And immediately after, the mayor’s hoarse, strident voice shouting: “For fuck’s sake! I don’t want to see one hair of that animal on the path tomorrow!”
Silence descended like a gully into the hills. We watched the mayor and a couple of civil guards walk past the window.
Dad Quirze, Bernat and the hand entered the kitchen where we’d just eaten lunch. Grandmother gestured to us to go back to class and not wait around. Ció put apples in our pockets as we went out through the porch.
Dad Quirze stood still in the middle of the kitchen, his face redder than ever, his small, blue eyes flashing angrily like steel blades, his paunch heaving up and down as if he’d been running a race. Bernat planted himself in front of the fire. Jan the hand sat down on the chair with the broken seat, head bowed.
Before walking out the door, we heard Dad Quirze curse: “The bastards! A plague on the bitch that spawned them!”
8
The eviscerated horse was still lying in the same place at the edge of that field, with even more flies buzzing around and a worse stench in the air. We ran past holding our noses.
By evening, when we went home, with Oak-Leaf back in our gang, the horse had gone. A white sandy patch, that Quirze said was lime, covered the place where we’d seen it. Grass had been flattened and plants by the side of the path had been demolished as if they’d been forced to drag the horse along. There was no trace of the carcass.
We went into the woods feeling more excited than ever. In the twilight we all had the death of that unknown horse on our minds and started telling animal stories, as always happened when others ran out of steam or we teetered on the perilous brink of risqué conversations about peeping toms and flashers or Oak-Leaf’s secrets.
“Well, I once heard about a shepherd dog”—each of us contributed their best-kept memories and on this occasion it was Oak-Leaf’s turn—“that stayed by its master’s side when he died of a heart attack in the middle of the woods, felled like a tree that had been axed, angina, and the dog didn’t eat or drink for over a week, barking this way and that to attract someone’s attention, until passing charcoal burners found them and took the dead man home with the dog trailing in his wake. Dogs never desert their masters.”
“When Grandmother was a young woman, they had a goat at home they called Nanny because she acted as her mother’s wet nurse, and reared her mother on the milk from her titty,” reminisced Quirze. “When her mother shouted to her, Nanny came into the house, went to the cradle and placed her titty so the baby could suck as much as it wanted. That way Grandmother could get on with other chores. Nanny suckled all Grandmother’s children: Andreu’s father, Núria’s father, my mother, Enriqueta, Uncle Bernat… everybody. And when Nanny died of old age, they all cried as if she were family. Grandfather Hand who’d not yet married Grandmother didn’t bury her, he skinned her and made three or four bags for drinking wine, milk and water. And even now when we have a drink and press the skin to make the liquid squirt out, the skin bleats, like Nanny’s maa-maa.”
“My father had a horse,” said Oak-Leaf, “that was very old and had worked hard its whole life until it was short of breath, so he let it do nothing but graze all day long in the meadow. Well this horse, when it saw the mares and young horses go by carrying heavy loads, it would go over and stand in front of them as if it wanted to help and followed them to where they had to unload and licked the sweat off their backs. He sensed they were tired and was helping them, even though he was so old he was almost blind. When he died they buried him on the quiet so the other animals didn’t see, but when night fell and the other animals returned to their stables and couldn’t find him, they started to whinny softly as if they were crying.”
At the end of each story we stayed silent as if savouring and digesting the mysteries of these animals who had feelings like ours. We were all in contact with dogs, horses and chickens, and even Quirze appreciated their loyalty and was delighted when they jumped up and gave him a welcoming nuzzle.
Once we’d run out of stories, the ghost of that dead horse returned to fill the gap in our conversation.
“So you say the Civil Guard came to your house, right?” asked Oak-Leaf.
“Yes, they came at midday, at lunchtime…” I replied.
“To see if they could land the burial on us,” added Quirze.
“Where can it have come from? Horses don’t go off and get lost as easily as that…” Oak-Leaf asserted.
Quirze shrugged his shoulders.
“There’s one civil guard who knows every hideout and corner of the woods. He’s tall, young, fair, with a moustache.”
“We didn’t see him,” I said. “We only recognized Martínez, the one in charge.”
“They call him Canary because he comes from the Canary Islands. And Freckly Fair because he likes larking about. He’s a real live wire. He’s always with another one they call Curly Lettuce, who’s also very handsome. The others are tall and have such huge paunches I don’t know how they can walk all day long as they do. They’re always panting and hanging out their tongues.”
“My father says they’re good for nothing,” said Quirze, “that they’re a load of layabouts who suck money and blood like ticks. You tell me what use they are if they don’t do a blind thing all day.”
“They keep an eye out,” said Oak-Leaf, “so there’s no thieving or fighting.”
“The other day you said you’d caught Charcoal Pete stealing in the middle of the woods,” Quirze whooped. “They’re not that eagle-eyed.”
Oak-Leaf felt deflated. Cry-Baby and I laughed.
“They’re not always keeping an eye out,” she protested. “They sometimes relax, have a siesta… Nobody can see them in the middle of the woods, so they do whatever they feel like… I once saw Canary by himself taking his clothes off and swimming in the river…”
“Did you really see him swimming?”
“And what was the other one doing?”
“He was by himself, they must have split up. Or maybe he was keeping a lookout further up so they didn’t surprise his mate in the water.”
“Was it Canary?” reacted Quirze, intrigued. “Did you see him stark naked?”
Oak-Leaf looked down, as she always did when something embarrassed her or she wanted to ask a favour.
“It wasn’t the first time…”
“You’re making this up,” Quirze retorted. “You’re a liar.”
“Don’t believe me then. I’ve seen him several times… lying on the ground sunbathing. As he comes from the Canaries, I expect he misses the sun and doesn’t want his skin turning white.”
“Does he strip off only to sunbathe?” asked Cry-Baby who chimed in now and then.
“And to swim in the river, when it’s hot, I just told you.”
“If we’re going to believe you, everybody runs around these woods stark naked!” said Quirze, turning the screw.
“No, only mad Antònia and him, but it’s different. Canary’s not mad. Antònia doesn’t know what she’s doing.”
“What’s so different, if they’re both in their birthday suits?”
“What else? Come on, tell us. What else does Canary do?”
Oak-Leaf sprang to her feet. “I must go. I’ll tell you another day.”
“You always do this!” I protested. “You’re one big tease.”
“He’s a man and she’s a woman, it’s hardly the same. I’ll tell you some other time.”
“How wonderful! How mysterious! He’s a man and she’s a woman! Men’s peckers droop and women have tits and a fanny, that’s the big difference.”