Manuel Rivas - Books Burn Badly

The weather was changing. One morning, the swifts stopped drawing lines in the sky. Curtis crushed a furiously stinging horse-fly behind his ear and then didn’t feel another. The cicadas suddenly fell quiet and the mountains reverberated. The flocks and herds returned to their stalls.

As they were tucking into the salami from the roadside treasure, there came a knock at the door, a tender rap of the thunder’s knuckles.

It was the three seamstresses, each with a sewing machine on top of her head. They’d dropped in before. They travelled from village to village, carrying their little Singers. They stopped in a place for a while, depending on the jobs that needed doing. As well as a bed and food, they received a day’s wages in cash or kind.

The youngest and liveliest was called Silvia.

‘Let us in. The lightning is chasing our sewing machines and it’s pouring down!’

They knew how in this weather the Atlantic climbed up the mountain ridge. Scores of miles inland, the clouds carried a bellyful of sea. Which is why they had specks of Irish moss in their hair and smelt of salt.

Terranova stroked the back of a Singer. ‘I can sew as well,’ he said. ‘Lucho from Mount Alto taught me. He had a little theatre and used to dress up as an Andalusian woman. At night, he’d sew his polka-dotted costumes. He had a brother, a tough guy, who wouldn’t let him. This brother was a stevedore. So Lucho would sew his Andalusian costume at night, when his brother was down on the wharf. He sewed pretty well. Not like me.’

The seamstresses gave him a suspicious look. He could be making fun of them.

‘The thing Lucho taught me best was how to make rude gestures, including wearing the horn. He was very good at wearing the horn. He’d go down Independencia Street and the women who lived there would deliberately come out to watch him declare his allegiance to the Fraternity of St Cornelius. No one in Coruña wore the horn better than he did. Watch.’

Then he made them laugh. They’d never seen horns lifted in this way, with hands reversed, on buttocks, and cheeky fingers dancing obscenely.

They invite them to eat. Silvia becomes serious and steps forward. Appears to speak for all three of them. No, they don’t want to. They’re not hungry. They already ate on the way.

‘Then let’s have a dance,’ says Terranova. He’s feeling happy, replenished. ‘I’ll sing. You three can dance with him, let me tell you, with Hercules himself. Mystical roses, you have the opportunity to dance with a prince from Un-deux-trois, on a tour of the mountain ranges. Dance cheek to cheek, Spain’s perdition, no peeping!’

The light burning in your eyes

dawns if you open them,

as you close them

dusk seems to fall. .

When it’s Silvia’s turn, she comes up close, embraces him. The other two laugh, pretend not to watch. Terranova jokes, ‘Don’t get burnt!’ Changes tune. ‘What do you care, my love, if you no longer feel the same?’ Silvia talks to Curtis, whispers in his ear, ‘Don’t you dare touch the food in the shrine again.’

He looks at her in surprise. Why?

‘It’s not for the dead, it’s for my father. Understand? My father’s hunger is not like that of souls. It’s the hunger of a hungry fugitive. Do you understand or not?’

He understood all right. Terranova always said there was an invisible man in those parts. An ex-man. Who must be living in Barxas Wood. In the eye of the water. The trees had long, ancient beards. The Invisible as well.

Some guards once passed the cabin. In cloaks. The barrels of their guns sticking out. They were obviously in a hurry, but made enquiries. And then Terranova gave them the spiel. They were Portuguese, from across the border, hired as shepherds, when they were young they’d been offered to Our Lady of the Rock, the tallest stone staircase in the world, etc. Curtis was amazed by Terranova’s skill at accents, his palatal pattering speech.

‘Has the cat got his tongue?’

‘He’s dumb. Name’s Hercules. Lots of brawn and no brains.’

‘Lucky him,’ said the corporal. ‘Seen anybody about?’

‘Not a soul.’

‘If someone comes asking, don’t give him a thing, any bread or water.’

‘Even if he’s a Christian?’

‘He’s not a beggar, you know. He’s a fugitive. A bandit. A red. A descendant of the one in Anamán who shouted the poor don’t have and the rich won’t give.’

‘How can we tell?’

‘Because he doesn’t know how to curse. Whoever heard of a Christian that can’t curse?’

‘Change of partner. Dance by ear!’ announces Terranova. ‘If you see your father, tell him when he doesn’t receive alms, he has to curse. Blaspheme. They’re on to him because he speaks properly. Words are the most visible footprints.’

‘The thing is he doesn’t believe, so he doesn’t blaspheme. When he gets really worked up, the worst insult he comes out with is “Papist”.’

‘I could teach him to say, “I pick my teeth on a fragment of the Holy Cross”. I could make a list and leave it in the shrine. I had a thorough education. My mother’s a saint. He has to ask like a chaplain and curse when he doesn’t get. He believes in souls, doesn’t he? They say if you bump into a soul, you have to make the following request, “If you’re a soul from the other world, say what it is you want.” My mother and Curtis’ are always getting bogged down with souls, because they ask them what they want. The best thing is to send them packing, as priests do, “Christian soul, off to heaven with you!”’

When the storm had passed, the seamstresses put their sewing machines back on their heads and asked Curtis and Terranova to go with them for a bit.

‘We’re headed for Barroso,’ said Silvia. Adding mysteriously, ‘Come with us to see how goats fly!’

‘There are more crazy people in this world than in the world of spirits,’ said Terranova. ‘Lead on!’

Several hours later, Terranova asked, ‘Where are the flying goats?’

‘Not far to go now.’

Nightfall. The gloaming hour. They were on the edge of an inland cliff. In front of them, a huge marsh giving off mists. They’d clearly reached a limit. Then they heard bleats falling from the sky, spine-chilling cries that drew lines, wrote acrobatics two by two. Bleats joining in a serpentine drawing.

‘They’re woodcocks,’ said Silvia. ‘In these parts, they’re called goats.’

‘I never heard birds make such a sound.’

‘They make it not with the throat,’ said the seamstress, ‘but with their feathers. With the wind and their bodies.’

‘Louder!’ shouted Curtis. ‘Louder!’

‘He can speak!’ exclaimed Silvia in surprise.

‘He has his days,’ replied Terranova. ‘Only when he gets emotional.’

The weather changed from one day to the next. It wasn’t a summer storm any more. The clouds were full of stones and dark sea. They creaked and crushed brutally, with adult gearing, having lost the artifice of summer storms suitable for all ages. They had to think of returning. In mid-September, they’d take the sheep back to the village on the border. They’d still have time for a quick trip to the feast of the Acclaimer, the virgin who won’t keep quiet, music booming over the mountains all night. And then back into the Salgueiros’ basement, the house of the Stone Man and the Woman with the Black-beaded Rosary, to make baskets out of chestnut branches as the Stone Man had taught them. The village was good at this trade and the merchandise was sold at markets along the border. That was the deal. In summer, shepherds in the mountains; in winter, basket weavers hidden in the shade. Why was he called the Stone Man? Because he was made of stone. He’d sometimes move, stick his finger up his nose and pull out navelwort of the sort that takes root in between stones, on the edge of roofs. That’s what Terranova would say to make Curtis laugh. The Stone Man had navelwort up his nose, in his ears and all his body’s various orifices. ‘The point is they’re good folk. We don’t know what they think, but we know what they do. They fulfilled their side of the bargain. Gave us shelter. Never asked questions. How long’s it been, Curtis?’