The Sleeping World

by Gabrielle Lucille Fuentes

  “Could they pay us?” La Canaria asked.

  “I think so. They’re good people. Young, with three children.”

  I could see them in my head, the way kids on the edges of cities looked. Like shrubs I didn’t know the name of, kids all seemed the same to me. Sweetened milk caked around their mouths, dirt in rings around their necks. As if their mothers held them there when they dipped them in dirty water for protection, leaving the most important parts exposed, white top of the throat, white eyelids.

  When we got up to the farm, the kids did look like that—matted hair, a blur of taut bellies not completely covered by worn shirts. They galloped over the crumbling stone walls and down mossy stairs. The farm was built on a few slivers of level ground, each building sharing a wall. It had been a large family hamlet once. There was only one structure intact. But the kids were smiling at us and tugging at our jeans. They weren’t like animals everyone kicks. There were two boys and a toddler girl. The older boy had the thin, pinched cheeks of not having settled into a recent growth spurt. I looked at the younger boy, blond hair and open, eager brown eyes, and was smacked by the memory of Alexis crying over the death of a spider after Abuela ironed the spring linen. It tormented him for weeks. He wove the spider’s life for it, described in agony its agony, as if he didn’t know what else there was to hurt for, as if he needed more.

  Marco knelt by the boys and pointed to something in his hand, and they laughed. I walked up to the mother.

  She was only a few years older than we were, and her oldest kid was around five. She was like the girls I’d see in the plaza in Casasrojas, long hair down their backs, tight bell bottoms on, laughing. They’d turn and their stomachs were huge, proof they had only a few weeks left. There were doctors in Madrid who would do it, and women in every town willing to shove a piece of bamboo up your cervix for all the pesetas you had, willing to lie when they said it wouldn’t kill you. A wealthy girl could fly to London, but for most of us, it was a life sentence one way or another.

  The mother, Berta, was pregnant, and she had this surprised look, like she really was one of those girls in the plaza who couldn’t believe the huge weight suddenly attached to her. She had blond hair that massed uncombed down her back and a faded blue kerchief folded in a triangle on top of her head. She blinked repeatedly. When she smiled, first at her boys, then at me, there were thin lines forming around her mouth, just the faintest pencil strokes quickly erased, only slightly visible. We tried to find a common language.

  They were German. She could speak some Castilian but had English, good English. I felt La Canaria drift up close to my body, affixing herself firmly to me. I wondered again how much I would tell her, what I would leave out and why. Berta’s husband, Franz, walked up to us and La Canaria watched him. He walked behind us, held his hand out to Marco and Grito. He was older than Berta was, not by much. He looked younger somehow, seemed to weigh much less, his hair long and downy. They weren’t made to be outside and certainly not high up on this mountain, so close to the sun. Even beneath the sunburn, they had a gleam to their skin that only the wealthy have, a sort of elasticity in the way their fingers and lips moved. The kids didn’t have it.

  Brushing aside a wall of vines with bright yellow flowers and a swishing fly door, Berta invited us into the house. She left the door open and the kids and Franz followed, pressing against one another into the dark of the kitchen. A cat ran in after them with half a salamander in its mouth.

  The kitchen was filled with smoke. The once-white plaster walls were blackened in layers of soot, darkest near the open chimney. Rows of shelves snaked the small space, dividing it so we couldn’t all stand together. We had to separate and drift in between the different cupboards. They were filled with jars and secured by twine to the ceiling. The wood wobbled if touched, the movement jittering into glass.

  Berta made a rich quick bread with eggs, brown flour, and cinnamon. She carefully tore open the bottom of the bag of flour and shook into the dough the final dusting caught in the folds of paper. We ate the bread with stew that had a few potatoes and carrots but was mostly water. The boys ran laps around the table, sitting still only to steal food from each other, one eating the carrots the other set aside to save until the end. The eldest boy ate only the insides of his bread, draping the crust to frame his face. He swore when Berta reached to pull it off his face, and then his father, who hadn’t looked at them all dinner, yelled sharply in German. Berta spoke to us slowly, balancing her daughter on her leg beside her swollen stomach. I could tell she was smart, but it was clouded. She had to sift through so much just to shape her mouth in a way we could understand. She said that when they came to the mountain, the room we were in was the only one intact.

  “It still is,” Franz said, trying to make a joke.

  “It’s very slow work here,” Berta said. “Everything keeps falling apart. And the soil is very thin.”

  “We’re not really farmers,” Franz said. “Isn’t that obvious! But you can make a place fertile if you have enough water, which we do. There are springs everywhere, clear good water just coming out of the rock. Yes, that’s one thing we have enough of, water—and babies.” He grabbed the eldest boy racing past and pulled him close to his body, kissed him on top of his dirty blond head.

  “We put up a great deal of food for the winter,” Berta said proudly, gesturing back at the shelves stacked with glass jars. “But the spring has been slow in coming.” Most of the jars were empty.

  “We thought the winter would be the hardest,” Franz said. “But it’s now—when you can almost taste the food, even though it hasn’t grown yet.”

  Grito looked up at me. He had finished his bowl of stew and was slowly chewing his bread, an old trick to make it last. This was the way the old people used to talk. Spring hunger would surprise you if you didn’t know how to plan for it. They said that during the worst years after the war, spring was when the most people died.

  “We need money for seeds—” Berta said to no one.

  “No, we can’t just eat grass like the sheep,” Franz said.

  “But we’re very glad you’re here,” Berta said, smiling earnestly. “Tomorrow Franz will sell the lambs in town and bring back seeds and we can all get to work.”

  We nodded, except for La Canaria, who had stayed silent and still the whole meal, moving just to eat. Marco was the only one who didn’t look worried. He spoke comfortably with Franz and Berta until Franz got up to check on the sheepdogs.

  “We don’t have the nicest place for you to sleep, but it will be your place. We won’t go in it,” Berta said.

  Outside, the ground and steps were wet from the gathering dew. Cool air settled around us. All that was visible were pines and bare green hills rolling into dark. A pink and orange sky with clouds as big as the mountains rising behind them, their movements slow and dramatic as armadas. We picked our way through the broken rocks, unclear which piles were mountain and which were ruins of the farm that used to be there. Behind the kitchen and sharing one of its walls was a huge open room with the roof mostly intact.

  “This is where they used to dry the chestnuts to make flour,” Berta said. Off to one side, the old wooden floor fell away to several meters of darkness, what was below it invisible in the twilight. From underneath a tarp, Berta handed us several sleeping bags that smelled musty but seemed dry. “I’ll wake you up in the morning for coffee.” She looked down at my and La Canaria’s feet. “And I’ll find you some boots. You can’t work in those.”

  La Canaria and Marco unrolled their sleeping bags. Grito followed Berta out. When he didn’t speak, she handed him the flashlight and disappeared behind a crumbling wall covered in green moss. I realized we hadn’t discussed getting paid.

  We needed the flashlight, especially inside, where the light from the ringed moon didn’t reach. The air and the stones, everything we touched, was wet. I could understand that water came ou
t of rocks here, the whole world dripping. Sheep bleated and Grito kept opening his mouth and closing it. I was so tired it seemed that he was the one making the sound. I was about to tell him this when he spoke.

  “Noche que la noche nochera,” Grito whispered. It was a line from a Lorca poem we used to read aloud. The night that night made night. In that moment it made sense like it never had before, looking out over the pines blackening into a black sky. An entity defined by its own existence, made into itself by what it already was. I wanted to reach out and touch him. Just to say that I remembered that line, even if I didn’t want the whole memory anymore. But I didn’t know how much of it I did want. I tried to remember the rest of the poem—necklaces of almonds, a city of doors and sowing flames—but the next line didn’t come.

  Grito turned to go back inside, taking the flashlight. I didn’t move toward him. In the poem, gypsies make suns with their small fires, but here there were no scattered lights, the pines enclosing. We were on the edge of the space we’d made, and we were cutting even the twine that bound us. That was how Grito wanted it. But the night didn’t need more night to make it what it already was. And in the end, it was still only night, unchanged and alone. That wasn’t enough for me anymore.

  Nine

  Franz was out working by the time we came into the kitchen. The boys were off somewhere, too, the silence of the chestnut trees interrupted often enough by their shouts that Berta didn’t worry.

  She gave us a weak, gritty coffee that completely filled our teacups, and sweet biscuits.

  “Americano,” Marco said.

  “Watered down,” La Canaria whispered to me. “At least they don’t eat like those Brits. I can’t take breakfast this early. I think I’d puke it up.”

  Berta carried her cup and we followed her out into the garden. She led us to a hill already drenched in sunlight. The land had been carved into terraces, some very narrow. She tied her daughter to her waist like a goat. “I can’t have her falling off,” Berta said. The terraces must have been made long ago. The corners were rounded into tired knuckles, and the edges had crumbled into piles on the lower terraces. Tall grass covered remnants of structures, cornerstones hidden under years of matted debris.

  “This is our project for the spring,” Berta said. “This area was a hamlet. It had been empty for twenty years when we got here. This used to be the vegetable garden.”

  “You want to make this into a garden?” La Canaria said.

  “Yes, see there, that will be the tomatoes.” Berta pointed to a thick clump of brambles taking up half a terrace. “For market. We’ll try to sell some.”

  Berta had Grito and Marco start breaking up the sod with long, thin shovels. La Canaria and I followed her up the hill. The buildings were stacked on narrow sections of somewhat level ground, their corners carved back into the mountain. Every step we took was slanted. Berta moved quickly up the hill, as if she had hooves instead of boots, even with the girl tied to her. Some of the buildings were completely buried by earth and grasses. I’d think I was stepping up a really steep part of the hill, and when I looked back, I could see the shape of a wall, corners dulled beneath the sod.

  Behind the chestnut mill where we’d slept was a somewhat intact structure. It was once several stories, but the roof and the second-story walls had crumbled years ago. It was now just a stone box emerging out of the grass. Berta picked up a ladder from the ground and swung it against the wall. She untied the girl and handed her to me, then climbed up the ladder.

  “You can help me bring the dogs down,” she said to La Canaria, who looked at me and tightened her lips. Two sheepdogs stuck their heads out over the edge of the building, whining in high-pitched notes. They circled the structure’s flat roof, scenting the air and wanting down.

  La Canaria didn’t move to climb up the ladder. She wouldn’t even look at the dogs. “I’m not going near them,” she said. I put the girl at her feet and went up after Berta.

  From the top of the structure I could see Marco and Grito working away at the sod. The grass was thick and its roots dug deep into the soil. They had to peel off almost thirty centimeters to get to clear dirt. Marco bent down and curled up strips of sod that Grito had loosened. They had barely spoken since the car ride. At the edge of the terrace was only blank blue sky.

  On the roof, the two dogs ran up to me yapping. My abuelo had the same kind of dogs in the country—black and white with short hair, long, lean bodies. I ignored them until one jumped up on me. I struck him firmly but not too hard on the snout.

  “Good,” Berta said. “You know how to treat them. They’re not pets.”

  We brought the dogs down off the structure. They stayed still in our arms and then leaped away from us when we set them down, circling the building and moving outward. La Canaria stood looking at the girl with her eyebrow raised and mouth set, daring her to move.

  “Marie,” Berta said to the girl. “Do you promise to stay close and then I won’t have to put you on the lead?”

  Marie nodded slowly, not taking her eyes off La Canaria.

  “She fell off one of the terraces last month and twisted her ankle,” Berta said. “I’m terrified to let her out of my sight, but I can’t work with her so close to me. She’s too big to carry and too small to let play with her brothers.”

  We followed the dogs up the hill to a fence with a wooden gate. The fence sloped down the mountain in one direction but stopped abruptly on the other. The pines emerged again at the top of the ridge, but for a while there was an empty stretch of grass and stones.

  “You could tie her to the fence,” La Canaria said. “If we’re not going far.”

  “Yes, all right.” Berta took the rope from around her waist and tied it to the fence post and to Marie. She could move a meter in any direction. The girl stepped as far as the rope would let her and then stood staring at us. Berta kissed her cheek and stood. “Today we have to separate out the lambs so Franz can take them to town. We have to make a temporary pen, and then we’ll have it when they need to be sheared.”

  Berta shook a bucket of grain and called out for the sheep. The dogs bolted away from us and disappeared over the other side of the hill. We could hear them barking to each other and then sheeps’ bells and their dull bickering. A ewe with a red collar and a large brass bell jutted her head over the hill, followed by the rest of the herd. When they came close to us, Berta started to count them. “There’s one lamb missing,” she said, frustrated. “We’ll have to go find him.”

  The ewes circled us, fighting to stuff their long heads into the bucket of grain. Their warm bodies pressed up against my legs and I could smell their sharp wool. None of their tails had been clipped. Mud and dung clung to their backsides like stew dripping out of a pot. Berta kept tossing the feed away from her to give us space, but the ewes knew where it came from and kept tight around us. La Canaria pushed through them and started down the hill. Berta watched her walk away without speaking. Marie was straining toward one of the lambs on the edge of the herd but not getting any closer to it. Below us, I could see La Canaria speaking to Marco and pointing back with her shoulder at us. Marco put down his shovel and came toward us.

  Berta made the dogs stay with the herd while we searched for the lamb. “If we can’t find the lamb soon, I’ll come get them,” she said. “Marie, be good, we’ll be back.”

  Marco saw the lamb first. We had come up over the first hill on the side where the forest reappeared. The lamb was down the hill near a gully. Patches of dirty snow still clung beneath overhanging rocks and in the roots of large trees. I didn’t know how he told the difference between the lamb and the dingy clumps of snow stuck with dried leaves and briars.

  The lamb’s leg was caught in an old bear trap. The metal probably would have gone right through its leg, but it had hit high on the haunches and dug down to the bone. The trap was covered by the broken branches of a thorned shrub. Thou
gh the trap itself was old, it looked well maintained, oiled recently and without rust.

  “What’s this doing here?” Marco asked. “Isn’t this your land?”

  “I don’t know,” Berta said. She bent down to put her face close to the lamb’s and cooed at it. The lamb’s mouth was open slightly, its pink tongue swollen in its mouth. Breath came rapidly but without any strength. The air could not get past the tongue and instead circled the crowded mouth frantically.

  Marco pushed the branches away from the lamb to see its leg better. The wool around the wound was matted with dried blood. The lamb didn’t even flinch when Marco touched its leg. It just kept its mouth open, pink tongue sticking slightly out. It must have been trying to bleat.

  “Where’s its mother?” Marco asked.

  “She’s a bad one,” Berta said, her face turned away from us and looking down the hill. “She’s probably back with the herd, stealing feed.”

  Marco felt carefully with his fingers around the trap until he found the release. The spring snapped, but the metal clung, buried in the lamb’s leg.

  “It’s stuck in the bone,” Marco said. “Do you want me to even try?”

  “I’d like to—my flock is too small as it is,” Berta said. “He was going to be our ram.”

  Marco pressed his hands down on the lamb’s back. Its breathing seemed to slow, and it lowered its head toward the ground. Berta stood up and looked again down into the gully. If the trap had been set there, we’d never have found the lamb. Even low on the hill, you could see only parts of the ditch. You didn’t know how much you couldn’t see.

  “One of the neighbors went to visit her sister,” Berta said. “This was a long time ago, when there were more people here. The snow was deep and she got caught in a storm. She was only going over one hill, but she never got there. They had to wait until spring for the snow to melt so they could search for her body.”