Unbeknownst to José, at that moment his name was being whispered in one of the bedrooms in town. The baby daughter of Moisés and the cook had just fallen asleep. After pulling her slip over her breast, flaccid and sticky from the baby’s mouth, the cook got under the sheets, turned her face to Moisés, and said today you’re going to the Mount of Olives, you must go there before the sun sets and give José a message from me. Take him a pot of stewed lamb and tell him not to come back into town anytime soon. If he asks you why, say that I was the one who sent you with this message. Moisés, having no desire to go, lay there for a few moments resigning himself to the idea and closed his eyes.
MY BROTHER HAS BEEN UNBEARABLE. He’s forever complaining about the cook and the baby, as if the cook were to blame for the baby being awake at night and asleep during the day, and as if the baby were to blame for being three months old. Today, when I told him that I wanted us to finish up early at the oil press so that we could go to the Mount of Olives, he leaned into my ear and whispered, in a huff, I’m not going, I can tell you right now that I’m not going, I’m not about to go all the way out there under the hot sun to do nothing. We remained cross with each other until we sat down for lunch. The cook had made two twin brothers just like us, and a cook just like her, with a very fat baby girl in her lap. It looked like a portrait, so true to life were the features of the figures, and so true to life was their look of contentment. At that point my brother leaned over to me and said if you want to go to the Mount of Olives, we can go. The figures, posing in a row across the platter, were made of a homogeneous mass whose ingredients I couldn’t identify. They tasted like fish, perhaps bass, perhaps boce, perhaps carp.
As soon as the last house in town was behind us, sweat did indeed begin to soak our skin all over, under our caps, under our arms, under our long johns. At the bend by the bog the pot already weighed heavy in my arm, but I kept quiet and didn’t ask my brother to relieve me. On a piece of land belonging to Doctor Mateus, the men were stripping off cork next to the road. We stopped for a moment, and the women who carried around water came over and offered us some in a cork bowl. Thanking them through my mouth, my brother accepted. I declined. And although I tried to focus on the men in the trees stripping away cork with axes, although I tried to focus on the men tossing slabs of cork as tall as they were on top of a stack in a wagon, all I could see were the women leisurely uncorking the jug, pouring cool water into the bowl, my brother slowly drinking it, the sound of the water slowly going down his throat, and my brother asking for another bowl, the women smiling, leisurely uncorking the jug, pouring cool water into the bowl, my brother slowly drinking it, and the sound of the water slowly going down his throat. We continued on our way, and the stewed lamb sloshing about in the pot got heavier. My brother was refreshed, and I tried to regain my strength in the occasional stretches of shaded road.
We reached the fence around the farmstead, and I forgot all my previous exertion, concentrating only on climbing the slope, which isn’t even very steep or very long, and I think: we’re almost there. We still haven’t climbed a quarter of the slope. The sun beats down with all its unlimited might. I’ve climbed a quarter of the slope and think: we’re almost there. We have to climb three times more than this stretch that was exhausting. Three times the time it took us so far. I think we’re almost there, and I think of the cook telling me go to the Mount of Olives, go and deliver this message. I think of her gaze. And we reach the top of the slope. We knock on José’s door. We greet his wife. She doesn’t answer us or look at us. We ask for José. She slowly shakes her head, as if considering whether she really has to respond, and then says with a minimum of words and in a muffled voice, her hand in front of her mouth, that he’s out in the fields. We thank her. She closes the door. We sit down on a whitewashed stone bench in the shade, in front of the rich people’s house, and wait.
I’VE BEEN KEEPING SHEEP FOR YEARS and not one of them has ever looked straight at me. My wife. She looked straight at me one day. That afternoon, a little over a year ago, we made our son, and I thought that that’s how all people come together. A person arrives out of nowhere, for no special reason or for a reason that’s unclear, and offers himself or herself to someone else, who finds it perfectly natural, since that’s how all people come together, and in that great moment they both give themselves to each other for life, without looking back or thinking twice, they both give themselves to each other for life, since from that great moment on, the rest of life will be equally natural, inexplicable, and grand. What I didn’t know is that what in one moment is the whole world won’t always be the whole world. Before I got married everyone called her slut. So how’s the slut doing? Everyone called her whore. So how’s the whore doing? After I got married, they stopped calling her slut or whore. So how’s your wife doing? And they thought slut, they thought whore. We got married and my wife never again left the farmstead. I don’t know her smile, and I’ve often imagined how it would be, but I lost all hope of seeing it a long time ago. I don’t know the touch of her hands, perhaps soft, perhaps rough, and I’ve often imagined how it would be. I don’t know happiness in her, however furtive or fleeting, and I lost all hope of seeing her happy a long time ago. I don’t know what destroyed us. We’re ruins. We’re what once was a house with living people and growing children, smoke in the chimney and open windows on summer nights, and today is a heap of bricks eroded by the rain, broken roof tiles on the ground, rubble and dirt strewn across the rotted floor, and grass growing between the floorboards. Were we ever anything solid, a real household? For me, yes. For my wife, I don’t know. I’ve never known how she feels about anything.
Although it doesn’t matter to me now, I know it’s time to go back home. The sheepdog tells me so with her eyes, impatiently circling around me. I shout out a syllable that doesn’t seem like it’s from me. She rounds up the flock. We walk to the homestead. The flock is a river that, tripping over all the stones, flows with difficulty, and it is tempered by a flow greater than its own. The field is a member of the family. We’ve talked many times. He tells me things. And I’ve confessed things to him that I’ve never told anyone. He has protected and lulled and comforted me. The evening is slowly settling over the field. The sun is getting weaker. I tie around the gatepost the wires that enclose the sheep. I see the brothers rise from the bench where the old housekeeper used to sit while watching the rich people’s children play. They walk up to me.
MOISÉS WALKED UP TO JOSÉ. He said nothing of what he knew about the drubbings from the giant, nor did he ask about them, nor did he mention anything that could lead to that subject. He handed him the pot of food and greeted him as usual, but he looked at him differently. José’s wife came outside to empty a tub, flinging the water a considerable distance, then went to water the little garden next to the waterwheel. José glued his eyes on her immediately. Moisés said something unimportant that he had no real interest in saying, like haven’t seen you for a while, or I have a little girl who’s the cutest thing but doesn’t let me sleep, or the cook often remembers being here at the farmstead; he said something unimportant and asked something unimportant, like how’s your father doing? or how’s your little boy doing? or how are you doing? José didn’t answer, because he didn’t hear. He was watching his wife, every one of his wife’s movements, with a serious expression. Elias said something into his brother’s ear to hurry him up, because he hoped they could catch a ride from one of the wagons that take workers to and from the fields. Moisés stopped dallying and said don’t go back into town anytime soon. There was no change in José’s expression. Moisés repeated don’t go back into town anytime soon, it’s the cook who sent me here to tell you this. José held his gaze and didn’t hear a single word spoken by Moisés. The brothers said goodbye and left. Until the day became pure night, José remained in the middle of the courtyard, impassively watching his wife, every one of his wife’s movements.