Manuel Rivas - Books Burn Badly

‘The thing about Carneades’ Plank is that there’ll always be someone to support, in theory, what you’re saying,’ the Professor with the Pimpled Nose remarked ironically. ‘I’d like to see what you’d do with the plank if you were shipwrecked.’

He couldn’t see himself abandoning or getting rid of the other sailor. So he failed to understand his own actions when he put down the photo of the Woman with Curls, stuffed the photos back into the file and returned it to the shadows.

His mind sought out an alibi. He wasn’t at sea with a plank and another sailor. It’d already happened. They’d already drowned. This was something else. His attention was drawn to a bookshelf with various Bibles, different editions, most of them old and in several volumes. He leafed through one of the books the torchlight fell on, perhaps because of the golden letters on its spine. It was Bernard Lamy’s Apparatus Biblicus , containing beautiful illustrations of animals and plants. There was another book on that shelf, Ulysses , a foreigner taken in by Holy Scripture. It was the book’s foreignness that made him pick it up. Open it at random. There was an ex-libris with a geometrical design: ‘This book belongs to Huici’. It was written in English. He turned the pages. Tried to translate something easy, but his eyes landed on a sort of medley:

Diddlediddle dumdum

Diddlediddle. .

The torch headed urgently for the desk. Went straight to an artistic paperweight. A polished, oval shape. A black woman’s head in ebony. Very pretty. Where’d it come from? He had to go. He’d been here too long. On the desk was a blue cardboard folder with a white label and a name: ‘Judith’. He opened it, though he knew it wasn’t necessary. From the weight, he could tell it was empty.

‘HERE IT IS.’

A car driving slowly along Aduanas Esplanade. Just now, with the aid of two tugs, the cargo boat Chemin Creux started weighing anchor. The mist colours the night and makes land and sea machines act with animal caution.

Manlle gets out of his vehicle and comes over to the half-open window of the Opel where Ren, Mancorvo, Santos and Samos the judge are waiting. Deliberately seeks out the gaze of the new kid on the block in Crime, Paúl Santos is his name, sitting in the back with the judge, but talks to the chief of the Political Brigade. An old acquaintance. ‘Here it is. She’s in that car. I’ll be off now, gentlemen. I’ve done my bit.’ He doffs his hat in a mocking gesture. ‘Lots to do tonight.’

Two women emerge. One of them is Chelo. The other is taller, walks stiffly. In a hat with veil.

‘There they are,’ says Ren. ‘Chelo and the Portuguese architect.’

The judge is amazed. ‘What architect? That’s a woman!’

Mancorvo reacts fast, ‘Not under her skirts she isn’t!’

‘Stay calm, your honour. Don’t move. Don’t rush into anything.’

They were arm in arm, two girlfriends out for a walk, but now they’ve separated. The two of them quicken their pace over the flagstones. There’s an uneasiness, a bewilderment in their movements when they realise the Chemin Creux is being towed away from the jetty. The lights of the tugs are on, their powerful engines snort loudly in the night. But the cargo boat is like a phantom ship being dragged along in slow motion. The two women reach the edge of the jetty. Suddenly a shadow appears astern and emits flashes with a small torch.

The couple look at each other. Turn around. Head back towards the car. The driver is expecting this and has kept the engine running, though the lights are switched off. He turns and goes to meet them.

‘Come on!’ says Santos.

The judge grabs at the door. Trips and falls out, shouting, ‘Chelo!’

The woman’s name is the first cry to break out in the night. A commanding and yet anxious call. But no one replies. His intervention speeds up every movement. Only he stays still, petrified on the flagstones. The tragic balance of an intoxicated man.

‘Stop!’ shouts Santos. ‘Police!’

Ren gets out of the car, but his behaviour is unusual. He gestures towards the dark, in the direction of the yacht club and House of Pilots, from where ambushed guards emerge. He gestures for calm, for them not to intervene.

Santos again tells them to stop. Measures the distance. If they don’t heed him, and it looks as if they’re not going to, he won’t be able to reach them before they get in the car. He looks back. Come on, Santos, what’s happening? You’re the only one running after the fugitives. You should stop and think. This is what he does. He stops. His heavy breathing has more to do with the sudden agitation in his mind than with physical effort. As Chelo Vidal and the other fugitive get in the car, Paúl Santos turns around. Mancorvo hasn’t moved. He’s still at the wheel. The judge is on the ground, petrified, a white cravat around his neck like a luminous noose. Ren stares at him, at Paúl Santos, and nods mockingly when he gestures for the car to start, to follow him. Ren climbs in. The fugitives’ car has already gone through the gears and is moving swiftly away, with a screech of tyres as it twists between the cranes, heading for the eastern exit.

The chase is on.

The car with Ren and Mancorvo, which has left the judge behind, approaches. Santos puts his weapon away and prepares to climb in. He won’t be able. As they’re passing, Mancorvo lowers the window. Says, ‘It’s our turn now, Mr Scientist!’ Accelerates. He’s grounded. Surrounded by blue mist.

His office is open. He’s dozing with his head on the table. The night’s dozing as well, on the blinds, the indirect sea, the collage of shadows in the city on the other side of the window. Finally he hears them arrive. They’re greeted by the duty officers. Ask for a cigarette. It’s as if he can hear everything. Including the sound of the smoke. Which is why, when Mancorvo starts typing and discussing the terms of the report with Ren, their voices and the sound of the keys reverberate inside his head.

So it was he learnt:

The driver of the vehicle being pursued performed a reckless manoeuvre on Hervés Hill, the car overturned on a bend and fell down the side. As a result of the accident, two occupants died: a woman identified as Consuelo Vidal Míguez and a man, the driver, as yet to be identified. A third person, also unknown, managed to escape, no doubt badly injured, judging by traces remaining on the scene.

And then:

The orders are, until further notice, not to provide any public information about these events, to avoid them being disseminated in the media, orders that will be duly passed on to the censor’s office.

He could hear everything. Drying sweat, Mancorvo’s handkerchief sounded like a paper blade, Ren’s like the crackling of elytra in a light trap for insects.

‘Where’s Mr Scientist?’

‘He’ll be here somewhere. His door’s open.’

‘Give him time,’ said Ren. ‘He’ll soon find out birds don’t suck and pigs don’t fly.’

IT’S A HOT morning. Santos, the policeman, heads for the Tachygraphic Rose academy and finds it closed. A few pupils are standing around in confusion. It’s the first time this has happened. ‘Closed Owing to Bereavement’. They expect some such sign. But suddenly the door opens and Dr Montevideo comes out. It was he who opened. The one who was bedridden. Something extraordinary must have happened, something terrible or supernatural. The man exiled in his own room since he returned from his other exile ten or so years previously. They gaze at the ghost. Perhaps it’s only a shell, empty on the inside. They’ll soon find out when he turns around to lock the door. But no. On the contrary, he’s very robust, not astral at all. A body, the memory of a body, wearing a coat and the coat’s memory. When he entered the house, intending not to reappear, it was winter. This helped him. He entered like a shepherd driving a flock of dry leaves. Now the sea-blue coat gives him the air of a sailor emerging from a boat-house in another hemisphere, another season. He looks at the plaque: ‘The Tachygraphic Rose, 2nd Floor’. Wipes the brass with his sleeve. ‘The best polish for cleaning metals is and always will be Love. Love Polish.’ An advertisement he remembers from his childhood. Another one, important for a reason that’s become obscured, is the definition of Portland cement. The relationship between poetry and publicity is paradoxical. A verse quickly grows old when it takes the form of an advert, but a slogan that’s presented as a poem lives on. For example. . No, now is not the time to institute such proceedings. He wipes the plaque with his sleeve, a sea cloth. Says, ‘Go back to the jungle, children. Classes are suspended.’