Thus flowed the rivers and the four seasons of the year, on those one can rely, even when they vary. The vast patience of time and the equally vast patience of money, which, with the exception of man, is the most constant of all measurements, although, like the seasons, it varies. We know, however, that men were bought and sold. Each century had its money, each kingdom its man to buy and sell for maravedis, or for gold and silver marks, reals, doubloons, cruzados, sovereigns or florins from abroad. Fickle, various metal, as airy as the bouquet of a flower or of wine: money rises, that’s why it has wings, not in order to fall. Money’s rightful place is in a kind of heaven, a lofty place where the saints change their names when they have to, but not the latifundio.
A mother with full breasts, fit for large, greedy mouths, a womb, the land shared out between the largest and the large, or, more likely, joining large with larger, through purchase or perhaps through some alliance, or through sly theft, pure crime, the legacy of my grandparents and my good father, God rest their souls. It took centuries to get this far, who can doubt that it will always remain the same?
But who are these other people, small and disparate, who came with the land, although their names do not appear in the deeds, dead souls perhaps, or are they still alive? God’s wisdom, beloved children, is infinite: there is the land and those who will work it, go forth and multiply. Go forth and multiply me, says the latifundio. But there is another way to speak of all this.
THE RAIN CAUGHT UP with them toward the end of the afternoon, when the sun was barely a half-span above the low hills, to the right, however, the witches were already combing their hair, for this is their favorite weather. The man reined in the donkey and, to relieve the animal’s load on the slight incline, used his foot to shove a stone under one wheel of the cart. This rain is most unseasonable, whatever can have got into the ruler of the celestial waters. That’s why there’s so much dust on the roads as well as the occasional dried cow pat or lump of horse dung, which no one has bothered to pick up, this being too far removed from any inhabited place. No young lad, basket over his arm, has ventured this far out in search of some natural manure, tentatively picking up the crumbling sphere, which is sometimes cracked like a ripe fruit. In the rain, the hot, pale earth became spattered with sudden dark stars, falling dully onto the soft dust, and then a torrent flooded everything. The woman, however, still had time to lift the child down from the cart, out of the concave nest formed by the striped mattress squeezed in between two large chests. She held him to her breast, covered his face with the loose end of her shawl, and said, Good, he’s still asleep. This was her first concern, the second was, Everything’s going to get drenched. The man was looking up at the high clouds, wrinkling his nose, and then, in his male wisdom, he declared, It’ll pass, it’s only a shower, but just in case, he unrolled one of the blankets and draped it over the furniture, Why did it have to rain today of all days, damn it.
A flurry of wind sent the now sparse drops flying. When the man gave the donkey a slap on the back, it shook its ears vigorously and tugged at the shafts and the man helped by pushing against the wheel. They set off again up the slope. The woman followed behind, her child in her arms, and, pleased to see him sleeping so soundly, she peered down at him, murmuring, There’s a good boy. The ground to either side of the cart track was thick with undergrowth, in which a few lost, choked holm oaks stood, trunk-deep, abandoned or perhaps born there. The wheels of the cart gouged and squelched a path through the sodden earth, and now and then gave a sudden violent jolt whenever a stone raised a shoulder above the surface. The furniture creaked beneath the blanket. The man, walking beside the donkey, his right hand resting on the reins, was silent. And so they reached the top of the hill.
A great mass of dense, towering clouds was heading toward them from the south over the straw-colored plain. The path plunged downward, barely distinguishable between the crumbling ditches planed almost flat by the winds sweeping in across the empty expanse. At the bottom, the path would join a wide road, a rather ambitious word to use in a place so ill served by roads. To the left, almost hugging the low horizon, a small settlement turned its white walls to face the west. As we said before, the plain was vast and smooth, interrupted only by a few holm oaks, alone or in pairs,
