Out in the Open (10 page)

He spent the night next to the old man's motionless body. A warm breeze was blowing, bringing with it the bleating of a few nervous goats. The man's forehead was burning hot and he kept moaning in his sleep, a dull, continuous drone.

The boy was so exhausted that he woke only when it was already late morning. That was when he realised what had happened. The old man was still lying motionless by his side, covered only by the tattered remains of his clothes. Before beating him, the bailiff and his men had removed his jacket, leaving only his shirt. Where they had beaten him hardest, the cloth was stuck to his skin. His face was smeared with dried blood. His poor lips were covered in sores and red gashes, his closed lids as swollen as ripe figs. His limbs were bruised and the red weals on his side resembled extra ribs. The boy again tried to wake him, but the man did not respond. He pulled hard on his arm in an attempt to get him to sit up, but it was as if the old man's body were nailed to the floor of the tower. He slapped his face, and only then did the old man give any sign of life.

‘Don't hit me, boy. I've had quite enough of that.'

In the old man's prostrate condition, with his eyes closed and his voice blurred, it seemed as if it wasn't him who was speaking, but his mind. The boy shook his head in a gesture that, far from releasing the tension he felt, only increased it. Then he covered his face with his hands and ran his rough palms over his skin. Incapable of taking in what had happened, he felt an urge to burst into tears, to cry out or even to inflict harm on himself.

‘Bring me some water.'

The boy ran off. On the other side of the wall, half a dozen goats, their throats slit, lay in the area that had been shrouded in shadow on the previous afternoon.Their fly-studded wounds were like broad chinstrap smiles. The flies, often mounted one on top of the other, swarmed insalubriously over the wounds, doubtless depositing both eggs and infections. The three surviving goats were grazing nearby, indifferent to the massacre of their fellows and focused entirely on the needs of their own stomachs. The donkey was standing some way off. There was no sign of the dog or the billy goat.

The contents of the panniers were scattered near the wall: the empty olive oil can, the frying pan, various rags, the crook and the shearing scissors; the plundered basket of raisins and the tobacco pouch turned inside out. He found the flasks uncorked and fallen on the ground. He tried each in turn, but only a few drops of water came out.

He carried them over to where the old man was lying and placed them upside down before him. The old man gave a snort of despair or resignation and seemed to want to close his eyes more tightly, as if this news made his weals burn still more intensely. In the face of this bottomless pit of pain, the boy felt that had the old man not been in such a state of extreme debilitation, he would gladly have killed himself.

‘Milk one of the goats.'

The boy decided not to use the method employed by the goatherd, imagining that it would take too long to fix the bucket firmly in the ground and tether the goat's back legs to the rods. He found the tin where he had thrown it down when he first spotted the bailiff and the two men. He wiped it clean on the tail of his shirt and went over to where the goats were grazing. He crept up to one of them, but, as soon as the creature noticed him, it ran away. He went over to the next one, but with the same result. He spent quite a while chasing after them, but they slipped from his fingers like mercury. He went back to the wall to fetch the goatherd's crook and tried to remember how the old man had used it. He put it under his arm as if he were Don Quixote with his lance and set off towards the goats. The crook, however, was heavier than he thought and, as he walked, one end tipped forward and became stuck in the earth. He picked it up again and, gripping it firmly with both hands, approached his prey from behind. He slipped the crook between the animal's legs, but the goat took fright and fled. After several attempts, he resorted to the rather clumsier method of running after them and using the crook to trip them up. When this method finally succeeded, he threw down the crook, leapt on the goat and pinned it to the ground.

Then, grabbing one of the goat's hind legs, he dragged the creature over to the wall. Forced to walk backwards, the goat stumbled and fell every few yards, but the boy persisted, pulling at the goat as if he were lugging a great sack full of rabbits. Having wasted a lot of time just trying to catch the goat, he now had to milk it. He would have liked to present himself at the tower bearing a tinful of milk within minutes of receiving his orders. Just to prove to the old man that he had made good use of his time with him, and that, without him realising, he had been observing his every move and had absorbed some of his knowledge. However unconsciously, he wanted the old man to feel proud of him. He tied the goat's hind legs together, then tethered it to a rock. Placing the tin under the goat's udder, he knelt down. The first kick landed square in his stomach and the second on one cheekbone. The wound that had reopened when he'd pressed his face to the arrow slit began bleeding profusely. He fell back, winded, unable to fill his lungs. All the breath knocked out of him. He got up and, mouth open, managed to gulp down the air he needed. After several deep breaths, he recovered sufficiently to approach the animal again and give it a kick in the ribs. The goat bleated, then immediately resumed its search for food. The boy touched his raw cheekbone and his fingers slithered over a bone he could no longer feel. He looked at his fingers and saw that they were stained bright red. Like those gleaming toffee apples you buy at fairs. He didn't really have time to think, but the throbbing in his face was a painful reminder of the hours he had spent in the tower. His skin smeared with soot, his cheekbone burning from being pressed hard against the stone arrow slit. His hair, which was now the texture of tow, stank of stale smoke, a stench that would take him a lifetime to get rid of.

On the other side of the wall, however, he heard the old man moan and immediately dismissed his own aches and pains. He searched about for some bits of straw and placed them before the goat, then he positioned the tin under its udder and again knelt down. He grabbed the teats with his bloodied hands and tugged. The teats stretched as if they were made of warm rubber, but no milk came out. He squeezed and massaged the teats. He spat on his palms and rubbed them together forming a film of blood, soot and saliva. He started again. His fingers moved roughly over the teats until a few drops fell onto the ground. The goat continued to munch on the straw. It took the boy quite a while to achieve anything resembling a flow of milk. The tin was too small and, at first, he couldn't direct the stream directly into it, the milk dribbling onto the dust. He then held the mug immediately under the teat and milked using just one hand. When he had a couple of inches of liquid in the tin, he stood up and went back to the old man.

By the time he had caught and milked the goat, the sun had risen above the wall and begun to beat down on the tower. He found the goatherd lying, unprotected, in the sun. He appeared to be unconscious, and the boy feared that he had arrived too late. He jiggled the old man's arm and again slapped his face, but this time got no reaction. He decided to drag him into the shade. He grabbed him under the arms and pulled, but the old man was too heavy. He paused for breath, filled by a feeling of utter exhaustion and by a desperate thirst that had been building for many hours, but which circumstances had prevented him from quenching. He drank down all the milk in the tin and, even when there was not a drop left, remained standing with the tin pressed against his face.

He set off across the dry clods of earth in search of the donkey, who was attempting to graze on what was now only a distant memory of ancient furrows. Evidence that someone had been there before them, trying to claw something out of the soil that the plain was still jealously keeping to itself. The ruined castle bore witness to that. He returned, pulling the donkey by the frayed rope that hung down from the halter. It was a resigned, docile animal, with ulcers on its pasterns where it had been hobbled. It had a few bald patches here and there and some remnants of dried mud on its hooves. The marks left by the pool that had once existed around the reed bed.

The rope was far too short to tie around the old man's body; the boy needed something longer. He didn't find what he needed, but next to the old man's head, he found instead the bailiff's two brown cigarette ends. He imagined the three men blithely smoking as they watched the panniers burn, and instinctively he gritted his teeth.

He tied the rope around the old man's ankles, but the rope was so short that, when he had managed to tie a knot, the old man's boots were almost level with the donkey's mouth. The boy pushed against the donkey's chest, forcing it reluctantly backwards. The donkey brayed right in his ear, and the noise drilled into his brain. They managed to move a couple of yards. The goatherd's lifeless arms were drawn backwards in the process. Like the rough surface of a threshing board, the grit and pebbles from the crumbling wall stuck into the old man's flesh. He groaned out loud, and the boy put his ear to the goatherd's mouth and heard his irregular, but nonetheless encouraging, breathing.

He ran to the other side of the wall and returned with the saddlecloth. He tried and failed to place this between the old man's back and the ground, and opted instead to clear away all the debris that lay between them and the shade. The sun making his scalp sting. The old man's skin red and swollen. Flies like black teeth. He needed to stop and rest, but the old man's need was greater. He crawled along on all fours, clearing a path through the dust, casting aside any pebbles or bits of mortar. Then he again pushed against the donkey's chest and, at the first movement, the old man writhed helplessly, his groans now inaudible, his feet raised up by the rope, his back scraping over the ground and his arms flailing back and forth like unmanned rudders. A procession of the dead.

He placed the blanket on the ground in front of the blocked-off door to the castle, and dragged the old man over there. Pulling alternately on the man's arms and legs, he managed to make him as comfortable as possible. He raised the old man's head by placing a flat stone under the blanket and then prepared himself to hear whatever the goatherd had to tell him.

He granted the goatherd's first wish with heartening speed and efficiency, swiftly returning with half a tin of milk. He prised open the old man's mouth with his fingers and administered tiny amounts of milk. The goatherd's Adam's apple moved up and down beneath the worn skin of his throat, and the hairs of his beard moved too like a bed of seagrass at the mercy of the currents. Then, when the old man gestured to him to stop, he raised the tin to his own lips and drank what was left in one gulp.

With his back to the old man, he tried to pee into the tin, but with scant success. For days now, he had hardly peed at all. Nevertheless, he managed to produce a little dense, yellow liquid that stank of ammonia. He turned to the old man again and, using a tattered piece of cloth torn from his trousers and dipped in the urine, he cleaned the old man's wounds. He felt the old man flinch at every touch and saw tears leak out from beneath his closed eyelids. At one point, the old man grabbed the boy's arm, begging him to stop. The boy waited for as long as the old man maintained his grip, then, when his grip slackened, he resumed his work, which had been the goatherd's second request. When he finished, he tried to get up, but the old man's hand still held fast to his elbow. So he placed the tin on the ground, lay down beside the goatherd, and they both fell asleep.

WHEN HE OPENED
his eyes, the brief shadow cast by the wall had grown wider and longer, stretching out before them towards the empty horizon. The old man was lying awake by his side, hands folded on his chest and eyes fixed on the sky as if he wanted his gaze to linger for ever among the machicolations and corbels above. The boy sat up and gazed off into the distance. The old man spoke:

‘How many goats are there left?'

‘Three.'

‘The billy goat doesn't count.'

‘He's not here.'

The old man closed his eyes and sighed.

‘Did they kill him too?'

‘I don't know. I've only seen dead nanny goats so far.'

‘Take another look.'

The boy got to his feet and surveyed the area before them. He counted the bodies one by one, pointing with his finger.

‘Yes, six dead and all of them nanny goats. The dog and the billy goat have both disappeared.'

The old man thought that, sooner or later, the dog would return from wherever it had gone. As for the billy goat, he assumed the men had taken it for its horns. Perhaps the bailiff would sacrifice the goat and add its head to his other trophies.

‘You must go and find water as soon as possible.'

‘If you're thirsty, I can milk one of the goats. I know how to do it now.'

‘They're the ones who need the water.'

The boy took the milking pail and set off to fetch the water. A few yards from the well, he saw several crows perched on the edge. When he got there, he shooed the birds away with his hand and peered in. He heard the sound of buzzing and feared the worst. The scarce light entering the well was just enough for the boy to make out the decapitated corpse of the billy goat floating in the water, its stomach ripped open. All the flies in the area had gathered for the feast. They came and went like guests at a party. The arch over the well was thick with black dots.

It was almost dark by the time he got back. He told the old man what he'd found, and the old man gave a deep sigh at the thought of what awaited them. For the first time, the boy saw despair on the goatherd's face.

‘Don't worry,' said the boy, ‘we're bound to find some water nearby.'

‘No, there isn't any.'