Manuel Rivas - Books Burn Badly

He hatched his plan. He would have to shake up, send tremors towards, the director of the Expreso . They’d never been close. His professional style, the way he kept his distance.

The other key figure was Samos.

He gave him a call. There was a problem with Oeste and he preferred to discuss it with him out of friendship and to avoid disturbing Chelo Vidal. He then made another call. To the printer’s. He’d decided to withdraw three poems he wasn’t quite sure about: ‘Zero’, ‘Infinite’ and ‘Standard Vivas’.

He met the judge that same afternoon in the Union Café. Oeste , he explained, was being considered by the General Direction in Madrid. He’d been favourable, even enthusiastic, in his report. Everything was going well until the fishing line, so to speak, unexpectedly got caught and became knotted. Someone had noticed some poems which were described as perverse and the fact of being anonymous made them even more insidious. In confidence, it was a senior official. He couldn’t say the name, the judge would understand.

‘Yes, I understand. In my situation, as you well know, I also understand how uncomfortable one can feel in front of texts that are anonymous or written under a pseudonym.’

Yes, of course. They’d come to that later, said Dez. He had some news. But going back to the problem of Oeste , circumstances had something to do with it. The state of emergency declared for two years, the Grimau case, the international campaign. . It all had an impact and at such times controls were tightened. Each to his own. As for the poems, they may have been a little heated, he couldn’t say. He’d pulled some strings and been given a solution. The magazine could come out if those poems were omitted. But there was another demand he wished to discuss with the utmost discretion. The authorities wanted to know who’d written the poems. In short, he had to put together a confidential report. Their personal details and public conduct. The authorities had thought to go through the usual channels and seek information from the Brigade of Politico-Social Investigation, but he’d persuaded them that wasn’t necessary, at the head of the magazine were some highly respected individuals who were close to the regime and could be trusted, first among them his honour’s wife. This reference had sufficed, explained Dez. So he’d offered to look into the matter himself. Which is why he’d called and here they were. It was a question of avoiding any damages and making sure Oeste came out.

‘The most important thing for us all is that none of this has a knock-on effect.’

‘I understand, Dez. I’ll talk to Chelo. There won’t be a problem. She may seem to have her head in the clouds, but she’s rooted in reality.’

‘I know. That’s why I came to you. I thought it had something to do with Sada. A pseudonym. I spoke to him before, without telling him the truth. You know how it is, he needs feeding separately.’

‘We’ll solve the case of the perverse verses,’ said the judge ironically. ‘I mean it. Perversity is a concept of great importance in our legal history.’

‘As for the other matter,’ continued Dez, ‘I thought you’d want to know. Something’s come up in the case of Black Eye.’

The censor saw yet again how the mere mention of that name, for whatever reason, had an epidermal effect on the judge. It altered his disposition. To help him relax, he added, ‘I’ve taken a liking to western novels and brought you a present.’

To the judge’s surprise, he pulled a western novel out of his pocket. Samos went along with the joke and accepted it. It was called Romantic the Horse . And signed John Black Eye. Showing he already knew it, even though it had only just been published, he searched for the chapter where there was a trial and discovered that Dez had already underlined the relevant paragraph. The judge nodded in acknowledgement. He read, ‘Even after the verdict, the lawyer Henry Botana had the courage to tell the Judge of Oklahoma that the death penalty was a form of premeditated killing.’

‘Of course we couldn’t just leave that alone,’ said Dez. ‘With all this fuss about Grimau being shot! But in the censor’s office there’s a dislike for trashy literature. My colleagues are highly academic. Who’d have looked at Romantic the Horse past the first paragraph? Even that would have been a lot. There are more readers of sentimental stories.’

Dez opened the novel at the beginning and adopted the tone of a radio series, ‘Henry Botana was six feet tall, had a girlfriend who loved him, a horse named Romantic and a head the judge had set a humiliatingly low price on. He hoped, on the day of the Last Judgement, Archangel Michael would be fairer about his soul’s weight.’

Dez smiled ironically and closed the book.

‘Not bad, eh? Listen, Ricardo, I wasn’t inactive. If you thought that at some point, you were mistaken. The truth is it wasn’t a difficult mystery to solve. There was some confusion because, at his publisher’s in Barcelona, our man was known as Dr Montevideo, actually an alias. Force of habit. That is until, after my insistence, you might say warning, they uncovered his real identity. Héctor Ríos. He’s our man.’

Dez had known all of this for quite some time, without having to read Romantic the Horse . But he thought the judge would enjoy the dramatic denouement. Samos’ expression wasn’t exactly the look of someone who’s finally trapped their prey. He seemed to grow pale.

‘Do you know that name?’

‘Yes, a bit.’

‘Was it who you suspected?’

In the storm, the Orzán waves attempt to regain their ancient channel, the memory of the isthmus, before the great Recheo put a stop to the union of two seas, the wild side and the calm bay. The former attempts to force an entry, climbs up Riazor and manages with its tassels of foam to get as far as the giant eucalyptus in Pontevedra Square, the spot where day labourers wait to be hired. And where saleswomen from the suburbs and washerwomen moor their beasts of burden. It’s raining with seaside conviction. They’re young. Héctor’s a little older. He’s been in Santiago for two years, studying law, but at weekends he still works with the group of theatre and declamation in the Craftsmen’s Instructive and Recreational Circle. Thanks to him, Samos read in public for the first time in the hall there. They recited the scene with the two gravediggers in Act V of Hamlet . He played the part of the First Clown. How often had they weighed up the curve of that question! ‘What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?’ Now Héctor’s planning a new project. An adaptation for Coruña Radio, which is due to start broadcasting, of Herbert George Wells’ most popular works. Samos has to help. They share a passion for this author. A series called Wells, Wells, Wells . With a signature tune in Morse code. They’re on their way to rehearsal, in the rain. It doesn’t matter. Ríos pulls out a book from under his coat. Reads, ‘“From Castro to Mount Alto, the face of Coruña was grimy with powder of the Black Smoke”. Yep, the first radio broadcast will be a version of The War of the Worlds . What do you say? Then we’ll move on to the adventures of The Invisible Man .’

Héctor doesn’t let up. He’s optimism personified. In the summer, he helps out in the family academy. Since he was a child, he’s been good at both skills, typing and shorthand. He always says they were his childhood games and he finds it difficult to write normally. He’s a devotee of Esperanto, which he’s fluent in, having studied it at nights. His passion for a universal language is based on the ideals of rational socialism, for which he drew inspiration from Ramón de la Sagra, a Coruñan of the nineteenth century who, in his opinion, is on a par with the Frenchman Proudhon or the Welshman Owen. He’s also always flicking through his notes on ethics by Xohán Vicente Viqueira. To start with, Ricardo Samos likes the sound of this message of faith in humanity. They’re heading towards the Craftsmen’s Circle, down San Andrés Street. Héctor Ríos, as always, is carrying a book in his hand. He alternates between speaking and reading, with fervour, as if it were a musical score. They bump into Dr Hervada, who points out he’s walking with one foot in the road and the other on the pavement. Héctor replies with quick wit, ‘Thank you, doctor, I thought I’d suddenly gone lame.’