The Last House Before the Sea by Gabi Martínez

Author:Gabi Martínez
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Restless Books

LAND

UNCERTAINTY

THE TEMPERATURE HAS ALREADY gone up high enough to where Dylan has replaced his green overalls with pants and short sleeves. “This is the first time since starting here in Buda that I’ve come to work without overalls. I just thought, if I’m more comfortable this way, then why not?”

There are fewer and fewer crabs, and most of the ducks have left La Pantena, but dozens of pennants and scarecrows remain stuck in the fields while intermittent sound cannon blasts reverberate in the background. The number of black-winged stilts and western swamphens has dropped by half over the past several days, and the lagoon overlooking the Migjorn is dry.

The harvest is expected to be good, because when the rice flowers were in bloom, it wasn’t too hot, preventing fleas from appearing. Now, the grains have taken shape and the danger seems behind us. Since the wind has also been gentle, almost no plants have been blown flat. As soon as the stalks of rice are laden enough with grains that some begin to droop across others, a single gust of wind could knock down an entire field, one plant dragging down the next like dominoes. For the time being, though, the weather is ideal for the plants to remain upright. And for the mosquitoes, which have taken over the world. While they emerge en masse at dusk, during the day it’s best not to go near shade or get two meters away from a rice field.

Mateo, Dylan, and company say they don’t get bitten, and if they do, they don’t even notice. After so many years, their blood simply accepts the mosquitoes’ toxic saliva as a familiar substance. In that regard, they’re a bit like El Boga, who suggested separating oneself from mosquitoes simply by not thinking about them. Literary characters can indulge in these turns of phrase while I slather myself in aloe vera and sticky creams that, whether by touch or by smell, should drive away these maddening nuisances. Gonzalo and Teresa light scented candles and incense sticks.

To more fully enjoy the sunsets, I waited months for summer’s arrival, but I hadn’t counted on the mosquitoes, which have initiated me into the underbelly of night in the delta, where winter calls while summer closes in. I find the cold March winds more tolerable than these clouds of insects that force me to go about with long sleeves and a hood, constantly waving a hand in front of my face. Long before nightfall, La Pantena’s white front door becomes plastered with mosquitoes to the point where they form a kind of lining. To prevent them from slipping into the house, I dash in, slamming the door behind me, limiting ventilation to the drafty chimney and screened windows.

In exchange for having lost elements of the night, I’ve gained an appreciation for spiders. Now I want them close by. In the bedroom I sleep with two large, long-legged specimens—Pholcus phalangioides, as Mateo would specify—that have woven impressive webs. In the rest

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