The teacher only said: “I expect you mean injured. Animals sometimes suffer attacks of exhaustion or congestion, like human beings. Horses have strong hearts, but they can also give up on them when they’ve had enough. Its owners will call the vet, if needs be.”
Quirze looked at me and at Oak-Leaf — we didn’t know whether she’d seen the horse or not — as if he was wondering whether we felt like adding anything, but we didn’t. Girls and boys were in the same class, it was a deal Miss Pepita and Mr. Madern had reached, because the dopey ex-nun only wanted the little ones, as she was frightened by the bigger children she couldn’t handle. Of course, they’d warned us that if an inspector ever called, we’d have to separate out, boys with boys and girls with girls, because mixed education was banned. But there weren’t many of us at the Novíssima, we all knew and trusted each other, and there was no need for precautions. Cry-Baby was still one of Miss Silly’s little’uns.
The teacher decided to start the day off with a dictation and while he was walking between our desks, holding the book he was reading in one hand, we heard voices, people running and cars driving up and down the road that went past the front of the Novíssima. Mr. Madern stuck his head out of the window, then gave the book to Gamundi, the brightest boy in the class, so he could continue the dictation, while he went and spoke to the infant teacher in the classroom next door.
Gamundi was a boy from the Basque country who’d come to the district as a refugee during the war and stayed on after being adopted by a farming family, and he did his best to keep order but our eyes were all riveted to the window and the busy road. The schoolteacher and mistress had gone to the small garden by the entrance and were talking to a couple of civil guards. When Mr. Madern came back, he stared at Quirze and rasped: “You should’ve said it was a horse that had been disembowelled and abandoned. Heaven knows who it belongs to. I expect it was gypsies who ran for it, or animal thieves who’d ridden it into the ground…”
He didn’t complete his sentence as if there might have been other explanations.
The to-and-fro-ing gradually slowed down, and at lunchtime, when we walked home, the horse was on the edge of a ploughed field close to the meadow where we’d found it, with three well-dressed men, one being the mayor, Filthy-face, as Dad Quirze called him, and other people, with a couple of civil guards in close attendance. They were discussing whether the field’s owner would give permission to bury the horse there or if it would be better to do it elsewhere.
Those in the farmhouse were now aware of what had happened.
“It’s not a horse from these parts,” said Grandmother Mercè. “The men would have recognized it if it was.”
Aunt Ció and Enriqueta, who’d just arrived from her dress-making, said nothing; their minds were more focused on what they were cooking. That day the men didn’t come home for lunch.
“There are animals,” Grandmother went on as if to distract us from something that seemingly preoccupied Ció and Enriqueta that we couldn’t fathom — just like when she was storytelling by the fireside—“who can scent death, I mean they can guess which day they are going to die. They know their end is nigh. The Red Farmhouse had a mare who’d been born in La Bruguera that the tenants bought when she was a foal to mate with a young purebred they had. Well, after years at the Red Farmhouse, after giving birth to a host of colts that were scattered around the district, Pack-of-hounds, which is what we called her, because she always brought the hunting hounds behind her, when she was very old and knew she was about to die, one night, when we were all asleep, she escaped from the farm — she was so old they didn’t keep her tied up inside — and slowly made her way to La Bruguera, that’s not very far, as you know, and the next morning, when the new day dawned, the hands found her dead by the door of the stable where she had been born. How mysterious, it’s hard to warrant how clever these animals are!”
“Do you mean the dead horse we found had escaped and was running away from death?” asked Quirze, as if he didn’t believe a word.
“Pack-of-hounds wasn’t running away from death, quite the contrary, she was rushing to find it,” laughed Grandmother Mercè and we thought it was odd of her to laugh when talking about such sad things.
“I thought that when they saw the end was round the corner, they fled to see if there was any way they could escape,” persisted Quirze. None of us could get our heads round the idea that anyone, let alone an animal, could go out to welcome death like a revered guest.
“Ay!” exclaimed Grandmother Mercè as if she was about to teach us a lesson that was way beyond us. “Animals have a special instinct for finding remedies for their ailments: when they are injured they know to select burning bush or gas plant, and when a scorpion bites they immediately look for oregano. But when they realize that death is nigh, they aren’t alarmed and don’t try to flee in terror like us, they submit and greet it with resignation, as we do when we can’t go out because it’s pouring down, though we hope the rain will be a boon and bring buckets of water, a good harvest and blossoming fields. And if they can, if they have any strength left, like Pack-of-hounds, they go out in search of death, preferring to meet it in a pretty spot. If it weren’t like that, where would the horses that used to die in battle have found their valour? Knights fought for a cause, their personal gain and honour, but the horses accompanying them wanted to encounter a worthy end outside the stable, on a field of flowers where death was master.”
“Mother,” whispered Aunt Ció, “don’t say such things.”
“Why do you keep putting fear into the children’s heads?” nodded Aunty Enriqueta.
“Fear? What fear?” retorted Grandmother. “Animals don’t fear death. And there are a lot of things we should learn from them and try to imitate.”
“When Mother holds up a rabbit to break its neck with a stick,” riposted Quirze obstinately, looking at Aunty Ció, his mother, out of the corner of his eye, “it wriggles as if it would like to escape. And roosters and hens cackle and run when they are going to cut their necks and put them in the pot.”
Ció turned her head and stared at Quirze.
“Because rabbits and roosters don’t want to die,” chuckled Grandmother. “I’m talking about old or sick animals who’ve lived their lives and are looking for a change.”
The loud, angry voices of men arguing reached us from the kitchen. The three women exchanged worried looks. Initially we could only make out the voices of Dad Quirze, Uncle Bernat and Jan the hand who was with them, and then the voices of the village mayor, Filthy-face, a plump, stunted man with a puffy face and no neck, and a civil guard talking in clipped Andalusian Spanish, Corporal Martínez; the other guard was silent and we didn’t recognize him.
“I’m under no obligation to bury that animal!” shouted Dad Quirze in his most hostile tone of voice.
The voices of the mayor and the civil guard were quieter, more relaxed, and wafted our way like a whisper and it was impossible to make out what they were saying: neighbourhood, community, authority, owner…, and in Andalusian Spanish, rezponsabilidá, órdenez, gobie’no civí, comandanzia…
“It’s one thing for Mr. Manubens the master to agree and quite another for us to have to do the work!” countered Dad Quirze.
The municipal officials spoke up again, now considerably more irritated, files, investigations, patrols… and in Castilian Spanish, cuarta región militar, consecuencias desagradables, que cada palo aguante su vela, we all have our crosses to bear…
The women hastily put our plates on the table and urged us to eat up and not be distracted.
Enriqueta and Ció, the two sisters, shifted plates and pans, creating a racket with ladles and milk jugs to shut out the men’s conversation. Grandmother listened silently, head down and worried. Suddenly, we heard the corporal of the Civil Guard: “Aténgaze a laz consecuenciaz!”