Nothing But Dust

by Sandrine Collette

  So the mother goes on lying to herself, making up stories she herself does not believe, as if she were incapable of finding out how to cope, a solution, as if it were a moral issue troubling her. Since when, honestly? On evenings when she’s had too much to drink and her hands curl around the void, she pictures herself rushing down to San León with the bag in the cart to go play the game of a lifetime. She wouldn’t bet it all, obviously. But she’d play for high stakes. She’d win, because chance, too, only favors the rich, and when the wheel turned she’d lose, she’d bounce back, lose again. If she had to add more, she’d add more. Once. Twice. Ten times, all night long. She’s telling herself fairy tales if she thinks she wouldn’t bet everything: she would gamble every last centavo. Until she’d lost everything, because if the only purpose was to win, she’s already won.

  What remaining spark of conscience informs her that the temptation will be too great if she sits down at the gambling table, what unkindly lucidity amid her obstinacy in keeping the money hidden in darkest gloom and deepest memory? She wishes she could forget it sometimes, she forces herself to, and when the image of the bag comes knocking at her brain, she crosses it out with a thick line, to erase it once and for all. She knows she could lose everything; and besides, she swore she would never put her hand on a pack of cards ever again. The only way she can preserve her treasure is to act as if. A magician—in reverse.

  Just in case, if we need it, you never know, ah, big deal: she hears the furious sons shouting in her head. They don’t get it, not at all, they are blind to the fact that as long as the money is hidden here, it exists. Of course it’s useless, but at least no one will take it away from them. Whereas if they spend it . . . They’ll have had it, and all of a sudden there’ll be nothing left, like a spell dissolving after midnight, nothing but a nice memory in the dust, and a great deal of regret. This is something only she can sense and foresee. Her three sons have so little common sense, wanting to fork it all out at any cost—they get that from their father, who’d have let himself be stripped down to his last peso for a drink.

  Already they’ve been working sluggishly as of late, the lazybones, dragging their feet and showing little spirit in handling the pitchfork or the ax; and less and less as the days go by. Until this morning, and them sitting down. The only thing she’s seen them do with any stubborn application lately is follow her around. Not one instant where she’s been alone at her task. Whether it was hanging up the laundry or feeding the hens, there was always one of them there to help her, even if it only meant carrying the basket or throwing the potato peels out, something they never do, have never done, would never do if—and the way she sees it, their strange solicitude is nothing short of unbearable, she would gladly throw the garbage pails at their heads and yell at them to stop.

  They’ve arranged to take turns, half-days each, and she comes upon them walking past each other with a little nod, passing the baton to one another and murmuring instructions. They are getting in her way. That’s what she thinks. And if she gives in, they’ll be there to see it. They will end up finding that bloody satchel, just by following her around. Even at night, now, there’s always one of them lying outside her bedroom door. A sort of cautious status quo prohibits her from losing her temper. She wishes she could yell at them, heap insults on them while they watch her cooking the meat, or when she hears one of them lying down with a sigh outside her room, like a dog. But she holds herself back: something inside her knows that her silence is frustrating their incipient violence, and that as long as she doesn’t protest, they will keep a certain distance, waiting to use force though she doesn’t give them any reason to. Wait and see. Maybe they’ll do it all the same, after all, and she can sense Mauro is on the verge, his big hands are trembling, the tall twin who cannot stand it when things don’t go his way, he’s not used to this, he’s so accustomed to being of the same mind with her. So she watches him in particular, says nothing when he hits the younger boys, first of all because they wouldn’t intervene if it was her getting beaten and basically, they’ll just have to sort things out on their own, but above all she mustn’t provoke them, no missteps, not a word out of place. And yet Mauro is getting closer, with his seething anger, just one more tantrum, one unchecked gesture, and a shower of reproaches in that voice that worries even her, if it comes to blows then all will be lost.

  Sometimes Rafael is present at these strange confrontations, and he sways from one foot to the other and murmurs, Little mother, little mother. This shrunken vision of herself—wasn’t she the mother not that long ago?—puzzles and constricts her, in her body and above all in her mind, and the words go round and round, little mother, because around here anything that is little is worthless. That’s how she refers to a calf or a lamb that is born sickly and won’t live long, or a tree that’s dying, or even Rafael himself, with his scrawny arms, makes you wonder how he’ll turn out when he grows up, if he grows up. But as for her! She doesn’t belong to that race of weaklings.

  Except that.

  Maybe she should have said yes, for the saddles. Maybe she went too far there, she can tell. But to backpedal now is out of the question, they’d get the upper hand once and for all and they’d want more and more. Stubborn mules are what she’s ended up with, but God knows she didn’t stint on the rod, seems she should have used it even more, she was too soft. If they are gaining the upper hand like this it’s because they don’t fear her enough, and then of course there was always the bad seed on the father’s side, but she could have guarded against it, with a stricter upbringing; spoiled, she’s spoiled them, they’re like overripe fruit.

  They’re kids, who are after your money, with no hesitation, they’re eating away at you day after day, particularly the eldest—the other two are just little ferrets on the lookout, keeping watch, from a distance, waiting for something to happen so they can come and beg for their share of the loot, but they’ll never dare take the first evil step, she’s sure of that—so the eldest, all muscles and nerves, this morning when she snapped the dishrag at his ears and he tore it from her with a flip of his hand. She knows that at that moment she lost big, like an old hunter without his gun confronting a puma on its hind legs, an old hunter who’ll never frighten anyone again. Since then she has been trying to come up with a solution, but cannot find one. She thought of kicking Mauro out, but she can’t bring herself to, even so, and yet she can see it in his gaze, that he is capable of cutting her to pieces to get her to tell him where the treasure is, if it were all to end like that it would be a pity, she’ll take her chances, better to wait. She keeps a knife hidden in her blouse, just in case. To defend herself.

  And when like lumbering children the younger boys pester her, she slaps them, they’re like little wild animals, that way they have of putting their hands on her and waiting until she’s beside herself, she can feel them there next to her, she can’t take that constant contact anymore, so the moment she sends them flying with a slap—then they’ll have won, not the money of course, but the fight, patience—power, in other words. She has to keep away from them all. She’ll go mad, she’s sure of it. But isn’t that what they want? She laughs to herself. When she loses her mind she won’t even remember where she’s hidden the money. Aren’t they clever, the bunch of them. Her finest revenge.

  What are we going to do? was what they said.

  Nothing. Just keep it. Possess it. So shut up.

  And then, just when the mother thinks it’s all ruined and those wretched boys will never go back to work, just when she’s hesitating between letting the ewes rot under their wool and shooting one of her sons in the leg to show them that the fun has gone on long enough, something happens, something she no longer expected, it comes like a miracle to pull her out of the quicksand she’d been slowly sinking into. Truth is, she’s not sure she has really understood, and when Mauro grabs Rafael by the shirt and yells, You what? she listens as closely as she can, with an innocent expression on her
face, her fists already curled into a silent prayer. Santa María, por favor. And the little brother holds his ground.

  I’m going, he says. He doesn’t yield to Mauro’s thunderous expression, and this suddenly affects the mother, she feels a knot in her stomach, and a luminous flash in her brain, don’t say anything, don’t get involved. Listen to Rafael when he replies, of course his voice is trembling, too shrill, a sort of cry, but he wriggles out of his older brother’s grasp and holds his head high at the same time.

  “I said I’m going.”

  And Mauro hovers over him once again and growls, You’re not going anywhere.

  The mother watches them, fascinated, the raw power on one side, and this little mule determined to go and fetch the ewes on the other, and it’s impossible to tell who will win—if it were just a matter of strength it would be Mauro, indisputably. But something quite different is brewing in Rafael. The last few days she’s noticed his pained gaze looking out over the plain, the way he holds his nose in the air, searching for the smell of the sheep he cannot see, as if he could sense them, locate them, lure them home. She can see he is disoriented, to be sitting like this for hours, for the first time, while the animals wander where he cannot keep watch over them, perhaps they are in trouble, and the wool is thickening on their damp backs. It’s the height of shearing season, and they haven’t done a thing. Three more weeks and it will be too late, the Andean winds will bring the cold air over the steppe. No one will venture out to undress the ewes, with their bellies growing round with their unborn lambs. What’s to be done, then? The mother has resigned herself to the loss of her summer wool. But as for Rafael, and his animals . . . Now he’s turning his back on Mauro to go and fetch his horse and his dogs, and God only knows what will happen next.

  The older brother lets out a roar.

  His rifle on his shoulder, he is taking aim at his brother.

  “Another step and I’ll blow you to bits.”

  The mother freezes. They all do. In her head it all goes so fast. What if they end up killing each other. What if she’s left without a single son, or just Steban, which is as good as none, just her and her money. But things haven’t reached that stage and she won’t think about it, imperceptibly she withdraws toward the house, instinctively, she too needs a weapon, a real one.

  Then there’s the half-wit. All three of them had forgotten about him but now he suddenly starts walking, she doesn’t know whether he has any purpose in mind, and truth is at the time the mother thinks: so he still doesn’t understand what is going on, look at him walking calmly along, if he picked up a pitchfork to go and clean the hutches she wouldn’t be surprised. Mauro watches him out of the corner of his eye, doesn’t even call out. They’re used to Steban’s aimless ways, he’s never really there with them, he’s responding to some thought that suddenly occurs to him, he’ll stop in the middle of the road, too, when he no longer knows where he’s going. He’s like the dogs, here and then there. And the mother and brothers pay him no more attention than they would the dogs.

  But this time she watches him, intrigued, and sees him go into the stable. And out of sight.

  Mauro is focused on the little brother, who has not moved, and who is waiting, hands in his pockets. Something has to happen, but she wonders what, she’s still too far from the house, Mauro and Rafael like statues, Steban whom they’ve forgotten about once again, in his strange transparency, until a bird flies overhead, perhaps, and Mauro’s finger slips over the trigger, or a horse arrives. And then indeed, the mother staring at the two sons with the gun between them hears the sound of hooves, but she doesn’t believe it, doesn’t look away, as if she could freeze the scene as it is and nothing will happen—but if she looks away Mauro will kill the little brother, at most there is a flicker, a blinking of his distracted eyes when the sound of the criollos comes closer, and just when the twin turns to look, too, and only then, does she too turn her head to see what is going on.

  Steban is in the saddle, holding Mauro’s and Rafael’s horses by the reins. The little brother reaches out to take Halley, and Mauro shouts again, “Shit, what are you doing?”

  Rafael swings up onto the chestnut’s back.

  “We have to go. We can’t leave the ewes like that.”

  “I’ll blow your head off!”

  “Gotta go, I said.”

  “Fuck, you gonna let her win? She’ll think she’s won, and she’ll be damn right!”

  “It’s not because of her.”

  “It’s because of us, then? You think you’ll get your part of the sale, when she’s flogged the wool?”

  “No. It’s for the sheep.”

  And the mother listens as they argue back and forth, and she knows the little brother means it when he talks about the sheep like that, that nothing will stop him, not even the rifle, and she sees Mauro’s hands going white with anger, his chin trembling with rage, all it would take is one shiver for the shot to go off, and everything is motionless for a few very short instants, until Steban without warning urges his horse forward, the criollo takes a few steps, then turns its back on them to head down the path leading away from the estancia and out onto the plain.

  “Fuck!!” roars Mauro again, his crazed eyes flickering from Rafael to Steban, and he doesn’t know who to aim at now, who to watch, his own horse in the line of fire, waiting, snorting.

  So he lowers his rifle, defeated. Turns back to the mother, who doesn’t move an eyelash, she is almost absent from the world, but he hasn’t forgotten her, and in a voice choked with fury he points first at her then at the little brother and says:

  “You. The money from the wool will be mine. You hear? It’s for me. And as for you, bitch, it’s not over between us. I swear.”

  One second later he springs into the saddle, gallops past the two brothers, and leads them out onto the plain.

  RAFAEL

  Once again, he slams the gate shut, sliding the bolts, and there are so many sheep that they press up against the fence. Close to two thousand head, brought back for the shearing, the mother always says she’s obliged to cut their fleece twice a year, with this breed and their wool that is long and thick in winter and short in summer, so that she won’t end up with fleece of two different lengths that nobody wants. Truth is he knows it’s to sell more wool, and even if what they give her for the thin summer wool is a pittance, at least it’s that, even if a few ewes will lose their lives, if the mother gets it wrong and the weather turns cold in the days just after.

  A sea of white sheep covering the earth. It took them several days to round them up, and the dogs show it, now that the work is over, they’re dragging their feet, their tongues hanging out. They emptied out the pastures, circling, nudging, herding the sheep all the way to the long corridor that leads to the estancia, to drive them into this huge field. Two or three weeks: that’s how long it takes to cut their fleece and roll it up in the sacks. Every day they take on a hundred sheep or so, squeezing them into smaller pens near the house, holding them between their knees, plying the scissors. Backs aching from bending over fifteen hours a day, and two years ago Mauro built a wooden hoist he fastens his belt to, to support his back and find some relief from the unbearable pain. At the end of the day he walks bent over like an old man, unable to stand straight until well into the evening; in the morning he starts again, one knee to the ground, waiting for his muscles to warm up, for his body to comply without forcing a grimace of pain. But he doesn’t complain, every evening he shouts out the figure of the money that’s been made and that will soon be in his hands, and he pounds his chest, looks at the others and shouts:

  “It’s mine! All mine!”

  Steban keeps up almost the same rhythm, silent all day long, sweat on his brow, focused and impassive. The mother and the little brother bring in the sheep, bag the wool, sweep up. They tirelessly open and close the gates, at Mauro’s urging or at a grunt from Steban, and som
etimes Rafael gives a start when he’s called back to order, when he cannot take his eyes off the fleece from the animals’ bodies, it’s as if they’ve been skinned alive, but naturally they don’t bleed. He takes the wool the older brothers hand to him, strange curly shapes, empty sheep, like the sloughed-off snake skins he finds in the spring, hanging from the thorns of the neneo shrubs in the steppe. If he hadn’t seen the ewes scrambling back to their feet and running off, stripped naked, he would swear they were still inside the wool.

  To see the four of them like that, you could almost believe they’d been reconciled, thanks to the sheep; they’re absorbed in the shearing, in the days hurtling by. But Rafael’s no fool, and every glance he intercepts among them is charged with immense hatred; even if it took them three months to cut the wool, the anger would not dissipate, there would still be more than enough to raise a blade or a rifle, word of honor. Only Steban goes around with his blank expression, no fury, no nothing, oh, how Rafael envies him for being sheltered from everything—Mauro’s spite, the mother’s blackheartedness and spying and riling them up, the violence between them held firmly in check by the specter of the hidden money; they are devoured by greed. So, no, they haven’t begun to get along, how could they, they just act as if they had, to get the job done together—the work obliges them, forces them to be near each other even when doing so makes their hackles rise, and the little brother tries to avoid contact with the mother as best he can when they shove the wool into the sacks together, he doesn’t want her to touch him, he doesn’t want her evil to rub off on him, or his brothers’ evil.