Just as the old man had predicted, the boy reached the wood shortly before sunrise. He tethered the donkey to the low branch of an oak tree and walked over the bed of serrated leaves and empty acorn cups as far as the northernmost edge of the wood. From that dark fringe of trees, he had a clear view of the village, which consisted of perhaps twenty houses, a single street and a church situated midway between the wood and the village. A few yards from the church was a cemetery, and above the cemetery wall he could see the swaying tops of three cypresses like upended paintbrushes. The same slight breeze stirred the branches above his head. The occasional empty acorn fell onto the soft ground that crunched underfoot, and he was reminded of his own empty belly. The village showed no signs of life. He could make out a few enclosures that might be corrals, but there were no sounds of any farm animals. Maybe it was deserted, he thought, or maybe it was simply too early for people to be up and about. He decided it would be best to make his first foray without the donkey. Then, if the conditions were right, he would return for the donkey, load it up with water and lead it back to the castle.
He emerged from the wood at the first light of day, taking care not to stumble. His boots still afforded his feet some protection from the ground, but the front part of one of the soles had come loose, allowing the boot to fill up with grit. When he crouched down to empty it out, he noticed that the backs of his hands were still smeared with soot and blood. He touched his cheekbones and felt the scabs that were beginning to form. He still stank to high heaven. The breeze veered slightly, and he could feel the cool dawn air through the tears in his trouser legs. If there were any dogs in the village, they would soon begin to bark.
The thought of dogs made his stomach contract, because the bailiff used to keep a black one as a guard dog. A Dobermann he called it. Pointed ears on a head that seemed carved out of stone, and a tar-black snout that would nose around among his clothes and make him tremble. The bailiff had often deliberately submitted him to the dog’s presence whenever he resisted his desires. That thought was like a cold chisel cutting into his tender fontanelle or a sharp instrument gouging into his elbows in search of white bone. He hunched down until he was hugging his knees and, for the second time in a week, he peed his pants. The light was growing brighter around him, picking out new shapes in the landscape.
He covered the distance separating him from the cemetery on all fours. Sand clung to his damp crotch. When he reached the nearest wall, he stood up and circled round until he reached the westernmost corner. From there he could see some of the houses, but not the well, because the church was in the way. Head down, he crossed the area separating cemetery and church and got as far as the portico. As in his own village church, the pillars supporting the roof were connected by a continuous row of stone benches, interrupted at one point to provide access to the church. The area was carpeted with the leaves the wind had blown in from a nearby acacia tree and deposited in untidy piles around the benches. The door, hanging by one hinge, seemed about ready to fall off. He followed the filthy, crumbling wall round to the apse. Broken tiles and bits of plaster littered the ground, and it was clear that the church was no longer in use. This was a discovery that both reassured and worried him in equal measure, because if no one was taking care of the church, that was because no one attended it any more, and he would probably not have to hide from anyone. On the other hand, the lack of inhabitants could also mean a lack of water. He positioned himself by the apse wall and from there, at last, had a panoramic view of the village. He saw sunken roofs and a few gaping windows, as well as a large wood-and-metal harvester like a Trojan horse devoured by scrub.
He entered the village by the same path that had led him into the oak wood, although, for the last stretch, he had chosen to go across the fields instead. On either side of the dirt road, he found either locked and barred houses or broken-down doors through which the same scene could be seen over and over: fallen beams that opened up great holes in the roof and shed light onto the piles of rubble beneath. Ceramic tiles with grubby, faded designs. The occasional photo of the king and queen or out-of-date calendars bearing advertisements for nitrates. Lumps of ceiling plaster mixed with wattle, and struts wound about with twine. From some façades drainpipes hung, their fixings having come loose from the walls, leaving indentations like bullet holes. Cavities left by crumbling plaster laid bare the skeletons of the houses, their thick wooden beams. He had a look at one such house. It smelled of darkness and rotten olives. Somewhere up in the roof he heard the fluttering of pigeons and their monotonous cooing.
Towards the far end of the village, the street opened out to form an irregular square, like the stopping-place for a caravan of pioneers. On one side was the well, from whose wrought-iron arch hung a pulley bereft of rope and bucket. He leaned over the granite rim, expecting the worst, but could make out nothing until his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness below. Only then could he see the brick wall and, about fifteen feet down, a kind of brick buttress that traversed the well from side to side. Below that, nothing. He dropped in a stone that bounced off the arch before continuing its descent. Immediately afterwards, he heard the dull splash of the stone hitting water. He threw in a few more stones to make sure. With his hands resting on the rim, he gave a sigh of relief, although he was all too familiar with abandoned wells and their bad water.
He visited various ruined houses, unwinding twine from the beams. Some was simply wound around, while some had been nailed to the wood with tin tacks. To remove the tacks he used one leaf from an old laminated spring he found lying around, until, finally, he had enough twine for his purposes. In the pantry, he found several suspiciously swollen cans. He placed one on the floor and, holding it with one hand, struck the lid with the sharp corner of a tile. Brown liquid spurted forth. The smell was so overpowering that he had to run out into the street to catch his breath. While he waited, he improvised a bucket by tying a twine handle to an earthenware pitcher. Then, using the same metal leaf, he opened the can fully, emptied out the contents and went back to the well.
The water he brought up was full of small white worms that moved by expanding and contracting like tiny springs. He poured a little water into the can to rinse it out, and when it was more or less clean, took off his shirt and placed it over the top of the can to act as a kind of filter. The worms writhed and leapt about on the cloth like tuna fish in a net. The first sip he took tasted slimy, but he was so thirsty that he threw caution to the wind and drank until he could drink no more.
He washed his smoke-stiffened face and, even though several hours had passed since the fire in the tower, the water still dripped black into the dust. He hauled up another pitcher of water and took off his trousers. While the water didn’t wash away all the grime, it did refresh him and, for the first time since he had run away, he felt something akin to the comfort he had known at home with his family. The mixture of soot, dust, blood and urine ran in grubby streams down his legs. He emptied several pitchers of water over his head and, before going back to fetch the donkey, sat down on the rim of the well to rest.
He felt the first pangs when he was halfway between the village and the wood. The cramps in his stomach forced him to squat down on the path. He clutched his belly as he was gripped by continuous waves of contractions, a feeling like being kicked repeatedly in the gut. He lowered his trousers and defecated right there and then. He felt a momentary relief, and his stomach seemed briefly to return to normal. He wiped his bottom on a stone, but, as he was about to pull up his trousers, his legs gave way beneath him as a new wave of cramps took hold. He only just had time to pull down his trousers again before another stream of excrement covered the bottoms of his trousers and his heels. He felt an endless need to open his bowels as if inside his body, a tap had been turned on that he could not turn off.