A reason comes to me...

1992/05/01 Irazabalbeitia, Inaki - kimikaria eta zientzia-dibulgatzaileaElhuyar Fundazioa Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Abeltzaintza

Following the highway I am driving fast towards Goierri. Driving fast in me is nothing surprising. Today, however, I have reason to walk fast, because the time is set at nine o'clock. The big clock needle is coming up and I don't want to be late.

In Legorreta, in the fog, we have left the motorway. We took the old national road and crossed the street. There are not many people. More than a Saturday morning it looks like a Sunday morning. We leave the road to the right and follow a fairly narrow asphalt road. In short, a vagrant road sign, apparently made of wood, indicates that we must take a narrow road of cement that ascends in slope.

Luis introduces the key and the knife into the pig. Blood shines on the neck. The doorbell of the pig pierces the ears. The hands hold firmly and the escape desires are like the cough of the midnight goat.

The road rises in zigzag, and sometimes forces me to introduce the first speed. My concern about the car change. The river fog is getting thinner and thinner. The brightness of the Sun is increasingly pronounced.

The hard slope has softened slightly. A short rectangle and between the fog light Domingotegi, our goal. The solar princes that cross a thin fog give a special fascination and charm to the hamlet.

Inaxio, Joxe Jabier and another friend are on the portal. Will he be a murderer? We said goodbye cordially. We headed to the kitchen through the portal and the stable. There, among the smells of the onion, is Marixol, preparing the dishes to kill. He has told me “There is nothing to me!”, almost like goodbye and with the brightness of the genius alive in the eyes. I told the pig. “Ze, geo nun atheist?” he adds. Meanwhile, little Bajilio has come out as nasty as a lizard among the cows of the stable.

Black cattle are bleeding. However, life wants to keep the body and men hold their last kicks firmly.

The murderer has not yet climbed, nor the Jexuxa tia that will help Marixol appeal to pigs.

The fog dissolves, the sky is increasingly blue and sooner than expected the sun will skyrocket.

I asked Inaxio if the time has not passed to kill the pig. He told me yes, but as in autumn his leg broke, he answered me “amnesty” until he was healed and took weight. I have approached the pig to take a look at the pig. The bristle that houses has an impressive appearance. Bajilio has told me that he will weigh one hundred and fifty kilos.

First step to make pots.

The killer Luis and Jexuxa have already come. Luis carries the key and a knife. He is a smiling father. He is sixty years old, but his youth continues. This is the time before you start working. If it will clean; if the river fog rises; if at six and a half it was cleaner. Meanwhile I have prepared the camera and the flax.

The drama is about to begin and all the protagonists, except the boss, prepare the stage. The two doors of the urn have been closed. Four men hold the pig with their legs and throw it on a long chair. Luis has introduced the key under the nose of the pig, ex officio he had learned with skill and for years. The ray of the pig, more penetrating than the train txistu, fills everything. Their confidence has become terror. He wants to flee, but his powerful hands do not leave him and before he realizes it, Luis's sharp knife cuts his neck. Marixol, soon, is collecting in a blue bucket the source of blood from the wound.

The bark of the pig is burned with red wheat. As the animal was full of air, it inflates with heat.

We have two witnesses of the choice of the inevitable drama that is happening in the slaughter: one of the house dogs, accompanied by one of the cats, has shown his head by the slot of the door, a watery crane to know its origin.

The pig is already bleeding. Deblauki, vibrates forcefully as if life did not want to leave the body. Marixol, on her knees, is affecting the blood collected in the bucket, moistening her hand in the blood, to prevent salt from coming out early.

All hairs must be burned. The cooked ones are burned with sack paper.

There is a special atmosphere. The rays of the sun that enter the window emphasize the dust that is floating in the air and create a diffuse, moving, magical luminosity around the girl on her knees. I have regretted that it would not have been a more sensitive film and that its magic could not have been physically frozen forever. By pressing the camera shutter button, I feel the flax light is dazzling.

Before opening the skin is cleaned with water and brushes.

The drama is over. Empty the stage. But history does not. The corpse has long been exhumed and thrown down the cement road. If the neighbor goes, his work is over. Our protagonist has been covered in wheat. It burns. This is really dead, as it has not risen like the pig of Bizkaia and less has begun to escape.

Hot red flames have exaggerated the pig like a balloon full of air, although under the skin there is sweeter than the air. All hair are burned with special care. We are burning critically, there is a penetrating and sweet smell and the smoke becomes intense. When Garoa has done his job, the last cooked sows that have not yet been burned have been burned with sack paper.

Luis's ability has been clear when emptying pigs.

Luis asks me if I have seen the pig kill for the first time. No, I answered. Before he told me that it was done like then and that he had a lot of work. He then added the “elbow jendia de oain!” while throwing more wheat into the fire.

The sky is bluish and temperate.

The pig has been placed back on a long chair. Joxe Jabier has cleaned the leather with water and brushes. Blackened leather appears brown. Luis grabs the knife. The butcher is about to start working and I have the camera ready to take the most representative images. From the wound of killing the animal opens the nose, with two punches of knife and the tongue of the pig. Lifting his arm is a trophy.

At the moment the work has ended. Breakfast is ready.

Then put the knife into the chest and skillfully open it to the ass, following the right breastbone. The intestines are exposed in the form of rough gray mass. Put your hand between the viscera, pull and pull the bladder. It throws the dog tied in the chain. “Well he has entertained me,” he laughs.

I am fascinated by Luis' ability. I feel that I am in the course of anatomy, that she is taking the viscera one by one from the corpse of the pig. It does not fail, or at least I do not perceive it.

Empty the pig. Now it is flesh and bone. As usual, women's work will begin, cleaning the intestines and filling them. However, the male has not yet finished. Luis has pierced the back legs (between the gallows and the bone) and has placed a stake that has been tied with cord and hung next to the door, face down.

Women working. They have hard work cleaning the intestines.

The morning work has ended. We have breakfast ready. Surrounded by onion aromas, we are delighted with the delicious dishes prepared by Marixol. The dialogue between tentacles is calm and pleasant. Here and there, we have raised the lands of heaven, not forgetting those of the pig of Bizkaia.

Luis is gone. You will return in the afternoon to resume work, unless the veterinarian puts sticks after the sample review. We also leave, because this year the prizes are over. When we go down the slope, I have realized that it has also made the river mist and that it has dissolved with the pig.