Twelve Boxes of Earth
Lleida, Catalonia 1971. The real estate office was stuffy that afternoon, and thunder could be heard rolling northward beyond the hills and craggy peaks of La Garrotxa. Juan Baroq, junior partner, slumped over his ledger book and the collection of legal papers occupying his desk, had drifted momentarily away into a light doze, induced by the sound of a radio in an apartment block somewhere nearby, the sultry voice of Camarón floating through the office window and penetrating his brief dreams.
The low concussions from the impending storm, the droning anxiety of the midsummer sky, was suddenly punctured by a sharp bang, rousing Juanito back into consciousness, aware of the building humidity on his upper lip, the trousers clinging to the back of his knees and thighs. At the social club on Carrer Sant Carles, petards could be heard exploding in short bursts where boys had set them in the street, accompanied by the friendly plod of a tuba. Glancing out of the street window, a group of gigantes were being removed from a large warehouse across the way, the huge heads occasionally spinning around before traipsing along, and Juan could now recognise the lumpy papier-mâché head of a Templar knight propped against the front window, throwing a loping shadow across Juans desk, artificially darkening the day so that the receptionist Mercé had been compelled to switch on the electric lights to continue her filing work.
Looking down at his hand, Juan was irritated to discover a large smudge on his thumb, and he could see that the contract he had been drawing up before dozing off now had a black smear where his thumb had been, right where the signatures were. Now he would have to produce a new contract - and urgently - for the buyer had been unusually specific about the manner in which the property was to be acquired, and Juan did not intend to lose a client so affluent as to purchase twelve individual properties in one fell swoop. The commission Juan stood to make would allow him to place a deposit on a nice, modern apartment of his own, (and he had seen just such a place in the vast new developments at Plaça Europa, which had coincidentally fallen onto his desk the same day as this big property deal,) so he could finally move out of his brother Jordi’s shack all the way out in Torrefarrera, and move in with Ona as he had promised too often already.
Drawing up the new paperwork, Juan speculated about the mystery buyer of all those dilapidated, yet handsome properties in and around the village of Riba-Roja just south of Lleida. The village itself hadn’t seen any kind of boom in a long while, and not a single property in the village had been sold through Juan’s office since he had worked there, going on about two years now. But this purchase was so highly strategic, almost drawing a twelve-pointed star over the government-issued land registry map Juan had been charged with examining for conflicts of ownership. Regardless of how curious this business was, the deal needed to pass smoothly and unhindered, adding an anxiety, a new frisson to Juan’s private deliberations - conjectures about the future, and fulfilment of past wishes -
Traipsing back to his car through the now-heavy rain shower, Juan hurriedly banged the door shut as the downpour intensified, catching and tearing his raincoat in the tired mechanism. The raindrops hammered the roof of the little Seat, now rapidly steaming-up from his heavy breath. Juan strained to remember whether he had shut off the lights before locking the office, and he resolved to drive past on his way out of the city to satisfy his doubtful mind. ‘Why twelve?’ he found himself asking aloud, quite to his own surprise. Why twelve, indeed -
The road to Torrefarrera was flooded in numerous places, forcing Juan’s pace to a near crawl; the weak car headlamps failing to pierce the heavy rainfall which had become so intense that he had been forced to park under a wide-brimmed pine tree to prevent the cracking of his windshield by the giant hailstones now melting into the slushy asphalt. Seized with sudden panic and annoyance at his absent-mindedness, he quickly clutched his portfolio to inspect the contracts which, to his sincere disappointment, were sodden-through and completely illegible, the signatures now a running black river of indian ink botching the legality of the brief. Now Juan would need to stay up all night drafting up further copies for the client, who was expecting the deal to be ratified in the morning! A sharp pang of hunger also clawing at his belly, Juan dismayed at the likelihood of finding food at Jordi’s place in a fit condition to eat, and he would not now have the time to prepare anything himself. Thrusting the motor back into gear, Juan impulsively threw the car around and chugged back toward Lleida to drop in at his grandmother’s house where he might actually finish the new contracts and receive a decent meal. Further to this, he would need to set out at around 5:30 the next morning to get to Riba-Roja at the appointed time to deliver the contracts to the buyer, who he was curious to meet.
Pulling on his still-wet trouser legs and shirt, whilst simultaneously eating a bowl of leftover bean stew and fried eggs his grandmother had prepared earlier, Juanito was well pleased to be already under way by 5:15, clutching a flask of coffee between his legs to drink before the meeting, a Ducado smouldering as he clutched the steering wheel. The empty C-12 that wound its way down through the mountainous scar of the Ebro valley was a little hazardous after the fierce rains; boulders, rocks and branches had washed down out of the barrancos and into the highway, and Juan almost collided with a truck loaded with pigs which had taken a sharp bend around the prow of a hill way too shallow, forcing him over the centre line and into Juan’s path - which he only narrowly avoided. Flooded with adrenaline and useless anger, Juan pulled into a layby at the foot of the steep incline of the hill with a screech of brakes and the swearing of numerous oaths. Perching on an ochre-coloured rock that had already dried out in the hot morning sun, he sipped at the coffee and burned a further two cigarettes before getting underway again, his pulse having recovered it’s regular tempo. Before the hour was up, Juan was pulling into the village of Riba-Roja, slowed somewhat by the bumpy cobbles in the marketplace. Failing to make sense of the map, he made inquiries as to the whereabouts of the old Ermita de Santa Madrona, which to add to Juan’s dismay, was accessible only by foot at the very tip of a rocky goat track in the nearby massif.
The chapel on the hill was still cool and dark inside, yet musty from the humid air of centuries passed. To Juan’s surprise, a large, black mare emerged from a shadow at the end of the apse, which vanished no sooner than it arrived, leaving Juan with a sense of foreboding. This property did not look fit to present to the client, with extensive damp in one corner under a collapsed portion of beam, where numerous ceramic tiles had fallen to the church floor, creating a sense of chaos and disorder. Determined to close the sale however, Juan resolved to conclude what he had set out to do. Following a flight of steps down into the crypt, Juan descended into what appeared to be a more ancient structure than the chapel above; the details on the pillar capitals which supported the primitive arched ceiling bore curious, pre-Romanesque figures and gargoyles the likes of which Juan had never encountered before, despite having visited many such ancient chapels in the Lleida department with his late father, an enthusiast. At the small stone altar, hewn from yellowish limestone, twelve large packing crates had been stacked, as though gathered in a formal congregation around the slab. Inspecting the room further with his pocket flashlight, he was unable to find any trace of the client, and Juan departed after waiting under the great, arched doorway for a further two hours, disappointed, cold, and without his commission -
Later that evening, after another light storm, Juan flicked on the green lamp at his desk and sipped at the cold coffee he had made hours earlier before dozing off. His light sleep had seemed preoccupied with questions spurred by the paperwork on his desk surrounding the sale: just who was it Juan was helping to move into the village, and for what reason should all these properties, amounting to a small empire, be acquired? It would have been understandable, should the client have wished to invest in Lleida, or more preferably, Barcelona, for no doubt those properties should acquire a great deal of value in the future - indeed, one could make a killing: but to acquire in such a tiny, out of the way place - and in such great quantity, too - just escaped his understanding altogether. He’d hoped to be satisfied on these - and other - points at the meeting that never happened: now he was unsure the deal would take place at all. The client must have gotten cold feet -
Bearing the taste of all that money in his mouth, so unceremoniously snatched away again before he could take a real bite, Juan absentmindedly rifled through the papers once more without really knowing what he was looking for. All the notarized documents had been signed under power of attorney in the client’s absence, and at no small cost. The conveyancing of properties from abroad was arduous enough, and Juan could not believe the buyer was all of a sudden being fickle: most likely he, (or she,) was playing hardball, looking to drive down the asking price - along with Juan’s precious commission with it. Resolved to hold his line on the price, Juan prepared himself for negotiations by mentally scrolling through the selling points of the portfolio in question, but now failed to find any. All he could think of was the inky smear which had spoiled the contract the night before, perhaps a sign, a premonition invalidating the whole deal.
Next morning, scurrying around his brother’s messy rented apartment with a piece of toast in his mouth and coffee in hand, Juan had copped a decent night’s sleep and was starting to feel more positive about resuming his efforts to conclude the sale. It would first be necessary to contact the agent who was acting on behalf of the buyer, indicate to them the failed meeting, and arrange for another as soon as possible. If the agent couldn’t be contacted, Juan would then call the shipping company in Tarragona whose invoices had been taped to the weird crates in the chapel crypt, and which Juan had been present-minded enough to write down. Reaching out to take his pocket book from the bed stand, Juan was surprised to find that his hand would not pick it up, but instead just hung limply like a teenager refusing to do physical labour. Once and again, Juan attempted to pick up the book off the bed stand, but was invariably left waving his unresponsive, rebellious hand from the end of his arm. Panicked, spinning around to go tell his brother, Juan was relieved to find his hand clutched at the door handle just fine. His next effort to pick up the book passed without any further hindrance.
Flying toward Lleida, flask of coffee typically clenched between his thighs, radio blaring a crackly aria from Turandot, Juanito had forgotten the episode with the hand altogether, had even forgotten about the stain, and about the lorry load of swine. Dark clouds over the Pyrenees, sagging like bunches of giant grapes, threatened further catastrophic inundations, and it seemed the road was even more littered with rubbish and hazards than the day before. Up ahead, an 18-ton truck had overturned at the sketchy intersection just outside Torrefarrera, and was somehow on fire. Vehicles had slowed in both lanes to look at the wreckage. Juan was alarmed to see smouldering bodies in the back of the burning vehicle, and a little girl no older than five or six years lying blackened and motionless on the asphalt. Suddenly flushed in his cheeks, then gripped by cold nausea in his belly, Juan could not help himself from speculating upon the immigrant bodies he had seen in the burning transport. Where were they destined for, and from where had they had come? At whose leisure would they have served tonight, had they not all burned to death? Behind the smouldering wreckage of the lorry, itself signifying a much wider distribution network of bodies, bodies hungry for nourishment, bodies upon whom speculates with rancid fangs the succubus living with us all...
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