Manuel Rivas - Books Burn Badly

‘I’ve something for you too, madam.’

She handed her the letters.

‘They were in the green hunting trousers,’ she spoke very softly. ‘In the zipped pocket.’

She didn’t give any further explanations and Chelo didn’t ask for them. As she left, from behind the door, she heard the urgent unfolding of papers. Before returning the clothes, along the way, she’d listened to different voices. One had said, ‘Don’t get involved in family affairs.’ That was Polka’s. But she preferred the other, ‘Each to his own saint.’ That was also Polka’s.

She went down Cantóns. Stopped at the traffic lights outside Pastor Bank. While she was waiting, she glanced over at a table on the terrace of the Galicia Café where the judge was sitting with some other men. This situation had occurred before. The first time it happened, she’d expected a small sign, a minimal greeting. She was then the most visible person in the whole of the city. She’d been carrying a load, a huge globe, on top of her head. But the judge hadn’t seen her. Never mind. So where were these boat-houses?

‘THE HOTEL OF Mirrors?’

O had asked everywhere and people in the street didn’t know, though some of them gave her a funny look, as if she’d been carrying a pink neon advertisement on top of her head. There must be a mistake with the address. She then dared to push open that door, the one with the neon sign for La Boîte de Pandora. There was a very steep staircase, a dark tunnel leading down to the basement. She felt the desire to go back outside, but the music climbed the steps and offered her its hand. The instruments were in conversation, sharing good and bad times, drawing and accompanying her footsteps. It was evening. When she reached the last step, there was a sudden movement of shadows and she felt with disgust a claw on her shoulder. She froze, unable to speak. The musicians carried on playing, as if they couldn’t drop their notes so suddenly. She had the impression there were lots of them, huddling in a dark corner, around a piano’s large set of teeth. She turned and stared into the small, bright eyes of the parrot which had landed on her shoulder. In fact, there were four musicians and the one who came over had a circle on his lips. The mark of the trumpet’s mouthpiece. She looked at him, bewitched. Forgot about the bird’s furtive presence. The trumpet player grabbed the parrot and returned it to its perch. As the darkness dissipated, she realised the establishment was full of exotic birds. And the wall at the end was made of water. Water that kept changing colour.

The trumpet player seemed to be watching her through the concentric mark of his lips. To avoid the circle becoming undone, O ran back upstairs.

She finally found the entrance she was looking for, on the other side of the building. There was no sign on the outside, not even the small, blue plaque indicating a boarding-house. But this did not mean it had been abandoned. The hotel had recently been refurbished and, already in reception, had the pride of decrepit premises that have suddenly grown chandeliers on the ceilings and mirrors on the walls. The reception desk clearly fancied itself as a bar, its counter having been clad in red imitation leather. To start with, O thought the receptionist had a tie which was also made of imitation leather. A man placed among the furniture and chandeliers. She could imagine this was a place for what Polka called ‘women with schedules’ — he was always very careful with his words. Polka was a great friend of women. One day, they’d laughed at him for calling Olinda ‘sweetheart’ in public. ‘I’ll be off now, sweetheart.’ Since when it had been like a second nickname: Polka Sweetheart. He felt better with women. When he started working as a gravedigger, he used to pass in front of the Cuckoo’s Feather bar, packed with men, many of them playing cards, and shout from the doorway, ‘There’s no money to be made here for a gravedigger!’ He’d often go down to the river to help Olinda carry the clothes. O too, after Olinda died. And he loved to take part in conversation. He liked to play with words and make people laugh and think, like a comical priest: ‘Let whoever is without a stone throw the first sin.’

Amalia came straight out with it, ‘It’s a brothel, darling, rooms by the hour, for fucking.’ What did O care? She didn’t mind what clothes she washed. It was only for a short period. Until she sorted out her papers, since she’d made up her mind to leave. What did she care? It was better even. No small, fiddly garments to wash. Just bedclothes. From beds for strangers with secret rendezvous. That’d give her something to think about while she was washing. There was a special room. A room full of mirrors. The ceiling itself was a mirror. The lady showing her around, who lived there and was a mysterious figure, it was unclear whether she was a guest or manager, explained in a whisper, as if she didn’t want the mirror images to hear, that this was the suite used by Mr Manlle to unmake the bed with his little friends. Unmake the bed. Little friends. O found it funny the way she talked. She spun around, multiplying her image in the mirrors.

‘Two people unmaking the bed here is like twenty people doing it twenty times.’

‘Yes, it’s more pleasurable.’

‘Who’s this Manlle?’

It was now the turn of Samantha, the Woman with the Feather Boa, to scan her multiple images in the mirrors. Despite being talkative, she seemed to have to weigh up her answer to that question.

‘Don’t you know who Manlle is? Better not to know. He’s the owner of this and a lot more.’

She closed the door to the suite of mirrors.

‘Come, come to my room,’ she gestured.

It was a small room stuffed full of things. A strange mixture of luxury and second-hand. The walls were covered in photographs and portraits with the boa woman’s unmistakable presence. Here there are no mirrors, but another kind of multiplication made with fragments of time. Everyone has their own air, which they always carry with them, thought O, but it was still surprising how much that woman resembled herself. She changed age, clothes, hairstyle. One thing remained the same in almost all of them and that was her sturdy physique. And yet in one of the larger photos she was extraordinarily thin, as if she’d wasted away. Strangely enough, she was more herself than ever. Because of that look she had.

The look she was giving her now. Hard and shocked at the same time.

‘That Manlle’s a bandit,’ she said. ‘He takes after Judas. Pretends to be a gentleman, but bites before he barks. He’s never satisfied, the pig. He’s bought off everyone, sealed their lips. But I’ve got it all in here, girl. Inside my noddle. I wish the rest of my body worked as well as my head. Do you know how he started? No, how could you?’

Anyone who stared at O for long enough felt like storing things inside those large, open eyes.

‘He started with wolfram. Do you know what wolfram is? No, of course you don’t!’

O nodded. She’d never actually seen it. She couldn’t discuss its colour or appearance. But she knew everything about wolfram. There were three wolfram mine shafts in Polka’s right leg. Two in his ankle and one in his knee. He’d been forced to work as a prisoner in the River Deza mines. Had been wounded while trying to escape. A steady supply of this mineral, which was abundant in Galicia, was essential to the munition factories in Nazi Germany. Polka’s scars changed colour according to the season. In summer, they were pink. In winter, they turned dark violet. Which was when he limped the most. He’d received poor treatment. Polka said it had given the ants time to come inside him.