Best European Fiction 2013 (21 page)

We were coming back from the river and going up the path we always took. Our mom’s singing smothered the sound of the hard soil as it was crushed by the leather soles of our sandals. Wild roses grew along the side of the path. Sometimes daisies. But there were always rocks and broom shrubs.

As soon as we reached the river, my brother and I would take off our sandals, T-shirts, and shorts and run toward the water. Our little feet trod a path full of pebbles and thistles as if it was nice and smooth. We weighed too little for the pebbles and dry thistles to hurt us.

We could test out the water by going in just up to our knees. We had to wait to go swimming until we finished digesting our food. We never disobeyed. Since we had lunch at noon, we had to wait until three o’clock. With our feet submerged in the muddy river bottom, our legs as thin as twigs, we yelled as loud as we could, the water’s freezing today, it’s really freezing, ah, the water’s colder than ever today. We said that every day.

Our screams broke through the tops of the trees and rose up to the clouds, then stayed up there yelling back down to us. Our mother said it was the echo. We imagined that an echo was another one of those animals that we’d never seen, but which lived up in the mountains surrounding the river. Just like wolves and snakes, the echo never allowed itself to be seen. But it made itself heard. It would even laugh with us. In a disjointed sort of way.

We also used to yell Dad, we’re already at the river, or, we’re going to launch a boat, Dad. We thought that the echo would get these messages to our dad.

Our dad was a technician at the dam, and every day he left the house early in the morning with a lunchbox in hand. He returned at the end of the day with his brow furrowed, as if he’d spent the day staring at incomprehensible things. He’d sit down on the best armchair in the house, and our mom would take off his shoes and serve him a glass of wine.

My brother and I liked to make up stories about the dam. Our dad was always the hero and he always defeated the horrible outlaws attacking the dam. We were sure that our dad had a gun hidden in his lunchbox. We invented a number of ways of obtaining the gun, but we never dared to put any of our plans into action. We didn’t know if we were more afraid of handling the gun or of the possibility that it didn’t exist.

The river flowed down to the dam and was the fastest way to get to it. However, nobody could take that route. Our dad had to drive through the mountains to get there and back every day. But the river ran directly to him and we were always awestruck when we looked down in the direction that it flowed. Even after it became hidden from view, down where there was a bend in the river, we knew that the water didn’t stop until it got to the dam. My brother and I wanted to go down to that bend and then on to the next and the next, we wanted to go past all the bends in the river to see where all that water was going, to see the dam and all the dammed-up water. But our mom never left our spot. She spent the afternoon sitting on the wooden stool, and we had to stay close by. We weren’t allowed to be out of her sight.

While we waited for our food to digest we entertained ourselves by building boats, which we launched in the water so that the river would carry them down to our dad. We’d make designs or write little notes that we hid inside them. We launched a boat, Dad, we’d yell, we launched another boat. But our dad never received any of the boats, nor did he ever hear the echo repeat what we yelled. The echoes and the boats break apart or run aground before they arrive at their destination, our dad would tell us when he got home. It seemed impossible to us that this could be the case every time. Lying on our beds, before we fell asleep, we blamed the horrible outlaws who attacked the dam for the disappearance of our boats. And on the next day we went back to making boats, yelling, we launched another boat, Dad.

Our chests expanded and collapsed whenever we yelled, but with or without air inside, our ribs were always visible. Our bodies still hadn’t taken it upon themselves to grow. There was no way that the spurt our mother talked about was going to happen. It won’t be long before you have a growth spurt, she’d say, it won’t be long before I’ve got two men in front of me. But our bodies seemed to be deaf, and remained little.

We were coming back from the river and going up the path we always took. At certain points, the path became so narrow or the curves were so sharp that we could no longer see the way ahead of us. Since we already knew it by heart, this didn’t prevent us from continuing on. Me on the left side, our mom in the middle, and my brother on the right. Far enough apart that we weren’t touching one another. It was easier to walk this way, with some space between us.

We would have willingly gone without lunch, but if we didn’t eat, we couldn’t go to the river. Our mom used bay leaves in her cooking the way other women use salt. Our dad would say, dejectedly, even in the eggs, woman, you even put bay leaves in the eggs. But our mom kept frying a bay leaf in oil before she cracked the eggs on the edge of the cast-iron stove. The eggs, more than the excessive use of bay leaves, really intrigued me. The yellow sphere always in the middle, the fragile shell that served as its packaging, the transparent part that turned white over heat. It was all inexplicable. A real mystery. The kind of mystery that nobody has any interest in solving.

I spent a lot of time watching the hens. I tried to discern their knowledge of geometry by looking at their heads, especially their eyes, though they didn’t even know the word. Indifferently, the hens kept pecking at whatever there was to peck at in the backyard, making haughty movements with their necks. Their indifference didn’t bother me, since I considered them infinitely wiser than me. Aside from admiring their knowledge of Geometry, as demonstrated by their production of eggs, I admired the dignity with which they allowed themselves to be caught for slaughter on Sundays. The hens would scuttle around the backyard while our mom’s hands pursued the one she’d chosen. I never understood how our mom chose, out of all the hens, the one that would be sacrificed. I also never asked her. As soon as the chosen one was caught there was a strange silence. Our mom would hold the chosen one by the wings, letting it dangle. The chosen one rarely shrieked or struggled.

We hated our mom for a time. We didn’t yet know that the greater violence isn’t what occurs after she’d chosen the hen. Or even the choice itself. The greater violence occurs before, well before, and it’s this violence that makes the choice possible, or necessary. We hated our mom for a few seconds. No more than a few seconds. We still felt everything in a provisional sort of way.

Later, when I learned geometry at school, I didn’t like it because it was all so abstract. Physics was more practical, but it didn’t interest me either. I especially disliked the problem of the inclined plane. I disliked the guarantee that a heavy body placed on an inclined surface will stay in motion indefinitely and continually accelerate. I disliked even more the explanation that heavy bodies have the tendency to move toward the center of the Earth and only with effort are able to move away from it. The truth is I never liked school. I never accepted the fact that everything can, should, or has to be explained. Explained and communicated.

At three o’clock we’d run into the water. My brother’s body became essential for all my mischief. Just as mine did for his. We liked to topple each other over. The more contorted we were when we fell, the better. Sometimes we smacked against the rocks on the river bottom and hurt ourselves. We also liked to race. Neither of us was a great swimmer, but we liked to believe we were. We asked our mom which of the two us was the better swimmer. You both swim well, was the answer she always gave. It was the same when we drew pictures and wanted to know which one looked the best. I like one just as much as the other, they both look very nice. As much as we insisted, we never got any other answer.

In the middle of the river, where we could no longer touch bottom, there was a tree trunk stuck between two rocks. It was like some kind of unattainable goal, as close as it may have been. We were forbidden to venture out there. Because of the current, our dad used to tell us.

Only once the skin of our fingers turned wrinkly, our lips turned purple, and we couldn’t stop shivering would we return to our towels, laid out on the flagstone. We’d keep quiet as we felt our hollow, pulsating chests warm up from the heat of the air and the heat of the stone. As soon as we were dry we’d head back into the water. On those summer afternoons, time took longer to come to its end. And this I knew well.

We were coming back from the river and going up the path we always took. I carried the picnic basket, which was the heaviest item, and my brother carried the small wooden stool. Sometimes my brother would start slowing down, without noticing it. Our mom would call it to his attention, and the three of us would be side by side once more.

A car is a heavy body. The Opel Kapitan that the doctor owned was undoubtedly a heavy body. My brother and I liked that white Opel Kapitan better than all the other cars we’d ever seen. Even counting the ones in newspapers and magazines. There wasn’t a single kid who didn’t come over to the car whenever the doctor parked it on the street. We admired its brilliant chrome and held our breath so that we wouldn’t fog it up. We’d run our fingers along the body. But lightly, since we were scared to scratch it. We’d peer inside it, marveling at the big, fancy steering wheel and the dashboard, which had three chrome gauges with numbers and symbols that looked like they controlled complex machinery. The seats were worn down and the stitching in the napa leather made very precise furrows in it. The headlights were round and hypnotic. It was a model from 1959, but so treasured that it felt brand new.

The motor of the Opel Kapitan made a growling sound that we all recognized. As soon as the doctor turned the key, the trademark growl of the Opel Kapitan could be heard for miles around. But on that day when, as we rounded one of the sharp curves of the path, we saw the Opel Kapitan taking up the entire width of the pathway, there was nobody at the steering wheel and nobody in the car. And nobody else anywhere near it. The Opel Kapitan was imposingly all by itself. Yet, nevertheless, it was moving. But no growl. Not even a single clicking noise. The Opel Kapitan was moving, and that heavy body was bearing down on us.

On that day the doctor had been called to attend to our neighbor, who awoke unable to remember where or who she was. While the doctor tried to discover the cause of our neighbor’s illness, the Opel Kapitan inexplicably bore down on us.

We were coming back from the river and going up the path we always took. At certain points the path became so narrow or the curves were so sharp that we could no longer see the way ahead of us. Since we already knew it by heart, this didn’t prevent us from continuing on. Me on the left side, our mom in the middle, and my brother on the right. Far enough apart that we weren’t touching one another. It was easier to walk this way, with some space between us.

Our mom was also a heavy body. Even my brother and I, despite being really lightweight, were heavy bodies. Only with great effort could we move away from the center of the Earth, walk away from it. And the more tired we were, the greater the effort. When the Opel Kapitan inexplicably began to glide down the path, my brother and I were very tired from the walk up the hill and from playing in the river. Moreover, we became paralyzed when we saw that our beloved Opel Kapitan had chosen, of its own accord, to come find us. Advancing indefinitely, continually accelerating. It would take a superhuman effort for my brother and I to get out of the way of the Opel Kapitan, the beautiful Opel Kapitan, brought to life of its own free will, and also taking up the entire path in front of us, facing us. Close. Ever closer. Fast. Ever faster.

When my mom pushed me to the side, I don’t know if I lost my balance or if it was her body on top of mine that made me fall. Our mom only had time to throw me to the side and protect my body with hers. I could see my brother, still standing in the middle of the path, the wooden stool in his hand, wearing a blue t-shirt and brown sandals, and the puffy shorts that we both hated, my brother, just a little taller than the glittering chrome of the Opel Kapitan. My brother, staring at the Opel Kapitan in front of him.

We were coming back from the river and going up the path we always took. Our mom’s singing smothered the sound of the hard soil as it was crushed by the leather soles of our sandals. Wild roses grew along the side of the path. Sometimes daisies. But there were always rocks and broom shrubs.

The Opel Kapitan stopped suddenly before touching my brother. It simply stopped. No squealing of brakes or anything. As if it had forgotten the way things are. Or as if my brother had made it stop with some sort of machine-directed, targeted hypnotism. The beautiful Opel Kapitan, stopped by the eyes of my brother, who was still standing in the middle of the path, with the wooden stool in his hand, wearing a blue T-shirt and brown sandals, and the puffy shorts that we both hated. My mom’s body off to the side, on top of mine.

We got up, and our mom went over to my brother, took the stool from him, and held her hand out to him. Almost reverently. My brother allowed himself to be led away from the front of the car. I waited on the side of the path. We went around the car and continued up the hill. It wasn’t much farther to our house.

We never spoke about what happened that day when we were coming back from the river, going up the path we always took. We went on behaving as if nothing had happened. But everything was different.

We were coming back from the river and going up the path we always took. It was little more than a footpath. Very steep. The dirt was hard and faded. Hardly anyone ever took that path, but it was our mom’s favorite route. We were coming back from the river. My brother on the right and me on the left, with our mother in the middle. Our mom was proud of us, more than she was of anything else in life.

Many years passed. Perhaps all this didn’t occur exactly as I’ve said. But I’m certain that the day was coming to an end. And that the river water flowed gently.