The Boys Read Free

strong. Jaume could have gotten violent, he could have scuttled all the things on the desk onto the floor, picked up the letter opener and threatened him, asked him who he thought he was. But he just said, “I’m going to the funeral.”
    And he went to the closet, resolutely and silently. It was worse than physical violence; it was as if he shouted: You think you’ve taught me some big lesson, but I’m the one going to the funeral, not you. Me, I’m from here. You don’t have even the slightest idea of what’s going on. You’re an outsider. I’m from here and so are my parents and my wife and my children. So just shut up. You think you have the simplicity of those dead boys in your favor. Well, here’s somethingelse that’s simple: I am in mourning, I will go to the funeral, I will share in the town’s grief, I will be with them, I will cry with them. I’m dying to cry with them. Just wait, you’ll see what a big crowd there’ll be. We won’t all fit into the church. Look at the square. The whole high school is there. The soccer team. The parade association. Those boys’ friends. You see the young people? You see the old fogeys? We’ll all be there. We’ll flood the church with tears. And the church isn’t more than two hundred meters from this office. I’ll have to wipe my feet before I come back in. I will be there and you will be here, doing numbers and thinking about your daughters. Go to hell. You stay here to watch over the office in case some other outsider like you comes in. I’ll be there, listening to the mass with the others. I’ll hear the wails of their parents and friends, the sobs echoing against the church walls as they have for a thousand years, me and everyone else will be buried there among the dead, it will be a physical thing and not one of your jokes, I will be there with my people and you here adding up numbers, waiting, and contemplating. That’s the truth and not your moralizing. Save your morality for the day your daughters are killed. Then we’ll see if you still feel like giving lessons.
    He was used to hearing the bells toll for the dead and watching funerals from the bank office, but this time, alone behind the desk, as the church door swallowed up the swarm of people, he had the impression that the bells tolled louder than ever, twice as loud, four, eight times louder, because there were two boys dead and Jaume had left him alone in the office. They came through the glass with such intensity.They rang so loud. Why such immodesty? Did they have to tell everyone that the boys had finally reached the moment of knowing everything, of seeing everything, of understanding their own existence completely? Did it have to be shouted from the rooftops? We spend our lives in retreat, only at the bottom of the well can we know if life was worth living or not, or, to put it better even though it’s the same thing: only then can we know whether we can know if life was worth living. But we can’t communicate that knowledge. Why toll the bells? To remind him that, when the moment comes, his death will also serve to torment others?
    He searched for Mr. Cals amid the crowd in the square. He tried to figure out who Lluís could be. He looked for his coworker’s wife and children. He recognized clients. The host of Radio Vidreres must have been there as well, because only music was heard on that bandwidth.
    Once everyone was inside the church, the first hearse was able to enter the square, backing up to the doors. Two funeral home employees dressed like businessmen unloaded the first coffin. They went up the steps and put it on a metal platform with wheels. The empty car moved aside, and the second car entered the square.
    Inside the church they waited for the dead with the same expectation they would have for a bride and groom. Which brother was in which box? Did they have little plaques with their