Manuel Rivas - Books Burn Badly

He’d spent the days hiding in the Academy’s attic, his only company the headless Tall Woman, deprived of her oval beauty. Anxious to start with, waiting for news, which swept under the door like a cold current, however warm the voice of the one conveying the news. He’d occasionally peep out of the skylight. It was then Curtis discovered the true meaning of fear. Fear is a beach that is deserted on a sunny day. Or almost deserted, which is worse. Figures in black with large, black umbrellas to keep off the sun. Some catalinas , the name given to peasant women who came to bathe in skirts made of matting. They kept watch on the sea like fish caught in a net. They may have been disturbed by the solitary bather who ran up and down, wearing a strange black-and-yellow-striped costume. And passed between them like a gigantic wasp. There was a new, terrifying silence. Each silence conveyed some kind of horror. He looked at the headless Tall Woman and began to feel the same, like someone who’s lost his head. Only at night did the beams from the lighthouse give it back to him. He ended up at dawn on Riazor Beach. He looked around insistently, in case the bather in the black-and-yellow-striped costume appeared, buzzing like a wasp. He didn’t see anyone. He heard the murmur of the sea, which reminded him of the notion of stuttering speech.

He climbed up through Peruleiro and Ventorillo. He sleepwalked to Fontenova and the Shining Light building in the Abyss. He was thinking about the tickets for the special train and the excursion to Caneiros. He had to hand in the money he’d collected. He had to settle accounts. It had become an obsession. What would Arturo and his friends think?

It was he who noticed the fear in things. The discomfort of houses under construction, intimidated by the irritation of their elders. The distrust shown by doorways. The frown of windows. The premises of the libertarian association were in Fontenova. They looked completely dispossessed. Even of their name. The quicksilver glass sign on the front had been smashed. Isolino had made it in the Rubine glassworks, with an emery design reminiscent of a roadside shrine. A sun surrounded by flames. Curtis picked up a stela of sun. It was cold. The confiscators had padlocked the door. Curtis went round the back and broke in through a window. The first thing his eyes sought out was the Ideal typewriter. One of the reasons that had driven him there was the hope no one would have remembered that small centre for social studies in humble premises, in a distant quarter. His most intimate hope was to find the typewriter. He heard the keys like Morse. He blocked his ears to the night’s reports, shut his eyes. And then he felt the keys on the pads of his fingers, Arturo da Silva’s voice as he dictated:

EXTRAORDINARY EXCURSION TO

CANEIROS-BETANZOS BY SPECIAL TRAIN

‘Leave two blank lines. That’s it. Now continue.’

The two of them slowly caressing the keys, making a caravan of letters. The whole night in front of them.

Curtis was in a dark room. He’d forced an entry, opened the windows, but the light seemed reluctant to return. They’d taken everything. Even the electric current. He went to switch on a bulb hanging from interlaced wires in a cloth casing, but they’d cut off the supply, so from the interlaced wires hung the absence of light. If he found the typewriter, he could make the train to Caneiros go. Hear the stationmaster’s whistle. The movement of connecting rods. He’d sold a lot of tickets for that train. He’d heard so much about it, but never been to Caneiros, on that trip upriver to the heart of the forest. After leaving the train, you had to walk a bit and then board some boats. ‘The boats,’ Arturo da Silva had told him, ‘are all decorated with garlands and covered in laurel branches.’ Although he’d never been to Caneiros, he adopted the project as his own. With the titbits of information he picked up along the way, he composed an enthusiastic proclamation, as if the one selling the tickets came from the fairground, had been conceived there and was speaking in the name not of the organisation, but of the river.

Since his childhood, he’d been given errands, odd jobs. Almost always as a carrier or messenger. Pombo had talked of putting a telephone in the Dance Academy.

‘In case of need, Samantha. We have to modernise. What if you receive a call from King Alfonso?’

‘Come on!’

‘Or from a millionaire like Juan March?’

‘Put him through. Start drawing up an estimate.’

While they were waiting for the telephone, which would take some time, there was young Hercules with his nimble legs and telegraphic races. Once, when he was still a little boy, he’d sat down in the Dance Academy’s kitchen and fallen asleep with his head on the table. Flora came in, saw his eyes were open and spoke to him. She got frightened. Shook him. He blinked and woke up. She was on the verge of tears. Embraced him. ‘Are you all right, are you all right?’ ‘Sure I am, I was just asleep.’ ‘But your eyes were open!’ ‘I know, but I was just asleep.’

The Shining Light premises were empty. Huddled in a corner, he fell asleep like the last time. With his eyes open. He’d acted as a messenger for the special train, but the train was unable to arrive. They’d taken everything. The furniture, the posters, the Ideal typewriter. All the books. It was so dark, so empty, it seemed they’d taken the place itself, the painting on the walls, the words that had been spoken there. They’d taken the special train, the garlanded boats, the buffet, the orchestra. The river.

He’d managed to persuade Milagres, who never got out, even of her own self. She’d come with Mr Lens the harpooner. He’d also sold Flora a ticket. Of course they’d all travel in the carriage with Arturo da Silva and Holando. The bagpiper Polka with Olinda, his Spark. And the carriage would attract attention, on the way there and on the way back, because no less a personage than Luís Terranova had a ticket. On 18 July, they’d still been able to go and see Melodía de Arrabal together at Linares Cinema in Catro Camiños. Luís needed Curtis’ company in the films of Carlos Gardel because Curtis had the gift of memory. Three showings were enough for him to learn the lyrics to the songs. And what’s more, sometimes, at the request of the audience, the projectionist would rewind so that they could listen to the song again. Applause.

Old quarter. .

Forgive me if when I evoke you

a tear dwops

‘Let’s see. Try again.’

He tested him on the songs, quips and gibes but in the last department Curtis was so calm you had to wind him up constantly to get a response. Arturo da Silva, Galicia’s lightweight champion, trained with him in the ring. For Terranova, Curtis was a kind of sentimental sparring partner. Luís kept throwing the double meaning of language at him because Curtis, however alert he might be, always believed what they were saying. He paid attention to the smallest things. There were times Terranova couldn’t bear such confidence. He wanted to break this unbreakable friendship. But in the end he loved him like no other. Curtis looked after the best of himself. To start with, he carried the songs, all the songs, in his head. Luís’ memory lived inside his friend’s. And he didn’t hold back on the adjectives. Portentous. Curtis’ memory was truly portentous. He said it in syllables, por-ten-tous, and with his right hand rotated an imaginary bulb in the air. Or, with both hands, his fingers were orbits, a celestial globe. Such gestures were precious gifts to Curtis. He felt his memory. Was aware of carrying it and that it was comfortable. Arturo had taught him always to protect his head. His head worked for his body and so his body should protect his head. Even his legs, dancing in the ring, were taking his head into account. And there was his memory, like a child with wide open eyes, riding on him.