Out in the Open Read online

  Although he had not as yet spent one whole day on the run, he knew that more than enough time had passed for fear already to be racing through the village streets towards his parents’ house, an invisible torrent that would carry all the women of the village along with it to form a pool around his mother, who would be lying limply on her bed, her face as wrinkled as an old potato. He imagined the turmoil in the house and in the village. People perched on the stone bench outside, hoping to catch a glimpse through the half-open door of what was going on inside. He could see the bailiff’s motorbike parked outside: a sturdy machine with a sidecar on which he drove through the village and the surrounding fields, leaving dust and noise in his wake. The boy knew that sidecar well. He had often travelled in it, covered by a dusty blanket. He recalled the greasy smell of the wool and the cracked, oilcloth edging. To him, the roar of that engine was like the trumpet sounded by the first Angel, the angel who had mingled fire and blood and cast it down upon the earth until all the green grass was burned up.

  The bailiff was the only person in the region to own a motorised vehicle, and the governor was the only one to own a vehicle of the four-wheeled variety. He himself had never seen the governor, but had heard hundreds of accounts of the time he came to the village for the inauguration of the grain silo. Apparently, he was welcomed by children waving little paper flags, and several lambs were sacrificed in celebration. Those who had been there described the car as if it were a magical object.

  Tiny and dark in the midst of that still-greater darkness, he wondered if he might find something useful on the imaginary line he was following due north. Perhaps some fruit trees along the road or fountains of clean water or endless springtimes. He couldn’t really come up with any concrete expectation, but that didn’t matter. By heading north, he was travelling away from the village, away from the bailiff and from his father. He was on the move, and that was enough. The worst thing that could happen, he thought, would be to exhaust his limited strength by going round in a circle or, which came to the same thing, returning to his family. He knew that by keeping on in the same direction, sooner or later he would come across someone or something. It was just a matter of time. He might walk right round the world and end up back in his village, but, by then, it wouldn’t matter. His fists would be as hard as rocks. More than that, his fists would be rocks. He would have wandered almost eternally and, even if he met no one else, he would have learned enough about himself and the earth for the bailiff never to be able to have him in his power again. He wondered if he would ever be capable of forgiving. If, once he had crossed the icy Pole, penetrated dense forests and traversed other wildernesses, the flame that had burned him inside would still be burning. Perhaps, by then, the desperation that had driven him from the home God had intended for him would have dissipated. It might be that distance, time and ceaseless contact with the earth would have smoothed away his rough edges and calmed him down. He remembered the cardboard globe at school. The large sphere wobbled about on its rickety wooden stand, but it was easy enough to find their village on it, because, year upon year, the fingers of several generations of children had worn away the spot, indeed, had erased the whole country and the surrounding sea.

  In the distance, he could make out what appeared to be a bonfire and he wondered how far away it was. He stopped and tried to calculate, but in the indecipherable darkness, it was impossible to judge. What he imagined to be a distant bonfire could just as easily, he thought, be the flame of a match only a few yards ahead or even a whole house ablaze miles away.

  Like an Indian dazzled by the glittering trinkets offered him by a conquistador, he headed towards that one luminous point. For more than an hour he tramped over clods of earth and over stones. The wind was in his face, which meant that if the person who had lit the fire owned dogs, they would only notice his presence if he made a noise. He had no clear objective in approaching that point of light. The fire might belong to a shepherd, a muleteer or a bandit. He hoped that, as he approached, the light from the fire would bring him the necessary information. The idea of coming face-to-face with a criminal terrified him, and who knows what mangy dogs would be sleeping around that fire? On the other hand, he did know that he was going to need food and water from whoever had lit that fire. Whether he would ask for it or be obliged to steal it was something he would decide when he knew just who it was he was dealing with. He heard a chorus of what sounded like tinkling bells coming from that direction and this reassured him. He still took extreme caution when covering the last few yards, placing his feet as gently on the ground as if he were walking on a bed of rose petals. Shortly before he reached the encampment, he found a clump of prickly pears and hid behind them to observe the scene.

  On the other side of the fire, facing the flames, a man was lying on the ground, although the boy still couldn’t tell how old he was because a blanket covered his whole body, from top to toe. A gentle glow, like a distant ember, was beginning to appear above the horizon, revealing the shapes of trees that the night had kept hidden. He thought he could make out several poplar trees and assumed that the herd of goats was there for the same reason that the trees were. A goat emerged out of the darkness and walked behind the goatherd before disappearing into the pre-dawn shadows. Its bell drew a line of sounds in the air like a piece of knotted string. To one side lay a donkey, its legs folded meekly beneath its chest. Scattered around, he could see the motionless bodies of goats, which would doubtless soon wake up. At the man’s feet lay a bag and a small dog curled up asleep.

  The now faint light from the fire made the shadows dance like black flames. The boy peered round the cactus plant, trying to get a better look at the man. Something pricked his arm and he drew back. The buckle on his knapsack clinked. The dog immediately opened its eyes and pricked up its ears, then got to its feet, sniffing the air in all directions. The boy kept a firm grasp on his arm, as if the treacherous limb had a life of its own and was again about to hurl itself against the cactus spines. The dog began to move towards him, keeping close to the goatherd at first, then widening the radius of its search and slowly getting nearer to where he was standing. Watching the dog approach, the boy did not think it seemed terribly fierce, but he knew that one can never trust that kind of dog. In the village, people called them garulos: mongrels, which, through years of cross-breeding, had grown ever smaller, any distinctive racial characteristics now an unrecognisable blur. When the dog was just a few feet away, it stopped and focused all its senses on the clump of prickly pears. It again sniffed the air, and then, for some reason, relaxed and walked all around the intruder’s hiding-place, wagging its tail and clearly curious. When it discovered him, it showed no alarm and did not even bark. On the contrary, it went over and licked the placatory hand the boy had held out to keep it from barking. With that gesture, the boy’s fear of betrayal evaporated. It was as if the smells of earth and urine with which he was impregnated brought him closer to the world of the dog. He grabbed its head in his two hands and stroked it under the chin. For a while, the boy kept the dog quiet with his caresses, the time it took to decide whether or not to cover the few yards separating him and the bag lying at the man’s feet.

  He opened his own knapsack and took out the remaining half-sausage – all he had left. Leaving the dog busily gnawing at the dried meat, he emerged from his hiding-place and began to creep towards the bag. The light from the fire cast a gothic shadow over the prickly pears behind him.

  As he approached, he felt afraid and would have liked to go back where he came from, to withdraw to some safe place and wait for daylight in order to reconsider his options. However, behind the prickly pears, the dog was devouring the only food he had and he knew there was no turning back.

  He returned to his first plan, as simple as it was terrifying. He would go over to the bag and gently drag it towards him by the strap amidst a surrounding chorus of bleating. He would definitely not attempt to uncover the man’s face, because that would be both wrong and provo
cative. Apart from the food that the dog was now eating, he had never stolen from an adult and was only doing so now because he had no alternative. At home, the very stones of the walls were the guardians of an ancestral law according to which children must keep their eyes firmly fixed on the ground whenever they were caught doing something they shouldn’t. They must present their executioner with the back of their neck as meekly as if they were sacrificial offerings or propitiatory victims. Depending on the seriousness of the crime, a slap on the back of the neck might be all the punishment they got or, equally, it could merely be the preamble to a far worse beating.

  Standing very near the man now, he was again gripped by doubt and even considered not stealing the bag. He would simply wait by the fire until the man woke up. Then he would reveal himself to him as he was: a defenceless, unthreatening child. With luck, he thought, the man wouldn’t be from around there, but had come in the hope of finding some stubble for his goats. Accustomed to solitude, he might even be grateful for some company. The man would offer him a little food and something to drink, then each would go his own way.

  Suddenly, he heard a snort immediately behind him and was petrified. He didn’t move. All his strength vanished into the void that fear had opened up before him. The goatherd disappeared, along with the bag and the herd of goats, swallowed up by the darkness where his mind had once been. He trembled and his stomach gurgled into life again as he felt something hard pressing against the small of his back and, despite himself, turned round. The dog was poking him with its nose. Between its teeth it was carrying the piece of string from one end of the sausage. The boy took a deep breath, knelt down on the ground and returned to his task.

  The bag was made of thick leather. It smelled of dried onions and sweat. He hooked two fingers round the strap and gave a gentle tug. When he felt the weight of the bag, he threw all caution to the wind. His mind filled up with images of food, and everything around him was replaced by what he imagined to be the contents of that bag. He managed to drag his booty a few inches more in almost absolute silence until one particularly greedy tug sent the stiff body of the bag – as if it were a drum skin – thudding over the pebbles.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going with that?’

  He froze at the sound of the gruff voice coming from the other side of the fire, which lit up the grimace of fear that was now his face, the face of a silent-film actor or a child caught red-handed for the first time.

  ‘I’m hungry, sir.’

  ‘Didn’t anyone teach you to ask nicely?’

  At that moment, he would have liked simply to run away with the bag and leave the man there, talking from underneath his blanket. He wondered if perhaps the dog was not as friendly as it had seemed. He knew nothing as yet of loyalties or of the time that passes between man and beast, knitting them together ever more tightly.

  ‘Help me up, boy.’

  The boy dropped the leather strap and approached hesitantly. A couple of yards away, he stopped and studied the man’s body. His face was still covered by the blanket, but his legs were now visible from the knees down. The man stirred feebly beneath his blanket, perhaps trying to fasten his trousers or feeling for his lighter in order to light his first cigarette of the day, and by the time his head appeared, the boy was once more hidden behind the prickly pears. In the time he remained there, the very faintest glimmer of light began to illumine a few corners of the encampment. He saw that he had been right in thinking that the trees were poplars and could see the effects of the drought on their topmost leaves. He counted nine nanny goats and one billy goat. He also noticed a construction he hadn’t seen before: a kind of pyramid-shaped shack made out of branches cut from the nearby trees. From its walls hung straps, ropes, chains, a metal milk churn and a blackened frying pan. It was more like a tabernacle than a shelter. Separating the hut from the poplar trees was a woven fence held up by four posts hammered into the ground.

  The goatherd had by then sat up and rolled himself a cigarette. It took him several minutes to get to his feet because the blanket had become tangled around his legs and elbows. Although the boy could still not really make out the man’s features, he assumed from the way he moved that he was old. A scrawny old man who slept in his clothes. A dark jacket with wide lapels, a dishevelled mop of grey hair and what looked like a white brush stroke that covered his face from his nose downwards.

  The goatherd saw the boy reappear from behind the prickly pear, but barely noticed him because he was too busy blowing on the wick of his rope lighter. When the boy was about six feet away from the man, he stopped. From that distance, he could see the goatherd’s hair full of straw, and the holes in the elbows of his jacket. He was sitting on the ground with the blanket covering his legs, and the boy was surprised that he could sit comfortably like that, his back bent. The old man glanced up and sat staring at the boy. He had placed his cigarette behind one ear and was cupping the orange rope wick with the palm of one hand. Then the goatherd made a gesture that the boy would often see him make in the weeks to come. With the tips of thumb and index finger he wiped away the saliva from the corners of his mouth. Then he did the same with just his index finger, as if to smooth aside any hairs from his unruly moustache.

  ‘Sit down, it’s time to eat.’

  The man pointed to a spot near his feet, and the boy did as he was told. For a while, the goatherd continued flicking the wheel of his rope lighter and unsuccessfully blowing on the wick. The boy watched in silence, mouth half-open, astonished at the old man’s inepitude, for sometimes he missed the wheel altogether or failed to strike it hard enough. The boy’s hands began moving of their own accord because he had often used such a lighter himself.

  When the old man finally managed to light the cigarette and take his first few puffs, he rested his free hand on the ground and relaxed his shoulders as if he had just completed a very necessary task. He pursed his lips and whistled, and the dog got up and ran to the place where the goats were already beginning to stir. The dog immediately rounded up a group of brown goats and brought them over to where the man was sitting. Without even getting up, the man used his crook to hook a goat round one of its hind legs and drag it towards him. Then, keeping a firm grip on the animal with one hand, he pushed the blanket aside and drew in his legs. The boy watched this manoeuvre, surprised at the old man’s sudden show of agility, given that only a moment before, it had taken him an age simply to light a cigarette. When the goatherd had the rear end of the goat in front of him, he placed a metal saucepan underneath its udders. The first drops fell, tinkling, into the pan. When he had enough milk, he gave the goat a slap and it skittered off to rejoin its fellows. Then he held out the pan to the boy, but when the boy didn’t move, he set it down on the ground and continued smoking his cigarette.

  They sat in silence, gnawing on wedges of greasy cheese, strips of dried meat and a little stale bread. The goatherd took long swigs from his wineskin, and the boy wondered when the man would ask who he was and what he was doing there. He was afraid that news of his disappearance might also have reached this part of the plain, because he was all too aware that, however arduous his adventure had proved up until now, he was still not that far from the village. At one point, it occurred to him that the old man’s welcome could be a trick to hold him there while he waited for the search party or even for the bailiff himself to arrive. In that case, he knew exactly what he would do. He would run back to the clump of prickly pears and crouch down among them. The horses would paw the ground around the cactus spines, but would not dare to come near. If the search party wanted to take him home, they would have to drag him out. They would have to risk tearing their shirts and getting scratched or else, still mounted, riddle him with bullets and then, finally, kill the only witness.

  When the old man had finished his breakfast, he reached into a pannier and brought out a crumpled sheet of newspaper. He used this to wrap up some food and then offered the package to the boy, who sat staring back at him. When the goat
herd grew tired of holding out his arm, he did as he had with the saucepan of milk, and put the package down on the ground. He stowed the rest of the food in the pannier and again asked the boy to help him up. The boy went over and it was only then that he became aware of the mixture of aromas emanating from the man’s body: the sickly aura of wine that hung around his head and mouth and the stench of dried sweat given off by his leathery skin. When the man stood up, he wasn’t much taller than the boy. His trousers were tied around the waist with a piece of string, and his boots looked as if they were made of cardboard. After helping him to his feet, the boy took a few steps back and stood watching the man, who was becoming more agile with each passing minute. The boy was again surprised by the ease with which he bent down to retrieve the blanket and fold it up. With the blanket over his arm, the old man whistled to the dog, which sprang to its feet and ran off to where the other goats were grazing.

  The old man went over to the pyramid-shack and reached in through an opening in the branches that served as an entrance. He returned carrying a cork stool and a metal bucket. He took down the milk churn from where it hung on the wall and carried everything over to a small square enclosure. The dog had gathered the goats together and, by dint of barking and snapping at their heels, was herding them towards his master. When they had all arrived, the man removed one post from the corner of the corral fence, creating an opening through which he shooed in the goats. When they were all inside, he replaced the pole and joined it to its neighbour with the thick wire loop attached to one of them. Crammed in together, the goats were bleating furiously and trying to clamber on top of each other, resembling nothing so much as a pot of boiling stew.