Manuel Rivas - All Is Silence

‘You’ll be thinking I know a lot about a man I never talk about. Well, you’re right. And do you know how I know? Because I also tried to get to France… Later on, when I could have gone there legally, I didn’t want to. I still had icicles on my beard from the first time. That man only ever did one good thing in his life, which is when he burned his hands in the School of Indians. They say it was on account of the books, but it was because of the desiccated animals. Even better. Desiccated makes you feel more sorry for them. Not even the fox got away. That’s what he did. God knows why.’

Fins stared for a moment at the burn scars on his father’s hands. Lucho Malpica rolled his son’s note into a ball and flicked it across the table. The ball veered to one side and came to a halt in front of Amparo.

‘She’s also partly to blame,’ said Amparo suddenly.

‘Who?’ asked Lucho.

‘That loudmouth who drives him crazy, Antonio’s daughter. You should say something to Antonio. You spend all that time together out fishing.’

Lucho glanced at his son and then at his wife. They should know by now that sorrows on a boat were for spitting into the sea. ‘What am I supposed to tell him? That he should keep her tied up at home?’

‘That wouldn’t be a bad idea. She’s far too wild. She’s always going barefoot. Like a beggar or something.’

‘It has nothing to do with us,’ remarked Lucho bitterly. He could barely hide it when a topic of conversation annoyed him. ‘Let her walk however she likes.’

What bothered him even more, however, was a breakdown in the domestic order. And so he adopted a more conciliatory tone. ‘We do talk, from time to time. But you can’t touch Antonio’s daughter. She’s the most precious thing he has in the world. He’d do anything for her.’

MALPICA HAS A small motorboat which he uses for coastal fishing. It handles well, is definitely seaworthy, but Lucho and Antonio Hortas rarely stray from their familiar marks. They have their points of reference along the coast, the main one being Cape Cons. With these marks, their eyes trace invisible lines, the coordinates of their sardine shoals for fishing. Underwater places that almost never leave them empty-handed.

This time they go further out. Even the seabirds seem surprised by their new direction and abandon them. The boat bobs up and down, in unfamiliar territory. The men are two grafts who resist the swaying of the boat impassively. It’s Malpica who decides where they’re going, who acts as captain from time to time. And now they’re headed north. Antonio neither asks anything nor makes any comment. He’s one of those who respect silences. They pass Sálvora. Head towards the outer sea. The cormorants on Death Coast peer at them with the look of medieval sentinels. Lucho Malpica still hasn’t said a word, but Antonio can hear his nasal hoarseness, his sibilant pout, those two murmurs that compete in his friend’s silences.

The captain opens a wickerwork basket lined with canvas. Antonio knows what’s in there. He knows Malpica visited the Ultramar the previous night. He didn’t enter the bar, but he saw him arrive on his ‘little horse’, as he calls his Ducati. He must have gone in through the shop door. The attendant called to Rumbo through the hatch which communicates with the bar. And the barman disappeared for a while. Then Antonio heard Malpica leave. Heard the motorbike. The put-put of the engine. The annoyance of old engines at having to start up again. They left in daylight, too early. When Fins came round with the countermand that they would be heading out to sea, Antonio knew the fishing would be special.

He’s seeing all this now, with absolute clarity, in causal sequences. He may not have heard the engine from the bar. It may be the engine on the boat, its laborious bad temper, providing a soundtrack to his memory.

The sticks are wrapped in an immaculate white cloth inside the basket. Even there he’s being too careful, observes Antonio. Dynamite doesn’t like being thought about so much. Antonio remembers seeing maimed people. The idea has to get back to the hands. If the idea stops to think, it doesn’t reach the hands. That’s when you get injured people. Amputees.

‘Leave that to me, Lucho.’

‘Why?’ he says, turning around with an angry expression.

‘You haven’t the experience.’

He was going to say, ‘You don’t know how.’ Like someone saying, ‘You don’t know how to fuck.’

Antonio doesn’t mind. He knows others use dynamite. The sea takes whatever’s thrown at it, etc., etc. But deep down he’s annoyed that Malpica has given in. Has lit the damn fuse.

‘What science is there in this, Antonio?’ says Lucho uneasily, waving the stick in his hand. He’s on the starboard side and heads towards the bow.

‘To start with, it doesn’t have a very long fuse!’ shouts Antonio.

Malpica turns around. See? Do you see what’s happening? The idea has got caught in his head, entangled in the brambles en route to his damn consciousness, and isn’t going to reach his hand in time.

‘What’s that?’ asks Malpica.

The idea doesn’t get there. It’s the dynamite which has decided to explode. And explodes.

Fins starts throwing stones at the sky. There are so many seagulls he has the impression he hasn’t hit any of them. Then he takes it out on the sea. Looks for the flattest pebbles and skilfully hurls them by arching his body. Like a discus thrower. His initial intention is for the stones to skim the surface of the sea. To jump on the back of the waves. After that, he doesn’t mind. Small, big. In a fury. Let the stones explode. It’s the sea’s fault. That generous, greedy giant. That crazy lunatic. ‘The sea prefers the brave ones and that’s why she takes them first,’ says the priest at the funeral. Everyone nods. They all wear expressions that suggest agreement with that part of the sermon. Enough said. What happened happened. It was written in the stars. It was out of his hands. Fins thinks he’s being looked at askance. Are you brave too? Are you like your father? Yes, there is compassion in their gaze, but also a hint of suspicion. He never put to sea with his father. It was time he lent a hand. Are they in on the secret? Do they realise he’s not fit for the sea?

His father was certainly brave. You could see that when he carried the cross. A first-rate Christ. Verisimilar. Did the priest say that, or was it an echo emanating from his mind? Do they know he suffers from the petit mal , has absences?

Like now.

He can see his father shaving himself. The mirror, which has a diagonal crack, reflects two faces. His mother asking. Not asking.

‘And that?’

‘It has time to grow. From now until Easter.’

Without a beard, his father looks strange. Like another. The reverse of what he is. All the bones on his face appear bereft of bandages.

THE RADIO IS broadcasting the Holy Rosary. The litany sounds sometimes when the radio is turned on at dusk, but it never usually gets a response. Not from the mouths. Possibly from the intentional beating of the knitting needles. Fins rereads a piece of headed paper:

LA DIVINA PASTORA

NAVY SOCIAL INSTITUTION

School for Sea Orphans

Sanlúcar de Barrameda (Cádiz)

Is that someone knocking at the door? Fins stirs in discomfort. Stands up. Looks at the radio. The lamp on the dial which gleams with the intensity of a beacon in the open sea. The trembling of the cloth covering the loudspeaker like skin. The memory of his father’s fingers fishing in the short waves, tautening the dial like a fishing line. He’s listening carefully. Turns to him with a smile. ‘Do you know what he said? “No Viet Cong ever called me nigger.”’ Fins glances at his mother.