Manuel Rivas - Books Burn Badly

He was feeling restless. The seat next to him was empty. He kept checking the time. But Samos’ unease was not caused by the absence of his wife, Chelo, after whom the nearest guests, most of them judges and prosecutors, had enquired in order to be informed she would arrive a little late due to a pressing engagement. He’d considered giving a more detailed explanation, namely that she was taking her leave of a group of Portuguese teachers and students of architecture who’d come to study Coruña’s boat-houses. But he kept quiet. He could imagine the collective sneer, ‘What exactly do you mean by boat-houses?’ However much he tried to put it to the back of his mind, he found a bitter taste in the phrase ‘Portuguese architect’. Furthermore, despite Chelo’s open enthusiasm, he still couldn’t understand all this interest in boat-houses. Rationalist architecture inspired by Le Corbusier. A few days before, he’d done something unusual for him. He’d asked Chelo to draw up a route of boat-houses. Her favourite boat-houses. He wasn’t greatly interested in modern architecture. If he had to admire something, he said provocatively, it was whatever had a vocation for permanence and magnificence, such as Santiago Cathedral with its baroque façade or Pastor Bank in Coruña with its neo-baroque entrance. These houses that did so much for Chelo and a few enlightened visitors struck him as simple and practical. They’d been inspired by the famous Le Corbusier. All right. What else? He didn’t think they’d go down in history for their curved balconies that recalled a ship’s bridge. Or for the ribbon windows, the synthesis of arts and the Modulor. The Modulor? A universal, harmonious measurement based on the proportions of the human body. But he still went and asked her for a map of rationalist buildings because what he wanted was to observe her reaction. Her reaction was unexpected, much better, more calming than he could have hoped: ‘Wouldn’t you like me to be your personal guide? We could go and see them together.’ And she added with a smile, ‘Along the way, I’ll explain to you Le Corbusier’s five points of architecture.’ Her reply cheered him up enormously. For some time, he’d been torturing himself with suspicions of infidelity. Of course it’d be wonderful if she accompanied him. If they went on one of those outings together they kept talking about and postponing. But in this instance he confessed he was curious to see them without her and to draw his own conclusions.

‘You’re resistant to any architectural charms,’ said Chelo.

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘I’ll give it a go in writing. I’ll make you a map and some notes. It’s best to start with the Atalaya building by Antonio Tenreiro in Recheo Gardens. Or else on Pardo Bazán, where there are several boat-houses, the best of which is number 6 Pardo Bazán. That has a façade which is reminiscent of a prow. You must have seen it.’

‘You walk down the street and miss lots of interesting things.’

‘Yes, our eyes are sometimes a little imprisoned.’

Chelo wrote while saying aloud, ‘6 Pardo Bazán. Architect: José Caridad Mateo.’

‘Caridad Mateo,’ he repeated. ‘The son of General Caridad Pita.’

‘That’s right, one of them.’

They kept up the same tone, but to talk of the Caridad family normally was unusual. A pretence. In the city, its environment, even in private, you didn’t talk about General Caridad Pita or his sons. It would have been an anomaly. His name was a taboo among the victors, even to be cursed or denigrated. General Caridad was the leading military authority at the time of the coup, he remained loyal to the constituted government and, in front of the firing squad, shouted, ‘Long live the Republic!’ No, it wasn’t normal to talk about General Caridad. Or his son, the architect, who was in prison and then went into exile. Or the other, younger son who fled by ship. They disappeared, vanished. Ex-men.

‘I understand the architect’s in Mexico,’ said the judge. In fact, he had this on good authority. Inspector Ren had told him so. But he didn’t say this. He just added, ‘I’ll have to take a look at number 6 Pardo Bazán.’

‘He was very talented. Did you ever meet him?’

‘No,’ replied Samos. ‘Not him.’

They never spoke of the matter again. For him, the conversation had been reassuring. The mention of that name that had been struck off the census helped to banish his fears. The buildings were there, in the book of the city, with their styles, history and people who studied them. Hardly surprising they also had their ghosts, after what had happened.

Chelo did not deserve this suspicious, jealous state that had been gnawing away inside him for years. He couldn’t exactly say when their relationship ceased to have to do with feelings. The balance of their marriage was a front sustained by interest and convenience. They didn’t have problems because they were both polite and respected each other’s space as you respect someone’s furniture. The twin blades of a pair of scissors. It was Father Munio who had once compared marriage to a pair of scissors. One blade can’t function without the other. The judge may have been the main cause of distance. This was something he’d started to consider after all these years. He hadn’t paid her enough attention when her father, Mayarí, died. Depression? He didn’t understand. Dying was one of the laws of life, wasn’t it? He hadn’t known how to respond in the case of Gabriel. He realised now his discomfort was caused not just by his speech impediment, that terrible stutter, but by any other sign of weakness or imperfection. Though he never would have recognised it — he believed a patriarch’s sincerity was counterproductive in the home and the slightest Freudian concession gave him an itch — there may have been some truth in Chelo’s theory that he was taking out his own frustrations on Gabriel. His serious character had lately veered towards taciturn melancholy. He easily got annoyed, especially in the Palace of Justice, be it in his office or in the courtroom. Where before he had felt firm and strong, now he frequently became despotic. His concern, his obsession with the ‘Portuguese architect’, had threatened to ruin their diplomatic entente. Stuck in the Crypt, driven by his reading of the man with fiery words, he fell into a kind of rugged fanaticism. When he received an answer from his Most Worthy colleague, he almost exploded with rage. The Portuguese architect didn’t exist. Who was the other man? Finally he managed to control himself and enter a period of cold calculation. He went so far as to design the most sordid use possible of his powers as judge should it reach the point where he had to defend his honour. He went through the law and sentences with a fine-tooth comb. He could make Chelo Vidal go to prison, turn her into a social outcast. But his plan, the revenge that most satisfied him, was to pardon her and have her, self-confessed, at home. Watch the guilt drive her crazy. One day, he found her removing the dust from her opera records with a cloth. Her finger, in a velvet hood, circled slowly around the vinyl grooves. Her finger like the needle of a bodily appliance. Her gaze distracted. That’s how he’d like to see her all the time. Especially after discovering, in the false bottom of a wooden chest, a Getúlio-Vargas-style revolver with a pearly handle, perfect for what we might call an artistic denouement. All this had been in a fit of passion. He calmed down the day she herself mentioned the Portuguese architect. Without being asked, Chelo simply untied the knot that had so entangled him. She came to his study. Looking beautiful as always. Wiping her fingers on a colour-stained cloth. He adopted his recent glowering expression. Chelo said, ‘Ricardo, the Portuguese architect called this morning. Remember? The one I took on a tour with students of boat-houses.’