His father grabbed him by the shoulders. He shook him and asked him to explain himself. Nil couldn’t say anything; his father was right. They’d spent four years waiting for him. In four years, they’d only had one bit of good news: when they found out he’d quit art school. When he told them they didn’t hide their happiness — an underwater power cable that connected him and his parents, but didn’t start to work until his father asked him to go kill a dog at Can Bou. For four years, his parents worried that their son would never come back from Barcelona. Every month they paid him the salary that it would take three black men working sun up to sun down to earn, as his father told him one day; they paid so he could devote himself to searching for another world, to betraying them, with the hope that he would grow tired of it. His parents had also acted irresponsibly. They had to have some fault in it, letting him go, letting him get mixed up in a lie. Or was it an experiment? Had they sent him out to explore? Go, see if you find anything better. Go, fail, grow up, you’ll be back. And when his father pushed him, Nil pushed back, and they started to fight. A father and son don’t reach this point so easily. His father was carrying a lot of rage inside, and every blow that Nil took was worth ten, the punches came as if pressurized — his father was strong, a man of the earth, a rock from the field, the wait had turned long and tense, waiting every day while he watched other people’s children living according to God’s plan, taking up the reins, continuing, who was Nil to leave and then fail — and every time Nil received a blow from his father there was a reason behind it, and he just let himself be shook and beat on, he didn’t struggle against it, he’d thought of his father every morning when he saw the Batlle brothers heading out into the fields with theirs. . And when his father grew tired and stopped, Nil got up in pain and helped his father to stand.
“You’re all the same, Nil,” his father said, “everybody your age is the same. You scammed us. You played us for fools. You took advantage of us. You know what hurts us the most, Nil? We were afraid that one day we’d open the newspaper and see that they were talking about you, about the things you were doing. That we’d find out that you were even further into the lie, that you believed it completely. We helped you because you’re our only child, and there was no other option — your teachers said you were intelligent and that your mother and I had to have a lot of patience — and we didn’t lose hope even though we saw it coming for a long time. Parents always have to think the worst; we need to see it coming. Look at the Batlles. We knew you wanted to go to college, so we let you do it because it wasn’t a question of four years or even eight. . but to work here you don’t need a degree, you need effort and know-how, real know-how, not that flighty left-wing crap they fill your head with, the ideas they started giving you really young. . What kind of artist could come out of Vidreres?. . Before books and before artists there was the land, and someone was working it, and when there are no books left, or artists, or paintings, or any of that shit, because one day all of that will be history, like everything else. . do you know what will still be here? The land will still be here. Scratch at it all you like, throw a bomb at it and you’ll make a hole, and underneath there’ll be more. Your grandfather always said, when he was little, in the war, they took land to build an aviation field. You see what’s left of that field. You can scratch at it all you like, you can throw a bomb, but under the dirt there’s more dirt. You kids think you’re so smart. You’re so full of yourselves. You lasted a year, Nil, you dropped out and we thought: well, he’ll be back here soon. But then it only got worse: you didn’t come back right away, and then one day you show up with that ear. I’m still not used to it. That’s our flesh, goddamn it! And then you asked me for the shack. Your mother didn’t want to — women know more about these things — she’d given you up for lost, not like me. I’m just a poor man, and when the boys from Can Batlle got themselves killed, the only thing I could think of was to ask you to do a job that I should’ve done myself. I thought I could treat you like a grown-up. I don’t know why you wanted the shack, I don’t know and I don’t care what you’ve been doing in there, I haven’t stuck my nose into it, I haven’t asked any questions. All I asked was for you to look out for the family and the land and. . How could you have blown this bit of luck, luck that could help our family survive for a hundred more years? A hundred more years, Nil. Does that not seem like much to you? Or you think it’s too much? You didn’t have to do it for yourself; it was about those that’ll come after you, you hear me, all the dead are in these fields. . You really screwed up, Nil. Now the land will go to the Suredas, and Can Bou will grow. Goddamn it. At least those two killed themselves. It shouldn’t have been them that died. But what do you know, you, who left the land? You live in a world that’s about to explode — we’ve sold you kids out, let you do what you want. Now I understand why you didn’t say anything, now I see why the earring, why you wanted to lock yourself away here. . just to escape, because that’s all you know how to do!”
One night, fifteen years earlier, Nil was sitting with his parents in front of the fireplace. They were watching a game show on TV. First they heard a wheeze and then a roar, as if there were a beast stuck in the chimney, roasting. There was no animal. Their chimney had caught fire. Nil’s father jumped up from his chair, and his mother ran to move the sofa. His father came out of the kitchen with a bucket of water. He put out the fire in the hearth, then ran upstairs with another bucketful and Nil’s mother behind him. Nil was eight years old. He couldn’t think of anything better to do than to put his head into the fireplace. He crouched down, leaned against the hot, black water and, burning his cheek against the still-scorching tile, looked upward like he sometimes did when there was no fire blazing. During the day you could see the light all the way at the top, like the reflection in the bottom of a well, and you heard very precise sounds from outside the house, which traveled through the air from far away — as if the chimney were a small, long shell, an antenna to pick up the barks of dogs from other houses, the occasional shout from a neighboring field, or the engine of a motorcycle — sounds separated from their place, exiled like the dim light you could see all the way at the top; light from the sky separated from the sky. That night he hadn’t expected to see the placid light of day, nor even a bit of moonlight, but he also hadn’t expected the nest of snakes that he did see. A virulent flaming light, frantic between the black walls, a well in hell that made the whole house tremble. He felt a hot splatter on his arm, a bit of soot had fallen into the puddle of water on the floor. Sparks fell from all the way up the chimney, floating down like incandescent, volatile rain, and he had to move out from under them. Then he ran upstairs to his parents, wanting them to protect him; throughout the whole house the chimney’s snoring could be heard, like a flute, zuuuu, zuuu, and it seemed the walls were quivering in a sustained, never-ending earthquake, and Nil went up the staircase along the chimney, running his hand along the wall’s plaster. And it was hot, it was burning hot, the fire was just on the other side, a few centimeters away from him. He was afraid that the whole house would suddenly burst into flames, and he saw a crack in the plaster that hadn’t been there before, long and deep and all the way up to the ceiling, and he went out on the roof, and there he found his father, who’d just thrown a bucket of water into the chimney but stood still, as if hypnotized. The chimney was a small volcano, a fountain of sparks that the wind carried into the night over the fields, into the fresh air. The fire gradually died out, fewer and fewer sparks falling onto the adobe roof, bouncing, and being carried off by the wind. .