Nothing But Dust

  The only caresses he’ll accept are from the ewes, and he plunges his hands in their thick fleece to push them into the pen, circles their necks with his arms in more of an embrace than a shove, when it comes to encouraging the animals; they’re afraid of the shearing, everyone knows that, and he fusses over the stunned sheep once Mauro and Steban have let them go again. He is nauseated by the sickly-sweet smell of skin that has been encased in wool for so long, but he cannot get enough of the warmth of their bodies, the damp softness that clings to his palms and which the ewes lick for the salt. In the evening he wanders around the pens, running his hands over their rough backs, stroking their attentive ears, and forgetting that he or his brothers kill one of these animals to eat it, every other day, it could be the very one he cuddled that morning, the one he reassured with a few softly spoken words.

  Because for as long as the shearing goes on the mother keeps the brasero lit outside, tossing a few handfuls of dead wood onto it, covering the hearth with a sheet of metal in the evening at bedtime, stirring the embers first thing in the morning before she even prepares breakfast. The embers smolder, kindled by the wind, nestled in their iron belly. And the sons gobble down the sheep until their bellies hurt, fresh meat is a feast. Ribs, saddle, shoulder, leg—they eat it all, and when the carcass is sizzling its last on the grill, Rafael goes at it with his fingers, scraping and tugging at shreds, gnawing at bones, his mouth shiny, as if he had to stock up for the entire winter. The smell of it tickles his nose the moment he gets out of bed, and yet there is no disgust, no weariness in the way he watches the meat cooking, breathing in the air that is heavy with the sweet smell of roasting. It’s as if he could eat it for years, decimating the herds, he’s exalted by the feeling of wanting for nothing. This is the only time the mother does not restrain his brothers and him. When for once she does not put the lid back on the pot saying, It’s all gone, even though in fact they know she will serve them leftovers the next day, along with a few extra vegetables to make it look like something different. Not that they’ve reached the point where they count every portion; but the mother can’t help it. She’s got scrimping and saving in her blood, you have to put some aside, spend less in days to come, whether it’s money or stew it’s all to the good.

  “More,” says Mauro.

  The little brother hurries to finish and hold out his plate, too, not to miss his turn, and the mother bristles, surely she’s wondering if they’re doing it on purpose this year, to punish her, because they’ve never eaten this much, and if she wasn’t holding herself back she’d shout, enough! For sure they’ve eaten eight chops each, and potatoes, and vegetables. She looks at Mauro, who looks back at her, then at Steban who is too busy gnawing at the tiniest little filament of meat still on the bone, and finally at Rafael, who watches her and the older brother at the same time. Not one of them bats an eyelid. And the mother says nothing, but he can tell how exasperated she is from her clenched jaw, her wrathful face. She stabs at a piece of meat and she puts it on the twin’s plate, does the same for Steban and Rafael, and she cannot help but yell at them.

  “Go ahead, stuff your faces. Eat! Choke for all I care!”

  Mauro laughs and the little brother does likewise, what will they look like, bloated and dead, once they’ve devoured the entire herd—and the mother will laugh at their still-warm bodies, at their mouths dripping with grease. He holds up his chop, shoves almost all of it into his mouth, looks as if he is about to choke. Steban laughs, a peal of strange joyful cries which the twin brusquely interrupts.

  “Shut up.”

  In the kitchen the coffeepot is whistling. The mother gathers the plates immediately, the little brother finishes his meat holding it in his fingers. She hands out the tin coffee mugs, pours the coffee, spilling some as always. And the strange thought occurs to Rafael as he watches her, how all of a sudden she’s grown old, with her sad expression, not that she’s truly declining or the work is wearing her down, but that she’s bending all the same. You hardly notice it, maybe only he does because he’s paying attention, his gaze accustomed to the animals and their weaknesses. Sometimes he thinks he’s spread a more bitter poison than ever over the estancia, and they certainly didn’t need it, with the way they already couldn’t stand each other, not yet another venom, if only he’d known, and for sure the poison is eating away at the mother and turning her hair gray, maybe like him she has nights when her heart pounds, it’s as if it’s risen to her temples and it’s trying to get out of her body by whatever means it can. So he watches her, trying to determine whether the evil he can sense all around her has already taken hold, he’s good at sensing things like that, better than at remedying them, and more than once the mother catches him staring at her and barks, “What you looking at?”

  But now they’ve decided not to talk to her anymore, or as little as possible, in order to keep a shred of dignity when they get back to work, and Rafael shrugs his shoulders as he finishes his coffee, scratches his cheek where an insect bit him, God only knows what sort of beast it was that gave him such a blister, it itches so bad, and he says he’s going off to bed.

  At night his dreams are full of faded sheep and veils of white wool, which keep him from truly resting, the work to be done leaves him tense, and he goes through the days like an automaton, already tired when he gets up. There are purple shadows under his eyes, and he stopped joking long ago, as he catches the ewes or fills the bags with wool, he’s been defeated by exhaustion and the general mood, which keeps them in this gloomy state, it’s overwhelming. He does not stint: this is life, and each of them does what he can, within his capabilities, as sore as the others when it’s time to get up in the morning, his gaze just as empty. The days go by, crushingly routine. Sometimes the little brother says something that almost cheers them up: We’ve done more than what’s left to do. They’ve passed the eight-hundred mark, then a thousand. Before long a thousand five hundred sheep—and his brothers nod, it’s all grist to the mill, even the slightest bit of good news, during these exhausting weeks.

  Next to them the mother keeps busy, yet a strange slowness has her in its grip, even as she rushes from stable to kitchen, setting a handful of wool down by the sink that she forgot to put in the sack. She washes, cooks, roasts, cleans, sorts the sheep. Rafael records everything, the way she speaks, swallowing her words, how often she grumbles, her hands over her face as if to hold her thoughts in place, and her eyes wide open after that, she too is immensely tired; one time she brings Mauro a sheep that’s already been shorn.

  “What am I supposed to do with this?” shouts the twin.

  He kicks the ewe away and Rafael starts laughing, too loudly, as if to convince himself that there’s something funny about the mother’s distress, something to convince him that they are right to remain bitter and spiteful, struggling with her every inch of the way as she gets more exhausted than them, they’ll wear her down, for sure, even if she’s seen worse, but this time there’s a greater anguish, which the little brother notices though he cannot name it, or does not dare to, both excited and terrified at the thought that the mother might leave them. Because she is drifting away. From them—but for a long time they’ve been no more to her than free labor; from the estancia, which she looks at without seeing; from the livestock, which she forgets about, even from the town, where she no longer goes, having given up first poker then booze, and the little brother would like to yell at her to go on back there and come home drunk in the middle of the night, at least back then she was alive and her voice had a snap to it, if this is what it means to go under, he’d rather not witness it, not see how it has come over her all of a sudden. As if you could see through her, as if she were shadow, like a ghost or a witch, he dreams that she is disappearing into the sand, and he wakes with his heart pounding with fear. He waits to hear her piling up the dishes or opening the door to the woodstove, then he feels better, she’s still there, she hasn’t set off down the path of flight, like
the father, like Joaquin, or like he himself might do someday, and the thought vanishes at once from his mind, because he would never leave the sheep and the dogs, or his horse, or his arid land. But she would, the mother, wouldn’t she—every night he wonders, and every night the nightmare returns.

  Because he is so absorbed by the mother’s sullenness, and for many other reasons, no doubt, when one morning the little brother finds the kitchen empty, as if deserted by the old lady, he is hardly surprised, and he strolls around the room as if she might be hiding behind the stove or the table, then says to Mauro when he walks in:

  “She’s not here.”

  And maybe it is the twin’s astonishment that alarms him then, because he suddenly realizes this is the first time since he was born. The mother has always gotten up before them, breakfast ready, the smell of coffee when they walk in. But now. Only the smell of old fat, no one has opened the door at dawn to air the room, and the fire has gone out.

  “Right,” says Mauro.

  And the little brother looks at him.

  “Right, what?”

  “Well. She decided not to get out of bed.”

  “But why not?”

  “What do you think? She knows she won’t get the money for the wool. So she doesn’t give a damn whether we get our breakfast or not.”

  “But she’s got the other money. The bag.”

  The older boy shrugs.

  “It’s never enough.”

  “What if she left?”

  “She didn’t leave. She’s just acting stupid, that’s all.”

  Rafael nods, not altogether convinced by what the older brother has said, because he’s had this weird impression for days now, and he puts his nose against the glass pane in the door, to see whether there is any sign of footprints receding into the dust, but there is nothing he can see; maybe she swept behind her to fool them? His throat tightens a little, for no real reason, just that it’s unlike other days and he likes that tiring routine—the meals, the animals, the wool, then another meal with the smell of meat and spices roasting, and the ewes, and their bleating which almost lulls him when he begins to feel too weary. Now he would like to turn back the clock, come again into the kitchen ten minutes ago, and find the mother bent over the stove, their mugs full, the reassuring odors of bodies and coffee. Standing a little off to one side, he bites his lips, a strange emotion twisting his guts.

  “Stop whining!” barks Mauro, and the little brother, his eyes red, waves his hand and turns his back to him.

  But is it even his fault, if he can’t help it, if he knows that now it’s happened, she too has left. The dreams came to warn him and he didn’t believe them, too impossible, but oh, he should have, he would have kept an eye out, he would have peered into the darkness until morning, and suddenly he stiffens.

  “Who slept outside her door last night?”

  In the heavy silence of the room, he follows Mauro’s gaze, and Steban opens his eyes wide.

  “Didn’t . . . didn’t see.”

  “You fell asleep, huh,” says the twin.

  “No. No.”

  “Can you swear she’s still in her room?”

  But Steban doesn’t answer, swaying his head from left to right in a sign of panic, and Mauro loses his temper.

  “Hey, half-wit! I’m talkin’ to you!”

  “No . . . ”

  “No, what? Is she in there, or you can’t say?”

  “No . . . ”

  “I can’t hear a fucking thing, can’t you talk normal like other people?”

  Just as the older brother stands up out of his chair in rage, Rafael leaps forward. Stop, we’re not gonna start arguing now, all right?

  “Did you fall asleep or not?” shouts the twin.

  Steban bangs on the table and cries, “N . . . no!”

  “Look at this jerk, the way he lies, just like the old lady!”

  So Rafael steps in, puts a hand on his older brother’s shoulder.

  “But honestly, Mauro, what if she’s not there?”

  “You shut up too!”

  The little brother recoils, swallows his protests. But he doesn’t let go, he holds his hand out before him, in case the twin tries to hit him, and he continues his train of thought.

  “Maybe she’s hiding.”

  “Huh?” says Mauro. “Like the money, is that it? And then what?”

  But suddenly he freezes. Looks at the little brother, who has opened his mouth, and they both look stunned. The same thought flashes through their minds.

  “No,” says the little brother, who refuses to believe it.

  “Because maybe you don’t think she could do such a thing?”

  “No, she wouldn’t do that.”

  “Fuck!” shouts Mauro, rushing out toward her bedroom. “She’s gone! She left, with the money!”

  Rafael speaks first, breaking the silence that has paralyzed them for long stretches of time. His voice is trembling and he looks at no one, does not specify which one of his brothers he is talking to, but obviously it’s Mauro, because the big brother did not believe him when he said it was impossible, and now he has no choice, does he.

  “You see she didn’t do it.”

  The twin nods.

  “Yup.”

  “That’s . . . that’s for sure,” says Steban.

  They scratch their heads. The little brother does likewise, and continues: “But hey, this doesn’t look any better, huh.”

  “I don’t think so, either,” says Mauro.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “Chrissake, that’s all you ever say.”

  “I’m just asking, is all.”

  The older brother shrugs, disconcerted.

  “Well . . . we’re gonna bury her, what else can we can do.”

  It is as if he has been watching the mother lying dead on the bed for a long time, and the room is so silent he could be alone. Even Mauro is silent, God knows what he’s thinking, looking at that motionless shape with its mouth half open, hair spread across the pillow, this presence that is no longer there troubles them, weighs on them, and the little brother stares at the mother, looks for a tremor, and out loud he wonders:

  “Are we really sure that . . . ”

  And at that moment he falters. It reminds him of too many things, too recent. Instinctively he steps forward, tugs on the sheet to see if the mother moves, but only the cloth rustles in his fingers and he recoils, next to his brothers, all three of them in a circle around this strange coffin, looking at the old lady as if she were pretending, playing a joke on them. But they’ve been there so long already, after slamming the door against the wall, certain they would find the room empty; so long already, she would have opened her eyes, sat bolt upright, and they would have jumped. And besides. She’d never do that, anything mischievous. Argue, swindle, yell, okay. But nothing else, none of them remember her ever being the least bit jokey or playful, and the act she’s putting on, lying on the bed, is no act, they can tell. And yet, murmurs the little brother as he looks at her face, already pale, her milky complexion, and yet there’s no blood on her belly.

  “What’d you say?” grunts Mauro.

  “She’s not hurt.”

  “Nope.”

  “How could she have died if she’s not hurt?”

  “Maybe she’s hurt inside.”

  “Or maybe her heart stopped, like with the critters,” murmurs Rafael, thinking out loud.

  And he tilts his head to the side, and asks again: “But are we sure?”

  “Of course!” says Mauro, getting annoyed; he walks over to the bed and shakes the mother; she bounces on the mattress. “Look!”

  “Stop it!”

  “But look! You can see she’s not moving. She’s as stiff as a post!”

  “Stop it, I said!”

/>   The older brother raises an eyebrow.

  “You’re an idiot. Okay, all we have to do is put a mirror in front of her mouth, that way at least we’ll be sure, no need to wonder.”

  And the three of them lean close in, holding their breath, after Steban hands Mauro the mirror, refusing to do it himself, as if the mother might bite him, as if she actually could. They wait. Until the ache in their backs obliges them to stand up straight, and even then they stare together at the mirror there before them, tenaciously, as if their gazes could make the glass surface steam up all of a sudden.

  “There’s nothing,” murmurs the little brother at last.

  Steban presses his lips. N-nothing.

  “Right,” says Mauro. “So we’ll bury her.”

  THE MOTHER

  From somewhere in her extinguished consciousness, lying on her bed, the mother listens to the sons, observing them from the top of the room, where she has perched like a curious bird, and she hears those strange words, she is dead, cannot understand that they refer to her, looks again, tries to protest when Mauro comes over to the bed and shakes her, scolding the little brother, it’s not very pleasant, after all. She sees herself before them in her nightgown, and she doesn’t like that either, what are they doing in her room, is this some sort of new trap they’ve come up with to make her tell them where she’s hidden the money, then she suddenly wonders, what time is it? And she’s still in bed, she’s not dreaming, outside it’s broad daylight, the light is pouring into the room despite the drawn curtains. A moment later the incongruity of the situation has left her, she doesn’t think about it anymore, she is still watching the sons, who are saying all sorts of things as if she weren’t there, her thick, stubborn sons, the best she could do, and she scolds herself, it’s not her fault, if the father had been there too, to help raise them— alas, it was up to her alone.