by Toni Sala
Shortly afterward, as she walked past him with the bitch in her arms, still tangled in the net—“sick fuck!” and the bitch showing him her teeth, Iona having removed the packing tape, “fucking asshole!”—Nil thought that he could have locked the door but he hadn’t.
He brooded over whether to take his car and go to the butcher shop, or buy nails and smash up a piece of glass, or get some rat poison, or just ask the trucker to do it with his shotgun, on their way back from seeing the girls, in exchange for the videos.
He didn’t have long to think it over. Iona had only just disappeared down the path when he saw another figure approaching, a figure very similar to himself, except for the ear—the last person he wanted to see right then. The gait was identical to his own. Nil walking toward Nil.
His father had his hands in his pockets and planted himself in front of Nil without any greeting.
“I didn’t call so your mother wouldn’t ask questions. I’ve been expecting you to call me with some excuse. But you haven’t said a word all day. And now I see the girl from Can Bou leaving here, crying, carrying a dog trapped in a net. You’d better have a good explanation. Because if this is what I think it is, you really screwed up, Nil. I hope you have an explanation. You had that dog, didn’t you? You didn’t carry it off in a net! And the dog was injured. Do you mind telling me what that girl was doing here, crying and picking up an injured dog at our shack? Can you explain it, or is there no need? You know what’s going to happen, right? They’re going to report us. I’ll say this in case you don’t already understand: it’s over. There’s no way we can get the land now. Did you hear me, Nil?”
His father grabbed him by the shoulders. He shook him and asked him to explain himself. Nil couldn’t say anything; his father was right. They’d spent four years waiting for him. In four years, they’d only had one bit of good news: when they found out he’d quit art school. When he told them they didn’t hide their happiness—an underwater power cable that connected him and his parents, but didn’t start to work until his father asked him to go kill a dog at Can Bou. For four years, his parents worried that their son would never come back from Barcelona. Every month they paid him the salary that it would take three black men working sun up to sun down to earn, as his father told him one day; they paid so he could devote himself to searching for another world, to betraying them, with the hope that he would grow tired of it. His parents had also acted irresponsibly. They had to have some fault in it, letting him go, letting him get mixed up in a lie. Or was it an experiment? Had they sent him out to explore? Go, see if you find anything better. Go, fail, grow up, you’ll be back. And when his father pushed him, Nil pushed back, and they started to fight. A father and son don’t reach this point so easily. His father was carrying a lot of rage inside, and every blow that Nil took was worth ten, the punches came as if pressurized—his father was strong, a man of the earth, a rock from the field, the wait had turned long and tense, waiting every day while he watched other people’s children living according to God’s plan, taking up the reins, continuing, who was Nil to leave and then fail—and every time Nil received a blow from his father there was a reason behind it, and he just let himself be shook and beat on, he didn’t struggle against it, he’d thought of his father every morning when he saw the Batlle brothers heading out into the fields with theirs . . . And when his father grew tired and stopped, Nil got up in pain and helped his father to stand.
“You’re all the same, Nil,” his father said, “everybody your age is the same. You scammed us. You played us for fools. You took advantage of us. You know what hurts us the most, Nil? We were afraid that one day we’d open the newspaper and see that they were talking about you, about the things you were doing. That we’d find out that you were even further into the lie, that you believed it completely. We helped you because you’re our only child, and there was no other option—your teachers said you were intelligent and that your mother and I had to have a lot of patience—and we didn’t lose hope even though we saw it coming for a long time. Parents always have to think the worst; we need to see it coming. Look at the Batlles. We knew you wanted to go to college, so we let you do it because it wasn’t a question of four years or even eight . . . but to work here you don’t need a degree, you need effort and know-how, real know-how, not that flighty left-wing crap they fill your head with, the ideas they started giving you really young. . . What kind of artist could come out of Vidreres?. . . Before books and before artists there was the land, and someone was working it, and when there are no books left, or artists, or paintings, or any of that shit, because one day all of that will be history, like everything else . . . do you know what will still be here? The land will still be here. Scratch at it all you like, throw a bomb at it and you’ll make a hole, and underneath there’ll be more. Your grandfather always said, when he was little, in the war, they took land to build an aviation field. You see what’s left of that field. You can scratch at it all you like, you can throw a bomb, but under the dirt there’s more dirt. You kids think you’re so smart. You’re so full of yourselves. You lasted a year, Nil, you dropped out and we thought: well, he’ll be back here soon. But then it only got worse: you didn’t come back right away, and then one day you show up with that ear. I’m still not used to it. That’s our flesh, goddamn it! And then you asked me for the shack. Your mother didn’t want to—women know more about these things—she’d given you up for lost, not like me. I’m just a poor man, and when the boys from Can Batlle got themselves killed, the only thing I could think of was to ask you to do a job that I should’ve done myself. I thought I could treat you like a grown-up. I don’t know why you wanted the shack, I don’t know and I don’t care what you’ve been doing in there, I haven’t stuck my nose into it, I haven’t asked any questions. All I asked was for you to look out for the family and the land and . . . How could you have blown this bit of luck, luck that could help our family survive for a hundred more years? A hundred more years, Nil. Does that not seem like much to you? Or you think it’s too much? You didn’t have to do it for yourself; it was about those that’ll come after you, you hear me, all the dead are in these fields . . . You really screwed up, Nil. Now the land will go to the Suredas, and Can Bou will grow. Goddamn it. At least those two killed themselves. It shouldn’t have been them that died. But what do you know, you, who left the land? You live in a world that’s about to explode—we’ve sold you kids out, let you do what you want. Now I understand why you didn’t say anything, now I see why the earring, why you wanted to lock yourself away here . . . just to escape, because that’s all you know how to do!”
One night, fifteen years earlier, Nil was sitting with his parents in front of the fireplace. They were watching a game show on TV. First they heard a wheeze and then a roar, as if there were a beast stuck in the chimney, roasting. There was no animal. Their chimney had caught fire. Nil’s father jumped up from his chair, and his mother ran to move the sofa. His father came out of the kitchen with a bucket of water. He put out the fire in the hearth, then ran upstairs with another bucketful and Nil’s mother behind him. Nil was eight years old. He couldn’t think of anything better to do than to put his head into the fireplace. He crouched down, leaned against the hot, black water and, burning his cheek against the still-scorching tile, looked upward like he sometimes did when there was no fire blazing. During the day you could see the light all the way at the top, like the reflection in the bottom of a well, and you heard very precise sounds from outside the house, which traveled through the air from far away—as if the chimney were a small, long shell, an antenna to pick up the barks of dogs from other houses, the occasional shout from a neighboring field, or the engine of a motorcycle—sounds separated from their place, exiled like the dim light you could see all the way at the top; light from the sky separated from the sky. That night he hadn’t expected to see the placid light of day, nor even a bit of moonlight, but he also hadn’t expected the nest of snakes that he did see. A virulent flaming l
ight, frantic between the black walls, a well in hell that made the whole house tremble. He felt a hot splatter on his arm, a bit of soot had fallen into the puddle of water on the floor. Sparks fell from all the way up the chimney, floating down like incandescent, volatile rain, and he had to move out from under them. Then he ran upstairs to his parents, wanting them to protect him; throughout the whole house the chimney’s snoring could be heard, like a flute, zuuuu, zuuu, and it seemed the walls were quivering in a sustained, never-ending earthquake, and Nil went up the staircase along the chimney, running his hand along the wall’s plaster. And it was hot, it was burning hot, the fire was just on the other side, a few centimeters away from him. He was afraid that the whole house would suddenly burst into flames, and he saw a crack in the plaster that hadn’t been there before, long and deep and all the way up to the ceiling, and he went out on the roof, and there he found his father, who’d just thrown a bucket of water into the chimney but stood still, as if hypnotized. The chimney was a small volcano, a fountain of sparks that the wind carried into the night over the fields, into the fresh air. The fire gradually died out, fewer and fewer sparks falling onto the adobe roof, bouncing, and being carried off by the wind . . .
Now his father left without saying a word, through the fields, disheartened after the fight, cursing and defeated.
Light pricked the hills; the red sky turned violet and increasingly opaque. The clouds made maps of continents with peninsulas, islands, and coastline, a shadow of the earth’s continents, black ash that would fall on the fields and make them barren, enslave them, and then the night’s water would turn it all to mud.
The moon focused on Serradell; Nil was sitting at the door to the shack, lost in his labyrinths. He had a long glass tube and a jar with a mix of water and flammable paste. He was blowing bubbles and lighting them on fire. His planets of lava and blood floated over Serradell, dying out here and there.
Why did you do all that? Because you’re a pyro? For your own pleasure? For the light, for the exorcism of death that the deaths of others brings—since they leave and you stay and make a record of it, you make their deaths material in your videos and make material of death? Because you want to construct a garment of death, wrap yourself in these deaths so when your moment comes you’re prepared? Are you searching for the light that will consume you? Exploring art’s extreme limits? Do you think there’s nowhere further to go—nothing beyond here—and it only makes sense to turn back, to pack it in? Why did you do it? To satisfy your imagination? Because you were lonely? Because it was as if you were burning yourself up? Did you do it because you couldn’t explain it?
Would he be brave enough to pack his bags and leave? He admired so many painters, had seen so many exhibitions in those four years, and beyond each painting and each video there were entire museums of paintings and videos that hadn’t been made and were worth more because of that. Walls and blank walls. Artwork without pain. Full stillness. Blameless sin. He could have lived with that emptiness, but wasn’t brave enough; he searched until he found a way, and he started to kill animals as a path to return home, to an earthly state, the same state that his father sought with his work each day by turning his body into his land, going into the field like a worm to eat his own flesh; every single day, with the obsession that his son would continue so the flesh and the land could be the same, and in this perpetuation his existence was at stake, the existence of his ancestors, life itself was at stake.
The truck’s headlights approached like eyes getting a closer look at him. He heard the engine, the big wheels, sounds that had nothing to do with what the same engine and the same wheels did during the day—there were day sounds and night sounds, and the ones at night were more precise and fine-tuned—two types were needed, one to watch over the other, like the two headlights on the truck, two types in symmetry, just as with the body: hands, feet, brain hemispheres, the same symmetry as with the dead brothers.
Miqui was waiting for him in the cab. He gestured for him to climb in.
“Ready to have some fun?” he asked, when Nil was inside. “Good news—I looked into the Internet thing. There’s no problem.”
He had a photo of a naked girl taped next to the steering wheel, with huge, symmetrical tits.
“Our Lady of Safe Travels,” said Miqui. “Wait till you see Cloe and Marga.”
“You have to take me to Lake Sils,” said Nil.
“You want to go to the lake now? Wait until we come back . . . if you still want to then!”
“Take me there.”
“There’s two of them, Nil . . . it’s gonna take some time!”
They were passing the tree. In the truck’s headlights, the bouquet looked like a bride’s bouquet.
“What assholes,” said Miqui.
“A lot of accidents are suicides and no one realizes,” said Nil. “We don’t know anything about other people’s pain.”
Miqui gave him a puzzled look. “Is something going on with you?”
Nothing is more closely guarded than the pain we cause ourselves. We don’t talk about it, and we try not to think about it, but the pain accrues. The worst pain is what we do to ourselves. We know where it’ll hurt. And the dead turn over in their graves and don’t forgive the living for not taking advantage of what they’ve lost forever. They don’t forgive us for living in hell; they don’t forgive the zoo of animals that the living burn inside themselves, that madness.
“I don’t want to go see the girls,” said Nil. “Just drop me off at the lake, and I’ll walk back on my own. I’ll give you the videos. You can do whatever you want with them.”
Miqui exited the national highway and took the Sils road.
“You didn’t understand me,” said Miqui. “I want you to come with me. What could you possibly have to do at the lake at this time of night? We have a date with the girls, we’re late, you can’t be rude with chicks. What’s wrong with you?”
They turned off onto an unpaved road before reaching the center of Sils.
“You want me to leave you here?” said Miqui. “At this time of night? You are really fucking weird, Nil. You want me to go with you? You want me to wait for you?”
“Piss off,” said Nil, and he got out of the cab.
But Miqui turned off the engine.
“You can leave,” said Nil. “Go.”
The truck lit up the road. Nil lifted his arm, nodded good-bye, and began walking. He heard the road in the distance, and the freeway, and the jet engines of a plane. He heard croaks and animal noises from the water. And then a honk made Nil turn around. Miqui had lowered the window and was aiming at him from the cab.
“Get back in the truck,” said Miqui.
“Piss off,” Nil said again.
And he saw the flare leave the mouth of the barrel, and there was a very brief silence, then a deafening thunderclap immediately followed by dirt and a laugh that skated over the lake’s water.
“Nobody tells me to piss off!” shouted Miqui, and he turned on the engine. “Got that? Nobody! You’re out of your mind, Nil! You’re nutty as a fruitcake, a fucking fruitcake! Look at this shotgun! I’d never shoot anybody! I’m not like you, with your fucking freak ear! You’re mental! You’re out of your fucking mind!”
Nil remained motionless until the truck was far away, and then took the path he always did around the lake. The cold compressed reality: there was an effervescence of stars around the moon, the black glass of the sky was filled with little holes so you could see through to the other side; with one kick he’d shatter it to pieces. He took the same path as always, his place was here, at night—the darkness, the cold, the solitude. He heard a train coming and went into one of the observatories and sat down, surrounded by aquatic sounds, unexpected splashing, no one would come in that night, he could’ve stretched out on a bench and slept until the next day if it wasn’t so cold. He felt the tremble of the tracks and watched a light-laden train pass, reflected in the lake’s dark water.
The train pass
ed by, all lit up. In the sky was the balloon from that morning, with the two rays of helium stuck into its belly, like a big incandescent bulb illuminating the lake and filling the ground with shadows. There were also airplanes in flames. The lake was a burning pool. The fire had taken over the center of Sils, and the houses were aflame, the chimneys, the church tower with its red-hot bell. The isolated farmhouses in the woods and in the fields, and Miqui in his truck, and the cars passing by on the road and freeway. Infernos in the Guilleries and Montseny mountains, Vidreres ablaze, the streets, the homes, his parents, Iona; the limping bitch ran like a shadow between the flames with another dog, a dog whose fur was all burned, named Ringo. Nil hadn’t heard anything from him since Saturday night when he lit him on fire and let him go, and the dog set off running like they all did, fleeing from himself through the fields. But something went wrong, because the flames went out, or it had only seemed they were going out, because that same fire was burning everything now, and Ringo was running, hairless, through it all, fleeing like he’d fled Saturday night, looking back every once in a while, farther and farther from Nil, until he crossed the road at the worst moment. Nil saw the lights, the S the car made, he heard the sudden braking, the shattering glass, he ran back to the shack to hide the fuel and the camera.
He touches his ear to make sure he’s awake. Hell is here and he is the devil, but not everything can be destruction. He keeps walking and finds the Peugeot with Jaume and Xavi inside, two boys a bit younger than him, whom he’d met at some party in town.
“What are you two doing here?” he asks.
“Us?” says Jaume. “We’re where we’re supposed to be. And you, evil notary?”
He doesn’t want to be that reincarnation. The water of the lake has to rise again, it has to drown the two boys, snuff out all the fires; or else it will all be hell.