A tightly tangled mass of bones appears from out of a hollow in the ground. It is an unmarked mass grave. The colour of the soil may vary; dusty yellow-grey or deep russet, as if the blood had dyed the soil. The skeletons are so closely packed together they may as well be a bundle of twigs, or some primeval, fossilised undergrowth. Now that the flesh has long since decomposed, the individual remains are indistinguishable from one another. The bodies were tossed into their makeshift grave barely hours after they were shot, sometimes with their hands still bound. One on top of the other, to save as much space (and time) as possible. That is what makes the exhumations of mass graves so immediately startling – they are surprisingly shallow.
Perhaps we are spoiled by the spectacular of archaeological digs, and we forget just how close to the surface the dead really are. Fraternal persecution makes for hasty burial. The sites are always banal non-places, on the side of country roads or by the whitewashed wall of the local cemetery, knowledge of which has been discreetly passed down the generations. The dead are never too far off – never far enough. Coins, buttons, rings, belts and shoe soles made of old tyres are also found; whatever few possessions they had on them when they faced the firing squad. Without the safe distance of a museum’s glass case the bones are shocking in their starkness. Ribs and pelvises filled with earth, jaws biting into the soil. The verses of Miguel Hernández, a militant poet of peasant origin who died in the prison of Alicante in 1942, are brought to mind:
“Earth in the mouth, and in the soul, and in all./ Earth which I eat, Earth which shall in the end swallow me whole.” Tierra: Tierra en la boca, y en el alma, y en todo./ Tierra que voy comiendo, que al fin ha de tragarme.
