Manuel Rivas - Books Burn Badly

Eighteen days?

Why eighteen days?

Despite its absurdity, this law tested the imagination. The penalties were severe, involved imprisonment and related only to woman. According to the law, she could be convicted if she was surprised once with the other miscreant in bed. Adultery is committed by a married woman who lies with a man who is not her husband, and by the one who lies with her, knowing her to be married, even if the marriage is then declared null and void. Paúl Santos, however, was thinking about something else, not the judge or his wife. Eighteen days in a hotel room with the Tachygraphic Rose. He tried to trigger his imagination, but couldn’t get past the first day. He was happy like this. Went back to the typewriter. Pressed a few keys. The word cohabitation . The word miscreant . The word bed . The metal bars got entangled and prevented the carriage return. He started again. Arms at right angles. The optic nerve connected to the fingers, but without looking. That’s right. Have another go. I embark on this poem in the hope its felicity of phrase will speed the boat towards St Pierre and Miquelon.

‘YOU CAN BE present if you wish, Mr Samos.’

‘No, it’s better if you talk to him alone.’

Gabriel didn’t talk. He read from his notebook. After saying goodbye to the docks, or on the boat to the Xubias, or when crossing Ponte da Pasaxe, or going inside the boat-houses, or taking the tram to Sada, or on the train to Betanzos, and once (‘Surely not!’ muttered Chief Inspector Ren), once it even happened on the upper deck of a trolleybus, one of those red trolleybuses from London, the number 2, Porta Real — Os Castros, there too they did it, made love or something, his hand up her skirt.

‘Surely not!’

Yes, she’d been protected, covered by this city of Mist Pee, Fly Pee, Wind on the Side of Hunger, Widows’ Wind, Night Enclosure, Sky with a Shell, with an Awning, Bramble Sky, Oza in a Thunderstorm, thunder and lightning, this city with its carnal, voluptuous, promiscuous sky.

Between thunder and lightning, when it cleared, thanks to Gabriel’s tale, everyone began to see clips of Chelo Vidal kissing and loving the Portuguese architect. Or whoever it was. And in this third party’s tale there was an enjoyment, a lingering, that acted like a sucker on the temples of all who listened.

Everything Gabriel said was noted down in shorthand or in handwriting no onlooker could read. But Santos wasn’t looking at the strange notebook, he was watching the window, which was a moving picture of boats and cranes. Everything inside him was moving too. Rarely had he felt such excitement on account of language.

‘In the sea?’

‘Yes, they’d stay there for two, three, even four minutes and then emerge, blowing a siphon of water. In Canaval, when there was no one about, they’d wrap themselves in seaweed and roll in the sand.’

When he turned around, Ren was blowing smoke rings, which Mancorvo followed as they rose to the ceiling. The central table was empty, completely bare, except for Gabriel’s notebook, which gave it the air of an incendiary device. The eyes, facial muscles, position of the body, suggest an initial critical reaction to the text. The line of the mouth, for example, is a type of pronouncement. They were satisfied to begin with. Both were in a stupor, but it was a victorious stupor. With his smoke signals, Ren seemed to be savouring this surprising tale like a triumph. Having this degree of information about a life doesn’t just give you the power to dispose of it, it grants you access to a particular kind of enjoyment: the dissection of someone else’s enjoyment.

‘He’s finished. How many meetings was that?’

When they looked at each other, Ren’s face seemed to hide a complex thought after he’d blown so many smoke rings into the air. But what he said, with clearly universal connotations, was, ‘Unbelievable!’

Mancorvo nudged him. ‘Just as well the judge wasn’t here!’ Ren ignored him. He was reaching the same conclusion as Santos. The boy had laid a trap. A tale moored to reality. He was pulling their legs.

It was Santos who took the initiative. ‘Tell us the truth, Gabriel. Everything you’ve written is a lie, isn’t it?’

‘Everything,’ Gabriel replied with certainty.

‘What’s Durtol, Gabriel?’

‘A sanatorium.’

‘Have you been there? Why do you write from Durtol? What happens in Durtol, Gabriel?’

‘Let’s leave it,’ suggested Santos.

‘Katechon!’ Ren exclaimed bitterly. He looked at Gabriel’s unintelligible notebook. ‘You know how to scrawl, don’t you?’

‘JUDITH?’

They could have enquired after anyone. But they go and ask about someone who doesn’t exist. There are loads of names in these parts. Some people have three or four names. But, outside the Bible, I couldn’t think of a single Judith. And even if I had, I wouldn’t have told them.

‘Police,’ said the spindly one with a lack of enthusiasm. If you’re police, I thought, you could at least act the part. Show a golden badge the way they do in American movies. No style! The spindly one looked like he had an invisible toothpick in his mouth. His hair was slicked back with brilliantine, he was a bit of a dandy. Maybe that was why he couldn’t be bothered. The road had just been tarmacked, the tarmac was still fresh. The day was heavy, threatening rain. The dogs were barking. Soon as the car arrived, creeping along at that funereal pace, all the dogs started barking. They can’t have liked that. So many dogs barking. Who can tell them to be quiet? The other was stocky, thickset, in an ashen suit and hat. He stood a little further back, leaning on the bonnet. What was he looking at? He kept staring at the load of washing.

‘Judith. You ever heard of someone called Judith?’

I was going to tell them about the book in the Bible, but I could see them coming, they’d snatch at a loose thread and pull. A washerwoman talking about the Bible. What else do you know about the Judith in the Bible?

‘No, never heard of her.’

The one who kept looking at my load could at least have told me to set it down on the bonnet. There they were, with their arms crossed, and me with that weight on top of my head.

‘Do those clothes belong to the judge’s wife?’ asked the stocky one in the ash-coloured hat.

There he had me. There you could tell old gorilla features knew what he was up to. A voice inside me said I should tell them where to get off, why didn’t they ask them, the judge and the painter? But Harmony stopped me. Harmony said, ‘Let things go downriver and keep the load of washing well out of it.’

‘The clothes belong to the judge’s wife and to the judge. And to the boy too. To the whole house.’

‘All right then. Set them down here, on the bonnet.’

I didn’t like that. I’d been waiting for him to tell me to set them down there, because the tarmac on the road burnt like the fires of hell, but now he said it, I didn’t want to.

‘Set them down here.’

He felt the mass of clothes. Put his hand through the knot and rummaged inside. Pulled out the mags, which made the other stop chewing his invisible toothpick and quickly examine them, after threatening me, ‘One move and you’re dead!’

‘They’re old fashion magazines,’ I said.

I was going to tell them I read them sitting on the toilet. It was a very peaceful moment in the day for me. But Harmony said, ‘None of that. You stick to yea and nay.’

They kept flicking through the magazines.

‘Orange vinyl suit! You’re not thinking of wearing that, are you?’ asked the big guy mockingly.