I wrapped him up in newspaper, trying not to look at the threatening teeth death had given him, and then I put him in a plastic bag until I got back to the house, where I placed him inside a wooden toolbox Álvaro had made ages ago, but never used. I thought he’d tell me off when he saw this, that he’d be offended because I’d given a box he didn’t even care about to the dead dog, that he would immediately see that box as a work of art, something he’d taken great pains over and which I clearly despised. I could already hear him saying: You treat everything I do as if it was trash. But that isn’t what happened. He didn’t say anything about the box, although he did make fun of me for putting the dog’s toys in with the body, his ball, his plastic bone, and the blanket he used to sleep on, as well as the little coat he wore when I took him out for walks in winter. I thought they would keep him company. I put the box with the dog and his things in the living room and then, much later that night, we buried him under the magnolia tree in the small square near the house. I made Álvaro go with me in the early hours, despite his protests (it gives me the creeps, with the dog inside the box) and we dug a grave, taking great care that the civil guards wouldn’t find us and that none of the neighbors would see. You’re crazy, he said, and the trouble is that if they catch me here, they’ll say I’m crazy too, he grumbled, but in a low voice, without shouting or getting angry, because he knew I wouldn’t stand for it. Not that night. I was too upset and sad and irritable. I didn’t care what he said — the important thing is to have my dog close to me.
I talk to him. Alone, at night, in the bedroom, because I keep his photo on the bedside table next to the photos of my children, but I often talk to him as well when I sit on the bench near the magnolia tree. And in spring, when I see those big flowers open, like raw silk, I’ll think of him lying there underneath, taking joy in his presence even after his death. I think: the memory of you makes me happy, it’s as if you’re immortal, because you’ll be there to keep me company for as long as I live — I’m still alive, and you’ll only die when I do, not a moment before: then we’ll both die at the same time. My husband says I’m completely mad, but I don’t know why we’re so sure that only humans have a soul, I mean, why make that stark division? His eyes, the way he used to look at me, a creature like that must have some kind of soul, I’m sure of it, a small, fragile soul. He was always so overjoyed when I came home laden down with the shopping, and he’d return my kisses too, putting out his little pink tongue and licking my face, he was a far more joyful and affectionate child than most of those I see in Olba with their jeans half falling down, showing their underpants, with their iPods stuck in their ears, or racing through the park on those noisy skateboards, not caring that there are older people sitting on the benches. A creature like that must have some kind of soul, the joy in his eyes, the sadness, the fear, aren’t those all qualities of the soul? And even if he didn’t have a soul, if he’s now nowhere to be found, he still consoles me, for me he’s still here, at least I have someone I can speak to. I’m ashamed to say so, but that’s how it is, especially now that Álvaro no longer goes to work and spends all day lying on the sofa, drinking beer, because he’s taken to drinking beer now, when he only used to drink a glass of wine before lunch and another before supper, but now he drinks can after can of beer, filling the whole house with its sour smell, tapping away on the computer or watching TV. I can understand him feeling disoriented, depressed. It must be hard to get used to his new situation because carpentry has been his whole life, but wasn’t he saying that he wanted to give it up anyway, didn’t he say that, when he retired, we’d go off traveling in an RV, moving from place to place, a life on the road? With what we have left, we could still do it, sell the apartment, buy an RV, put any remaining money in a money maker account and head off, me with my EU health card in my handbag. Now, though, I pray to my dog to free us from the misfortune that might befall us if Álvaro carries on like this.
It’s been a very long time since my sister Carmen came to stay with us as she used to, a couple of times a year, bringing the children and, sometimes, her husband. She did make a lightning visit at the time of my father’s operation, but back when the kids were small, the family would spend the whole summer here; of course, they only set foot in the house to sleep, because they’d spend all day at the beach and every evening on the terrace of one of the ice-cream parlors on Avenida Orts in Misent. Her husband would join them when he was on holiday from the textile factory, usually the last two weeks of August. The house would fill with voices and the colorful detritus that always surrounds children: plastic planes and cars, little bags of sweets and dried fruit, bits of chewing gum stuck to the bathroom shelf, and with inner tubes, flippers, snorkel and mask abandoned on the chairs in the hallway, much to my father’s annoyance. Don’t you know that salt eats into the varnish and ruins the wood? You should leave those things outside. The kids were a nuisance, it’s true, but they brought life into the house, so silent and even gloomy the rest of the year, especially after my mother died — she always used to sing to herself, almost right up until the end, while she scrubbed the floor, dusted the furniture and hung out the clothes in the backyard.