RAFAEL, STILL
Steban, standing in his stirrups, pats the bay’s neck and turns around, giving the younger brother a strange smile, and a nod of his head, while Rafael responds with the same incredulous smile, and a wave, they are both at the threshold of a new world they did not go looking for, the steppe there before them; Halley snorts, Steban opens his palms to the sky.
“So that’s it.”
“Are you sure that—”
“I’m sure.”
And the older boy’s voice and his delighted peal of laughter, the timbre gradually returning and the words taking shape since the day before, there’s still some way to go, he says, but it’s there, he knows it, rasping and joyful, he cannot get enough of uttering and articulating the crazy words that flood out all on their own. Two weeks, he gives himself two weeks to start chattering just like Rafael, and the little brother shrugs and gives a laugh.
“You don’t want anything else.”
Steban strokes the saddlebags.
“I’ve got everything I need.”
“Well, then.”
He says he has taken the big horse, the old man’s bay, so that the estancia will be rid of its history. So that every trace will disappear. So they’ll have a chance to erase the ugliness of these days of blood, to start over—the little brother at the estancia and Steban riding off toward the cordillera of the Andes, he won’t come back, his life isn’t here anymore. He feels only the faintest twinge in his guts. Gaucho or shepherd, someone’s always in need of one; he’s dying to urge the criollo into a gallop, to go faster, to start over in a place where no one has ever called him a half-wit. In a place where his words will come back at last.
The day before, when he ran in turn to get his rifle then came breathless to shoot Mauro in the back, not a second too soon, these were his first words. Erase. And go away.
If anyone asks, the little brother will say that Steban is keeping the herds in the west.
They buried the twin next to the mother, not too close so they won’t yell at each other under the ground, but near enough to make it look as if there is only one big grave. No one ever comes to the estancia, of course. But you never know.
They didn’t toss in any sprigs of grass, didn’t sing. They didn’t wait.
Rafael, still dazed from the fight and the slaughter in the pen.
Steban quickly covered the grave with earth.
Then he said, “I have to leave.”
“They’ll never find out you did it,” murmurs the little brother, staring straight ahead.
“We can never be sure.”
“In any case you don’t want to stay.”
“That’s it.”
They are both silent for a long time. Deep inside Rafael feels an extreme weariness; for a start, his aching body, shattered by fear, his muscles still tense as if they had to prepare to flee again; and then this little thing that is sad, but not entirely, this strange impression that things are turning out as they should, and somewhere inside a faint sense of relief is suddenly making its way in, a chink, a breach in the density of all these previous months, with his search and the old man and his strange return, and the days unraveling: it’s all over.
“Shall we?” asks Steban.
Ahead of them, the road leading out of the estancia. Rafael gives a quiet laugh.
“Not a race, okay? That’d be cheating, I’m aching all over.”
“Okay, sure.”
Steban sends the dogs back, a sharp order. They trot back to the house, sit in a row, whimpering plaintively. As soon as they horses have set off at a gallop they’ll get up and pace aimlessly at the edge of the terrace, watching the figures heading into the distance, worried and complaining, trotting up to the main fence which they know they have no right to cross on their own.
The two brothers spur their criollos, riding side by side, at a rhythmic, pleasant pace, and Steban looks at the little brother.
“Will you be all right on your own on the estancia?”
Rafael raises his thumb in reply and the older boy nods.
“I’ll take on seasonal hands!” says Rafael. “And besides, I’ll only be keeping the sheep.”
“Don’t sell the steers to Ignacio. He’s a fucking thief.”
“Not a chance.”
“You remember what we said about Mauro?”
“That he went west with you. That’s all I know.”
“That’s it.”
Steban gives his horse its head, because Rafael has increased the pace; he catches up with Halley and cries, “You just can’t help it, can you?”
The little brother snorts and lets the chestnut run flat out, surging into the wind and the dust. In a few strides he has reached the rocky trail, and Steban moves to one side behind him because of the flying pebbles, and clicks his tongue to encourage the bay. The horses are again side by side. For the first time in weeks Rafael lets out a shout of joy, reaches forward to fill his hands with the horse’s mane, and leans close to his neck. He does not see his brother taking hold of Halley’s bit and raising his arm, hampering the horse so he nearly comes to a halt, and the little brother slips slightly from his forward position while Steban overtakes him and spurs his criollo into the lead, his fist raised.
“Ay!” shouts Rafael, catching up with a flick of the reins, driving Halley like a madman. “Ay! Ay!”
The chestnut explodes under the saddle, projecting his forelegs as if he wanted to make the road vanish beneath his stride. The little brother weighs nothing on the horse’s back, knees spread wide not to hamper his movement; Halley’s eyes are riveted on the bay, on his massive rump as they draw closer already. When they pull alongside him Halley finds his own pace, you’d think he’s tiring the other horse on purpose, just to keep him shoulder level, eyes rolling into the white and lips curled back, and he drives harder, the big bay criollo has his ears flattened, lengthens his stride, Rafael gives a shout, to be sure Halley keeps up. For a moment they continue at their devilish pace, the brothers laughing, the horses furious, and the trail blurs, vanishes, the little brother can hear the horse’s rapid breathing and he wipes from his face the damp splatter from the horse’s nostrils, dilated with effort, mouth open on white froth, the sound of hooves resonating into Rafael’s guts, shaking him more than he likes.
In the distance the trail vanishes into the steppe.
Rafael straightens imperceptibly, slows. Steban does likewise, calming the bay in turn, he knows it well, the beginning of the plain, its dangerous potholes, its sharp pebbles. Again they gallop abreast, the hoarse breathing of the sweating criollos, necks outstretched, Rafael with one hand on his hat that’s too big, to keep it from flying off in a gust of wind.
Gradually he reins Halley in. In any case, they’d have found nothing to say, truth is, might as well avoid the awkwardness for both their sakes. Struggling with his horse, who does not want to yield any ground, he watches as the bay’s shoulder pulls a stride ahead, then his flank, then his rump. He knows that Steban understands. The gap grows wider and he slows to a canter while the older brother pulls away into the distance. Halley drops down to a trot, stops at last. They watch. Listen to the sound of hooves on the earth. The vibrations growing fainter, and the dust. The little brother narrows his eyes. Just as he is about to head back in the other direction, Steban turns in the saddle and waves. So he too raises his arm in a sweeping gesture and cries, Que te vaya bien, Steban, adios! Of course the older boy can no longer hear him but he shouts anyway, and the shout goes with him, flies over the plain, coils around the wind, and then there is nothing left but silence and emptiness, and when even the dust has settled on the steppe, Rafael lowers his arm, puts his hand on the horse’s mane and looks at the estancia behind him, and murmurs:
“Well then. That’s it.”
At the fence the dogs are waiting for him, long and raw-boned, t
ongues hanging, flanks throbbing wildly from their frenetic chase, and the boy laughs at their distraught expressions. I wasn’t gonna go and leave you. So they continue on their way at a walk, all five together, the horse, the dogs, the boy, and Rafael counts them as if to convince himself, still five, like before, never mind if they’re not the same five, this is his clan, and he repeats it to himself: “Five.”
After lunch he rummages in the shed, finds some unbroken tiles, and repairs the roof. Even if daylight is still pouring through the open walls, this gives a reassuring impression of shelter. He nails extra thicknesses of boards together to stop up the holes where the constant wind is getting in, it will be like this until springtime, cold air running over his skin, assailing him the moment he steps outside. So he has to keep it warm inside, stuff rags around the old windows, get ready for winter the way the animals do with their thick fur, their stores of food in nests and burrows, and Rafael feels so close to them, he wishes he could shut himself away and sleep, only the time hasn’t come yet, yet, and he hasn’t finished.
With the dogs he takes eighty ewes back out onto the steppe, a tiny herd compared to the nineteen hundred head he let go after the mother’s death; he has to goad them because the few animals that stayed behind in the pen, that he had neither the time nor the courage to shear, are constantly calling, even though he gave them some fodder to fool them, but the group turns this way and that, hesitates, worries, and Rafael shudders as he thinks of the previous day’s carnage, can the ewes still smell the blood on his hands? He doesn’t want to touch them, frighten them. During the night he and Steban carved up the fourteen sheep that Mauro had killed, in fine strips, the way the mother used to do them, then thick chunks when they ran out of time, and Rafael said, Never mind, they’ll make good hams. Because there was too much, they had to use the manger in the stable to store the chunks in layers of salt, and now he lifts the boards protecting them from insects, checks, sniffs, puts the boards down again. It will take him months to eat all that. For now, the smell of meat disgusts him, and he leaves the shed feeling vaguely nauseous.
At home he looks after the dogs, treats a gash Two made in his paw. He tends the fire and brings in a few logs for the night, makes himself a lukewarm coffee and goes to drink it sitting in the doorway, staring into space, then focusing again and again on the empty horizon before him, but Steban has not come back, he never thought he would, anyway. In the spot where he disappeared a few hours ago the sun is slowly setting, infusing the landscape with a light that shows already that it will not last, and the orange plain, flaring with an incandescent glow, is preparing for night, protecting its hares and its birds, causing the wind to drop—an ephemeral respite, although every time, one would like to believe it is eternal.
And the boy says, “Right.”
He leaves his mug on the ground and picks up the shovel. Looks at the window of his room behind him. Of course the mother had no idea he wasn’t asleep, that night, and that from where he was, he could see her digging under the moon.
Why Mauro was so sure the money was in the house, Rafael has no idea, but that was just what the mother had counted on, it would be the first place they would search, the most obvious, the stupidest—and she’d got it right there too, that they were stupid, that they would go for what was easiest and never think beyond that. And why did he never say anything, he still wonders.
Because they didn’t deserve it? Because everything had already been so ruined that if there was one tiny thing to be saved, he would be the one to do it, and no one could say that he had destroyed their life right to the end. Or else he no longer knew, already, was merely content to respect what the mother wanted: for them not to find the money, for hatred and envy to fade with time, dissolve on their own the way sorrow and injury do, that way there could be a new beginning.
The estancia, their life and their grave, he used to say; and now two brothers were gone away and the third freshly buried next to the mother, the estancia trapped them, withheld its riches, drove them out.
Rafael grabs the shovel and starts digging at the foot of the calafate. He doesn’t have far to go, but he notices that the mother was careful to turn the soil over, cover it with her dried grasses, to make it look normal once she’d buried the treasure. An invisible hiding place. Perfect, had it not been for his insomnia, the agitation that makes sleep impossible.
Sealed inside a metal chest, there is the bag. Rafael loosens the straps. The bills are intact.
He has sat down outside the house and emptied the satchel out between his knees. He picks up the wads of bills one by one and removes the bands holding them together. Then he takes them in his hands, examines them, the color, the transparency. The smell—there is no smell. He thinks about the sheep in the pasture, the steers he will try to sell next week to Valdo, who has the neighboring estancia, so that he won’t have to go into town. Where the wool is concerned he knows the circuit. The sheds are full of fruit, potatoes, and meat. The contented feeling of being ready for winter reassures him.
So again he looks at the bills and slowly, holding his arms up high, he tosses them into the plain, far, as far as he can, slips of paper all around him, as if he were planting them in the steppe. A circular movement he repeats twenty, fifty times, again and again, until there is nothing left in the bag. The wind has dropped but the bills are still there, however, fluttering, as if a magnet were holding them to him. Never mind: he will wait. Wrapped in a blanket he lies down on the ground next to them. He has all night. He knows the gusts will come back at dawn.
Yes, all night: he watches the bills trapped in the short grass, sees them vibrating in puffs of air, moving a few inches as if they were alive, as if they were animals that want to run away and cannot, and sometimes he closes his eyes, half asleep, and when he opens them again the money is still there. The hours are endless. He feels as if he has been lying there for days, and the sun will no longer rise; he feels as if he has slept thousands of times and the money will still never go away. His cheek on the empty leather bag, his eyelids close in spite of himself, while his eyes still struggle to stay open.
The sky turning gray, announcing dawn. It is cold. Rafael pulls the blanket up to his chin.
With daylight the wind rises. Swells, slowly. The boy thinks, At last.
The first bill blows away, and of course it is not really the first bill, because they all begin to flutter suddenly, stirred by the air. In the beginning they look like frenetic insects, larvae unable to jettison their cocoons, fidgeting and turning every which way until gradually they break free, and the wind makes a strange noise as it strikes them, like crumpled wings, butterflies crashing against windowpanes and struggling to fly away again. All at once everything changes: the grass that was restraining them gives way to eddies of air, lets them go, rolls of paper somersault on the ground and on the pebbles, and from his face Rafael wipes the strands of hair that are making it hard to see. One by one the bills escape, mingling in flight with the twigs and dried leaves, and before long it becomes impossible to tell them apart, the leaves and the money, impossible to know which ones will blow even further, which ones will soon be torn, caught on thorns in thickets and on the sharp edges of stones, and Rafael, lying on his side, watches as the misfortune he brought evaporates, becomes ephemeral, laughable.
By the time it is fully daylight the bills have disappeared, borne away by the southwest wind, and the boy, freezing in his blanket, blows on his hands to warm them, feeling light and joyful, if that was all it took, but Mauro would never have let him scatter the money this way, and nothing could have turned out any different, not even the mother’s madness, Rafael had to keep quiet and let her die, keep quiet and wait for things to happen, even in death and blood, for everything to be erased so that it could go back to how it was before, but before no longer exists, he knows that very well, too.
Far off in the sky, beyond the grayness, the light is reborn, a low-angled
glow that does not warm the earth, and a raptor cries; he cannot see it. He pictures the money sweeping along the plains, caught on the neneos, drowned in puddles of water; he projects it into the sky, maybe it’ll catch up with Steban, and fly so high above him that he doesn’t even realize, doesn’t understand, and all he’ll say is: What a nasty wind today.
Now at last Rafael begins to laugh, and the laughter swells inside him and spills over, freeing his throat and his belly, so alive and so bountiful that he shakes the earth, and in the fierce cry he sends out into the world everything begins again and everything is forgotten, from the day the horses ran away, to the evening Mauro beat him up, to the night when he should not have been born—but since what is done is done, he will have to live with it, and he laughs again, lying with his arms spread wide, singing at the top of his voice.
The sun rises on the horizon all at once.
Behind the boy the dogs wait, motionless.
And the boy looks at them, and at the sky, and like the sun he too rises, dusts the dirt from his trousers, gives a stretch, and says, “Right.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sandrine Collette was born in Paris in 1970. She divides her time between Nanterre, where she teaches philosophy and literature, and Burgundy, where she has a horse stud. She is the author of numerous novels. Nothing but dust, winner of the Landerneau Prize for crime fiction, is her English language debut.
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