Nothing But Dust

by Sandrine Collette

  On nights when the moon is full, he goes out and roams the steppe, perched on Halley’s back. Their ghostly form drifts through the dry black grass. Rafael ties old cloths around his horse’s hooves to stifle the sound; he takes a shovel with him, rides into the distance. The first weeks he tries to dig in fifty different spots, or is it a hundred. But every attempt ends with a hole so small he despairs of ever finding a patch of soft earth, where the rock will not get the better of his anger and his deadened arms; even when he takes a pickaxe, the stoniness of the earth resonates through his body, leaving him exhausted by dawn of the next day. At the very best spots he manages to dig a foot or two. On the days that preceded he often measured Mauro, walking by his side, a few steps, casual as could be, the time it took to reckon his height and width. Anything less than twenty inches deep is a waste of time: the carrion eaters would soon unearth a body so close to the surface. Sometimes with the first shove of the spade he senses the hostility of the rock. He climbs back on his horse and searches elsewhere.

  Of course there are the swamps. But it takes almost two hours to get there, and a bit longer to come back, when he and Halley are overcome by tiredness, to go there and back every night is impossible. He does try once, however. The atmosphere, the stinking breath of the earth, the strange glow deep below, it all repels him. The shiver up and down his spine tells him that this territory is cursed, already, as deadly a trap as quicksand, a place that will open the way only the better to close over him, a place infested with insects and stagnant water. Something holds him back, something like a presentiment, or fear. The horse, too, hesitates at the edge of the swamp: Rafael sees this as a sign. He turns back. Forget it. In any case it was too far away.

  Night after night, increasingly disheartened, he traces long, useless serpentines, to be sure not to miss the patch of land he so hopes to find. For a moment he is tempted by the orchards or the kitchen garden, then decides against it. Now that would be too close; the mother is always working there, and she’d see right away that someone had been tampering with the soil. So he criss-crosses the plain without really believing in it anymore, it’s become a sort of rite, not to give in. To drive back the nightmares. He sometimes drifts off to sleep on horseback. One night he is so tired he falls off. The fall wakens him: he no longer knows what he’s doing there or what he’s looking for. He instinctively remounts and Halley heads for the stables; Rafael lies down in the stall with him. Another time he sees three young foxes sitting next to a rock pile, and they don’t move as he comes nearer. From a distance he talks to them, wants to tame them. He slows his horse, not to frighten them, continues his monologue in a low voice, almost humming. The little foxes wait, unbelievably still. He thinks they are under a spell; they’re nothing but stones. When he rides up to the pile he shuts his eyes with disappointment.

  Halley walks for hours every night, tirelessly. The little brother and the horse are used to this yellow and blue and silvery steppe, with its baroque shadows, its silence scarcely troubled by the falling wind or the muffled hooves. They ride aimlessly, indefinable entities forming one body, they are stubborn, weary of their pointless quest; Rafael no longer even takes the shovel. They ride like legendary creatures punished by the gods, doomed by some unknown sin to wander forever. They do not rebel. The little brother leans to one side to turn the horse, follows a long imaginary line, shifts to the other side to come back along a parallel line, not ten yards further. The plain lies under the grid of their steps. They know it by heart. But it grants them nothing, offers only the harshness of its rocky surface, where Halley’s hooves leave no trace. It too is unyielding.

  Where you been? The twins corner him, some mornings, in the stable, when they see the sweat on Halley’s flanks. Where you been, idiot? You want us to tell the mother? He doesn’t answer, his fatigue has broken him, he cannot even keep his eyes focused on them. Tell the mother, tell her what?

  The moon burns the plain, patiently, and his body, his eyes reddened by that consuming white light that has left a strange scar on his neck where the buckle of his satchel has been pressing. Henceforth Rafael hides from the nocturnal rays and their hunger for skin and metal; he is fascinated by the sting of the evil star, and he rolls his sleeves down his arms, lowers his head beneath his hat, treats the wound on his neck with some neatsfoot oil. Imperceptibly, the iris of his pale eyes, the mane of his horse turn even paler, as if the moon were whitening them to expel them from the world; or perhaps, muses the little brother, the moon also is seeking to destroy them. But for the time being, they are alone.

  They might be the last inhabitants of this deserted land, and yet the steppe is swarming with infinitesimal, insignificant life, flying, crawling, hissing life. Their ears and feet buzz with them. They can hear the owls hooting in the distance, the foxes barking. But nothing seems alive but them and their long silent march, and their shadow cast ahead of them by the stars. Nothing stops them. They could walk to the end of time, were it not for the events about to befall them, and which no one has seen coming.

  JOAQUIN

  Of course Mauro was right when he said that the mother would never give them a peso, would never allow them to dream a bit in town. And of course Joaquin knew that his twin was right, but he could not help but have faith, a little scrap of hope no bigger than a fly squashed in his palm, no higher than a barb you pinch between your fingers, not much at all, a little scrap of nothing, or just about. But what came instead was even less than that. The void. Zero.

  The mother drove them jolting along to San León, did her errands, then installed Mauro and Joaquin next to her at the bar while she made ready to gamble, rubbing her hands with pleasure, any more and she’d be purring, and she sits down with some guys who already have their cards out, and it goes on, and on, and then some. If they weren’t there it would be no different.

  They are allowed three beers each. That’s what they’ve earned.

  So after a while they start to complain. And make demands. They do the math, mainly Joaquin who’s better with numbers, and who explains it all to Mauro—and sure enough, it sends him into a rage to work out how much the mother is earning at their expense, exploiting them fifteen hours a day just so they can wet their whistle with six beers one evening once a month, it would be stupid not to say something. He wants to live, too, the world is there at his fingertips, right there within his grasp, and it drives him crazy not to be able to reach out and really touch it, it gives him pins and needles under his fingernails, he can feel the blood pulsing. Just the thought that they’ll go home again as always, vanquished, and try to drown their frustration by wedging a ewe’s legs between their boots to keep her from moving, it makes Joaquin want to vomit, he’s had his fill of sheep’s asses, they deserve something more, the mother has got to understand this. Therefore, because she placed a cautious hand on her wallet when he asked her for some money, he leans closer to her again now, in the middle of the game, she hates it when he does this, he doesn’t care. Mauro reached out to stop him but Joaquin shoved him away. Mauro is always trying to give orders, as if he knew better than his brother what to do and what not to do, why doesn’t he say something, the loudmouth, because he doesn’t think it’s the right moment, and so what?—since that’s the way things are, he, Joaquin, is beside himself now, and he’ll say something, will demand his due from the mother, so he mutters angrily:

  “And if you didn’t have us, if you had to hire some guys like us, it would cost you a lot more than a few beers, huh?”

  But that just goes to show how poorly he knows the old lady: tipsy with her first glasses of Fernet, she turns red, and stands up and holds out a threatening finger, and shouts loudly for all to hear:

  “And what if I asked you to pay for your room and board from the time you were born, my boy, how much do you think would be left over? How many years would you have to slave away for me, if you had to pay it all back?”

  Around the table the other pla
yers start to joke, and tongues begin to wag. Joaquin gives a hollow, mock gallant laugh.

  “But I’m your son . . . ”

  “My son? So what? I don’t owe you a thing. Whereas you.”

  “Without us you couldn’t keep the estancia going.”

  “Without me, you and your brothers would be nothing but vagabonds, scarcely fit to do anything but ride a horse.”

  “But—”

  “You can pack your bags and leave tomorrow if you like. And you, too, Mauro! If you think I need you so bad. I give you ten days to come back whining and begging me to take you back.”

  “Damn true!” shouts an old man next to them.

  The others nod, exchanging glances and making acquiescent noises in their throats. Suddenly the entire room is humming with murmurs like an insect’s buzzing, faces set in agreement, looking at Joaquin full of reproach, but what do they know about the life the mother leads, and that they pretend to envy, let them come have a look, and then we’ll talk again, and at that moment Joaquin wishes he could run away, so he wouldn’t see them or hear them, but voices are raised, words spin in the smoky air of the bar, heavy, clinging words, pounding against his temples.

  “When you think of all your mother had to put up with to raise you all on her own.”

  “And don’t those kids make their demands, blackmail even.”

  “All youngsters are like that. Look at Federico’s.”

  “It didn’t take him long, did it.”

  “He’d give anything to come back, now.”

  And the same old man, shouting and laughing and pointing at them. You too would give anything to come back! In the midst of their stories and exclamations someone grabs Joaquin by the shoulder and leads him away, shakes him, opens the door to let him out, goes out with him and lights a cigarette, hands it to him. Joaquin inhales the smoke in silence. Their breathing in the night. The noise grows fainter when the door has closed and peace and quiet fold around them at last. Next to him, Mauro is leaning against the fence, rolling a cigarette for himself. He closes his eyes and says:

  “You shouldn’t do that. It’s pointless.”

  “I know.”

  “So?”

  “I dunno . . . I couldn’t help myself.”

  “That’s the mother, huh. That’s the way she is.”

  “Yup.”

  “Someday we’ll manage to convince her, if we have to protest we will.”

  Joaquin shrugs. The cool night air feels good on his burning cheeks, but does nothing for his resentment, and yet something has died inside him, there’s a hateful resignation, nothing but compromises, sentences starting with It doesn’t matter . . . For a long time he stays there with Mauro, who lights one cigarette after the other, he sits on the steps leading to the bar, his head spinning a little after three beers, and he laughs joylessly.

  “Three glasses and I’m already pissed, I don’t need any more than this, to be honest, what else can I possibly want?”

  Mauro’s voice, hardly audible in the night, distant, muffled.

  “Well, otherwise, we leave.”

  “What?”

  “Go work somewhere else. We can always find something.”

  “You mean it?”

  “Hell, yes. Don’t you?”

  Joaquin opens his mouth, doesn’t answer right away. He knows his twin only too well, he can flare up without thinking, irreversibly; he’s an animal, a hothead who’ll never set foot on the estancia again if he decides he’s done with it. That’s where the old guys in the bar are mistaken, when they say the two brothers will beg the mother to take them back: Mauro never looks back. And as for Joaquin, he doesn’t know if deep down this is what he really wants, if he really asks himself, without lying, swallowing his pride. So he plays for time. To chuck it all in—sure, he’s tempted, but he’d also like a promise that he’ll have a better future. Yet nothing could be less certain, however much he tries to convince himself, or maybe it will be better, but that’s still a maybe, and the uncertainty forms a knot in his stomach.

  Mauro crushes his cigarette under his heel.

  “Don’t worry, hey, I understand.”

  Joaquin protests. I didn’t say anything.

  “Yeah, you didn’t say anything. And I understood.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  The older twin gives a sudden laugh.

  “Hey, don’t take me for a fool. You’re scared stiff. Drop it.”

  And Joaquin says no more. He has no choice. If it’s to confess in the end that he’s got no guts, he’d rather just leave it there. He lowers his head. Doesn’t want to meet Mauro’s gaze. He mimes smoking and says, Got another one? They wait together, a wordless reconciliation, brothers above and beyond all else, beyond even the mother, who divides them. Joaquin can feel the tension between them vanishing; Mauro gives him a friendly tap on the back, which he reciprocates with a smile.

  “I can be a real moron, right?”

  “Hell, no.”

  When the mother finally comes out in the middle of the night, they get to their feet without speaking and support her over to the cart. Half-amused, half-disgusted, they set her sprawling on the seat. Joaquin tosses a blanket over her, frowning.

  “Just look at that.”

  “Yup. That’s the mother for you.”

  “We should leave her in the ditch. She wouldn’t even wake up.”

  Mauro guffaws as he picks up the reins.

  “Yeah, old witch stinking of alcohol. She must’ve lost the equivalent of three hundred beers playing poker.”

  “Why don’t we throw her overboard, she’d have to crawl all the way home in the state she’s in.”

  “If she doesn’t get shot by some fella thinks she’s a peccary.”

  “Chrissake, she’d be moaning her head off the next day. We’d be in for it, man.”

  “Well we’d still have a good time while we’re at it.”

  And it comforts them to mutter and heap insults on her, insults that burn their tongues while she snores there behind them, even though they do glance now and again at the shape beneath the blanket, because with the mother you never know, it may seem like nothing and then she’ll hear what she’s not supposed to hear, and her hand is quicker than anything. When she slaps them, or hits them, they curl up like children, and yet any of the brothers could fend her off, even the youngest, skinny as a rake that he is. Any one of them could knock her over. Trample her. Beat her, in the end, so she’d understand that it can happen to her, too, and not just to them, the mother too can receive a good hiding.

  Truth is, they will never touch her.

  Whether they hate her or adore her, depending on the day and on her mood, the mother is the sacred woman. They come from her, they have drunk her milk, they’ve been tiny, puling, crying infants and she’s made them into men. They are revolted by her authority and yet they submit; they know that without her the estancia would be a vast, uncultivated desert, and they would be wild children no better than those aimless foxes in search of little rodents. Who would have fed them? Who would have taught them to tend the livestock, when the father ran off and left them to their fate? The mother is everything to them. They may insult her but respect paralyzes them, holds them back. Time and work and worries have spoiled her looks; they don’t care. They don’t look at her. The mother is both the woman and not a woman. She brought them into the world, she protects them, she barks her orders, shows them no consideration; she incarnates male and female at the same time. In that alone her perfection amazes them. She ends up being a universal, asexual creature, and if someone asked they could hardly describe her. The mother is the mother. Grounded and solid, terrifyingly constant; they can replay her intonations and threats, and the words that will come. But if they try to describe her features, she vanishes as if in a dream, as blurry as a ghost, a shapeless form, w
ithout boundaries. The mother is everywhere, above and beyond the world.

  Deep down even Joaquin is proud of the way she mocks the putas singing in the bar.

  And yet. Incredulous, he will be the first one sacrificed, along with his stupid faith in the bonds of blood—because the only blood the mother believes in is the blood of violence and of animals. Joaquin is no more than a pawn in her life, one of four, one she will do without if she has to, and she will erase him from the estancia, and spit on his absence the way she would spit on his grave if she could—and for sure she would have preferred to see him six feet under, eaten by worms, and have everyone forget him, forget how it happened, how, ultimately, she was the one who caused the storm.

  THE MOTHER

  The sons are wrong if they think the mother goes into a trance at the very thought of the bar, that it is the only real excuse for their trip to town every month. Because the bar, at the outset, is merely a reaction to the vexation she feels after her visit, just before, to another establishment: the bank.

  In the course of a long day in San León, the bills, errands, alcohol, and gambling are nothing compared to that austere building, with its talent for sending her back into the street in a rage. She wanted things to go better: but there’s nothing for it, that pig of a banker robs her every time. And ever since she told him there were as many holes in his vaults as there are vermin in his worm-eaten floorboards, he’s had it in for her. But even if he happened to be amenable one day, the mother would not even notice; her eyes narrow the moment she charges through the door, a mean look on her face. It never fails. He looks at her papers, opens the iron gate to show her, gives a sigh. Shortly after that the mother slams the door behind her, crosses the street with her cheeks on fire, and goes to join the twins, vociferating as if it were them she was mad at, shouting her lungs out: Gomez, Gomez, one day I’ll dry the skin from your ass on the same line as the hide from my steers!