“I’ve been to town.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“Shit, Natan, you told me you were planning to go.”
“But I didn’t tell you I was definitely going.”
“It’s late, let me sleep.”
“You don’t know what it’s like.”
Daniel reopened his eyes and looked again at his brother standing there all excited and dirty. Suddenly he understood that his brother wasn’t going away.
“Wait,” he said finally.
Outside, in the meadow next to the farmyard, the two boys lay down and Natan started telling his brother all the things he had seen in the city, all the smells, the people hurrying along the streets, the inns every few metres, everyone shouting and screaming, the thousand sounds and colours and lights that came at you constantly from all sides, the girls of every shape and size, dressed in every possible colour, the shops selling flowers, cakes, tools and everything you could ask for.
Natan kept his brother there until dawn, and in the end, when he couldn’t take it any more, he said that everything he had just told him wasn’t enough to describe a thousandth part of what you could find in a city. A whole lifetime wouldn’t be enough, he said, to tell about all the things and people and stories you could find there.
When Natan had finished speaking, they lay there in silence for a few minutes. The blue light of dawn was already starting to appear behind the hills. Then Daniel got to his feet.
“I have to go to work,” he said.
“You should come once,” Natan said.
Daniel had nodded and helped his brother to get up. “See you later,” he said.
Now Natan was spending more time in the city than anywhere else. He would disappear for weeks on end, then suddenly come back for two or three days, then disappear again.
Often he would come home with a few scratches on his face, or a black eye. Daniel knew he had been fighting again, but he didn’t care. His brother had always been like that.
When Natan disappeared, though, it wasn’t always to go to the city. Some people were ready to swear they had seen him sleeping with his horse in a clearing in the hills. Natan had always liked being on his own, he said that you could always rely on yourself, that however sick or twisted you were it always added up somehow. Daniel didn’t know; he’d never thought about it.
Daniel never knew how Natan paid for his food. The only thing he knew for certain was that he never asked anyone for anything.
Once, their father had come to Daniel and asked him about his brother. Daniel had looked at him without knowing what to say.
“What do you want to know?” he asked.
For the first time in his life, Daniel had the impression that his father was floundering.
“I don’t know. How does he live?”
Daniel wondered if the person in front of him was really his father. “He lives his own life,” he said.
His father had nodded for a few seconds, then went away without a word.
A few evenings later, perhaps out of respect for this old man who resembled his father, Daniel had asked Natan how he was doing. Natan had looked at Daniel the same way Daniel must have looked at his father a few evenings earlier.
“I get by,” Natan said. And that had been the end of the conversation.
DANIEL HAD IN FACT sometimes felt like following his brother to the city to see what it was like. A couple of times he had even been on the point of telling him, or stopping him when he saw him ride away on his chestnut. But every time he was about to open his mouth and get the words out, it was as if there was some kind of barrier stopping them, and he stood there watching the figure of his brother riding off along the road.
One evening when Natan was at home, Daniel went and found him in the stable, where he was giving his chestnut a last brush-down.
“Listen,” Daniel said. “I need you to do me a favour.”
Natan stopped brushing for a moment and gave him a puzzled look. “What kind of favour?”
“You have to come with me and do something.”
“What?”
“You’ll see.”
Natan thought it over for a moment. “I’m tired,” he said.
“So am I,” Daniel said.
“All right,” Natan said. “What do I have to do?”
“Saddle your horse, we’re going to old Pancia’s.”
“My horse is tired, too.”
“It won’t kill him.”
By the time they got to old Pancia’s, it was after midnight and the almost full moon had spread a bluish-grey veil over the landscape.
“Wait here,” Daniel said. “And don’t make any noise.” He left the reins of his bay in his brother’s hands and vanished behind old Pancia’s house.
When he reappeared, he was leading another horse at the end of a rope.
“Who’s he?” Natan asked when he came level.
“She. It’s a mare.”
“Who’s she?” Natan said.
Daniel took the bay’s reins off his hands and, still holding the rope that held First Deal, got back in the saddle. “She’s mine.”
“Yours?”
“Yes, mine.”
“Since when?”
“A while.”
Daniel gave a little kick with his legs and set off at a walking pace, with the mare behind him. They rode in silence in the moonlight for several minutes. It had been a while since they had last spent time together, and they both rather missed the times when they used to go out to the lake at night and go fishing. They could spend hours on end without talking, and it had seemed to them then that life could always be like that. But now it had changed a lot, in a way that neither of them had fully expected.
“Did you buy her?” Natan asked after a while.
Daniel nodded.
“Where did you get the money?”
“I worked and saved it.”
For a moment, perhaps for the first time in his life, Natan felt something close to envy. “Did you have enough?”
“Old Pancia lent me a bit. But I didn’t pay much, because she was sick. The owner thought she was dying and was going to send her to the abattoir.”
“What happened?”
“We cured her.”
Natan looked at his brother for a moment, then looked back at the road. “So you got a good deal,” he said.
They fell silent again, and for a moment Natan felt like asking where they were going, but then he told himself it didn’t make much difference.
They came to a clearing, which Natan did not recognise in the dim light. They descended a fairly steep path lined with bushes, at the bottom of which they caught a glimpse of a big stone house. When they reached the open space in front of the house, Daniel dismounted and looked around, then held out the reins and rope to his brother. Natan gave him a puzzled look, his hands resting on his chestnut’s neck.
“Here,” Daniel said under his breath. “Take the horses and go down there on the left. You’ll see an enclosure. Wait for me there.”
Natan took the reins and the rope. “And you?” he asked.
“I’ll be there soon. Now go.”
Natan watched as his brother walked towards the house, looking around him like a thief as he went. After a few steps Daniel stopped and turned back to look at his brother.
“Don’t make a noise,” he said, as if talking to a little boy, then continued walking towards the house.
Natan sat there for a few seconds, wondering what the hell his brother was up to. He looked down in the direction Daniel had pointed: a path descended on the left, with meadows on either side, and in the moonlight the grass and the horses’ breath seemed like part of a painting.
At last, he made up his mind to move. He gave a tug on the ropes attached to Daniel’s horses and turned his own chestnut towards the path.
This was the German’s property. It was years since Natan had last been here, and in the meantime that weird foreigner
who lived in the house had cleaned things up, planting grass and cutting down trees and bushes. Natan had the feeling of being in another country, as if someone had cut a piece off another part of the world and stuck it here without too much thought.
At the bottom of the path, on the right, Natan saw the enclosure Daniel had mentioned. He rode towards it, pulling his brother’s horses behind him, looked around to make sure nobody was there, and dismounted. Calmly, he tied the three animals to the enclosure, took a packet of tobacco from his pocket, sat down on the fence and started rolling a cigarette. The next day he would go back to the city, he thought. He had already spent two or three days in these hills and he was starting to feel too clean. With the smoke from his mouth playing with the breeze and the moonlight, he wondered if one of these days he would go further than the city and see what there was beyond the mountains. He wondered if it was true what some people said: that if you kept going without ever stopping you’d end up back where you started. The first person to tell him that had been an old man with a beard, sitting in an inn. Natan had thought that was stupid: it seemed to him that if you kept going and didn’t stop, you didn’t know where you’d end up.
“The world is round,” the old man had said, and that had somehow put an end to the conversation.
Natan heard a distant shuffling behind him. He turned and saw a horse descending from the house with a person attached. It was Daniel, who was trying with some difficulty to drag a huge horse as black as pitch. It took him several minutes to reach the enclosure. The big black horse kept shying and stopping and rushing forwards and breathing through his nose like a train. Digging in his heels, pulling on the rope and slapping the horse’s neck, Daniel tried as best he could to restrain and orientate him.
When he came level with Natan, he told him, panting, to open the enclosure. Natan jumped down from the fence, ran to the opening, lifted the stakes and moved them aside, while Daniel tried to keep the black horse still.
“Go,” Natan said when he had finished opening the enclosure.
Daniel glanced at it a couple of times as if measuring the opening, then in a single movement turned on his heels, ran a few steps, dragging the horse behind him, and threw him inside, untying the rope as he did so.
“Close it,” he said immediately.
Natan rushed to close the enclosure as quickly as he could.
When he had finished, he turned and went to stand beside his brother. The black horse was bucking and kicking inside the enclosure, but gradually calming down. Daniel was leaning on the fence with his head down. His chest rose and fell rapidly as it used to do when they were children and they stopped after a long run.
“What now?” Natan asked, watching the splendid black horse as he gradually calmed down.
Daniel looked up at his brother. The moon and the stars seemed to be reflected in the sweat running down his face. “Do you think they heard us?” he asked, breathing just a little more slowly.
“Let’s hope not,” Natan said.
“Yes, let’s hope not,” Daniel replied, raising his eyes towards the black horse. “Beautiful, isn’t he?”
Natan nodded. “Very,” he said. “Are we stealing him?”
Daniel shot him a glance and smiled. “No, we’re not stealing him.”
“Pity,” Natan said. “He’s a beautiful animal.”
Daniel walked around his brother and carried on to where their horses were. He untied First Deal from the fence and led her back to the entrance of the enclosure. Natan laughed and went to open it.
“If the German finds out, he’ll smash your head in,” Natan said as his brother let the mare into the enclosure.
“Just imagine if we’d stolen him,” Daniel said, happily. Natan gave another little laugh.
Natan and Daniel stood for a while leaning on the fence, looking into the enclosure, where the two horses slowly approached each other, blowing steam from their nostrils.
Natan put his hand in his pocket, took out the tobacco and started rolling another cigarette.
“Where did you get it?”
Natan looked up for a moment, as if not sure what Daniel was referring to. “In the city,” he said.
For a few seconds, Daniel watched his brother fiddling with the tobacco and the little piece of paper as if he’d been doing it all his life. “Will you make me one, too?” he asked.
Natan looked up and lifted an eyebrow, as if to make sure that Daniel was really talking about a cigarette. “Sure,” he said.
For a couple of minutes they watched the two horses slowly approach each other in the enclosure. From time to time their cigarettes would go out and have to be relit.
“It may be best to move the others away from the fence,” Daniel said.
They took the bay and the chestnut and tied them to a tree some twenty or thirty metres further on. They loosened the saddle girths, gave the horses’ necks a couple of slaps and went and lay down on the grass, each with one hand behind his head and the cigarette smoke drifting up towards the stars.
Daniel had never liked smoking, or at any rate had never had any great interest in it. But tonight was different. Tonight it was as if the city Natan had talked so much about was in the smoke that passed through his mouth and into his lungs.
It was as if all his brother’s stories about the mixture of people and smells and sounds and colours had condensed into that thick tasty air that pounded his lungs and made his head feel light. This must be what being in the city was like: feeling dirty but happy. Over the years, whenever Daniel wanted to think about his brother, he would simply light a cigarette.
“It’s good,” Daniel said at last, lifting the cigarette slightly towards his brother.
“Yes, it’s not bad,” Natan said.
Daniel turned for a moment to look towards the enclosure, then stretched out again with one hand behind his head. “Have you ever done it?” he asked.
“What?”
“That.”
Natan turned his head towards his brother, and saw that he was pointing behind them. He leant on his elbow and looked back. In the enclosure, First Deal seemed crushed by the huge black stallion, who was making great thrusts with his hind quarters. Natan gave a half-laugh and lay down again. “Sure,” he said.
“Really?”
“Of course. There are loads of girls in the city. Loads of whores, too.”
Daniel took a last drag on his cigarette, threw it far away and put his other hand behind his head.
“Why, haven’t you?”
“No.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Natan thought about it for a few seconds. “You should,” he said.
“Right. And who with? There are no whores here.”
“The pharmacist’s daughter.”
“The pharmacist’s daughter? What the hell are you talking about? You think she’s a whore?”
“Of course not. But I’ve seen the way she looks at you, like the other day when you went to get that stuff for old Pancia.”
Daniel thought about it for a moment. “What do you mean, the way she looks at me?”
“You know, the way she looks at you.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
Daniel thought about it for another moment. “She’s pretty, the pharmacist’s daughter.”
Natan glanced at his brother and for a moment thought he saw him smile. He nodded. “Very pretty.”
They fell silent again for a few minutes, each thinking his own thoughts.
“And how is it?” Daniel asked.
Natan turned his head slightly, trying to understand what Daniel was referring to. “Warm,” he said.
For another half-hour they lay on the grass in silence. Then Daniel raised himself on his elbow and looked to see what was happening in the enclosure. “Let’s go,” he said.
Natan turned and glanced back, too, then sat up, crac
ked his spine, and finally got to his feet. If it had been up to him, he would have stayed there till morning. They walked back to the enclosure.
“Take a rope and tie the mare,” Daniel said. “I’ll try and get the stallion.”
First Deal let herself be taken almost at once. The stallion, though, tried to get away a few times, but in the end, with a bit of skill, Daniel managed to grab hold of him.
They repeated the previous operation in reverse: Natan opened the gate of the enclosure and Daniel led the stallion back up. In the meantime, Natan got the other horses and took them back towards the house, where he waited for his brother to return.
As he waited, Natan thought of rolling himself another cigarette. He had barely had time to put the tobacco in the paper when he heard a man shouting from somewhere behind the house. He turned abruptly and saw his brother emerge from behind the wall, running as fast as he could.
“Stop, you piece of shit!” he heard again from behind the house.
“Go, go, go!” Daniel yelled in an undertone as he came level. He mounted his bay as he did so, took the reins and rope from his brother’s hands and set off at great speed. “Go!” he said again.
They heard more shouting. “STOP!”
A shot rang out. Natan could have sworn he felt bullets whistling past his ear. “Fuck this,” he said, instinctively ducking his head and increasing speed.
Daniel laughed.
“Fuck off,” Natan said.
They continued at a fast gallop until they came close to old Pancia’s house. The hooves beat on the road like the drums in a band.
When they got home, after taking First Deal back to old Pancia’s, they dismounted and started taking off the saddles.
“Do you think they recognised us?”
Daniel glanced at his brother. “Let’s hope not.”
They placed the saddles and bridles side by side on the fence and took the horses back to the stable. They put new water in the pails and hay in the manger. They gave the horses a few good slaps on their necks and walked back to the house.
“Thanks,” Daniel said just before they went in.
“Don’t mention it.”
Fists Page 7
