When they reached the top, the horizon reappeared. Beyond, the plateau plunged downwards to form a valley from which there emanated, even more strongly, the same stench he had noticed at the foot of the hill. The boy tried to identify where the smell was coming from, but there was still not enough light at that hour to be able to make out the coral-like shapes of the bone pit that lay beneath them.
They descended via a narrow track, trying to keep the donkey from slipping. The goats made the descent as best they could, scattering shards of slate, which skittered down to the bottom of the abyss. Axes fracturing gleaming white ribs. Bones in every possible state of degradation. Sediments of calcic dust, rows of bovine vertebrae, broad pelvises. Ribcages and horns. An eyeless animal, its skin still intact. A stinking bag of bones in the midst of the new day dawning. A lighthouse guiding them to a safe harbour.
They set up camp some distance from the putrefying ox, in the arching shade of a hawthorn. The goats dispersed among the bones in search of grass, and only the donkey, the dog, the boy and the man remained, like figures in a nativity scene. They breakfasted on bread dipped in wine and lay down to rest. The boy fell asleep almost instantly, with a feeling that his muscles were softening and melding inside his body. Before he succumbed to unconsciousness, his final thoughts were of the sleepless night he’d spent, the drowsiness brought on by the wine, his filthy hands and the pestilential, walled-in pit surrounding him.
When he woke, the old man was no longer by his side. He climbed up out of the crater and saw the goatherd kneeling on the highest edge. He was looking south, shading his eyes with both hands, as if he were wearing spectacles. The boy watched as he made his way gingerly back down the stony slope, half-crouching, half-sitting, so as not to slip. Some of the goats had lain down in the shade and others, unobstructed for the moment by any human presence, were standing on their back legs to reach the higher branches of the hawthorn.
The boy wandered about in the shade to stretch his legs and discovered that, while he slept, the old man had plaited most of the esparto grass into ropes. He squatted down and tested the strength of the ropes and wondered what the old man could possibly want with so much of the stuff. The goatherd returned from his patrol and, without a word, sat down under the hawthorn tree again to continue his work. The boy said he was going for a walk.
‘Don’t go far.’
‘I won’t.’
He had never seen a place like this before. There were skulls everywhere. Hollow, broken bones like the stems of giant fennel. The worn teeth of ruminants. Noticing the billy goat searching for food near the dead ox, he went over to join it. When he reached its side, however, the goat started and accidentally struck the body with its horns, causing a rat that had been hiding inside to peep out. The rat hid under the ox’s pelvis, nervously sniffed the air, then returned to its feeding trough. When the boy rejoined the old man, he told him what he had seen. The man stopped what he was doing, got to his feet and, taking a stick and a blanket, went over to where the ox lay rotting. The boy followed him to within a few yards of the cadaver. For a while, they crouched there in silence, observing the rippling movements of the skin. A crow alighted on the creature’s side. The skin undulated over the ribs like the softened hull of a ship. The animal had been emptied of its contents and was now a mere façade with only one opening where the genitals had been. The goatherd got up and walked in a silent arc round to the animal’s head. The crow flapped away. The boy watched the old man cover nose and mouth with one arm before walking the length of the corpse to its rear end, using the blanket to cover the one opening in the animal’s hide. Then he stamped on the ribs with his boot and the rat immediately scampered out of its cave and into the trap. The old man beat the woollen blanket until the rat stopped moving.
By evening, the goatherd had made some netting out of the esparto grass. He found four stout branches, cleaned them off and with the branches and the netting fashioned a small corral, into which, with the help of the dog, he herded the goats. Once they were all inside, he gave each of them some water to drink from a bowl. When they had finished, only a third of a flask of water was left. The boy asked the old man about this, and the old man told him not to worry. That night they would drink milk, and the following day they would set off in search of a new spring.
Afterwards, the goatherd went to fetch a stool and placed it next to the one corner of the corral that could be opened. He fixed the bucket in the ground with the metal rods and turned to the boy.
‘You’re going to help me milk the goats.’
‘But I’ve never done it before.’
‘You just stand at the gate of the corral and let the goats out one by one when I tell you to.’
They finished milking in a matter of minutes, and the boy was surprised at how little milk the goats had given. The old man explained that at this time of year, what with the heat, and the lack of water or any pasture worthy of the name, the goats didn’t have much milk to give.
When night fell, the old man skinned the rat, splayed its body out on a cross made of twigs, and lit a small fire. The boy didn’t want to eat the rat, and so the goatherd shared it with the dog. There were still a few almonds and raisins in a small basket, but the old man didn’t offer him any and the boy didn’t ask.
5
THE OLD MAN woke the boy in the middle of the night. They left the bone pit the same way they had entered, then circled around it before setting off towards the north. Unlike the previous day, the boy felt rested and more reassured about what lay ahead. They crossed the plain beneath a moon that was not yet bright enough to light the ground they walked on. As the boy clung to the donkey’s halter, the animal’s swaying gait seemed to him like a litany as monotonous as the landscape they were crossing. Dark sky, dark horizon and dark, desolate fields. Guided by the old man and supported by the donkey, he abandoned himself to memories of the place he had come from. His village was perched above a river bed, where water had once flowed, but which was now just a long, broad indentation in the midst of an interminable plain. Most of the houses, many of them empty, were built around the church and the medieval palace. Beyond them, like a belt of asteroids, lay a scattering of crumbling walls, all that remained of the fields that had once fed the village. The streets were flanked by houses with whitewashed roughcast walls and gable roofs, with crudely made grilles at the windows and metal doors concealed behind curtains. The gates on yards were kept firmly shut to protect the wooden carts and threshing machines. There was a time when the plain had been an ocean of wheatfields and, on windy spring days, the ears of wheat rippled just like the surface of the sea. Fragrant green waves waiting for the summer sun. The same sun that now fermented the clay and ground it down into dust.
He remembered the fringe of olive trees that extended along the north side of the river bed. The very olive grove in which he had taken refuge. An ancient, woody army tingeing the landscape with leathery browns. Often, each tree was supported by two or three gnarled trunks that reached up out of the earth like an old man’s arthritic fingers. It was rare to see an olive tree that really looked like a tree. Instead, there were endless knotty trunks full of deep cracks into which the rain had first penetrated, then frozen and split the wood open. A bunch of soldiers returned from the front. Wounded, but still marching. A march that had been going on for so long that no one could now testify as to their continued advance. They were not witnesses of the passage of time, but rather time owed its very nature to them.