Manuel Rivas - Books Burn Badly

‘Are there any Bibles in that whale?’ asked Samos. A game of allusions. Alfonso Sulfe exerted a kind of esoteric influence on him. The first person he knew who’d studied in detail the Coruña Bible, now known as the Kennicott Bible, kept in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Sulfe had been there in 1935 and he described it as if he’d impressed a copy of that treasure on his memory. The Sephardi script, the colourful illustrations in burnished gold and silver leaf, the strange morocco goatskin box binding, blind-embossed on all six sides. Yes, he could see it now. One of the unforgettable illustrations showed the moment Jonah was swallowed by a whale. And you simply had to see that of the astrologer Balaam consulting an astrolabe. This miniature alone was worth a civilisation. Samos had asked a question Sulfe found a little naive. How had they let such a treasure get away? The Bible was made in 1476, Sulfe explained, shortly before the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. Samos should not forget the Coruña Bible was commissioned by a Jewish family and illuminated by a very talented Coruñan Jew, Joseph Ibn Hayyim. ‘I don’t mean that, I mean the book,’ said Samos. ‘Shame such a treasure got away.’

He was surprised by Sulfe’s call the day after the tribute to D’Ors. Jonah’s whale would let him out of house arrest in the case of such a stimulating proposal. He’d be there. Samos was pleased about this re-encounter. They’d shared an interest in Lusitania and for the poet Teixeira de Pascoaes, though one day they’d had a lively disagreement on the subject of saudade or longing. The judge had even raised his voice and got quite angry. He’d kept using the word outrage . ‘An outrage, Sulfe. Teixeira’s proposal to declare a metaphysical concept such as saudade a tenet of the New State. A State is something very serious. You’re not a jurist, so you can’t know. Without wishing to boast, I’d say there’s a moment for the soldier and a moment for the jurist. An act of victory has to be translated into law. But what’s saudade? It has no juridical worth. You can’t sustain a State with a wooden sword.’

‘A wooden sword?’

‘Yes, all that about saudade is a wooden sword for floral games.’

‘And when they talk about the grace of God? Caudillo by the grace of God? The New State as creatio a Deo? ’

The judge glanced in amazement at the others who were present.

‘Such a comparison is improper,’ said Samos. ‘Between God and saudade .’

‘Of course it is. Floral games! Like that, on its own, doesn’t it sound funny?’ asked Sulfe, adopting a conciliatory tone. ‘So too does the grace of God.’

And they all laughed with jovial relief.

Alfonso Sulfe stayed behind. He clearly wanted to see Ricardo Samos on his own. Not quite on his own. Gabriel was there, in the alcove, camouflaged in a green skin from the desk-lamp, as he liked to think, and focused on the text from Durtol Château Sanatorium. It described New Year’s Eve, 1913. How much he missed his family. It also said how much he’d weighed that day, though in his case he’d used data from the Toledo-Ohio scales in Villar the chemist’s.

‘Dear Samos, I wanted to ask you for a special favour.’

‘What is it, Sulfe?’

‘At university, shortly after the war, you mentioned some very interesting books that had come your way by a stroke of fate.’

Ricardo Samos raised his guard. The tension of being with an acquaintance who you fear is about to commit an act of folly. Not a simple slip-up, but a grave mistake.

‘One of those books was called Le Nu de Rabelais . .’

‘What?’

‘ Le Nu de Rabelais . In French. Highly illustrated. Drawings and photographs of extraordinary erotic grace. .’

‘No, I don’t have that book.’

Sulfe didn’t seem to register the negative. He rubbed his hands together and his eyes gleamed. ‘You’ll wonder why I’m bringing this up after so many years,’ he said. ‘It was, for me, a very special night of friendship. The evening before the trip to Paris, Milan and Berlin. There was something that separated us from the rest of the group. A passion for books. You then had the kindness to share a secret.’

Samos had remained rigidly silent, but at this point he interrupted the story with coldness, ‘I don’t have it. Are there any other books you’d like to see?’

‘I understand if, for you, this meeting has been lost in the mists of time, but it’s still very fresh for me, for reasons I will explain. I’m immersed in a study that began with the paschal laughter of the Middle Ages. Risus paschalis . After that, I moved on to a second world we could call the rituals of laughter. The festa stultorum , Mardi gras. . When something becomes an obsession, you never know where it’s going to lead. It’ll sound absurd, even puerile, Samos, but I can’t stop thinking about that book. .’

He was about to add, Of naked queens riding donkeys and rams, dragonfly women in a sacred grove, siren women in Lusignan, playful, warrior women armed with sensual spears, parodying war through amorous combat. Silenus advances in the vanguard of Bacchus’ army. Wine from bars in Franco Street and Algalia had undone locks, loosened their tongues. He could recall Samos’ words as he savoured his treasures, the fruits, he himself had admitted, of pillage.

He said, ‘I’m on Rabelais, in the sixteenth century, immersed in a feast of words. This is something of what I’ve discovered in the belly of that whale. And the more I rummage through its entrails, the more I think about that unknown book with its pioneering photographs.’

‘Whoever told you about that book must have been very passionate, very convincing. But it wasn’t me, Sulfe.’

‘Don’t you remember anything?’ asked the professor in dismay.

‘ Le Nu de Rabelais? Is there such a book? I haven’t the faintest.’ Samos’ voice was hard, cutting. ‘It’s the first I’ve heard of it. You’re mistaken, Sulfe. Completely and utterly. You’ve got the wrong man, the wrong night. And if I did share a secret, something I don’t recall, I trust you’ll know how to keep it.’

It was his father’s reply, the sudden change of tone, that alerted Gabriel. He looked at them without changing position. The intimate smoke of convivial jokes hadn’t entirely dissipated. For a time, the atmosphere was the same and reminded him of a cartoon. Balloons hanging in the air, containing words and thoughts.

‘That must be it, a mistake. It was so long ago. I’m sorry to have bothered you,’ said Alfonso Sulfe tentatively, surprised by Samos’ response. ‘It’s turned into an obsession. The others don’t realise how important it is. But you know what happens with obsessions. You end up like Captain Ahab chasing Moby Dick.’

He stared at him. ‘ Moby Dick must be around here somewhere. Benito Cereno too. But not your whale, Sulfe. None of the books you’ve mentioned.’

He stood up so that Alfonso Sulfe had no choice but to do the same. Sulfe glanced at the dark corners, richly bound lands, of the walls. Gabriel sensed his agitation. He had no doubt the professor would have liked to leapfrog the judge and scour those bookshelves. In silence and at a distance, he somehow shared their tension, participated in their duel. It might be said he knew more than either of them, like someone watching a game of cards who’s seen the players’ hands. But he held his breath. Were his father to pay him attention or Sulfe to look in his direction, he’d have to abandon the battlefield.

‘At least clarify one thing for me, Samos. Didn’t you have a first edition of The Prohibited? ’