Euphoric with optimism, the next morning he went to buy a live lamb from a shepherd in Maçanet. The lamb left the trunk of his Honda covered in little black balls. After cleaning them up, he went to the dog pound in Tossa, and the supervisor — without asking many questions, with that idiotic respect people have for artists — helped him with the urine and lent him the protective pads, gloves, and net. That night he sacrificed the lamb. He filmed the lamb’s death the way he would film the dog’s, when the moment came. He would incorporate it into his project; he would make it art. He buried the lamb’s skin and carcass. He put the meat he’d deboned and chopped up into a sack, tied the rag to the outside of the car door, and went to steal one of the dogs from Can Bou.
He did it in his own car despite the general alert over the robberies, excited by the idea of transgressing: not antagonism, like when he left home, not fleeing, but rather a triumph, because of the compatibility between his artwork and his father’s assignment, so he risked being taken for one of those burglars who had the area so terrified.
When he finished breakfast, the fog had pretty much vanished. The bitch wouldn’t stay quiet for a second. He should have finished her off the night before, as soon as he’d gotten to the shack, but he’d felt chilled and it was late — what difference would a couple of hours make?
He grabbed his coat and left to take his daily walk — the three kilometers to Lake Sils — with his eyes on the ground and a supermarket bag in his hand to gather up any animal he could find: a worm, a lizard, whatever. On Friday he’d found a wounded sparrow among some brush, blew the ants off its wings and legs, and took it with him; another day he returned to the shack with a bag full of snails that had escaped from a farm beside the road.
Crossing the highway was a bit of an adventure, but after that the walk continued peacefully through the fields. He went underneath the freeway overpass and, before reaching the small center of Sils, he took a path through ribbons of sedge, bindweed, and reeds, with poplars forming plantations that flooded every time it rained. The lake was residuary, dry in the summer and in the winter filled with migrating birds, insects, and — according to the informational panels — frogs, turtles, water voles, hedgehogs, and snakes. The last floury dust of fog scattered, the day was dawning, there were splotches of sun, and Nil’s outline appeared on the path like an insect emerging from the chrysalis of fog.
At that time of day, the lake was not a solitary spot. They had reclaimed and adapted it for public use, and it was a perfect park to bring the kids to. There was always someone jogging, biking, or walking their dog on the path that went around the lake.
He knelt down to collect a beetle, but he didn’t put it in the bag; he held it in his fingers, captivated by the iridescent greens on its shell. It felt soft, moving its long antennae that were as thin as hairs, tickling his hand with its six thorny legs. He pinched off one of its legs with his fingernails. When the spring came this would all be full of insects, but by then he’d already have taken refuge in his parents’ house — which would later become his house — and he would have concluded and forgotten the fourth period and have no reason to want insects. He pulled off one of the beetle’s wings, making it asymmetrical, a little bit like Nil with his lopsided ears. He would shave and cut off his ponytails. He would fix up his hair at the salon in Vidreres so everyone could see. He pulled another leg off the beetle. He would take out his flesh tunnel and have his ear reconstructed. He pulled the other wing off to reestablish the creature’s symmetry. He would have the tattoo on his hand removed, stop collecting insects, wouldn’t set foot in a dog pound ever again. His walks to the lake would turn into days of working in the terraced fields; his adventure would have come to an end, his wandering, he would never again be an artist. He dropped the beetle on the ground. It kept moving the couple of legs it still had, as if rowing, and since it couldn’t flee he stepped on it and rubbed it out under his sole.
He felt sorry for the beetle. He liked the colors, shapes, and scents of those perfunctory lives, knew them physically and even knew them somewhat morally, or thought he did: they were simple, empty carcasses, they were skeletons. He could imagine how they felt, the void enclosed by the cage, how he himself would have felt without his flesh, just bones and teeth, nails and hair — the two ponytails, a wisp of beard, the tattoo, and the ring in his earlobe. If he could have extracted the flesh from inside himself, emptied himself out through his mouth and ears, remove that confusion that made him do illogical things like killing the beetle — artistic things — exterminate the viruses that led him around by the nose, set him apart, tugged on him. . If we could take out our flesh from inside, expel it. .
On the path around the lake there were wooden observatories for watching birds. Inside, each had a long bench beneath a narrow, glassless window that ran from one end of the belvedere to the other. The window looked out on the lake. Sometimes, if he didn’t see anyone around, he would go inside and spend a while contemplating the ducks and the birds with sinuous necks, or wait for the train to pass by, the reflection of its cars on the water by the other shore. If someone came in while he was there, once the newcomer’s gaze grew accustomed to the dark and found him there alone, without binoculars or a camera, with only a supermarket bag on his lap — a bag that occasionally crackled, or suddenly inflated slightly because an insect inside had jumped — with his two ponytails and his flesh tunnel, it never failed: they got up and left.
That morning he came across a high school class on a field trip, about twenty kids with two teachers Nil’s age. The teachers were young, attractive women who would have been frightened by the sight of him, but he didn’t mind. He’d have time to focus on girls when spring came, when his hibernation was over and he emerged from his lair. Then he’d no longer be living in the shack; he could drop by Can Bou and, without forcing anything, find himself attracted to Iona. He could count on that, and would try to make up for stealing her dog, maybe even for Jaume Batlle’s death and everything else, and Nil’s satisfaction would be the same as his parents’. And one day, decades later, he would confess to Iona the long road he’d taken as a young man to reach the land, which would then be three lands: Dalmau, Batlle, and Sureda.
The high school kids were thirteen or fourteen years old, surely he would be the father of kids like these by then — Nil Dalmau, in his mature fifth period — and his eldest son and heir would go out with him to their land the way he would very soon begin to go out with his father. The school group stopped and made a circle around one of the teachers, and gradually they grew quiet.
Since he was still far away, Nil left the path and approached them, discreetly, stepping softly amid the trees and brambles so they wouldn’t hear him. The teacher had opened a book and spoke loudly, so the teenagers could follow her:
“You’ve heard the legend of the cauldrons of Pere Botero, right? Well, that happened in this area. Many, many years ago. . in 1608, to be exact. That year, a farmer from Tordera named Pere Porter. . Pere Porter. . You see the resemblance to Pere Botero? And do you know why it mentions cauldrons? Well, because he saw them. Yes, don’t laugh. He saw them because he went down into hell. . and he entered hell right around here. Do you see this book? It’s an edition of the anonymous manuscripts that tell the story of Pere Porter. Pere Porter was a farmer who was forced to repay a debt that he’d already paid, because of an evil notary. . it was some sort of a scam, you get it? And Pere went to Maçanet to look for the money demanded from him and came across a young man on horseback, pulling another horse behind him, and they went on the road together. As they walked, Pere Porter explained what was going on with him, and when they reached Lake Sils, Pere asked if he could ride the other horse. And the young man said he could and. . Now be very quiet, and I’ll read you what happened. Pay attention, because it’s old Catalan. ‘Porter crossed himself, and when he mounted the horse it all changed: every hair on his head rose as he heard and saw the steeds speaking with one another. .’ His hair stood on end because the horses started talking to each other! And then the young man said he would take Pere to see the evil notary who hadn’t recorded the payment of his debt. . and you know where he was, right? Where do you think that evil notary was?”