Manuel Rivas - Books Burn Badly

‘I’ve the means to do it. To crush you.’

All Silvia had was her invisible mending. Even feeling love was a problem. She realised one side of her, the enlightened part, had been deceiving the other, which was in shade, since she’d met Leica. And both sides knew it. Though they’d decided to carry on. To live that moment of truth. To go to the lighthouse, make love under the vanes of light, with the music of the sea in the background.

No. She wasn’t going to use a dentist’s pliers to force an unnecessary confession out of him.

When Rocío used words to strike her, in her fragile state, she glimpsed a way out. The day the civil servant came to pick up the cape, she said she hadn’t quite finished yet, but she knew her price. Her papers. The papers she’d been refused a year earlier for being the daughter of who she was. This was her price for the invisible mending. A passport and a permit to work abroad.

‘Are you pregnant?’ asked the woman.

Silvia felt like a character in a radio serial that would never be broadcast. There were thousands of women trying to leave for this reason, because they were pregnant and unmarried or single mothers.

Seeing she remained silent, the civil servant said, ‘You’re not the first woman to be pregnant or the first to want to leave. But in your case,’ she added, ‘it’ll be easy. You’ve Rocío on your side. Permission granted.’

And still he went on about his publicity dream.

When the advert was ready and the great photo had been mounted, they’d go together to look at the window of Hexámetro and to meet Mr Bendai. The shop owner and future sponsor would thus be able to see how much more beautiful she was in person. And he had the vague hope, though he didn’t say this, that he’d give her a present. Possibly even a television.

She agreed, said she wanted to look at the advert, though she’d be embarrassed to be in the shop window for all Coruña to see. She imagined Miss Elisa standing there, proclaiming to all and sundry in a loud voice, ‘But I know that woman! And she doesn’t even have a fridge or a hoover! All she’s got is a little sewing machine you carry on your head.’

They laughed. Imagined being together, holding hands, in front of the shop window. Mr Bendai waving to them from inside with his enterprising smile. This was the adjective Leica used to describe the shopkeeper’s smile. Enterprising. Each smile was different and had to be described differently. The art of the photographer, like the great publicist he was, was to give each smile the correct photographic description.

Silvia’s smile was that of the woman advertising electrical appliances. He liked it. A hidden smile hanging in the shop window. Happiness within reach. The future exists and it’s in the window. Next they’d go to Paris. Live there for a while. Breathe another environment.

‘Your smile is deceptive,’ she said.

‘Deceptive but true.’

She was the one who suggested going again. Making love next to Hercules Lighthouse. In Leica’s car. On short wave, the music came and went. The beams of light from time to time illuminated the sea birds hovering like quavers in the night.

He didn’t realise there wouldn’t be any more nights.

‘When you finish that important assignment, we’ll have to take lessons in French. The foreigner and the florist. Every time I see that record in the studio, I crack up laughing. You were born with a French florist’s accent!’

‘Merde.’

‘Oh!. . et cette petite fleur. . bleue?’

‘La petite fleur. . bleue: “Ne m’oubliez pas.”’

‘C’est merveilleux! On peut dire tout sans parler.’

‘Everything.’

He didn’t even know it was the last night when, the next day, he attended the photographic session to welcome the dictator to Meirás Manor. He followed instructions. Took part in the open session and then waited to be shown inside.

‘Don’t be long,’ said an aide-de-camp. ‘Have everything ready. He’ll stand on that platform.’

‘Yes, I’d already thought about the question of height,’ he replied awkwardly.

But when Franco came in for a photo defined as that of a statesman in civilian clothes, Leica wasn’t entirely ready. On the contrary, he was paralysed, with his head turned. There, on a coat-stand in a corner of the room, was the royal cape, staring at him.

GABRIEL SAW HIM come through the door painted green. There was one to go to the lavatory. That was painted white. The green door, however, only opened for students of advanced stenography. It was Stringer who appeared. Said something to Catia. Then approached Gabriel, who was practising his speed. Tito Balboa was in a hurry. He was ecstatic. The director of the evening Expreso had called him into his office to talk about his report on extraterrestrials by Hercules Lighthouse. He was proud to have instigated a new genre in Galician journalism. Sometimes, when they coincided at the academy, he’d wait for him so that they could walk together. Gabriel would accompany him to the offices of the Expreso . Gabriel envied Stringer the geography he moved in, as if he lived in a superimposed city. His room at the International boarding-house, his adult’s place in the dining-room of the Tanagra restaurant, which included the right to cool down his gravy with red wine, his task of scouring the port and heralding the arrival of boats. Balboa would tell him about his literary projects. He was planning a great novel. Had what he needed. A space, a story to tell and a voice. Everything was important, everything had to be well structured. But the essential thing was to find that voice. To decide who’s doing the talking, that’s the main decision. And he’d finally found the voice. A very special voice, since it was both the protagonist and the place where the events took place.

‘I’m getting all muddled. Someone who relates their life, which is a mutation of space, a kind of nomadic home. A place which is a living being that stays the same, but changes every day.’

‘A boat?’ asked Gabriel.

‘Well, almost. It’s possible. It’s not a bad idea. “My name is Aurora and this is my last journey. .” If the trees of Cecebre Wood can talk, then why not a boat? There was once a fishing boat from the Great Sole on Lazareto Beach, waiting to be dismantled. Its last skipper, the one who’d moored it a year before, happened by and climbed up on deck out of curiosity. The boat was in ruins, but once the old skipper was on board, it started to shake furiously. Wouldn’t let him go.’

‘Could he not get off?’

‘No. He was saved with broken bones like the ship’s timbers.’

My name is Santa Cristina and I’m responsible for the transport of passengers in the bay. It’s a summer’s day, in the early evening. I’m crossing the bay. On the way back from the beach, at dusk, I’ll be full of bathers, but now, on the way over, I’m almost empty. Astern, to starboard, leaning on the rail, watching the city we’re leaving, there’s a man in a white suit made of a light fabric that is so loose the wind forms part of his body and clothing. On the other side, to port, looking in the same direction, there’s a woman in a dress of sea-blue silk gauze printed with bows. With her right hand, she’s holding on to the skirt around her thighs, so the wind forms part of her hair. A little further back, sitting down, in shorts and a T-shirt with blue and white horizontal stripes, there’s a boy who must be about eight years old, absorbed by the trembling of a compass needle. He looks up and shouts to the woman, ‘We’re going from West to East!’ He smiles, proud of the information. This is the only time the man and the woman’s eyes meet and they hold their gaze. They also smile. When I moor at the stone quay, the woman and the child disembark first and go past the paved ramp to the line of polychrome beach huts. The man walks at a distance. Carries his jacket folded over his arm. The short-sleeved white shirt, which is unbuttoned, makes his body real. There’s a wooden kiosk with ice creams and refreshments. Here they rent out beach huts. The woman pays, takes the key and retraces her steps. It’s the second time the man and the woman’s eyes meet, while the boy’s attention is still taken up with the compass needle. ‘Now we’re going back West!’ he tells his mother. All the beach huts are painted in vertical stripes. With the colours that are most often used in maritime Galicia. On the hut the woman enters, they’re red and white. On the hut the man’s about to enter, they’re white and green. The tide is low. The woman, in a bathing suit, spreads out two towels, hers and the child’s, on that part of the beach closest to the quay. The man comes out of his hut, looks around, places his folded towel on one of the paving stones and sits down. He’s not the only bather to stay on the ramp. Here the sea is deeper and the water appears to be cleaner, with no suspended sand. It’s also quieter. Almost all those who jump off the quay seem to prefer to dive rather than to swim on the surface. The woman swims and the man jumps off the ramp and disappears under the water. The boy looks at the compass, the trembling of the needle. He doesn’t quite understand why it trembles when it’s still. It’s a good compass, no doubt about it. That’s what everyone said when Laura gave it to him for his cabinet of curiosities. A Stanley London compass. On it is written The Road Not Taken. It must be good, there’s no denying it, but he’d have preferred a compass with a quieter, less lively needle. Even when he puts it on the sand, the needle carries on trembling. He turns the compass from side to side. Half buries it in the sand. Funny how the needle always seeks out the North. He doesn’t touch it for a long time. Now the needle floats gently. The boy looks up. Can’t see his mother. But isn’t afraid. She’s a very good swimmer. He follows the line she was swimming along, her wake. And waits. Finally his mother’s head emerges. At the same time, very close by, another head. His mother returns, swimming breaststroke towards the East. The man, diving every now and then, heads slowly back towards the West. As for me, I have to return to the docks. I’ll come back for them on my last journey.