, at least so my godmother told me. I sometimes ponder the death of Our Lord. I hate seeing him all bloodied and naked, his hands and feet nailed to the Cross. It’s not just the suffering, you just can’t do that to somebody. Even if he weren’t God, I still wouldn’t want to look at his wounds.

I don’t know why some people have a particular time for doing everything. A time for letting their hair down during carnival and then for weeping and wailing during Lent. Were it not for the death of my uncle, I’d be the same. ‘The blind leading the blind,’ that’s what my father would say. But since it’s Lent for me all year round, on account of the mourning, when Lent finally comes, the others are the same as me. Or worse off. At least I can laugh at those who adopt a different expression according to the season.

I spent the last carnival at home, on account of my buttons. While others were having fun, I was shut away and had to watch the masquerade from the dormer window.

The ‘couriers’ arrived first. There were four of them. Each with a pair of gloves, white trousers and a gleaming jacket. They rode dappled ponies that had been decked out with ribbons and brand-new harnesses and covered in bells from head to tail.

They knocked at the door. My father opened and said:

‘There’s no entrance.’

This meant, since we were in mourning, the masked figures wouldn’t wish long life or sing, or anything else in front of our house. The couriers turned around.

But I still saw everything. On the other side of the road live the Cordals, who, because they’re not in mourning and like a bit of fun, gave them ‘entrance’.

It didn’t take long for the generals to appear. Riding merry horses (apparently they’re given wine to make them more haughty) and sporting eye-catching suits, cocked hats, boots and spurs. On their chests, they wore crosses and other tin and aluminium ornaments. Who had ever seen Tomás da Eixola like that! He was as stiff as a post! He’d never sat on a horse. The previous year, he’d dressed up as a friar.

Behind the generals came eight or ten musicians from the Orazo Band, playing marches. There was also a choir singing the Rianxeira. A young lad held a fistful of rockets and would let one off from time to time. The children went dashing off, trampling over the rye to get at the stick. And there was me, shut inside…!

A crowd of people came next, laughing with the ‘old folk’. I laughed as well, though I felt like crying because I couldn’t get out to the road. I laughed at a band of musicians who couldn’t play ‘music’ to save their lives. They made one hell of a racket, as if to frighten the wolves. They roared any way they wanted. And their instruments were loud: bass drums, tambours, trumpets, horns and the like. They wore old clothes, covered in patches. Their faces had been painted black. They carried stools tied to their behinds with willows and broom switches.

I then saw one or two other things: a cow and a donkey yoked together, pulling a cart on which were two brandy-makers with their still; on another cart, a pile of straw, which six men, wearing reed hoods, started threshing on the ground with flails, singing suitable verses. The threshers were followed by a huddle of blacksmiths, who placed an anvil on the road and banged away with these huge hammers as if wanting to subdue the iron. Apparently, in Sarandón and the Ulla Valley, they get up to all sorts of shenanigans.

One of the generals, brandishing a sword in his right hand, shouted like a lost soul, predicting that Xacinto do Cordal would live for many years in the company of his folk. Everybody on horseback replied in unison:

‘Long live Xacinto do Cordal!!’

The band started playing, the choir sang, the musicians with the stools roared to their hearts’ content, and Cordal, apart from giving the man with the box some money, came out to the door with jugs of wine, inviting everybody to a round. The people laughed, sang and whooped out loud. Everybody had a great time. All except for me, who had to watch the whole scene from behind the window.

Once carnival was over, the next morning, everybody went to church. With a sour expression. There’s no understanding people. My father told me there are men and women in the cinema who, when you see them laughing, crying or dying, are just putting it on. Apparently they’re not really laughing, crying or dying at all.

People should be happy or sad on the inside because of other things, not when the calendar tells them. All that fun wearing masks, like pulling a long face during Lent, is just a show, if you ask me.

My godmother said the priest smeared ashes on everybody’s forehead, while saying you are dust and, sooner or later, to dust you shall return. I’m not sure what the point is. Unless they’re being punished for having had too much fun during carnival!

It’s not my fault that Uncle Braulio got crushed under a cart. Why do they have to make me go around in mourning all the time? I sometimes reckon it’s a ruse, just to get me to stay in the house. If that’s the reason, well, it’s not much use now. The black buttons set me thinking. I think about people who from one day to the next start singing or weeping, moaning or frolicking about. Being stuck indoors makes you watch those who are outside. Those who mingle tears with smiles. And I am reminded of what Serafín, the gravedigger-roadman, used to say, ‘This world sure is a crazy place!’

THE GROWN-UPS

It must be great to finally grow up. Grown-ups are owners of themselves and the world. They do and undo, govern, create havoc with wars, business and all sorts of shenanigans. But, as my godmother says, ‘All that glitters is not gold.’ Grown-ups have their sorrows and worries. They sometimes get up to more mischief than we do. Were it not so, they wouldn’t get so tetchy when we tell them something’s wrong.

If we have a fight, they get involved. They don’t realize our battles are just skirmishes. We scratch each other, but in a short while we’re friends again. They take on the role of judges and hit out at whoever’s in the way, without stopping to find out what really happened. Our hands are small and don’t hurt; theirs are heavy and do real damage. If they could learn from us, they would never go to war. People kill one another in war without really knowing why. Apparently they pull down houses, bridges, and so on. Like a game.

Except it’s a game of blood and death. Then they talk about ‘educating’ us children…

We come into the world with a saddlebag full of questions. Things enter through our eyes, our nose, our ears, and we want to learn their names and meaning. But we don’t always succeed. Our elders get tired, tell us to shut up, or distract us from what we want to know. We fall silent. Because it’s dangerous not shutting up in time. At another time, in another place, we ask somebody else. What our own parents should tell us we learn from a stranger. A stranger who might lead us astray. And so our lives start to ferment with foreign, borrowed yeast.

I think about this because it happened to me. And it happens to lots of children out there every day. Grown-ups have forgotten what they were like when they were small. If they looked into our eyes, they might step back in time. But they devote themselves to other problems and don’t pay us any attention.

My parents have never understood how much I suffer on account of small things. They get on well, but sometimes they argue, and their shouts fill my dreams for nights on end. They don’t realize how much I hate the fact we’re poor. Not on my account – I plan to earn lots of money when I grow up – on theirs. I wish they could have everything, even if it meant me being in rags. Cornbread doesn’t sit well with my mother, but we can’t afford wheat. Not long ago I saw her crying because the moths had gnawed at her wedding dress. I fall quiet, I hold back, but these things really bother me. It hurts me to have to smile in front of the landlord, as if giving him half of what we take in wasn’t enough.

One afternoon, while watching the cattle in Zanca, I toyed with the idea of running away, absconding with gritted teeth in search of money. Cursing our poverty. Nonsense that used to wheedle its way into my brain. Perhaps what happened next, almost without my realizing, had been growing quietly inside of me, on the back of such thoughts.

My godfather told me the story of a wise man who ate herbs because he didn’t have anything else and complained about his poverty to all and sundry. One day, he turned around and caught sight of another wise man gathering the herbs he’d thrown away. There’s always someone who’s better or worse off than us. If one man has broken a leg, then another has lost them both. I am poor, but Andrés do Canteiro is even more so.

Andrés has three siblings, all wee little things. Their father spends day and night in the tavern and gets home drunk. He beats his wife and children. Andrés told me some frosty nights they’ve had to stand trembling outside while their father went looking for them with a knife. They’ve been four days without eating. And had to beg in the village.

‘Why doesn’t your mother fight back?’ I asked him one day.

‘Fight back! Do you want her to get it? She shakes like a leaf whenever she sees him coming.’

‘If only you were grown up…’

Andrés laughed. As if the years didn’t have to pass for him to grow up. Because time doesn’t go faster or stop. It always goes at the same pace. And, depending on what we want from it, it can seem to fly or go slow.

AMERICA

It’s been many months since my brother, Miguel, left for America. I still remember when he took his leave. My mother, Aunt Carme and my godmother bawled their eyes out. My father was deadly serious. No tears or laughter: men are men, after all. My godfather didn’t even go. We sent a message to Celia, who’s a servant in Loxo, but her master and mistress wouldn’t let her come.

I was stuck in the middle. Nobody paid me any attention. The others kept on giving the traveller advice, while waiting for the bus to arrive. Miguel just kept on answering ‘yes’, with a bored expression on his face. I took one of his hands and started counting his fingers from one side to the other, from his thumb to his little finger. I didn’t let on, but I was happy that Miguel was leaving. After that, he could tell me lots of things. And I could share them at school. He didn’t seem to be aware of my presence, so I gave him a jerk. He bent down, and I whispered in his ear, ‘I’m glad you’re going. Send me a letter from America and tell me stories from there.’ He smiled, placed a hand on my head and ruffled my hair. I felt an itch rush across my body.

We heard the Modelo’s horn. The bus came racing along, with a heap of boxes and baskets on top. My mother and godmother kissed and embraced Miguel and carried on bawling. My father lifted the suitcase to where the inspector was standing. A brand-new suitcase made by the carpenter in Quintela. He then pressed my brother against his chest for a moment. Miguel grabbed me by the neck, gave me a peck on the cheek and, with a quick ‘see you, Balbino’, was off like a shot. I stood there, gawping. I couldn’t do or say anything. The Modelo pulled away slowly. Miguel stared at us while waving a handkerchief.

‘Don’t forget to go to Mass,’ shouted my godmother.

‘God go with you, don’t lose your way!’ said my mother, wiping her tears.

Aunt Carme threw out one final piece of advice, which I didn’t understand very well:

‘Watch out for those women!’

‘Will you please stop shouting!’ intervened my father, taking me by the hand. ‘Do you think he can still hear you? Can’t you see where the bus is by now?’

The Modelo was going full tilt. It looked like a cloud flying over the ground, between the pines, between the vines, with Miguel inside.

Time went by, and no letter arrived. My mother prayed day and night and offered Our Lady of Mt Carmel a candle for the boat my brother was on not to sink. Eventually, a letter did come. Miguel was well. He was working in Uncle Xaquín’s shop. He always wore his Sunday best and shoes. He always had Saturday afternoons off, travelled by bus and ate wheat bread, cheese and cold meats every day. Now, that was what I called life.

‘When I grow up, I’m going to America,’ I said.

My father interrupted me:

‘When you grow up, you’re going to learn a trade and live here instead of banging your clogs all over the place.’

‘What about Miguel, then?’

‘Miguel’s already left. With one of you gone, that’s quite enough.’

I thought about the wheat bread, the cheese, the fine clothes. Apparently, you don’t see land for nine days. Just water, day and night.

My godfather, who didn’t usually say much, was sitting by the fire. He turned around and said:

‘Listen, child. I want you to get this into your head. I learned it when I was young like you.

Men go to the Americas,

they go there to earn.

The Americas are right here

for any who want to work.’

I fell quiet. I’m fed up of people telling me I’m too young to understand certain things. Perhaps that business of going or not going to America is an invention of grown-ups. You have to be an adult. I moved away from the conversation. Started digging my knife into a turnip root I found under the trough. My father and godfather carried on blathering.

‘I say those things to the boy, but I reckon America is something else,’ said my father. ‘There are more opportunities. You can get rich if you’ve half a brain and know how to save. It’s just there are so many obstacles to going, otherwise…’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ my godfather cut in. ‘There are no more advantages in America than here. I can tell you, I’ve spent plenty of years in those parts. America is a trap. Those who fall into it don’t warn those coming behind. First of all, you lose your customs, your native country’s way of life. Your happiness. Most of the time, you end up losing it all. It’s like pulling up a tree and leaving the roots all naked, without any earth.’

My father talked of those who come back with lots of money and parade about, buying houses and anything they fancy. My godfather replied that the vast majority was unable to return and, if you were going to die poor, it was better to close your eyes in the place where you were born. He said there are some who make you want to laugh or cry when they turn up with their new-fangled way of talking, gold chains hanging around their bellies, and cars they attempt to drive down cart-tracks. My godfather can be pretty sharp! When my father said something about people there being more hard-working, my godfather finally lost his rag.

‘They all work far more than they should!’ he exclaimed. ‘There may be the odd layabout, but one bee doesn’t make a hive. Idle folk don’t go there. They know cooked muffins don’t just land on your plate, and so they prefer to laze about at home, in the village. The extra hours emigrants put in enable others to grow, but turn them into brutes who think they’ve come into the world to pull on a yoke night and day. As the proverb says, “Neither too much, nor too little.” When they were here, they would hear a bass drum sounding in a thicket and go off to have some fun; over there, they work all the time and don’t even realize it’s Sunday. I went through the same. They’d have been far better off, with the same amount of effort, in their own country. They’d have lived on what was theirs, without losing their way.’

The two of them fell silent for a while. I carried on thinking about wheat bread and cheese. And Miguel’s good fortune. My father couldn’t let it rest and said that young people were dying to get out there and get educated, and that was when my godfather delivered another of his sermons, claiming that the worst part of it all was that it was the young people who left. He wished it was just a crazy notion entertained by old people, because they would be a loss, but if it’s the workers who leave, then the country ends up being full of old folk and children. He said that bit about getting educated was a joke, since lots of emigrants, when they leave, are able to understand and reason, but when they come back, they’ve lost all sense of reason. He said they swap their usual speech for some highfalutin language even they can’t understand. My godfather compared them to a blackbird in a cage. We can force it to adopt our ways, teach it to whistle ‘God Save the Queen’, but it won’t ever change. One day, it’ll take to the mountains and be an outsider, a lost and lonely blackbird. That bit about the blackbird was way over the top!

My father said, if people didn’t leave, there wouldn’t be enough room for everybody.

‘Oh yes, there would,’ replied my godfather. ‘This country is underexploited. If from one day to the next we stopped letting people out, we could mount a revolution and start living properly instead of scratching away at somebody else’s land.’

They prattled on, convinced of their own reasoning. I went out to the threshing floor. I didn’t think much of their conversation. I understood a few things, but most of them, I didn’t. The musings of bearded men! My godfather emitted deafening shouts. My father could barely get a word in edgeways. And all because I’d said I would go to America when I was older. That’s the way of things. It reminds me of fire. A tiny match can reduce a whole field or a barn to cinders.

I sculpted a doll’s face out of the turnip root and inserted a kidney bean in each eye. I stuck it in a hole in the wall, like a saint.

Miguel also used to make dolls – and carts and ploughs from the bark of pine trees. Will he be doing the same in America? Perhaps Uncle Xaquín doesn’t let him. He obviously doesn’t let him write. He only ever sent one letter. When is he going to write to me? I want him to tell me stories from there. That was our agreement. Perhaps he’s forgotten.

PACHÍN

Apparently there was a time when animals could speak. Rubbish. You can tell that to a baby at the breast, but not to me who has nibbled a couple of crusts. Truth is refashioned every single day. It’s been ages since I heard any serious talk about guardian angels or the Three Wise Kings. Who knows how much other stuff I take for granted will start to change in me? It seems I’m leaving the cradle behind, so to speak.

It would be fun if animals could talk like us. Birds, cattle, hares. One enormous racket! Perhaps they can understand each other without talking, or else they don’t need to. There are lots of men and women who chatter away in the same language and still don’t understand one another.

My mother said she would like to see the river empty, without any water, even if it was just for a moment. Me too. But what I’d really like is to listen to a conversation between some cows, pigs or hens… The things we come up with! It all started when I got Pachín.

Pachín could talk, you see. In his own way. He talked with his eyes, his tail, his paws. And I could understand him as well as if he’d used words. He wasn’t like a dog. He had a person’s reasoning.

Before I was born, they had Rabeno. He was given to my godfather in Silleda. Apparently he was big, fierce, a cross with a wolf. Miguel knew him. But one day Rabeno got rabies and had to be put down. My father killed him behind the barn with his shotgun.

Pachín was little and yellow. He had this freckle on his snout that used to glisten away whenever he was playing about. He liked to kick up a din in the morning. His way of saying ‘hello’. His good-humoured barks were aimed at the trees and birds. What fun he used to have, jumping around the yard!

Apparently, when a dog howls, it’s because it scents death. Pachín never used to howl. Either he had a problem with his nostrils or he just didn’t like foretelling funerals. He was happy-go-lucky and very sociable. The only thing he didn’t do was laugh, though he may even have done that, I reckon, judging by the way he used to show his teeth like someone who is happy.

He was the nicest dog in the whole region. Everybody liked him. We got him from Zoqueiro de Ribán in exchange for my father sharpening his scythe. I brought him home on my lap.

‘He must be fierce,’ said someone or other. ‘The roof of his mouth is black.’

But they weren’t right. Pachín may have realized it wasn’t good to go biting people’s ankles. He got angry if he was provoked, but he wasn’t the kind to use his teeth on anybody.

When I was left alone at home, I would play with him. We would run around the garden, pretending to chase rabbits. Then we would sit at the foot of the large cherry tree. I’d have sweat pouring down my face, and Pachín would be panting with his tongue lolling out.

Some children were jealous. They didn’t like the fact I had a dog like that. Pachín realized and resolved not to put up with any funny business from anybody. Whenever some miscreant would throw stones at him or egg him on, he would go straight for them, growling, baring his teeth.

‘Don’t go crazy, Pachín,’ I would say. ‘You don’t bite, but you make them uneasy; you make them afraid, and one day somebody is going to harm you.’

Pachín would place his front paws on my chest, gazing at me with his large eyes and wagging his tail, as if to say, ‘You leave me alone, I know what I’m doing.’

My Aunt Carme goes to the fountain each morning with a bucket. Apart from bringing back water, she always has some news. One day, she explained how she’d come across the blacksmith’s wife, who was crying because the previous night the fox had got into her henhouse and made off with nine hens. First of all, it had tried to shift the tiles on the roof but, when it had seen the main beam was stuck solid, it had come up with the idea of digging a hole under the door.

That morning, I took the cattle to Zanca Vella and, while searching for nests, came across the fox’s ‘deposit’ in a gorse bush. There were the nine hens, all dead, surrounded by blood and feathers.

I left the cattle and raced down to the blacksmith’s place to let them know about my find. Pachín bounded along beside me. This neighbour, a hunter, said we had to proceed with great caution; if the fox realized we’d located its stash, we wouldn’t be able to take our revenge.

They went to see the apothecary, who asked them to bring him at least two hens. That was what they did. He cut their necks and inserted some poison. They then put them back in the gorse bush with the idea of destroying the fox. But this wasn’t what happened. The creature that turned up dead a few days later in Zanca Vella was Pachín – my old friend, Pachín.

When I saw him lying in the heather, not breathing, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Since I often have dreams, I thought for a moment I must be dreaming and it wasn’t true. But I wasn’t dreaming. Pachín was dead. He’d fallen into the trap that had been set for the fox.

I carried him down the mountain. I used a hoe to dig a deep, long hole in the garden and buried his body. I think I shed a few tears. I’m not ashamed to say I cried. I gradually covered him with fresh soil, like a blanket.

By way of a tombstone, I planted a cherry tree on top of my friend. When it blossomed, it seemed to me I could see an eye or a tooth of Pachín’s in every bud. And I thought I could hear some affectionate barks coming from the roots.

Text © Editorial Galaxia S.A. / Heirs of Xosé Neira Vilas

Translation © Jonathan Dunne

This title is available to read in English in John Rutherford’s translation – see the page “Novels”.