‘You little pile of shit.’
It was then that the problems began. Small’s first instinct was to sink his mouth into the belly of the bird, but his brother stopped him, throwing him off with a hefty shove. Small fell flat on his back, switching from jubilation to shock, from shock to anger.
‘Miserable fucker.’
While blocking his brother’s onslaught, Big tried to explain to him that they would not eat the bird right then. Their shrunken stomachs wouldn’t be able to digest the raw meat of the animal, or its bile and intestines. They would have dreadful stomach pains, would vomit virtually at the first mouthful and, without a doubt, what little they might manage to digest and pass through their intestines would come straight out the other end in the form of torrential diarrhoea.
‘Bastard.’
Small had other ideas. According to him, after having eaten insects and larvae and worms for weeks, his stomach could accommodate the raw meat perfectly well, kidneys and all — if the bird even had kidneys — and in spite of the fact that he never would have eaten kidneys at home, because they were repulsive. The only reason his brother wouldn’t let him taste even a morsel of the bird, he maintained, was because of the rigorous division of food he had decreed way back on that day.
‘Stingy arsehole.’
The right way to eat it, continued Big, in spite of his brother’s mounting rage, was to cook it. That is, to roast it or bake it. But the lack of utensils as well as the humidity inside the well prevented them from making a fire. And without fire it was impossible to cook anything. Nor could they smoke it, or salt it, or marinate it in vinegar or oil. There was no way around it.
‘If you died now, I’d piss on your corpse.’
But there was one option. An option that meant eating. And eating more than the sum of the last days’ fare put together. The problem, however, was that they would have to wait a day or two, maybe three, before trying a morsel. That is: go on starving with the banquet laid out before them.
‘Shit-eater, deformed son of a whore.’
They needed to wait for the bird to decompose so that the flies, blowflies and maggots would come out to gorge on it. Small protested vehemently. Where was the justice in letting a load of bugs have their fill on the food that he’d been forbidden to eat? His brother explained that if they left the animal out in the air, without burying it, the decomposition process would be quicker, and that they could eat the flies and the maggots, hundreds of maggots, and that they would have food for days. What’s more, food they were used to and which would sit well with them.
‘You’re a little sack of shit.’
Though in no way in agreement, Small had to bow down to the superior strength of his brother, who guarded the dead bird with his whole body as if he were defending a fortress. Only once Small was sound asleep did Big succumb to the lightest of slumbers and rest. There was no doubt in his mind that, given half a chance, his brother would pounce on the bird and devour the whole thing down to its bones.
‘I’d like to rip your rotten face from your head.’
If the first night was hard, the day after was even worse. There were no civilities, no good mornings or routines, just unbridled, nasty violence. Tension and silence kept a pressure cooker of unease bubbling away: Big in one corner, Small in another, the bird between them. The stench coming off the animal seemed to intensify the fury with which they watched one another. It was as if the clock had stopped, like dead time in a battle.
‘Sheep-shagger, son of a boar and a monkey.’
When a few flies began to buzz around the corpse, Big ate every one and looked at his brother with a triumphant smile. When a few more appeared, Small refused to eat them, despite the fact that Big was managing, painstakingly, to catch them and invited him to do the same. Your pride will kill you, he said, to which Small replied with insults.
‘Dickhead, idiot, freak.’
It didn’t take long for the maggots to creep out from under the wings, like roving tumours. The first ones were small, then succulent, ring-bound bodies sprouted out of the rotten flesh, moving in and out of its orifices. Big’s face lit up with joy. He caught one between two fingers as it pushed its way out of the bird’s neck. He put it in his mouth and felt an explosion of liquid and jelly as he chewed. He couldn’t recall having eaten anything so tasty in his life.
‘Screw your dead family.’
He ate a few more while Small watched and hurled insults at him contemptuously. Once Big had had his fill, he took the biggest maggot he could find and offered it to his brother.
‘Eat. It’s really good.’
‘I don’t want to eat your shitty maggots.’
‘They taste like chicken. And they’re not cold.’
‘Fuck you. Fuck off and die.’
‘You are the one who will die if you don’t eat.’
‘Which means I won’t have to see your scummy face.’
‘Eat.’
Small is so hungry that he can no longer control his body. He baulks, but puts out his hand, into which Big places a colossal maggot, as juicy as a ripe apple.
‘Abuser. Nasty pig. I hate you.’
Finally he eats. He chews the gelatinous fibre of the maggot a dozen times and the bitter juice that oozes from it dances on his tongue. He drools like a hungry dog. It doesn’t taste of chicken: it’s better than chicken. He bursts into tears like the little boy that he was.
‘You’re the best. I love you. I love you.’
The feast goes on all night.
53
‘IF I WANTED TO,’ says Small, stretched out on his back with his arms open like a crucified man, ‘I could change the order of things. I could move the sun so that it fell on us in the middle of the afternoon and that way we wouldn’t be cold after our nap. I could go and collect the old smells from the village and fill our noses with freshly made bread, apple turnovers, chocolate. I could build a spiral staircase from inside the well right up to the trees and then bend it back so we can hop off it again without hurting ourselves. I could turn water into milk and insects into chickens and roots into liquorice. But I don’t want to. I don’t want to do anything. It’s enough to be here and for the universe to keep turning around me. It’s what happens to us who are dead.
‘The living… the living are like children: they play at dying. I lived among tough men who weren’t scared of death, and with smart men who cheated it, and with weak men who let themselves be dragged along by it, but none of them understood the minuteness, the insignificance of a world devoted to that cause. I don’t understand it. I didn’t understand it till now… Look at me… Three big steps. This is all the distance I can cover before the walls cut me off. Three big steps. My world is as small as theirs; it’s a jaw that locks on to me and salivates, diluting me, as if it wanted to erase me, and my own battle is reduced to staving it off. Is this it? Must men live within walls with no windows or doors? Is there something beyond this life while life goes on? There is, brother, there is! I know it! Because in my head, in here, where no one can see, nothing can hold me back. It’s a land without walls, without wells, just for me. And it’s real because it’s changing me; the pain it gives me is different, the days are never-ending. Time is a crossroads nailed between my eyes. My whole childhood will happen tomorrow, I’ll take my first steps tomorrow, I’ll say my first word tomorrow. It’s a glorious feeling, when summer arrives… You think I’m ill? Ignoramus! You think I haven’t proved myself? I know very well that you pay no heed to my words, but this doesn’t make them any less true. If only you were able to see what I see, this darkness of days. But also this inexplicable warmth, so close to love… Don’t you see it? Don’t you feel the liquid engulfing us as if we were foetuses? These walls are membranes and we are floating within them. We move around in anticipation of our long-awaited delivery. This well is a uterus, you and I are yet to be born, our cries are the agonies of the world’s birth.’