Out in the Open

by Jesús Carrasco

  After a while, the boy turned to the old man, expecting him to abandon his contemplation in order to unload the donkey and to rest. However, the old man continued to stand there, staring blankly at the wall. The boy thought he must have gone to sleep. From his lesser height, he could see the old man’s wide nostrils and the long white hairs sprouting from the darkness within; his grizzled four days’ growth of beard; and his jaw from which hung the slack skin of his blank face. The boy felt like tugging at his sleeve and dragging him away, but could not allow himself such familiarity. He cleared his throat, scratched the back of his neck and shifted from foot to foot like someone desperate for a pee, but still he couldn’t get the old man’s attention.

  ‘Sir.’

  The goatherd spun round as if he’d been insulted, and only then did they start to walk towards the wall. When they reached it, the old man almost collapsed against it, and it was the boy who took charge of unloading the donkey. He removed the various bits and pieces from the panniers on the pack frame and placed them next to the old man. When he’d finished doing this, he detached the panniers themselves and put the goatherd’s belongings back inside them. The old man asked him to bring him the packsaddle to use as a pillow. The boy tried to get it off the donkey by lifting it from the side, but it was too well embedded on the animal’s back and, however hard he tried, he couldn’t shift it. He searched the panniers for a length of rope left over from the netting and tied it to the donkey’s cinch strap. Then he attached the other end to a large piece of stone fallen from the castle wall and gave a tug on the halter. The donkey immediately started forward, and the saddle slipped backwards over its rump onto the ground.

  He carried the packsaddle over to the goatherd and, seeing him from close to, the boy thought that not only did he look much tireder than on previous days, he looked quite ill. The old man said that they would stay there for a couple of days because there was a well nearby, plus it was the only shade they would find for many miles and there was food for the goats. The boy glanced around him and, for as far as he could see, there was nothing but stones and baked earth. The only food available for the goats was a few withered clumps of astragalus and some scattered stubble left from the last harvest. Up until then, they had always managed to find shade and, as regards food for the goats, this was one of the poorest places they had camped. He turned to the old man and found him lying down on the stones, his head resting on the packsaddle and his hat covering his face. The boy assumed that he must be exhausted after so much walking and that they had stopped there because the man could go no further. He bent down and, picking up the flasks, shook them to see how much water they had left.

  At midday, the boy managed to load the panniers onto the donkey’s back and in them placed the flasks and the milking pail. From where he lay, the goatherd described exactly what he would find, pointed him in the direction he should take and, before he left, lent him his straw hat.

  Although the water tank was right next to the well and was clearly visible from the castle, by the time the boy reached it, sweat was pouring down his face. There was the water tank, just as the old man had said and, a few yards away, the well itself with a brick arch from which hung a four-pointed hook. Someone had thrown sticks down the shaft, making it impossible to lower the bucket into the water. With the help of the hook, however, he managed to remove some of the sticks and make a gap large enough for the bucket to pass through.

  It took him a couple of hours to fill the two flasks. He put in the corks, but when he tried to pick up the first one to carry it over to the donkey, it was far too heavy. He had to empty out half the water from each flask, and even then it was a titanic struggle to lift them into the panniers.

  He returned to the castle in the late afternoon, exhausted by his efforts. The old man was lying where he had left him hours before. The boy unloaded the water, removed the panniers and hobbled the donkey. Then, when he’d finished giving water to the goats, he sat down next to the old man and stayed there, watching the light change in texture as the sun set behind the wall. He heard pigeons cooing as they returned to the tower to roost.

  By the light of the half-moon they dined on rancid almonds and raisins and when they had finished, the boy tidied up, then cleared the stones away from a spot a couple of yards from where the old man was lying. In doing so, he discovered the delicate, smiling skull of a hare. He held it in his hands and ran his fingertips over its complex contours. He imagined its head fixed on a small oval of dark wood, as if it were a miniature hunting trophy. The brass plaque underneath would bear the name of the hunter and the date on which he had felled the beast. He put the skull to one side, rolled up the saddlecloth and placed it under his head. He was so tired that even the smell of donkey exuded by this makeshift pillow seemed almost pleasant. He said goodnight to the old man and, as usual, received no reply. Lying down, he scanned the heavens in search of the constellations he knew, then turned his attention to the moon. Its milky glow hurt his retinas. He closed his eyes and, from behind his lids, he could still see that arc of dazzling light. He remembered the skull he had found while he was preparing his bed. Memories of the bailiff’s gallery of hunting trophies paraded past beneath his moist eyelids. He recalled the first time he’d entered that place. His father had gone with him. The acrid smell of wood and the creaking floorboards, the like of which he had never seen before. The two of them waiting in the gloomy reception room, with his father clutching his hat to his chest, obsessively turning it round and round. The dark coffered ceiling and the vast room adorned with the heads of mouflon, deer and bulls.

  ‘Is this your boy?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘What a lovely child.’

  The memory of the bailiff’s voice pierced his eyes, and it was as if blood were springing up from beneath his swollen eyelids. Staring skywards, he bit his lips and felt a kind of oily liquid filling his tear ducts and blocking his nose. He sniffed hard, trying to clear his airways, and the noise he made alarmed him because he was afraid the goatherd might hear.

  ‘Don’t be afraid. Nothing bad’s going to happen to you.’

  The old man’s voice seemed to emerge from the earth itself, cutting a path through the rocky strata in order to destroy the toxic cloud threatening to engulf him. The boy was struck dumb, his neck stiffened. Then, from somewhere, he heard the whirr of cicadas and began to swallow down his tears, until he felt pure air once more penetrating his nostrils. He dried his eyes, placed his two hands together beneath one cheek and, shortly afterwards, fell asleep.

  Despite having lain down to sleep a couple of yards away from the goatherd, he woke the following morning to find himself lying pressed up against the old man’s motionless body. The harsh glare from the plain forced open his eyes, and the first thing he noticed was the putrid smell emanating from the old man, as potent as the smell he himself gave off, only less familiar. He blinked in an attempt to wake himself up and crept back to the spot where he had originally lain down, hoping that the goatherd was still asleep. The old man, who had been lying in exactly the same position all night, turned his head and asked the boy to bring him a goat. The boy felt ashamed when he realised that the old man had woken before him and he was at a loss as to how he could interpret the fact that their two bodies had remained so close, and that the goatherd hadn’t moved away. He stood up and brushed the dust off his clothes. His shirt was covered in large grease stains and the bottoms of his trousers hung in tatters.

  After breakfast, the old man asked the boy to use the blanket to make an awning to protect him from the morning sun. The boy stuffed two corners of the blanket into holes in the wall, then propped up the rest of the blanket on two poles. When he had finished, he sat down next to the old man, albeit out of the shade, awaiting new instructions, because this was how their new life together was taking shape. The goatherd, constrained by the growing stiffness in his joints, taking shelter from the inclement sky. The boy, like an energetic extension of the old man, prepa
red for whatever labours the plain and the elements demanded of him. For some time, they remained quite still, the old man leaning back against the saddle and the boy waiting in the sun. When the boy could bear it no longer, he got up, walked round to the other side of the wall and lay down in the torrid shade beyond, where he fell asleep. The sun again woke him as it rose above the top of the wall. He returned to the goatherd’s side and they ate a few bits of cheese and a little of the remaining dried meat.

  The old man spent most of the afternoon reading an ancient Bible with rounded corners, which he kept wrapped in a piece of cloth. He followed the words with one finger, pronouncing them syllable by syllable. Meanwhile, the boy set off to explore the ruins with the dog. He was able to map the plan of the castle from what remained of the foundations and he wondered where all the stones from the walls and vaults had gone. He discovered a few desiccated lizards and some pellets full of fragments of bone and fur. On the south-east side of the wall he came across feathers and bits of twisted skin which he interpreted as the leftovers from some owl’s banquet.

  At the far end of the area opposite the wall, he scrambled down a bank full of rabbit-holes. The boy went back to where the old man was lying and told him about the tracks and droppings he had found. He also told him about his experiences of ferreting and how closely it resembled the way the old man had trapped the rat in the bone pit. He spoke of days spent hunting on the railway embankments and how, when he caught a rabbit, he would kill it by holding it by its back legs and striking it with a stick on the back of the neck. ‘The rabbit goes like this,’ he said, pulling a face and holding out trembling arms. According to the boy, July was the best month for catching partridge chicks. ‘You have to go out at midday, when it’s hottest, and if you find a female with her chicks, you choose one and run after it. It soon gets tired.’ Then, without mentioning his mother, he described, as if they were his own, his techniques for skinning a rabbit and breaking the neck of a young pigeon. Beside him, the dog was wagging its tail as if wanting to breathe life into the boy’s adventurous daydreams. When the boy had finished, the old man said there was no point in hunting rabbits, because in order to cook them they would have to make a fire and that could attract the men who were looking for him. The boy felt deflated by this negative response, because he had thought that, for once, he had something to offer that man who seemed to know everything. Indeed, he was so discouraged that he didn’t even take in what the old man had just said to him.

  They spent the rest of the day apart. The goatherd with his Bible and the boy with the dog on the other side of the wall. As darkness fell, the old man used his crook to get hold of the food pouch, from which he took out a crust of bread and the last of the rancid almonds. While he was waiting for the boy to return, he tried to crack open the almonds with two stones. His hands were trembling so much, though, that he couldn’t get the shells in the right position. On one attempt he hit his own fingers and the pain made him snort with rage. When the sun had almost set, the boy returned to the old man’s side. He was carrying a stick in one hand and a rabbit in the other. The dog was scampering around him.

  Despite his aching bones, it was the old man who took charge of skinning the rabbit. He weighed it in his hands and, for a moment, seemed very pleased with the specimen. Then he made a few cuts in the creature’s legs and abdomen and pulled off the skin leaving the animal naked. He threw the innards to the dog, then asked the boy to help him to his feet. They went over to the tower and, while the old man was making a fireplace out of stones, the boy went in search of kindling. They roasted the rabbit just as they had the rat. They did not speak during supper, too busy gnawing every last scrap of meat off the bones. When they had finished, the old man rolled a cigarette and the boy took charge of dousing the fire and getting rid of the bones and skin. It was then, while he was burying the remains far from the castle, that he recalled what the old man had said about the dangers of lighting a fire. He completed his burial of the remains by scuffing up earth onto the grave with his boots, then he rejoined the goatherd. He found him standing with his back to him, a few yards away from his blanket, one hand resting on the wall while he urinated. The smoke from his cigarette wrapped about his head like a cloud of grey thoughts.

  ‘How did you know that some men were looking for me?’

  The old man stood as still and silent as Lot’s wife watching Sodom burn. The boy waited. Without removing his hand from the wall, the goatherd finished urinating and shook his penis dry. When he turned, the boy noticed that the man’s trousers were wet and that the pink tip of his penis was protruding from his flies.

  The boy fled into the night, his subconscious drawing him back to the place where he had buried the remains of the rabbit just minutes before. He stumbled on, skidding on the stones, running as fast as he could in the direction of the well. Then he caught his foot on the stopcock next to the water tank and fell. He lay in the darkness feeling the blood throbbing in his foot. Once he had calmed down, he crept over to the water tank and sat there, his back against the brick surround. From where he was he had only a very partial view of the wall and the plain. The image of the old man turning clumsily towards him completely filled his thoughts. The moist tip of the goatherd’s penis, the skinned rabbit, the search party. He assumed that this stopping-place was merely a kind of meeting-point where he would be handed over to the bailiff. The old man, he thought, had been pretending to be in pain and had led him to those ruins so that he could be safely executed far from the village. He imagined the goatherd sitting at the foot of the wall calmly witnessing his martyrdom. He wished himself far away, wished he had been better able to bear his fate. The sound of distant goat-bells distracted him and, for a while, he gazed up at the castle, but could see no activity, no movement. Later, when he had recovered from running at full pelt immediately after eating, he allowed himself to be lulled by the sound of the bells and fell asleep, sitting up, his head drooping over his chest.

  Just before dawn, he was woken by the dog pressing its cold nose against his bent neck. Still half-asleep, the boy pushed it away, but the dog insisted. The boy opened his eyes and the first thing he saw was the dog wagging its tail. Round its neck was the tin the goatherd had given him the first time they had met. The boy stroked the dog, then yawned and stretched. He saw the rusty stopcock he had tripped over the night before and, still without removing his boot, tentatively felt his injured foot, and although it still hurt, he didn’t think he had broken anything.

  At midday, the boy and the dog returned together to the castle. When they arrived, they found the old man still lying where they had left him, his eyes open. His trousers were no longer wet and there was nothing protruding from his flies. The boy remained standing some distance away and the old man said:

  ‘Sit down.’

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’

  ‘You know they’re looking for me. You’re going to hand me over to them.’

  ‘I have no intention of doing that.’

  ‘Your intentions are exactly the same as theirs.’

  ‘No, you’re wrong.’

  ‘Why have you brought me here, then?’

  ‘Because it’s a really remote spot.’

  ‘Remote from what?’

  ‘From other people.’

  ‘Other people aren’t the problem.’

  ‘Anyone in these parts who sees you is likely to betray you.’

  ‘Which is what you’re going to do, right?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re just like all the others.’

  ‘I saved your life.’

  ‘So that you could get a reward, I suppose.’

  The old man said nothing. Standing ten or so yards away, the boy kept restlessly pacing round and round in a tiny circle as if disappointment made him want to pee himself. The old man said:

  ‘I don’t know what you’re running away from and I don’t want to know.’

  The b
oy stopped his pacing. The old man went on:

  ‘All I know is that the bailiff doesn’t have jurisdiction here.’

  The boy heard the word ‘bailiff’ on the lips of the goatherd and felt the blood burning in his heels, felt the heat rising up from the ground and scorching him inside as only shame can. Hearing the name of Satan on the lips of another and feeling how that word tore down the walls he had built around his ignominy. Standing naked before the old man and the world. The boy retreated a few steps and crouched down. Leaning against the wall’s warm, rough skin, he began to fit together, one by one, the pieces of the puzzle that the plain was handing him. He thought that in such a place, outside the jurisdiction of the bailiff and far from any inhabited villages, they could do with him as they wished. Only the stones would witness the inevitable brutal assaults and the death that would be sure to follow. He stood up.

  ‘I’m leaving.’

  ‘As you wish.’

  The boy untied the tin from around the dog’s neck and showed it to the goatherd.

  ‘I’ll take this.’

  ‘It’s yours.’

  He poured water from the flask into the tin and drank. Then he put the tin in his knapsack, squatted down and stroked the dog under the chin. Before leaving, he tightened the piece of string that served as his belt and glanced around him. The sky was a clear, blue vault. He smoothed his hair with his hands and, without turning to look at the goatherd, began heading north, leaving the castle behind him. The old man sat up to watch him leave. The dog gaily followed the boy, as if they were simply setting off together again to explore the fortress and its surrounds. It kept running from one side of the boy to the other, then stationed itself before him and put its paws on his thighs asking to be petted. The boy pushed the dog away, and the dog then stopped pestering him and trotted meekly after him. When they had gone some fifteen or twenty yards, the goatherd whistled, and the dog, its legs tense, paused and pricked up its ears. Then the boy bent down, put his hands about the dog’s neck and whispered something into the dog’s ear that made the dog relinquish its herding instincts and happily return to the castle wall.