Manuel Rivas - Books Burn Badly

‘Every single wave,’ Mariñas told him one day to earn his respect, ‘has an impact of thirty tons per square metre. This is the most powerful machine in the whole universe.’

‘But the winkle hasn’t even moved!’

There was no point arguing. Luís Terranova had the right to laugh at the sea if he wanted to. Everyone deals with fear as best they can.

To leave the restaurant, Dez passed next to them without saying hello. With a look of hostile indifference.

They’d talk about it at home. That was the message.

‘Why did you have to take him there?’

‘Why not? He’s a friend of mine from childhood. There’s no reason to be jealous.’

‘Officially you’re now my ward. You were my assistant and now you’re my ward. That’s a promotion! Which is why you’re in this house, because I’m your guardian and you’re my ward. You know what people will say. “You’ll have to take Hercules in as well. And the horse. A large family. Who’ll pay for it all, Dez, for fodder for the wooden horse?” And so on.’

‘As you’d say, that’s your fault for consorting with commoners.’

‘And what was that about being jealous? Who do you think you are?’

The night was too warm for the Atlantic coast. As if waiting for people to let down their guard, a stormy armada had gathered behind the Sisargas. For anyone wanting to see it, the front of storm-clouds advanced in thick darkness, adding night to night. So the first bolt of lightning was mistaken for a breakdown in the firmament. The thunder, however, came from a magazine at sea. Everyone noticed the fleet of storm-clouds. And carried on dancing.

Part of the gleam landed on Luís Terranova’s white suit. He let the shock go through him and then gave Curtis a friendly punch on the shoulder. ‘Hey, that was you! You did it with the lead locomotive.’

The sea suddenly wanted to devour the houses, but the orchestra carried on playing. It sounded like an ancient dispute. Pucho Boedo was singing. Luís Terranova got on the flying boat. Singing the same song. Against the wind. Gusts that changed perspectives, tore off faces and left only expressions. Only the musicians’ stage and the flying boat held on to the scene. And the fairground owner, who was removing the lead locomotive, because all hands were now fighting the sea, pulling boats out of its mouth, turned to Luís and went straight to the point, ‘Ride’s over!’

‘A bit longer, please.’

Surprised that his thunderous voice had not had the desired effect, for the first time the fairground owner sought out the eyes of that figurine dressed in a white suit and a red cravat. Curtis had stopped pushing and the boat had slowed right down. He was dark, but his eyes were very clear, aquatic. The fairground owner felt like doing something he’d never done: letting off one of the lead locomotive’s fireworks. But, on the other hand, he needed that boy to sing, now that the orchestra had stopped.

‘The wind’ll take everything.’

‘I’m owed another ride,’ said Luís.

The storm was carrying the sea inland.

‘I’m not responsible,’ said the fairground owner to Curtis. ‘I’m not responsible for that boat your friend’s in.’

It was then his three blond sons appeared. They’d been helping secure the boats and were drenched and out of breath, as if dressed in water and grease. One of them dismantled the railway with his father. The other two stopped the flying boat, ignoring Terranova’s protests.

‘I’m owed another!’

‘Do you want to end up in the sea like Faustino?’

The other laughed at his brother’s joke. Faustino was a very well-endowed straw man who was thrown into the sea during Carnival. Having fallen, he stayed floating for a while with his huge penis sticking up like a mast. A procession of mourning women wept over the loss, ‘He was the best, the best!’ Some men laughed, others didn’t.

‘I’m not afraid of you, little owl,’ Terranova mocked them. ‘Little owl, I’m not afraid of you.’

‘Let him be,’ said the flying boat’s father. ‘He can go as often as he likes, so long as he keeps on singing!’

He then spat on his hands, which were covered in grease from the lead locomotive’s wheels. ‘The night is whimsical indeed!’

HE TURNED ON the light again and started reading without conviction. He only paid attention to the advertisements. The sleepless gaze does what it wants to. He noticed something he hadn’t seen before. The large number of advertisements for electrical appliances, flexible mattresses and shampoos. Great emphasis was laid on the anti-dandruff properties of these last products. It seemed the whole of Spain had taken to washing its hair. He’d brought a stack of newspapers from the censor’s office and was reading ABC , which was published in Madrid. He also had Arriba , the Falange’s official mouthpiece. It was its newspaper, its doctrinal spokesperson, a necessary resource to know what was going on in the hierarchy, essential reading for a man in his position. He sometimes amused himself trawling for small differences. The relevance or absence of a news item. The language of silence. The conservative, monarchist daily had introduced the odd comment on Europe, was even in favour of Europeanism, a reviled concept in the press of the Movement, whose leading exponent was Arriba . Europeanism was the Trojan Horse of the opposition, the enemy, those in exile. In another time, a time that seemed to him now unreal, in which he hadn’t quite managed to affirm his existence, he’d written a great deal on Europe, the rebuilding of a new Holy German-Roman Empire based on the triumphs of Hitler, Mussolini and Franco, with the Pope’s blessing. An intellectual standpoint shared by many. The official line. Occasionally time played the dirty trick of returning with the sweaty, delirious thickness of an epidemic, making him believe the Holy Empire was something he’d imagined and in Spain, Europe, the world, only he had written such things. He then decided in his dream to board empty, phantasmagorical vehicles, which drove him through the night to every nook and cranny that had an archive or library. He’d break down the doors and expunge those pro-Nazi articles of his. But almost everything was pro-Nazi, an unending trail. The paper multiplied and grew. He would tear and tear. He’d written the same as everybody, hadn’t he? The judge, for example, his friends at the magazine Arbor , Catholics from the Opus, the leading jurist, Carl Schmitt, weren’t they still saying the same in a different way? In his nightmare, however, the judge Samos would turn to him, ‘How could you have written those things, Dez?’

‘What things?’

‘What do you think? That praise of Nazism. You should have censured yourself, damn it! You have to know how to control yourself. Change style.’

‘Look who’s talking!’

‘I was different. I was a Catholic, remember? The katechon. The one who draws the line. That’s what I’m doing.’

‘Hang on a minute! You’re not the only one. I also draw the line. Mark words in red. It’s not so easy to keep words in line. They’re like cockroaches or rats. They live underground, in sewers, among tombs. They’re like insects. Bacteria. It’s easy to stop men in their tracks, but it’s not so easy to contain words. Silences, pauses, are part of language. A man in silence, if he’s honest, is dangerous.’

‘You should have censured yourself, Dez.’

And so on. Banging on about it. There was something perverse about recommending control to a censor. He also could return to the past, if he wanted, like a dog to its vomit. Remind Samos of who he was. The university student who fancied himself as a Catholic intellectual, beholden to the idea of a benevolent God, still reluctant and hesitant on the eve of the coup, like that day in Pontevedra Square when he trembled in front of Arturo da Silva, the boxing plumber, who grabbed his pistol from his hand and chucked it into the sea in Orzán. ‘Weapons are not toys, young man,’ he told him and threw it over the heads of bathers, a parabola seen by everyone, how embarrassing, though he took his revenge, how a man can change in one month, the sudden stimulation of the cultivated Catholic, aesthete, orator, bibliographer, how the blood rises to his eyes and the once cowardly student is ready for anything, even he, Dez, was surprised, what resolve, what firm steps, his pulse is steady, armed and in uniform he looks taller, stronger, his subtle voice has become more daring. He’s now in charge. He’s standing with him, in front of the pyres of books, down by the docks.