Birds

A fictional story that happened somewhere in the Mexican countryside

 

Damn birds. They’re there, all together, without moving. Standing over the metal fence surrounding the lemon tree. There are so many of them. From here I can count sixteen, but some of them come and go. They’re fixed, just like they were attached to the fence, putting inside my eyes their black look; following my steps like buzzards. They turn their heads one side to another waiting for the moment of someone’s death; knowing that it’s possible somebody else dies. Knowing that down there is someone buried by myself.

 

Those blackened birds arrived nine days ago, just after I had to kill the old man. That is true: not that I wanted to, I had to kill him. It was his fault. He did everything to make me kill him, he was putting pressure on me and I didn’t have a choice but to finish him. But in that time, I didn’t know how it feels to have a dead man over my back.

 

I knew him very well. When I arrive over this place he held out his hand to me. I’m aware of that; I don’t forget how much he helped me. He borrowed me those lands to seed and built a little house in exchange of an amount of money that I thought it was prudent. He told me he do that in a good will because he would rather have friends who spook the yoke of loneliness than start rot in money without anyone who give him even a glance. That’s why I accepted his help.

 

My wife and I handle it at the beggining. What the land gave us was more than enough to eat, so I could sell the rest to pay the old man what I owe him. We didn’t need anything more. But then, the old man started getting in our life, pushing and pushing to keep inside and don’t get out of our lives.

 

 

At the beggining I didn’t say anything to him. I let him came time after time, gave us presents and walk around here like a little puppy looking for love. I thought he didn’t want us to suffer like he did when he was young. He told me how he earns all of this, after having his hands full of hunger. That’s why I accept him to come whenever he wanted and eat in our table. I knew he was alone, and I wanted to give this as a gesture of good will.

 

The old man was a chatty one. You could see he was in the middle of loneliness for a long, long time. That need of talk to someone it felt out of his mouth with no difficulty until the house was getting full of memories. Then, his eyes got lost somewhere; away, looking inside of himself, while he caressed what he lost. After that, those very same eyes, always red and tired, came back to fill with comfort when he looked at us when he felt company. He was like a grandfather who came to shake off the absence who choke him; to be near someone so he didn’t have to be in the middle of the field, so wide and with no one around, listening to the wind who shake the yellow of the corn. I was glad to have him here and not being alone, surround of that house of his so full of sadness.

 

 

That was at the beginning. After that, everything changed.

 

***

 

Little by Little his words were pack with malice. He didn’t just ask about the planting time and what and which animals were about to have babies. He started to look at my wife and tell me that I was lucky to have her as a wife. I knew that and I didn’t need him to tell me once and again.  For then, the look that he had when he saw my wife looked like they were bubbling; like crystal eyes where you can see all that desperation that he had for so many years. He looked at her again and again, gazed at her upside down, stopping in her legs, going up and around in every part of her body.

 

 

I realice about it but keep my anger inside. Just for being him I swallow my anger and let it go. I tied my hands and mouth and let the feeling became a lump, entangling all those things just to stop blurring my sight, because then I knew what could happen.

 

He was old, but loaded with money. He only needed to ask for it so any woman from around here gets inside his arms. Anyone would be near him to save him from the cold that every hour he felt. But with us he made a mistake. I was going to abort the situation.

 

I held for as long as I could. I held even when I felt the blood rushing to my head. In those moments when I saw him and felt the urge of shake him from his neck until his teeth fell because of the movement. I felt my face so red, about to burst, and all those feelings were stacking over my chest more and more, making this kind of balls underneath my skin, and hardening my last remainders of good will that I have left. But still then, I put up with it.

 

I tried to pull myself together meanwhile I found the way to suffocate this fever coming out of within, just to keep the peace around. But he kept coming here. He saw the curves of my wife over and over again, without rest, like he wanted to caress her with his hands, those wrinkled and stiff hands of his. He wanted to pass his crippled fingers over her skin and after that, kiss her slowly. I try to ignore it. I tried to look somewhere else o keep my eyes over the table. But those whistles were full of sighs. Those whistles were borne in his lungs caused by green phlegm, gathered and soured because of the cold. That was my grief. I knew when my eyes were distracted, the eyes of the old man, black and hung like bags, were traveling around my wife’s body. I imagine his mouth with no teeth where those yellow drools dripped. That open mouth which wanted to swallow the air full of scented leaves that my wife left when she passes in front of anyone.

 

I held as long as i could. But one fine day it was over. I couldn’t keep this anger no more. Not anymore. Those lands weren’t worth the humiliation. Not even the house, or the gratitude, or the animals. None of those worth what he was doing to me. And that’s when I decided I had to kil him.

 

***

 

That happened that day, when I arrived earlier from the seeding.

 

It was noon and the sun was getting throught harder than other times. It took me longer to bend than raise soaked with a thick sweat. I lifted my head and that sweat run slowly all over the face in thick and heavy drops that got in my eyes and make them close. So, the heaviness builds up on me and I felt I was going to pass out. I couldn’t do anything at all. So, I went home, and that’s where I found them.

 

The old mand sit on my table, choaking with the smoke of the cigar, and still with that clarity very inside of the mouth, just like the light that my wife has between her lips. His leathery and skinned mouth that still was tasting that flavor of my wife’s kiss.

 

The two of them were surprised to look at me standing in front of them. They weren’t expecting me at that time and they were surprised like they watched a spectre. That was the last thing I could stand. Next day, I went out to look for him.

 

 

***

 

 

I knew the old man went out early to check out the planting; I knew where would he be and also the hour, and I went ahead. Every day he took the same way; walking around with slow steps the same sidewalk. I know I would find him there. I was waiting for him, laying on the tree that people call guts of devil, until I saw him coming using his hat as a fan; going forward really slowly with his steps full of years. It was the time of the day when the heat rises the ground and take the good will. That time when the dreams still are attached to the eyes and don’t let us distinguish anything.

 

I followed him with my sight; the old man was herding some animals that ate lettuce sprouts. He was scaring them with that stick which helped him to carry the sliced weight of his body.

 

I stood up so he wouldn’t have any trouble finding me. He saw me and wave me; asking me to wait for him. I closed my eyes while I was listening to his slow steps and that breath of air so hard to get inside and out his chest, pulling and pushing that plug of phlegm. In short time he stood in front of me and I felt the sour heat of her wrinkled skin, and that musty smell getting out of his clothes. “It’s so good to see you!”, he said. “I was thinking to go to see you to talk to you”.

 

He asked me to go and sit in a bunch of stones a few meters away from here. I let him go in front of me and I followed him, meanwhile the machete was tempting me with the arm, to be really sure that I had it near to my waist, ready for anything. He dropped himself in a flat stone and lighted a cigarette: “What I have to tell you is not easy at all”, he told me throwing out the smoke.

 

Then he shut up, glancing at me, like waiting for the minutes to pass and that gave him courage to finish throwing me his words. His mouth got sad. He let a whirlwind passing by took away the whistles coming from within his chest, and he hide his eyes. After a while, finally he told me: “Well then, your wife…”

 

But I couldn’t let him keep going. He wasn’t going to tell me that stuff. I stood up and put the sharp of the machete just up the belly button until I felt that her bones were breaking.

 

I put it so deep as I could, twisting it, feeling how his old flesh was opening and the blood jet coming out like tears of sorrow. So I finished turn it around inside, with all the force I needed while he looked at me not wanting to claim. He started to open his mouth, trying to say something to me, but I didn’t give him time to complain, and before the regret won I took off the machete and slashed it on his head.

 

There he was lying, in the shadow of the trees, bleeding while his eyes were turning off and he missed his last breath.

 

I covered him with some weeds; just a handful of them to cover his head. At the moment my rush started. When I saw the old man there, totally dead, I forgot the courage I had. I realized that I just killed him and I worried about it; I felt a tingle just in the head like I had ants all over me, that’s why I pray the Our Father, to recommend him to God. But I couldn’t do anything else for him. The old man was there, lying, like if he were resting from a hangover. I keep putting herbs to confuse him with dry branches. What I wanted to do was vanish him; keep away the remorse that for the time, it was punching my heart.

 

I came back to the house and told everything to my wife. I had to take away the pain from that sin and I told her everything. She started to scream with anger. I told her it was because of her; she was the reason to finish him. I killed him to put her away from bad temptations; to take away from her body those wrinkled, bruised and hairy hands of the old man. But she didn’t want to hear me; she pull off her hair and roll over while her tears were dropping and bursting the land.

 

I didn’t want to hear her anymore. Her weeping made my breath away and have again that feeling of heaviness in front my eyes. I took a shovel and a forklift and came back to the field to bury the old man. I was walking, regretting everything; praying for the save of his soul.

 

I hurried to bury him really deep, smashing the land so the workers couldn’t find him. He had flies around him and started to get hard. He had thickened blood covering the whole face. His skin was cold, like it just rain over him.

 

When I came home, the fear was crushing my conscience. I felt the old man’s eyes looking at me from everywhere. I remembered very well those steady eyes, about to dry out, when the dust fell over them; that clod of earth which bury him forever, getting away from my nose the stink of urine getting out of his clothes when I roll him over to bury. I had that stinky smell on my hands and arms, like somebody spread spoiled eggs all over me.

 

I wanted to get in the bed until my heart stop beating my chest. And that’s when I saw her. I turned around and I found my wife with her scapular in one hand, praying the litany of the death, while she stared at me nastily, breaking my life in tiny pieces. In that moment I forgot the hit of panic and the anger came back. That’s what I didn’t need at the time: a blurry sight.

 

I yell at her with all my strength, pulling her to stand up. It made me mad that she was on her knees like a widow, with that lost face where the flood of tears never stop. I told her again that I killed him to save her honor. It was because of her, more than me. I told her and I told her again. But she didn’t listen any reasons; she started punching at me and cursed me. She saw me with her eyes full of hate, spitting me once and again like she was disgusted of me, and if I gave her more explanations, she dig her nails to rip parts of the skin of my arms.

 

That’s when I understood everything. No need to tell me anything else. Not anymore. I took out the pipe in my bag and with no thinking at all I stabbed it really deep so she could die soon and not suffer. Because I wouldn’t allow her to suffer.

 

She suddenly remained silent, letting her eyes got smaller and the tears covered her glance. She embraced me so tight while the jet of her warm blood glide and fill me with the smell of tuberoses, like she had the spring within. And I didn’t forget it. After that, she let me go, little by little. Her hands lost strength and began to unattach from my chest. At the end, her body hung between my arms, like a straight thing, while I took the pipe off of her from the hole near the heart.

 

***

 

It doesn’t hurt me that I killed the old man. Even I have the memory of his dead eyes within mine, he looked for it. I don’t forget he did everything he could for me to kill him. That he was pushing and pushing until I couldn’t handle it anymore. It doesn’t hurt me, but my wife does. She is my pain. I feel her really inside my bones, as if she keeps lying down here in my chest and tell me things very quiet.

 

I still listen to her. Sometimes I wake up and hear her sobbing. She keeps every night weeping outside the house, with a very deep sorrow sneaking through the door, like she couldn’t get some rest. After that I feel her here, near my ear; when her lips starts to spread over my like a very old memory.

 

She didn’t love any old man. She loved me. She was trying to make him fall in love with her to took his money away. What she wanted was to stop being poor. She wanted to take the money so we (she and me together) keep living with no pressure. But I killed her. I killed her without thinking of the big sacrifice she did that time when I arrived and I found them at home, when she get into the lips of that old man who smell like burn beans.

 

The big sacrifice of kissing those dry-skinned lips that I hide, shovel after shovel, a few meters away from the planting.

 

The old man didn’t want my wife. That’s what he wanted to tell me so bad. He wanted to warn me that my wife was making him fall in love. But I didn’t want him to say anything. I hit him with the machete up the ear to rip off a piece of head and stop that reek with the smell of loneliness.

 

After that I bury my wife. I burried her while i was repeating her words of sadness. Now I know, but it’s too late for that. It was all about rob him, not kill him. But I killed him. I killed them both. How am i going to forget their eyes when they turn off forever while they looked at me from above and hide underneath that dust that I keep throwing to them like it was my own grief.

 

Now my wife is buried at the shadow of that lemon tree, surrounding by those damn birds that all day are there, standing, quacking and only looking at my remorse.

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Author's Note

Translated by MARTHA ZURITA, Veracruz, México.