“Cals came to see us this morning,” said her father, when they hadn’t yet entered the house but had already peeled off from the day laborers, who were pedaling toward town. “They’re selling the lands of Can Batlle.”
Yup. She hadn’t counted on the ancestral world, the reality that preceded and survived the dead. Cals with his cane, who you ran into in town every time you went and who showed up at Can Bou two or three times every year since before she’d been born, and who’d be showing up after she was dead. He walked through the fields along the dirt path, came through the gate and into the house to say “hi” as if he were owed something, as if he had every right. . and who knows, maybe he did. They’d invite him in and offer him a glass of wine. They told him what had happened since his last visit. He shared his information. He stroked the napes of the girls’ necks when they were little.
Without the boys, the Batlles couldn’t take care of their land. Something lurked behind that fact. How and when did she meet Jaume? They’d gone to school together. They’d started dating in high school. Can Batlle was in the same area, behind the little hill. From Can Bou they could see the two poplars at Can Batlle, one on either side of the big farmhouse. They used to send her over to the Batlles’ house for tomato seedlings when she was a little girl. It wasn’t unusual to see one or both of the two brothers at Can Bou when they were twelve, thirteen, fourteen years old. In those years they ran through the fields, playing in them, working them, or both. Later, they came over on motorcycle, and, before long, the Sureda sisters each had their own horse and would go riding past Can Batlle. They had occasionally all gone out together, and it seemed meant to be — one brother for each of them.
And while the girls’ parents hadn’t been pleased when Mireia found work in a shop on Nou Street in Girona, they’d been all smiles when Iona said she wanted to study to become a veterinarian. And while no one but her sister knew anything about Mireia’s love life — she’d been dating a boy from Salt for over a year — when Iona started dating Jaume it quickly became common knowledge, not that there was any way they could have hidden it.
The two brothers’ deaths had reached the inside of the house; they could be felt beneath the tiles, already settled in their underground rooms.
“Our fields touch each other, over there by the path,” her father said, and she hadn’t realized, she’d never thought she could have an even more physical relationship with Jaume, but their lands had been touching before they’d even been born.
He would work the land; she would be a vet. No need to open a clinic, no need to leave home.
“Cals filled my head with talk of that land, and he’s completely right. If we want it, we have to act fast. Lluís from Can Dalmau wants it too. Before saying anything to your mother, you and I need to talk. To the Batlles, you’re not just our daughter. We aren’t just any bidder. You have certain rights.”
“What do you want? My approval?”
“No. Without the boys, they can’t take care of the land. They’re not like us, who, over the years, have figured things out. They don’t know anything about working with the blacks and North Africans, what a hassle it is. And they’re old, and even if they did hire people, what would be the point? They can’t take any of it with them. And they don’t have family to take over the land. In two months it will all be a jungle. They’re in a terrible state. But they won’t just sell it to the first bidder who comes along. Cals is totally right about that. You have to come with me. Lluís Dalmau is rich, and he wants the land for his boy.”
“Nil Dalmau? Did you see him? Does it look to you like he wants to spend his life. .”
“Everybody saw him. That’s none of our business. A lot of things happen in life, and Lluís knows that as well as you and I do. Land is land. Isn’t Nil older than you? They’re not bad folks. They’ve got a lot of land — the whole Miralles area is theirs. But Can Batlle is here. We’ve had bad luck, what can I say, but it’s just bad luck and nothing more.”
The well was in the toolshed, the shed they’d filled on Monday with bales of hay to feed and bed the two horses. Four more dogs emerged to greet the father and daughter. Seda lay in her spot by the door, and Iona sat in a chair waiting for her father.
“It’s all set up,” her father said, coming out of the house. “We can go over there right now.”
The five dogs followed them through the fields. The last one was Seda. It was getting dark. The dogs accompanied them to the end of the path and stopped there. Before turning tail and returning home alone, they sat down for a moment on their haunches, to make sure that the father and daughter were continuing. Iona turned to look at them and was glad for Seda’s sake. They sat on the border, as if wanting to convince them to come back.
Can Bou was hidden behind some pine trees. Can Batlle was still far off, but she could see the roof peeking out from behind a small hill, a string of smoke from the chimney, and the tips of the two poplars. Quickly they made their way out of the no-man’s-land. It was a relief to walk without speaking. The dogs must already be back at the house. They were barking in the distance, as they always did at dusk. That was when the dogs barked, every day at the same time, it had always been like that; they’d spend fifteen minutes or half an hour yapping at their ghosts, maybe protesting that the blinds were being drawn before the day was over. Their barking grew increasingly faint, and the dogs at Can Batlle took up the slack.
When Iona was about to turn thirteen, her father prepared a surprise for her. He left certain rows unplanted, making a small labyrinth in one of the cornfields. In August, with her birthday approaching, Iona’s parents told her she could invite her friends to the labyrinth. The day of the party, at dusk, the same time it was now, they went in with flashlights. The barking of the dogs was the same, though they were different dogs — Frare, Lluna, and Bobi were still alive. Between cousins and friends there must have been a dozen kids; Jaume and Xavier were there too, fourteen and twelve years old then. They ran with their flashlights through the green leaves and unkempt shadows of the ears. Everything smelled of earth, of the cornstalks and sharp leaves that her father had watered that afternoon, of the dry stubble of the surrounding wheat fields. Ears of corn, narrow rows, the crunching of dry leaves beneath their feet, stalks like bones two meters tall — you couldn’t see a thing even if you jumped, not the highway, not a single light in any house, just the half moon in the sky. She got separated from Mireia and found herself alone in the labyrinth. She began to worry she’d come across animals in the rows: nocturnal snakes or foxes, as lost as she was, who might follow her or be lying in wait among the stalks; rabid dogs; runaway horses whose running widened the narrow rows, she could hear the gallop; or a bunch of boars who crunched dry leaves beneath their feet and would come charging at her; or ghost children; or a glowing alien among the dark stalks. She stopped and held her breath. She realized that a cage doesn’t have to be locked. The dry leaves on the ground shone like tinfoil. She could only hear crickets. The fear wasn’t entirely unpleasant, and she had a thought that made her brave, and which would always be with her in moments of fear: that the worst thing that could happen was dying. You could die, but that was the worst that could happen to you.