Nothing But Dust

by Sandrine Collette

  If it moves? If it smells? But if happiness is the source of the nauseating smell in the cave, the boy is prepared to give up on it right away. If it speaks, maybe?

  Something magical enough to put a gleam in the old man’s eyes when he talks about it, precious enough for Rafael to witness the thin hands gripping the leather, for fear someone will take it from him, or that it will get away.

  So he quickly fills up the flasks at the river, to go back and observe happiness. He figures that if the old man is still awake, he’ll ask him to describe it, a little—in exchange for the water he’s brought, and the meat he’s given him. But when he gets back up there the man is lying with his eyes closed, and only his uneven breathing echoes against the walls of the cave. The bag is there, under his head, safeguarded. Rafael gazes at it for a long while, trying to work out whether it is something that can run away, or whether the old man’s embrace is preventing it. It doesn’t move, isn’t breathing. Doesn’t shine. You’d think there’s nothing in there, except that the bag is full, that’s for sure, bulging the way it does in spite of the man’s head on it. A mystery. Rafael looks on from a distance, his eyes glowing.

  During the day he sets up camp: he doesn’t know how long his stay will last, but he senses it could be a good while. What will make it long is not something he thinks about, whether it’s the time it will take to look after the old man, the time it will take for him to die, or simply the time for Rafael to decide to leave; regardless, he readies the place, weaves long branches together to make an enclosure for the horses, so they can move freely at night without hobbles; during the day he’ll leave the hobbles on so they can graze further afield. In the cave he gathers a supply of dead wood, cleans the ground, puts foliage out to dry for softer bedding, and to hold the berries he’s gathered. He scurries like an ant, tireless, scrutinizing, fixing a fence, moving the meat to another spot: it was too near the entrance, within reach of the insects. He finds the best place to build a fire, and works out how long they can last with the food he has. North of the cave he’s seen traces of crushed grass, and shrubs that have been parted, signs that animals pass through there regularly: from different paths they are all converging at the river, where there are numerous tracks of deer by the water, and of other animals too, but the trampled, overlapping tracks are almost impossible to identify. They reassure him all the same, because this means there will be a steady supply of meat. In preparation, he whittles a few green branches to use as a spit, to cook or smoke his catch when the time comes. In the cave he piles stones with long branches between them to use as shelves—he mustn’t leave the food supplies on the ground.

  Now and again the wounded man opens an eye and looks at him, drinks some water, moans as he curls up on himself. At the end of the day, before they are trapped by darkness, Rafael goes over to him and says, puffed up with courage:

  “Time to have a look at those wounds.”

  His whole life he’s only ever looked after animals, and the old man is just another animal, no more, no less, that’s what he keeps telling himself as he puts the water on the fire, because the wounds stink the same, bleed the same, and hurt the same. When he pulled the shirt back from the torn belly he thought of the grazing animals that get caught in barbed wire, of flesh swollen with pus. That’s always a bad place for a wound, because that’s where the digestive organs are, intestines and other disgusting things, and it gets infected deep inside, the best is to clean it all, cauterize it all. For lack of anything better he mixes and heats some herbs to make a rough poultice. He picked plants that looked like the ones the mother uses, but he isn’t sure they’re the same; still, the old man won’t know, and Rafael will pretend, give him the impression he’s healing him, this herb or that one, in the long run, what difference does it make. First he cleans the wounds as best he can, with the old man waving his hands at him to stop, screaming that it hurts.

  “I know, abuelo, but to put the dressing on it has to be clean, otherwise the herbs will make things worse instead of removing the infection, I’m almost done, almost there.”

  During the night the old man is delirious, feverish, and Rafael wakes up every time to change the damp rag around his head, pull up the blanket, kindle the fire since the wounded man is cold, for all that he is burning with fever, and several times the poultice slips off his stomach. Between two naps the boy hums to himself. He finally drops off, then is startled because there’s howling on the other side of the fire, and sometimes he thinks that if Mauro were here, for sure he would have settled the old man’s score, his shouts and laments would get on Mauro’s nerves, for sure the older brother couldn’t stand it, he’d sooner choke him with his bare hands, the way Rafael saw him do, once, with a ewe whose stomach had been torn open by a puma. For a moment the boy is tempted by the idea, but he knows he hasn’t got the strength, in spite of the state the old man is in, and he doesn’t really feel like it, it’s just he does think about it, with the fatigue, and that moaning lacerating his sleep and making him clench his teeth, anyway he won’t do it, not right away, not today.

  By morning the man is calmer, as are all injured people who wake at dawn, relieved to have made it through the night and that the Grim Reaper has not come for them. Their defenses are lowered and panic gives way to exhaustion—and that is often when animals die, when they think they’re safe, and night takes a backward leap to wrest their last breath from them, and in their dimmed eyes there is a glint of surprise, a mean trick has been played on them and they didn’t see it coming. But Rafael pays no attention to any of that. He too curls up in his blanket and enjoys the calm, slips into a dreamless sleep of a starry blue, like the sky he can see through his parted eyelids when he is roused by thunder, a dry, black storm hurtling against the mountainside, he doesn’t care, tucked away in his impregnable shelter, his heart adrift in the middle of the world.

  JOAQUIN

  They’ve got the rams held tight together between their shouts and their whips. Sometimes Eduardo clicks his tongue and his criollo pushes a bit harder against the recalcitrant animals, jerkily, keeping well away from the coiled horns that are as hard as rock, horns that can break a horse’s bones, and the criollos know it as well as the rams do, they give each other sidelong glances all the way along the road to town. Emiliano is in the lead, already proud. Every year his males win a prize, often even two or three, and on seeing them Joaquin realizes that those rams have nothing at all in common with the mother’s. They’re monsters, three merinos and two corriedales, straight from the bowels of the earth, all muscle and wool, a nasty gleam in their eyes. They’ve been bred for reproduction and competition, and at the estancia they never come in contact: galvanized by the presence of the ewes, they would attack each other. Herds are carefully divided, territory is split up. With each new season the gauchos have to keep an eye on the quarrelsome young rams, to separate them from the old chiefs; in spite of their vigilance, from time to time they will find two dead sheep in a corner of a pasture, their horns so entangled they could not free themselves, necks broken, breath depleted by battle, smashed, shattered.

  For the first time Joaquin goes into the town without the mother. He feels as if he is discovering it all over again—a fresh gaze on the streets, the people, the large square hosting the fair. There’s a festive air, and people hurry about. Hundreds of animals: steers, rams, she-goats, and billy goats are penned in makeshift enclosures, bellowing, interrupting the powerful buzz of conversation, laughter, shouts. It makes Joaquin’s head spin, he’s never seen such a crowd, never heard so much noise all at once, not that it bothers him, on the contrary, a sort of excitement wells up inside him, his eyes and ears darting everywhere, he breathes in great lungfuls of the town, and his hands are trembling slightly.

  They pen their rams in turn, then Emiliano waves them away, go get something to eat, he’ll stay there, already the breeders have recognized him and are calling out to him, and Eduardo murmurs with a smile: They�
�re gonna cut a few deals. They’ll have to come back at the beginning of the afternoon to show the animals, but for now the gauchos are free, and Joaquin follows the others down the street, they seem to know the way, he follows and his mouth waters from the aroma of asados and empanadas. But they are heading away from the heart of the fair, and he says, “Where are we going?”

  He receives no answer. Before long Arcangel, who is in the lead, stops, turns around to face them, and nods.

  “It’s here. They caught two of ’em.”

  At first Joaquin, going closer with the others, can’t see anything, other than the crowd, which has gathered here too and is talking loudly, and then yes, there are two figures on their knees, and the people are staring at them without touching them, they’ve just come to have a look, they walk around and go away again. Standing on tiptoe Joaquin asks:

  “What is it?”

  But he already knows it’s two corpses slumped there before them, held with their heads low on their knees by the rope that binds them to a wooden pole, and that’s not what he’s asking, it’s why, an explanation, why these two Negroes are dead and on display here, and Eduardo answers, never taking his eyes from the scene:

  “It’s because of Gomez.”

  Fabricio nods and adds, “His wife got knocked up by a black man, so they’ve been looking for anyone they can punish. The others must’ve hightailed it out of here long ago.”

  Joaquin looks at the limp bodies, the children playing at prodding them with sticks, and the frozen faces swing from left to right as if the wind were swaying them, their torn shirts flap open and closed. He frowns.

  “Are they the ones who did it? I mean, did those guys have the woman?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Not much to get. Just that they’re Negroes. Maybe the guilty man is one of ’em, but if he’s not, they’re paying for him.”

  “Christ, when the wind blows this way they stink, don’t they.”

  “They’ve probably been there for a while.”

  Eduardo, who had gone closer to the corpses, steps back.

  “They hanged them on the ground. Like dogs.”

  “Bah, are they anything more,” says Arcangel.

  Joaquin looks at their broken necks, imagines the time it took. The mother told them how one day a breeder caught a cattle rustler out on the steppe. Not a tree in sight: no matter. With his men he hanged the man like that. First, two or three gauchos pick him up and hold him horizontal; then the others slip a noose around his neck and pull the opposite direction. It makes everyone laugh, the ones holding the man because they have to struggle to keep their balance when the others pull on the rope, have to stand firm to stay upright, and the ones who have the rope because they can see the man’s face distorting, his tongue sticking out, and it takes a while until his neck snaps or he stops breathing, anyway everyone’s pleased, and red in the face, and it’s time for a drink.

  That’s why the eyes and tongues are swollen, Joaquin notices, he’s often seen dead animals on the estancia, but men, never, he doesn’t dare say so, the others are looking without flinching. It seems so normal. So obvious. Then finally Fabricio calls to them, “I’m starving, aren’t you?”

  “You’re right,” mutters Eduardo, “we won’t have enough time if we spend all day here.”

  They walk away, weaving their way through the people who’ve come to see, and suddenly Joaquin feels vaguely nauseous, must be the smell, and the thousands of flies on the corpses, and the huge black wounds they uncover whenever a kid runs by and they fly away for a few seconds in a lugubrious swarm.

  When they sit down and order empanadas, he hesitates. But how would that make him look. So he nibbles reluctantly with the men, who are still discussing the affair, and gradually, like for them, his appetite returns, and he washes everything down with a few beers. He ends up not thinking about it any more because already their conversations are focusing on the contests, and the bets to make, they want to be in the right place in time to gamble their pay, the money Emiliano gave them this morning when they set out, and which Joaquin is fingering in his pocket, unsure whether to take it out. Eduardo taps him on the shoulder.

  “Since you’re new, I’ll tell you which one to bet on, okay? Only ten pesos.”

  And ten pesos, fair enough, he’ll have enough left over to buy as much drink as he wants, and maybe with the old man’s advice he’ll win a bit more; he laughs.

  “You’re on.”

  For a moment he feels rich, exultant, as if he’d already played and won the jackpot; he observes Emiliano’s rams and points a finger.

  “That one?”

  Eduardo laughs and stands right next to him.

  “You see what I’m looking at, now?”

  Joaquin turns his head slightly, opens his eyes. Says no more than, “Oh.”

  “That one. The merino.”

  “For Christ’s sake, that’s not a sheep, it’s a steer.”

  “That’s the one that’ll win in the wool category. Maybe even meat.”

  “You sure?”

  “Sure.”

  “And Emiliano’s?”

  Eduardo shrugs.

  “Manolo, among the rams that are younger than three. But for this year that’ll be it.”

  “I can trust you, right?”

  “You can.”

  That evening after the contests they head into the little town, with its lights, its packed streets. Joaquin has a bit more money in his pocket than earlier; Eduardo did not disappoint him. He has drunk some of it and he’s humming, trotting along behind the others, his head is spinning. Like that morning, he asks, “Where are we going?”

  And once again, no one answers, and he continues to follow them. He stops with the men beneath a sign and looks up, steps back. But Fabricio grabs hold of him.

  “Hey, baby, you’re not going to run away, are you?”

  “I’m not interested.”

  Eduardo bursts out laughing behind him and shoves him toward the door.

  “My mistake, or you never done it?”

  He tries to get loose: nothing doing. And then with all the booze. And there is the temptation, even when he’s terrified. Eventually he walks forward, acting gallant, his gaze defiant, hands in his pockets.

  “Let’s go, then.”

  His voice trembled; he clears his throat. Goddamn dust. He goes in, trapped between Eduardo, Arcangel, and Fabricio. The girls look at them. Wave at them.

  “They know you,” murmurs Joaquin.

  Arcangel guffaws. Yeah, sure, that’s it.

  When they come toward them, Joaquin has to force himself not to run away. Sweat down his back, shivers. Panic. Nothing to do with the ewes behind the barn, this time, and the image of woolly asses muddles his thoughts, makes it all seem impossible.

  “Gotta look after this one,” says Eduardo, loudly. “He’s not used to it, the boy. He’s still an angel.”

  Afterward, Joaquin lies naked on the sheets, staring at a long crack in the ceiling. The night is cloudless, there might be a full moon, he doesn’t remember. Or else the lights outside, casting shadows inside. The curtain by the open window flutters. The girl has put her clothes back on. He looks at her. A pretty brunette, slightly plump—anything seems pretty compared to what he knows, of course. She must be his age and he hesitates to ask her, remains silent, out of laziness, goes on watching her. She is hastily powdering herself, between two tricks, no point making an effort for the bunch of beggars waiting for her; and yet she doesn’t rush Joaquin, and he doesn’t dare look at her anymore. Did she realize it was his first time? No doubt. It went too fast, he’s mad at himself. He would have liked to make it last. But there was nothing for it. He felt it coming, uncontrollably, and he had time to tell himself he’d screwed up. Then it came. He could never have be
lieved the sensation could be so strong, so whole. So different—but he wipes his brothers from his mind, because that life is over, he’s a man now, a man for women. He runs his hand over his eyes.

  The girl sits down next to him on the bed, hands him a cigarette without speaking. Because he was so quick, perhaps, and she doesn’t want to go back at it again right away, she’s stalling, she knows how long it takes as a rule, how many minutes she has gained with him. He smiles. Basically he feels so good he doesn’t care.

  From outside there’s a smell of grilled meat and lamps burning. Now and again the bellowing of a bull, or a ram braying. He pictures the plains, gray and blue in the night, he doesn’t know if the others are already waiting for him.

  His arms along his side, Joaquin looks at the crack in the ceiling. His heart is beating full and slow, powerfully. Something new is beginning. He’s ready.

  THE MOTHER

  On the fifth morning, the mother sends Mauro and Steban to look for the little brother. She’s given them two days, not a moment more, to find his trail. They come back without him, they’d been able to make out his tracks, but with the southwest winds raising drifts of dust along the paths, they soon disappeared. The little brother was headed toward the mesetas, they’re sure of that. They didn’t see or hear anything else. They didn’t find anything either: no body, no horse, Halleys or the others. They don’t know.

  “Fine,” mutters the mother, but it doesn’t match the expression on her face, which they find hard to qualify—anger, yes, that’s it, anger.