In the Wake of the Moriscos

Above the town, deep in the mountain’s shadow, a family of wild boar force their way through a fence into the garden of a vacant villa. In the garden of another villa a wood pigeon, losing its footing on the branch of a pine tree, flaps its wings and dislodges a cone, which falls and bounces off an agave leaf and then lands with a clack on the crazy paving, distracting some ants from their work. On a balcony, Janine opens a Smirnoff Ice and gazes at the distant ferry, and two wasps catch the scent of Tony’s grilled sausages and go to investigate. Two ravens croak to each other as they take off from their nest on the crags and fly towards the coast, passing into sunlight.

In the town, Hugo slices the cured leg of a pig and sparrows fight over fries and paella rice under a table. Stefan parks his Mercedes in the shade, puts on his sunglasses, and goes for a beer. In the cemetery a hoopoe alights by some flowers placed at the gravestone of SS-Hauptsturmführer Anton Galler, and fans its crest.

At the port, mullet gather in the water where little Marta has thrown some bread, and some distance away a bull jumps off the harbour wall to escape its tormentors. Alejandro wipes his dagger clean of the bull’s blood and looks up, hearing the croaks of the ravens as they fly out over the Mediterranean.