Manuel Rivas - Books Burn Badly

With God, for many years.

P.S. How are your studies on the links between the thought of José Donoso Cortés and our own António Sardinha?

P.P.S. I remember now a strange detail. The architect’s name is the same as that of a sculptor from Porto in the last century, António Soares dos Reis, who happened to receive first prize at the 1881 Exhibition in Madrid for his work The Exile.

She’d give them back to the judge. They were his. They were in a zipped pocket in his green hunting trousers. It wasn’t usual to find something like that. She always went through the clothes. In case there was a banknote or something. She only ever found the odd coin, which are like nits. Who knows what the letters were doing in there, his carbon copy and the Porto judge’s reply? To start with, she wondered what this Most Worthy would be like. But then she directed all her attention towards the Portuguese architect and his boat-houses. Until then, these letters had only been read by the two friends. If they’d fallen into her hands, there must be a reason. She shared the secret about that invisible man, the Portuguese architect. She stared at the film of water. Who was this António Soares?

No. She wouldn’t hand them to the judge. All saints have their favourite. She didn’t even tell Neves the maid about her find when she took back the clean clothes. She waited until she was alone with the painter. She posed in the Chinese Pavilion as every Thursday, just as they’d agreed. It seemed to her the portrait was progressing very slowly. That day, the two of them, painter and model, glanced at each other from time to time, but without talking. A woman’s voice hung in the air. Chelo had put that record on again with the opera singer whose voice extended time. She definitely had an open body, thought O. She found her calming, said the painter, though on O she had the opposite effect. She made her alert, excited, there were even moments she felt anxious. Her voice came out of the flames and returned to the embers. It reminded her of moths around a lamp and, when the record came to an end, she thought she could hear and smell the scorching of wings. Wings that burnt badly. That day, she had the letters in her hands and felt as if she were holding people. The effect of the song, even though she only understood a few words, sparks of excommunion, was to complicate everything. Get in your life, in the life of anyone who happened to be nearby. The future was a mystery, but this blazing melancholy extended the mystery to the past. When they’d been looking at prints and, out of all the ones she’d seen, without hesitating, with the joy of someone who’s found the picture of their life, O had chosen that portrait of a bride with a fan of flowers carrying her bridegroom on her shoulders in a red jacket with a glass of wine. The red wine is a continuation of the bridegroom’s arm and the toast gives way to an angel who’s also red.

‘I’m not surprised,’ the painter had said. ‘ Double Portrait with a Glass of Wine by Chagall. I’d have chosen the same picture. It has something to do with happiness. And happiness is very difficult to paint.’

In this new session, Chelo Vidal devoted more of her attention to the figure taking shape on the canvas than to O. And, in the air, there was that other woman. It must be exhausting having a voice like that, thought O. It’s a gift, of course, but also a concern. Every sound, every word, every sigh, laugh and lament, would have to be kept in a chest.

‘She’s got eyes now,’ said Chelo. ‘And a look.’

She talked about the woman in O’s portrait in the third person. The washerwoman crept over. She knew she’d find another being and wondered whether it would be a new or an old O, whether it would be the woman in the picture uneasily making off in search of uneasy happiness. That stupid thing about the portrait taking your spirit. No, what she was afraid of was the opposite. She was afraid of being disappointed. She wanted it to be a new O. An O with desire and impulse. A better O.

Finally their eyes met. Chelo moved away towards the radiogram, as if wanting to leave them alone.

She was a fighter. She liked the O in the picture. In fact, the two Os in the picture, since there was one washing and her reflection in the river. They were, and were not, the same. The one who was kneeling down, washing, eyed the other with smiling curiosity. You could say she was laughing at her. The other, who rather than being on the surface of the water was at the bottom, had a pale, melancholy expression. O liked the picture. And, thanks to it, discovered that she was the new O. Chelo had painted her as well, the third O, the one outside the picture. It was she who had to go in search of uneasy happiness.

‘What do you think?’

‘They’re a little ugly.’

‘A little ugly?’ Chelo looked at her in surprise. ‘I don’t think they’re ugly.’

‘The point is they’re very well done.’

‘You think they’re genuine?’

‘Absolutely.’

Now four of them were looking at each other. In recognition. Trying to prolong the moment. The portrait only needed one more session. And that day would also be the washerwoman’s last. They’d discussed it. It was time the washing machine, currently covered by a white sheet in the utility room, started working. O knew from Neves they’d bought it together with some other appliances months before. It was something she’d foreseen. That sooner rather than later there’d be no more work washing for the well-to-do. They’d almost all got modern washing machines. In fact, O, Olinda’s daughter, was one of the last washerwomen in Coruña. As Amalia, since the opening of Leyma Dairies, was one of the last milkmaids. She’d noticed this, how people had started to look at her when she was carrying a load. They hadn’t done this before. Even if she’d been carrying a huge load on top of her head, big as a hot-air balloon, they still wouldn’t have looked at her. But recently they’d taken a few photos of her in the street. And a group photo with Ana, the other washerwoman, and Amalia the milkmaid, the one who used to say, ‘We’ll soon be found only on antique postcards!’

No. She wasn’t going to wait to be dismissed. She knew from Neves that Chelo Vidal had said the machine was only for emergencies. O would have work in that house for as long as she wanted. O understood. Neves the maid was a good carrier pigeon.

O knew everything or almost everything. The communications network between women carrying things on top of their heads. She even knew the price, how much she was worth, how much for a load, the river, the sun’s detergent in the market of machines. O was familiar with the sky, but she didn’t live in the clouds. She was a fast one. And she went round to Hexámetro to see the washing machines. There was a very special one that had a porthole like a ship’s. In that dark circle, she could see all of the past the machine was about to — what’s the word? — drain. She viewed them with sympathy, they were machines with which she had something in common, rivers moved by electricity. She recalled Polka’s faith in electricity. He’d wanted to call her Electra. In honour of the Greeks? No, in honour of the New Coruñan Electricity Company founded by Pepe Miñones, the Republican who. . And Olinda said the priest would refuse, they needed the baptism certificate and, with the war, they’d also lost those words, those names, that electricity. No, she didn’t say that. She just said, ‘The girl’s going to be called O, Our Lady of Expectation.’

‘Expectation?’

‘Expectation.’

‘All right then. Expectation.’

Now that the washerwoman in the picture and her reflection in the river had taken shape, O noticed how all the sadness went out of her. She’d given herself the portrait, the completion of the portrait, as a deadline. She’d work hard this summer. Wash for the Samoses, for Dr Abril and that temporary job she’d got, sheets for the Hotel of Mirrors. It was only for a few weeks, until they finished installing the machines. But it would help her to save something before she emigrated. Polka and Amalia were right. She didn’t want to end up on a postcard.