VII

Senyor’s grey, hoary house, blotched by damp, had two spans of snow on the roof. The snow fell thick and constant. At the approach of darkness, it was shoveled into piles in the middle of the streets. On windy nights shutters on the windows banged open and shut; the wind screeched and soughed, making everything seem alive. Perhaps that winter the river would carry away the village . . . but winter was ending and the river was now melted snow.

It was time to go in search of red powder. The wind on Maraldina was like no other. Unremitting, never sporadic, it was a weary wind, furious to be compelled to storm through the heather, endlessly. As we scaled the mountain, the wind would wrench shrubs out of the ground, tossing them in the air where they remained for a moment mottled against the light. The shouts commenced as soon as the first men descended into the cave. There was virtually no powder. One man exclaimed that it was pointless to shout, shouting made souls happy. The man beside him announced that the souls weren’t at fault, if such things as souls existed; what had happened was clear: because of the terrible summer heat, powder hadn’t fallen from the walls. The man who said it was pointless to shout told them to be quiet. They didn’t know what they were saying. The souls of all the unnamed dead were laughing because the villagers were shouting. He could hear them laughing.

The following day we returned to the cave with hoes and shovels to scrape the powder from the walls and ceiling. Breathing inside the cave was impossible. We emerged from its entrails red as rage. But the village had to be painted. Unpainted, from a distance it looked like a straggle of houses that were on the verge of collapsing—poor and begrimed, prisoners of the still dry wisteria. When I entered the dining room after the third visit to the cave, I found my stepmother sitting on top of the table, her head bent backward. Surrounded by paintbrushes, she was running a brush over her neck, slowly, as if she were painting a wall. As soon as she saw me, she stopped and said, now that it’s dark, let’s toss the brushes in the river. We wrapped them in a sack and set out to throw them away, hurling them as far as we could. We lingered, gazing at the black water, and had to hurry back because the faceless men that frightened her were beginning to emerge. The next day we searched for more brushes. They were stored in a shed in the Plaça. We didn’t rest until we had got rid of them all. On the last day, it was still early so we went and sat on the sundial; we could hear the wind howling from there. She said we weren’t hearing wind, but grieving souls.

When the wisteria first began to bloom, fresh grass sprouting, we returned to the forest by way of the river. To cross it, she clasped me by the waist, and I swam with her behind me, as though I were bearing a lily leaf. We were thirsty and swallowed mouthfuls of water, all the broad river wanted inside us. We left behind the dog roses and seedlings and sat beneath the blacksmith’s tree. All at once, I stood up and carved a cross on the trunk with my fingernail. We looked at each other and laughed. She picked up the plaque and held it in her hand for a long time, then spit on it to blacken it. I removed the ring and fastened it to another tree. She laughed and clenched her teeth, her tiny teeth, top against bottom. We stood up and began examining the trees; some were very old and the trunks were full of knots. We started to run. Racing through the forest like wafting leaves, we got separated. I called to her with a whistle I had invented, one she had learnt right away. One of my whistles enticed a shiny, black snake out from beneath a rock, and I picked up the rock where it had settled and threw it, killing the snake.

Everything pressed on toward summer, toward greenness locked deep in the forest. And we switched all the rings. Clusters of trees bore no rings at all; others had three or four. We scrambled over the thorny fence and studied the plaques with the bee and bird. Those were the oldest trees of all, their trunks all splintered. The tallest tree was full of dead branches, and when we removed the ring, moldy moss dust fell, revealing a long hole from which a bone protruded. I pulled on it and more bones tumbled out, and she scattered them. Every time we removed a ring from a tree within the fence, a hole would emerge and yellow bones would spill out. I widened the holes and started pulling out the skulls: they were the bones that couldn’t get out by themselves. We stacked them up, one on top of the other, and plugged the eye sockets with grass so they would not stare at us. The tiny bones from feet and hands were just right for playing. We would toss them in the air and catch them, and if one fell on the ground, the person who had let it drop lost. We had a hidden corner in the forest, imbued with the smell of moss, where we kept a stone that served as a pot, and we put lots of the small foot and hand bones in it. If we didn’t feel like playing, we would go to the stone and stir the bones, hold them up, then let them drop, just to hear the little noise they made when they landed.

One day I wanted to hack open a tree with an axe; she stared at me with big eyes, her hand in front of her mouth. My right palm stung, but she was watching me and I didn’t complain, hardly noticing the pain. The trunk was like rubber, and the dead person inside still had skin, grey as Senyor’s house, stuck to the bones. Four snakes were slithering between the ribs, just like the one that emerged when I whistled, only smaller.

As the weather turned warmer, butterflies were everywhere. Sometimes we would throw a bone at some leaves and the butterflies would take wing, scattering. We lay down on the ground to look at them, and I fell asleep until I sensed I was being watched. She was kneeling in front of me, the axe in her hand. Slowly she walked over to a tree, turning back from time to time to see if I was following. I followed, and she stopped in front of the tree and, handing me the axe, told me to open it. A ray of sunlight trickled down between the leaves onto her hair, charging it with colors. Little flecks of color glistened like water in the white of her eyes. Open it. She handed me the axe, but I didn’t take it. I looked only at her, and I could see her standing so close to me, yet only a short time before so far away: in the courtyard making soap bubbles, stringing together wisteria blossoms with a needle and thread, sitting on top of the table with a cane in her hand . . . standing in the middle of the window with the green curtain. Open. I didn’t utter a word, nor did I move. Abruptly, she dropped the axe and started spinning round me as if she were possessed, open, open, open. Again, she handed me the axe, but I didn’t take it. She marched off to play with the rings, and I stood before the tree, my eyes fixed on the axe lying on the ground.

I hadn’t budged. Barefoot and tiny, she returned, strolling through the trodden grass, down the narrow paths we had beaten during our frequent walks. She sauntered along, carrying a round bone in her hand, throwing it up, catching it. We played at being afraid. They’re coming, she would exclaim. And we ran back and forth, our hearts filled with fearful blood because we didn’t know who was coming, from what direction, if there were many of them, or if it was just the one conjured up by the fear our voices awakened in us. They’re coming, they’re coming. We hid behind tree trunks. We would stand very still for a moment, then suddenly thrust our heads out from the side of the tree, quickly hiding again, as if each of us represented ‘they’ for the other; we never knew who they were—they never arrived. When we emerged from behind the trunk and listened, there was nothing to be heard: only the breath of light and earth, and the air that dwelt on high.

Again, she picked up the axe and again handed it to me. She lifted it by the blade, offering me the handle. Open. She never took her eyes off mine, and I grasped the axe and began to unbar my father’s tree, top to bottom, side to side. It was soft. Trees that held the dead inside were like rubber, hard to breach. When I had opened the cross, she told me to pull, and, with her help, I pulled as hard as I could. Then it all spilled out. Bark and rotted flesh. And a watery mixture: black sweat from the body. At eye level stood the decomposing heart, partially attached to the chest by four veins and, above it, the mouth sealed with rose-colored cement; deep within lay a damp smudge of brighter pink cement. The flayed knees were bent, the bones twisted. Further up, the face—rotted fruit, forehead stripped clean—seemed to be laughing. But the eyes were missing, burnt by the sap. I ran away. I could tell she hadn’t moved. Then suddenly I heard her laugh. I swam across the river, never stopping until I reached the house. When I entered, I found her already sitting on top of the table, scooping out a ball of fat with her finger.

I dreamt my father’s breath was burning me.