The hills like a dead dog

 

The train stopped, its windows streaked with recent slashes of mud.

Rain had pounded the plains that morning, giving the dust an anchor upon which to cling. Wet still filled in the spaces of pealing paint and cracked windows.

From outside and above, the train had looked like a long brown worm crawling across the Spanish plain in a journey that seem endless and pointless to its occupants.

Less than a half dozen passengers occupied the last car, and two of these foreigners, both of whom stared out the window even after the train had stopped.

Most of the Spaniards – of whom nearly all were wealthy – took no interest in the terrain, only foreigners did.

These two men sat on either side of the aisle, in the window seats, their gazes locked on the murky brown hills that marked the end of the vast flats over which the train traveled, splotches of dull born that began the climb into Basque country and, eventually, into southern France.

Both men glanced also at the station into which the train had pulled, the air before it hazy with the dust the train had stirred up.

Madrid with its hordes of newly acquired automobiles could not have made the day seem hazier – though the madness of cars affected every city on the continent, making the air in all equally unbreatheable.

Both men also stared out at the narrow brown road that crossed the tracks just ahead of the train, wagons from a previous century rumbling over each raised metal rail with a distinct and disturbing clunk.

The village, if anyone dared give it such a distinction, stood along a portion of the road just beyond the rail road station. Stacks of broken wood and worn and weathered military crates decorated the roadside there, growing gray under the harsh Spanish sun.

The station seemed in little better shape, sagging plank walkway leading to a dilapidated door just to the right side of the train.

“Why have we stopped?” the thinner of the two foreigners asked, his accent and complexion suggesting some nearby Mediterranean origins.

His thick fingernails clicked as they tapped the black brief case in his lap.

The other man, clearly an American, had the broad face and bold expression typical of many Americans who wandered Europe these days, looking as if they all had come off the same assembly line. Such men stomped through Madrid, Rome, Paris, even Berlin – standing out even in the Hun state which boasted of its own racial superiority.

This American, who wore a wrinkled white suit with wide circles of dried sweat around the arm pits, glared over at the thinner man with contempt.

“Do I look like the conductor?” he growled, although his angry tone seemed more habit than irritation. “But I am in the mood for a damned drink. Why don’t these Godforsaken trains have alcohol?”

“There is great poverty here,” the other man said softly, again gazing out at the ragged village buildings. “The war has stolen much from them.”

“The war has taken much from other nations, too. But in Paris they have trains that serve alcohol on them -- as well as other basic comforts,” the American said. “I thought this was a civilized country. But I suppose I was wrong. Do you think they might have a bar in the station?”

“I wouldn’t know for certain,” the other man said. “I suppose they might have.”

“Then why don’t we duck over there for a little something while we’re waiting?”

The thin man squinted at the line of wagons and mules crossing the tracks in front of the train: men and beasts indistinguishable in the heat, coming in clumps from out of the distant hills. This group moved slowly and hinted the train might remain stationary for some time. But such things were deceptive. He shook his head.

“The train might leave before we return,” he said.

“The damned train has stopped dead,” the American barked. “You can’t even hear the engine. If they were going to leave any time soon, would they have turned off the engine?”
The thin man appeared to listen, coking his narrow face to one side like an old hard of hearing dog. “I admit, it seems dead,” he said.

“Well then?”

“I don’t know,” the thin man said. “There can’t be many trains through here these days. I wouldn’t want to…”

“You’re wasting time. The more time you waste the more likely they will start up again. Come on. Come on,” the American said as he rose, his wide chest barely able to squeeze between the seats. These were not built with such men in mind. Even with the slight limp, the American seemed bigger than life, looming ominously over the thin man and the other occupants of the train’s thin interior. His thin brown moustache wiggled over his supper lip. “Come on. Get up.”

Still, the thin man looked nervously around.

“We should be certain,” he said, leaning towards the dirty glass to peer out at the wide Spanish plains and the distant hills. “If we were to get stuck here, we’d…”

“Damn it, man! Where is your backbone? And what would happen if we missed the train anyway? A few old ladies would weep at missing your poems, and a few old men would moan about not hearing my fish tales. If we get stuck here, we get stuck here, I’m sure we’d find something here to occupy ourselves until the next train comes. And perhaps we might even find some inspiration.”

The worn flat-topped cap of the conductor appeared, floating over the empty seats near the front of the car.

“Hey you!” the American boomed. “How long before the train starts again?”

“I don’t think he speaks English,” the thin man said with just a hint of contempt in his voice.

“Then you ask him,” the American said. “My Spanish is rusted. I might get it wrong, and then you’ll condemn me for plotting against you.”

The thin man sighed and spoke softly to the conductor. The Spaniard nodded, answered, then vanished back the way he’d come.

“Well,” the American asked, having paid no attention to the conversation.

“Five minutes.”

“Good. More than enough time for a drink.”

“I don’t know…”

“Listen Almond!” the American snarled.

“That’s Alon,” the thin man said. “My name is Alon.”

“Whatever. We talking booze here, not autograph. We can be there and back before anyone misses us. We still have many hours before we reach a civilized place and I’m parched.”

“But…”

“Stay then, damn it. I’m not afraid to drink by myself,” the American growled and made his way down the aisle.

“Wait!” Alon called, rising with a sigh. “I will come with you. The committee is waiting mostly for you, and I dread the idea of telling them I left you in some remote village called Embreo. They would find no humor in it, Freudian or not.”

The American beamed.

“Now that’s better, Almond. You really have to get used to the idea that we’re in charge around here.”

“This isn’t America.”

“Who said it was,” the American asked, as he dropped from the car to the ground, the dust rising up around him from the impact. “We don’t have to be in America to insist on civilization. Let me help you.”

The American took Alon’s brief case as the thin man lowered himself down the rusted ladder.

“This isn’t Paris either,” Alon said, once settled on to the Spanish soil. “There hasn’t been much of what you mean by civilization here even before the war.”

“Ah Paris!” the American said with a sigh of his own. “Now there’s a real town for you. These people would learn much to imitate that.”

The heat was oppressive, rolling over them and the train in waves. It had seemed much cooler inside, out from under the direct rays of the sun. Here, metal and dust seemed to expand the sun’s power. Here the true viciousness of the plains became evident. The American began to sweat again.

Another train stood between them and the station, flat bed cars with the recent marks of having transported heavy equipment in their soft wooden surfaces, splinters decorating the gravel under foot.

“This way,” the American said, twisting his shoulders somehow to duck under one of these cars. But he stopped short when Alon didn’t follow. “What’s the matter with you?”

Alon pointed to a small brown lump on top of one of the flatbeds. The American rose to see and then laughed.

A dead dog was sprawled on the flat bed, its four paws spread as if the points on a compass. Maggots swarmed over its exposed entrails devouring the flesh.

“No doubt the poor beast has just attended the literary conference you’re so anxious for us to reach,” the American said.

Alon blinked.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said.

“It’s just a corpse for Christ’s sake. I saw plenty others like it during the war. Human no less. Although when they get this far gone, it is hard to tell the difference.”

Alon turned away.

“Let’s talk about something else.”

“Are you ill?” the American asked.

“No.”

The American leaned close to Alon’s face.

“You look ill,” he said.

“I’m just not used to the smell. That’s all,” Alon said.

The American sniffed then smiled. “Ah the good life!” he said.

“How can you joke about things like that?”

“Easy. I’m alive. It’s not.”

“Those maggots…” Alon said with a shudder.

“What did you expect?”

“I don’t know. I suppose I expected death to be cleaner.”

“It is clean. When the maggots are done, there’ll be only bones. There’s nothing cleaner than bones. It’s all that other softer stuff that gets in the way.”

“You’re right,” Alon said. “I don’t feel well.”

“Almond!” the American barked. “How on earth do you expect to survive unless you look on the grizzly side of life now and then? You’ve got to face reality to understand it. Come here. Take a good look.”

“I’d rather…”

“Look at it, damn it!” the American shouted and grabbed Alon by the shoulder, shoving him towards the dead dog.  Alon kept his face turned down.

“I think I’ll need that drink now,” Alon said.

“The drink will wait a moment. Look at reality in the fact. Watch how it squirms. It devours its own world, Almond. This is how we all end up sooner or later.”

“Please! Let’s go inside,” Alon pleaded.

“Oh, all right. But only if you let me send you my latest book. It’s all about reality.”

“Anything you wish. Just let’s go.”

“Good,” the American said, wrapping his powerful arm around Alon’s shoulder as they both ducked under the train car together.

It was cooler in the station, but still hot. A small dark room served the station as its bar – although only two others and the bartender shared the room with the newcomers.

After they’d ordered they settled at a small round table near the window where they could easily see both trains.

The flat cars began to move and the car with the dead dog floated passed. Alon stared after it until the train shrank into the distant hills, sunlight glistening off it so that it look much like the pale maggots against the dusty brown backdrop.

Then with a jerk, the passenger train began to move.

Alon jumped to his feet.

“That’s our train!” he shouted.

The American didn’t move, his feet resting on the third vacant chair.

“Relax, Almond,” the American said, taking a slow sip from his drink. “You’ll give yourself a heart attack. Sit down, have a drink. We’re obviously going to be here a while.”