Manuel Rivas - All Is Silence

But not this time. This time he added, ‘I haven’t the balls or the authority. I can’t write what I have to. Do you remember when the herdsman comes across Oedipus the King? “I stand upon the perilous edge of speech.” That’s what the old herdsman says, more or less. And Oedipus replies, “And I of hearing, but I still must hear!” What a magnificent couplet!’

The doctor would have loved to preserve the process passing through his mind in Ehrlich’s methylene blue. He’d been held in St Anthony’s Castle in Coruña during the military uprising. A horde of captive men, unaware whether all this was going to end in tragedy or a passing kind of stupor. But before it was dark, an officer arrived with his assistant, a new recruit. The officer ordered this soldier, who sometimes acted as his secretary, to read out a list. A list of people. That’s all it was. The whole bay fell quiet. A series of names and surnames. No explanation about what would be their destination, just the abstract idea of a ‘transfer’. ‘Get ready for a transfer.’ The word had blushed with the shame of such a terrible euphemism. And then Luís Fonseca heard his name. He kept silent. Couldn’t remember how long that silence lasted. The soldier repeated his name, louder this time. And out of the crowd of people appeared a man. He was older than the doctor. About ten years older. Fonseca later found out he’d been a mechanic. He’d never heard of him, they weren’t related, but they had the same name. ‘I’m Luís Fonseca,’ he said with gritty determination. He was killed that same night. Now that was a classic question of the Double.

‘But I’m not a herdsman, nor am I Oedipus,’ remarked Dr Fonseca. ‘I am not upon the perilous edge, nor do I have anything to say.’

‘You belong to the mysterious lineage of Dictinius,’ said the schoolteacher. ‘In the sixth century, he wrote The Pound in praise of the number twelve. He later burned it, leaving only that great saying in the history of Galicia: “Swear, forswear, and reveal not the secret!”’

Mariscal had come over and sat down at the table, as he did on other evenings. In time to hear the resignation in Fonseca’s voice. He had a psalm on the tip of his tongue, but there was too much bitterness in the doctor’s silence to joke around.

‘What about you, Mr Mariscal?’ asked Barbeito in an attempt to lighten the mood.

‘I’m Unamunian!’

Normally he’d have left it at that, an outlandish statement hanging in the air. But on this occasion he decided it was prudent to expand on his thesis. ‘I’m of the opinion that you have to pretend you have faith, even if you don’t believe. I’m always telling Don Marcelo, it’s fine for priests to eat their fill, drink the best wine, even fornicate. But they have to make an effort to believe, because people need faith. Here nobody believes in anything. That’s the problem. It’s all in Unamuno, yes sirree!’

He attracted Rumbo’s attention. Without words, using a series of gestures the other man interpreted with a nod. Shortly afterwards the barman placed a bottle of Johnnie Walker on the table.

‘Without taxes! It came by sea, as saints used to in Galicia.’

‘You’ll have a lot of stories to tell, Mariscal,’ said the doctor. ‘Some magnificent, diabolical memoirs!’

Mariscal rang the ice in his glass. Took a sip, which he savoured.

‘Sincerity’s not good for business. As you well know, I spent some time in the seminary. There’s lots of gossip, lots of rumours. Spineless stuff! Rubbish, most of it. But today’s a good day for confessing. Once the director of the seminary called me to one side and asked if I really had a vocation. I told him of course I did. But how much of a vocation, he wanted to know. I replied, a lot. Yes, but how much? And that’s when I told him I wanted to be pope. He turned pale as wax. As if I’d uttered the most terrible thing.’

‘So you didn’t say you wanted to be God?’ asked Dr Fonseca ironically.

‘No. That’s a legend. Though it’s true that a young lad from Nazareth tried it and managed it. To become God.’ He drank a second sip. Clicked his tongue. ‘Had I told you that before? Oh, what a shame! That’s the trouble with us ancients.’

‘Another drink?’ asked Rumbo.

The two of them had been alone for some time. Without talking. From the back of the bar came the sound of urgent voices, shots and the screeching of cars and trains. On the television, Brinco was watching The Fugitive .

‘What does a tiger care about one more stripe?’

Sira came out of the kitchen. In time to encounter her husband, who was returning with the supplies. Another bottle of Johnnie Walker.

‘Where are you off to? That’s enough for today!’

Mariscal jumped up on hearing her thundering voice. But when he tried to move, he stumbled.

‘A coffee!’ he exclaimed, stretching his sense of comedy. ‘How would sir like his coffee, with or without brandy? Without coffee!’

The joke was addressed to Sira, but she ignored him.

‘Never mind,’ he mumbled, heading for the exit. ‘Open the door, it’s not going to fit!’

‘I’ll take him,’ said Rumbo.

Mariscal turned around and pointed at the barman. ‘No you won’t! Do you want us both to be killed, Simca 1000? I’ll get a breath of fresh air. The sea has a cure for everything.’

‘You can sleep here if you like,’ said Sira. ‘The inn is yours.’

Now Mariscal was the one who felt tense. Bad-tempered. ‘No way! Mariscal always spends the night in his own home.’

‘Go with him!’ said Sira to Brinco.

The boy rose mechanically to his feet without saying a word, as if this was the outcome he’d been expecting. Went behind the bar and came back with a torch.

‘Good idea,’ said Mariscal. ‘Let’s ride out the storm!’

Brinco went ahead, walking uneasily, moving the torch up and down, from side to side, deliberately, like a machete. Behind him, Mariscal hummed. Puffed and panted. Hummed. Paused to catch his breath.

‘It’s a bit cold,’ he murmured.

When they reached the new wharf, near the centre of town, Brinco directed the torch towards the water. At the mouth of the sewer, which led directly into the sea, was a horde of mullet. A nervous crowd of intertwined bodies in the muck.

A section of the marine golem twisted and turned in the glare of the torch. Mariscal peered over. ‘Those gluttons will eat anything, even the light!’

At this point he tripped on the edge of a stone and slipped a little, stumbling right on the edge of the wharf. He managed very carefully to sit down on a bollard. Brinco was right behind him. Mariscal realised the boy hadn’t moved a muscle. As if the accident had never happened.

The beam of the torch ran over the voracious cluster of fish in the sewage.

‘Yes, they’ll eat the light,’ said Mariscal. ‘Look at them chewing!’

He let himself go, leaned forward, as if the fall was inevitable. But just then Brinco grabbed hold of him and pulled him back on to firm ground.

THE BACK ROOM of the Ultramar is filled with the impatience that comes with the end of a hand. The players of mus and tute make up for the blazoned silence of the cards with sharp voices and authoritative raps of their knuckles on the tables. In the games of dominoes, by contrast, it is the discharge of matter that can be heard, tokens on marble, in an ascending scale of blasts excited by the advance of the victorious combination. The middle of the room is occupied by a billiard table ignored by everyone except for the trails of cigar smoke that have gathered in a storm beneath the central lamp.