Mouthful of Birds

by Samanta Schweblin

  Beating a dog to death in the Buenos Aires port is the test they use to see if you’re capable of doing something worse. They say, Something worse, and then look away, dissembling, as if we, those on the outside, didn’t know that worse means killing a person, beating a person to death.

  When the avenue splits into two streets, I opt for the quieter one. A line of red lights changes to green, one after another, and lets us speed ahead until a space, dark and green, appears between the buildings. It occurs to me that it’s possible there are no dogs in this plaza, and then the Mole orders me to stop. You didn’t bring a club, he says. No, I say. But you’re not going to beat a dog to death without a weapon. I look at him but don’t answer. I know he’s going to say something, because I know him now; it’s easy to figure him out. But he enjoys the silence, enjoys thinking that every word he says is a strike against me. Then he swallows and seems to think: You won’t be killing anyone. And finally he says: I happen to have a shovel in the trunk, you can use that. And I’m sure that beneath his sunglasses, his eyes are shining with pleasure.

  There are several dogs sleeping near the central fountain. The shovel firm in my hands—my chance could come any second—I approach. Some of them start to wake up. They yawn, stand up, look at one another, look at me; they growl, and as I get closer they shrink back. To kill someone in particular, someone already chosen, is easy. But to choose the one who will die requires time and experience. The oldest dog or the prettiest or the one that seems most aggressive. I have to choose. I’m sure the Mole is watching from the car and smiling. He must think anyone who’s not like them is incapable of killing.

  The dogs surround and sniff me, and some move farther away and lie back down, forgetting me. To the Mole, behind the dark glass of the car and his darkened glasses, I must be small and ridiculous, clutching the shovel and surrounded by dogs that now drift back to sleep. A white spotted one growls at a black one, and when the black one snaps at it, a third dog comes over, barks, and bares its teeth. Then the first dog bites the black one and the black one, teeth shining in the night, takes it by the neck and shakes it. I raise the shovel and the blow hits the spotted dog’s back; howling, he falls. He lies still. I think it’ll be easy to move him, but when I grab him by the legs he reacts and bites my arm and the blood gushes out. I raise the shovel again and hit him in the head. The dog falls back down and looks up at me from the ground, breathing fast but not moving.

  Slowly at first, then more confidently, I gather his legs together, pick him up and carry him to the car. A shadow moves in the trees. A drunk peers out and says, “You just don’t do that. The dogs will remember you, and later they’ll take their revenge. They know,” he says, “they know. Understand?” And he sits down on a bench and looks at me nervously. When I’m about to reach the car I see the Mole sitting and waiting for me in the same position he was in before, but the trunk of the Peugeot is open. The dog falls like dead weight, and he looks up at me as I close the trunk. Once I’m in the car, the Mole says: If you’d put it on the ground it would have gotten up and run away. Yes, I say. No, he says, you should have opened the trunk first. Yes, I say. No, you should have done it and you didn’t do it, he says. Yes, I say, and regret it immediately, but the Mole doesn’t say anything, and he looks at my hands. I look at my hands, I look at the steering wheel, and I see that everything is bloodstained, there’s blood on my pants and on the floor of the car. You should have used gloves, he says. The wound hurts. The man comes to kill a dog and he doesn’t bring gloves, he says. Yes, I say. No, he says. I know, I say, and then I shut up. I decide not to mention the pain. I start the car and drive smoothly off.

  I try to concentrate, to figure out which of the many streets I pass could take me to the port without the Mole having to tell me anything. I can’t afford to make another mistake. Maybe it would be good to stop at a pharmacy and buy a pair of gloves, but pharmacy gloves wouldn’t work and the hardware stores will be closed by now. A plastic bag is no good, either. I could take off my jacket, roll it around my hand and use it as a glove. Yes, that’s how I’m going to do the job. I think about that: the job. I’m pleased to think I can talk like they do. I take Caseros Street, which I think goes down to the port. The Mole doesn’t look at me, doesn’t talk to me, doesn’t move; he keeps his eyes straight ahead and his breathing under control. I think they call him the Mole because his eyes under those glasses are tiny.

  After several blocks Caseros crosses Chacabuco. Then Brasil, which leads to the port. I turn abruptly and the car tips onto two wheels. In the trunk the body thumps and then there are noises, as if the dog were still trying to get up. The Mole, I think surprised by the animal’s strength, smiles and points to the right. I turn onto Brasil braking; the tires squeal, and with the car on two wheels again, there’s more noise from the trunk—the dog scrambling to avoid the shovel and all the other stuff that’s back there. The Mole says, Brake, and I brake. He says: Speed up. He smiles. I speed up. Faster, he says, and I go faster. Then he says, Brake, and I brake. Now that the dog has been thrown around several times, the Mole relaxes and says: Keep going. He doesn’t say anything else. I drive. The street I’m driving on has no more stoplights or white lines, and the buildings get older and older. Any moment now we’ll be at the port.

  The Mole signals to the right. He tells me to go three more blocks and turn left, toward the water. I obey. Soon we reach the port and I stop the car in a parking lot full of stacked containers. I look at the Mole, but he doesn’t look at me. Without wasting any time, I get out of the car and open the trunk. I didn’t wrap the jacket around my arm but I don’t need gloves anymore; the thing is done. I just need to finish quickly so we can go. In the empty port there are only a few weak yellow lights in the distance that illuminate a few ships. Maybe the dog is already dead. I think how that would have been for the best, that I should have hit him harder the first time and then he would surely be dead by now. Less work, less time with the Mole. I would have killed the dog right away, but this is how the Mole does things. It’s a whim. Bringing the dog half dead to the port doesn’t make anyone braver. Killing him in front of all those other dogs would have been harder.

  When I touch him, when I grab his feet to take him out of the car, he opens his eyes and looks at me. I let go and he falls back into the trunk. With one front paw he scratches the rug that’s now covered in blood; he tries to get up and the back part of his body is trembling. He’s still breathing, and his breath is agitated. The Mole is probably timing me. I pick the dog up again and something must hurt because he howls, though he’s no longer struggling. I put him on the ground and drag him away from the car. When I turn back to the trunk to get the shovel, the Mole gets out. Now he’s next to the dog, looking down at him. I carry the shovel over, I see the Mole’s back and beyond him, on the ground, the dog. If no one will find out about a dead dog, no one will know anything that happens here. The Mole doesn’t turn around when he tells me: Now. I raise the shovel. Now, I think. But I don’t bring it down. Now, says the Mole.

  I don’t bring it down, not on the Mole’s back or on the dog. Now, he says, and then the shovel slices through the air and hits the dog’s head, and the dog howls, trembles a moment, and then everything is quiet.

  I start the car. Now the Mole is going to tell me who I’ll work for, what my name will be, and how much money I’ll make, which is what matters. Take Huergo and then turn onto Carlos Calvo, he says.

  I’ve been driving for a while now. The Mole says: At the next street, stop on the right. I obey, and then the Mole looks at me for the first time. Get out, he says. I get out and he moves into the driver’s seat. I peer in through the window and ask him what will happen now. Nothing, he says, you hesitated. He starts the car and the Peugeot moves off in silence. When I look around I realize he left me in the plaza. The same plaza. In the center, near the fountain, a pack of dogs gets up, slowly, and looks at me.

  TOWARD HAPPY CIVILIZATION
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  He’s lost his ticket, and from behind the ticket window’s white bars, the station agent refuses to sell him another, saying there’s no change in the drawer. From a station bench, he looks at the immense, dry countryside that opens out in all directions. He crosses his legs and unfolds the pages of the newspaper in search of articles that will make the time pass faster. Night spreads across the sky, and far away, above the black line beyond which the tracks disappear, a yellow light announces the next train. Gruner stands up. The newspaper hangs from his hand like an obsolete weapon. In the ticket window he discerns a smile that, half hidden behind the bars, is directed exclusively at him. A skinny dog that was sleeping now stands up, attentive. Gruner moves toward the window, confident in the hospitality of country people, in masculine camaraderie, in the goodwill that awakens in men when you handle them well. He is going to say, Please, how hard can it be? You know there’s no more time to find change. And if the man refuses, he’s going to ask about other options: Surely, sir, I could buy the ticket aboard the train, or, when I arrive, I could buy it at the terminal’s ticket office. Make me an IOU, give me a piece of paper that says I have to pay for the ticket later.

  But when he reaches the window, when the train’s lights lengthen the shadows and the whistle is loud and intrusive, Gruner discovers that no one is there behind the bars, there’s only a tall chair and a table overflowing with unstamped slips, future tickets to various destinations. As he watches the train barrel into the station, Gruner also sees that off to one side of the tracks, in the field, the still-smiling man is signaling to the conductor that he doesn’t have to stop, since no one has bought a ticket. Then, as the sound of the massive machine moves away, the dog lies down again and the station’s only lamp blinks for a few seconds, then goes out entirely. The now crumpled newspaper comes to rest again on Gruner’s lap, and he reaches no conclusion that would send him off in search of that wretch who has refused him the capital’s happy civilization.

  Everything is still and silent. Even Gruner, sitting at one end of a bench with the cool night seeping in through his clothes, stays motionless and breathes calmly. A shadow that he doesn’t see moves between posts and plaza benches and reveals itself as the man from the ticket window. Now unsmiling, he sits at the other end of the bench and puts a mug full of steaming liquid down next to him. He pushes it until it’s a few inches from Gruner. He clears his throat and looks at the wide black countryside that stretches out before them. As the steam from the mug awakens Gruner’s appetite, he focuses on resistance. He thinks that in the end, he will get to the capital somehow and he’ll report what has happened. But his hand moves toward the mug of its own accord, and the heat between his fingers distracts him. “There’s more where that came from,” says the man, and then Gruner—but no, Gruner wouldn’t have done that. Gruner’s hands take the warm vessel and raise it to his mouth, where a miraculous medicine reanimates his body. With the last sip he understands that, if this were a war, that wretch would already have won two battles. Victorious, the man stands, picks up the empty mug, and walks away.

  The dog is still curled up, its snout hidden between its stomach and hind legs, and although Gruner has called to him several times, the dog ignores him. It occurs to Gruner that it was the dog’s food in the mug, and he worriedly wonders how long that dog has been here. Whether there had been a time when the dog had also wanted to travel from one place to another, as he himself had wanted to do that very afternoon. He has the notion that the dogs of the world are the result of men who have failed in their attempted journeys. Men nourished and retained with nothing but steaming broth, men whose hair grows long and whose ears droop and whose tails lengthen, a feeling of terror and cold inciting them to stay silent, curled up under some train-station bench, contemplating the failures of the newcomer who is just like them only still has hope, staunchly awaiting the opportunity of a voyage.

  A silhouette moves in the ticket office. Gruner stands up and walks decisively over. Steam from the heaters wafts out between the white bars, carrying homey smells. The man smiles with goodwill and offers him more broth. Gruner asks what time the next train passes. “In an hour,” says the man, and his offended hand shuts the ticket window and leaves Gruner alone once again.

  Everything repeats like in a natural cycle, thinks Gruner an hour later, as he forlornly watches another string of cars go by without stopping, an exact copy of the previous train. In any case, morning will come soon and workers will arrive at the station to buy tickets, many of them probably with change. If there are trains to the capital, it is thanks to the passengers who must travel there every morning. Yes, as soon as I get to the capital I will report that man, thinks Gruner, and someday I’ll come back with change to this wretch’s station just to make sure he no longer works here. With the relief of that certainty, he sits on the bench and waits.

  Time passes, during which Gruner’s eyes get used to the night and read shapes in even the darkest places. That’s how he discovers the woman, her figure leaning against the waiting-room doorway, and he sees her hand waving to invite him in. Gruner is sure that the gesture was for him, and he stands up and walks toward her; she smiles and ushers him in.

  On the table are three plates, all of them served, and the steam comes not from soup, broth, or dog food, but from substantial sausages bathed in an aromatic white cream. The room smells like chicken, cheese, and potatoes, and then, when the woman brings a casserole dish full of vegetables to the table, Gruner remembers the dinners typical of the capital’s happy civilization. The miserable ticket man, so elusive when it came to buying a ticket, enters and offers Gruner a seat.

  “Have a seat, please. Make yourself at home.”

  The man and woman begin to eat, satisfied. Gruner sits with them, his plate also heaped with food. He knows that, outside, the cold is damp and inhospitable, and he also knows he has lost another battle, since he wastes no time in raising the first forkful of an exquisite chicken sausage to his mouth. But the food doesn’t guarantee he’ll get out of this station soon.

  “Is there a reason you won’t sell me a ticket?” asks Gruner.

  The man looks at the woman and asks for dessert. From the oven emerges an apple tart that is soon cut into equal slices. The man and woman exchange a tender glance when they see how Gruner devours his portion.

  “Pe, show him his room, he must be tired,” says the woman, and then the first mouthful of a second serving of tart stops en route to Gruner’s mouth, stops and waits.

  Pe stands up and asks Gruner to come with him.

  “You can sleep inside. It’s cold out there. There are no more trains until morning.”

  I have no choice, thinks Gruner, and he leaves the tart and follows the man to the guest room.

  “Your room,” says the man.

  I’m not going to pay for this, thinks Gruner, at the same time as he sees that the two blankets on the bed look new and warm. He’s still going to lodge a complaint; the hospitality doesn’t make up for what happened. The couple’s conversation reaches him faintly from the room next door. Before he drifts off, Gruner hears the woman tell Pe that he needs to be more considerate, the man is alone and this must seem strange, and Pe’s offended voice replies that the only thing that wretch cares about is buying his return ticket. “Ungrateful” is the last thing that reaches his ears; the sound of the word fades gradually and is reborn in the morning, when the whistle of a train already passing the station wakes him up to a new day in the country.

  “We didn’t wake you because you were sleeping so soundly,” says the woman. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  Hot coffee with milk and cinnamon toast with butter and honey. While Gruner eats breakfast in silence, his eyes follow the woman’s steps as she cooks what will apparently be lunch. Then something happens. An office worker, a man with Asian features and dressed like Gruner, someone who is possibly taking the next train and has enough change for two ticke
ts, comes into the kitchen and greets the woman.

  “Morning, Fi,” he says, and with a son’s affection he kisses the woman on the cheek. “I’m finished outside. Should I help Pe in the field?”

  Once again, the food that was moving toward Gruner’s mouth, in this case a piece of toast, stops halfway and hangs in the air.

  “No, Cho, thanks,” says Fi. “Gong and Gill already went, and three are enough for the job. Could you get a rabbit for supper?”

  “Sure,” replies Cho, and with apparent enthusiasm he takes down the rifle hanging next to the chimney and withdraws.

  Gruner’s toast returns to the plate and stays there. Gruner is going to ask something but then the door opens, and in comes Cho again. He looks first at Gruner and then curiously asks the woman:

  “Is he new?”

  Fi smiles and looks affectionately at Gruner.

  “He got here yesterday.

  Gruner’s actions that first day are the same as those of everyone who has ever been in his situation. Hide away offended and spend the morning next to the office that sells tickets for a train that doesn’t come. Then, refuse to eat lunch, and in the afternoon, secretly study the group’s activities. Under Pe’s instructions, the office workers work the earth. Barefoot, their pants rolled up to the ankles, they smile and laugh at their own jokes without losing the rhythm of their tasks. Then Fi brings tea for them all, and the four of them—Pe, Cho, Gong, and Gill—signal to Gruner, who thought he was hidden, inviting him to join the group.

  But Gruner, as we know, refuses. There’s no one more stubborn than an office worker like him. Held over from offices with no partitions, but with a telephone line all his own, he still has his pride when he’s out in the country, and sitting on a wooden bench, he struggles not to move all afternoon long. Even if no train comes, he thinks. Even if I rot right here.