TE19 Iberian Adventure

Manuel Astur

he was doing -the hoe with a lump of earth, the shovel on the hay, the scythe fresh with fragrant green blood- he would straighten up, run his hand over his forehead, and gaze out over the valley at his feet. Everything glowed and echoed like a bell of golden light. He let his eyes fill with sky. That Julysunset, too, Marcelinostoppedand reflected. Thehouse, the granary, the cart with its shaft towards the sky, the dry straw, the ears of corn, the backs of the cattle returning home along the path, the dog’s bowl, the rusty drum among the nettles, the axe in the stump, the wood chips and broken trunks, the sawdust on the ground, even the moss that embraced the stones of the wall which bound the small orchard, even the trees of the nearby forest and the mountain peaks: everything shimmered against the deep blue sky where the first star began announcing the new era. Everything except the great bloodstain on the sawdust and the body of his brother, so dark that they actually seemed to catch the light, as if they were the source of the black ink that gradually filled the valley, filled the sky, and drew the bats that began to dance around the yellowish light of the solitary copper lamp post. But the truth is that he had not wanted to hurt him. It had happened to him once before, when he was a child at the school inVillarwhere everyone called himstupid and said that he fucked cows. They screwed up their faces and opened their mouths wide in an inexplicable expression that reminded him of horses, and pointed their fingers at himas they snarled. Until one day he held one of them down to make him stop and it turned out that this kid had bones like a sparrow’s. Even though he hadn’t wanted to hurt him - afterward his father would hurt himeven more - it was for the best, because he was expelled from school and never had 196