Manuel Rivas - Books Burn Badly

Both Luís Terranova and Curtis were listening very carefully because they’d caught cuttlefish in their hands and now they understood why there were times these extraordinary beings with ten jet-propelled arms didn’t try to escape, but gave themselves up so easily. The trouble is the well of knowledge, once opened, is never filled and Luís and Curtis wanted to know how crabs and sea cows do it, with their armour-plated bodies and legs that are pincers. ‘Here’s an interesting detail,’ said Ponte, searching in the folder for the notes he’d made based on the experience of the Sea Club’s divers, whom he called the Phosphorescents.

‘Crustaceans also mate for a long time, the difference being the males carry the females on their back, take them for an amorous walk on the bottom of the bay.’

‘And sea urchins?’ Curtis suddenly remembered. ‘How do they do it?’

‘Sea urchins live together, but love at a distance,’ said Ponte somewhat mysteriously as he closed the folder. ‘I don’t know! At this rate, I’ll have to put the scientific texts under “The Night” with my novels.’ He had Haunted Shipwrecks and Captain Nemo’s Lovers together with copies of ‘The Ideal Novel’.

All the same, the most precious object in the cabin on ‘Carmiña’, which the operator had set up on a kind of pedestal, was the ball from the Diligent . According to legend, which it would be sacrilege to question in the operator’s presence, the first leather football to arrive in Coruña. The Diligent was a British ship. Some crewmen started a game up on deck and the ball fell on to the quay. ‘As soon as it bounced off the ship, it was obvious the Diligent ’s ball wasn’t coming back. It seemed to want to stay on dry land,’ said Ponte ironically. There it was, on the altar of ‘Carmiña’, like the orb of a strange planet.

‘That’s enough science for one day,’ said the operator. ‘Let’s see, Luís, sing us that carnival tango, the one about the Columbine who put smoke from the fire of her heart under her eyes.’

Terranova was at home there. He felt relaxed in the cabin on ‘Carmiña’, the house that moved without ever leaving, which was simultaneously on land, at sea and in the sky. Very rarely, the wind would get up inside his head and he’d battle with the world. He seemed to be collecting all the nicknames pumped out of all the ships’ bilges. You had to let him wander alone, with his hands in his pockets. When Curtis learnt this from Arturo, it was the first thing he passed on to Terranova. A human’s best training is with his shadow. You have to fight with your shadow.

‘Who told you that?’

‘Arturo da Silva. When he was in prison, years ago, he said he spent the time fighting his shadow. It taught him a lot.’

They were on Atocha Alta, on their way to Hercules Cinema. They took up combat positions by the wall next to the entrance. Each of them ready to fight his shadow.

‘But I don’t have a shadow,’ said Terranova in surprise.

It was true. They stood staring at Hercules’ shadow, which was squat and broad-shouldered.

‘Let me fight yours for a bit.’

‘You’re not allowed to kick. Look, like this. One two. One two.’

It was when he moved that Luís Terranova saw his slippery shadow take off from the kerb.

‘There it is, there’s my shadow!’

He ran and danced along the kerb, one two three, one two three, trying to stamp on it.

‘Don’t be stupid. You can’t tread on a shadow. It won’t let you.’

‘With my shadow, I’ll do what I feel like.’

He was also the Man of a Thousand Voices. This voice that expressed irritation, the one he’d just used with Curtis, was what he called his impulsive voice. The one his mother used when discussing price or quality. A fishwife’s voice. Her firm conclusion, which there was no going back on, was that the fish was fresh so long as a woman was carrying it on top of her head.

Luís twisted around, keeping an eye on his shadow, until he saw its profile on the wall, next to the stills.

‘A talented shadow! A film star.’

He picked up whatever he could find in port, most of all information. When he earned a few coins guiding sailors around the city’s lesser known parts, one of his favourite destinations was the Dance Academy. Luís had the nerve Curtis lacked. He’d promised his mother he’d take her to make a dress in the Paris-Coruña-New York style of the designer María Miramontes. He’d been there, spying on the seamstresses, having helped Vicente collect a stack of books for the Faith bookshop. María Miramontes’ husband was the publisher Ánxel Casal. Rumour had it the printing machine kept working thanks largely to her needle. It was true, the day they went, the designer and seamstresses were sewing books. But Luís Terranova was interested in the models. There was one, a rayon dress with a red silk bow around the waist. Imagine wearing that! It’d make anyone look cultured.

Luís had fun in the Dance Academy. The two extremes of a nomadic existence were the cabin on the crane ‘Carmiña’, with Ponte the operator, and the premises in Papagaio. Sometimes, when the madame, Samantha, previously known as Porch, was having a bad day, she would treat him like a mosquito that had come inside, trying to get away from the clouds and attracted by the lights. But other times she was the one who demanded silence and asked him to sing, one of those child prodigies born with the gift of voices, a thousand voices, who could sing like a man, a woman. Or a eunuch.

‘Why don’t you sing The Flea , Samantha? Where’s the flea, Samantha? It must have bred by now!’

A foul-mouthed spectator, reminding her of times that for her had not been better. Distant. Like Chelito after her stint in Lino’s Pavilion. But Samantha knew how to gain respect.

‘Well, now, I haven’t seen the flea for some time. It must have slipped down your mother’s fanny.’

It was like dropping a stone into a well. He wouldn’t be back. The others laughing.

‘Quiet! Manners, gentlemen, you’re like a bunch of Bolsheviks! Allow me to introduce a new Gardel with all the elegance of Miguel de Molina. When he came into the world, he was taking it like an adult. Come on, boy, shut those bores up!’

He was smart as garlic. He’d already found out what a eunuch was, it wasn’t the first time he’d been called one. And then he sang, not the tango Samantha had asked for, but a classic foxtrot in honour of his gracious hostess currently in her second or possibly third youth.

There was a time woman was feminine,

but fashion put paid to that

When Luís had a go at her, making fun of her boyish haircut, Samantha was the first to laugh. A seismic laugh that shook the whole building. Sometimes Luís would stay the night in the attic room Curtis shared with his mother. Curtis had the size and strength of two Luíses. He’d open the skylight and lift Luís up by the elbows.

‘The lighthouse is shining on me! Hey, it’s me, Terranova! Look, Curtis, the great spotlight of the universe is searching for me on the rooftops.’

He was next to the fire, watching the flames close in on A Popular Guide to Electricity . He missed the contact of sea urchins, all the sea urchins he’d ever touched, in his hands. He’d like to have had at least three so that he could juggle, as Arturo did during training.

‘Oy you! Who’s that giant in the cap?’

Some pedestrians who came across the fires on their way from Parrote or the Old City changed direction, though not abruptly, which would have been suspicious, but by walking instinctively sideways towards the arcade. In search of the identity of some shade.