Manuel Rivas: All Is Silence

‘The Companion? He’s half pagan, Don Marcelo,’ said a bore from the confraternity.

‘Like them all. But the way he plays Christ is first class! Straight out of Zurbarán!’

Malpica didn’t stay still. Burned with speed. Brave as well, his guts in the palm of his hand. His son, Félix — Fins to us — was more like his mother. A bit nostalgic. He had his days, of course. We all have our spring tides and neap tides. He had those days when he turned into a zombie, fell quiet. Absorbed in silence.

The point is he was respectful towards his father, but had his confidence. He never asked for his father or Dad. He asked for Lucho Malpica. Outside the house, this sailor was a kind of third man, something separate from son and father. The boy was forced to protect him. Look out for him. Whenever he saw him coming home drunk, he’d run to the door and help him upstairs, put him to bed like a stowaway, so there wouldn’t be trouble at home; his mother had no time for these minor shipwrecks. Once, on the road to Calvary, his mother had said, ‘Don’t call him Lucho when he’s carrying the cross.’ For Fins, as a boy, it’d been an honour to watch his father being crucified with the crown of thorns, the smear of blood on his forehead, that blond beard, tunic with the golden belt, sandals. His attention was drawn especially to the sandals, since this wasn’t a type of footwear worn by men in Noitía. There were women who wore them in summer. One holidaymaker in particular who stayed with her husband at the Ultramar. And painted her toenails. Nails that shone with oyster enamel. Nickel-plated nails. All the boys roundabout, pretending to scrabble on the ground for coins. All because of the woman from Madrid with the painted toenails.

Christ’s toes had tufts of hair, nails like limpets, and, despite the sandals, doubled over to cling to the ground as when walking on the surface of rocks. Before the procession he called Fins to one side: ‘Pop over to the Ultramar and tell Rumbo to give you a bottle of holy water.’ He already knew this wasn’t water from the stoup. No, he didn’t say anything to his mother. No need to worry her. He’d done the job of Cana before. So he applied grease to his shins and ran as fast as he could. On the way back, he decided to take a sip. Just a moistener. To see what it tasted like. If they all swore by it, there must be something about it. And he could do with a pick-up on a day like this. He felt his entrails, and the reverse of his eyeballs, ignite. He breathed in deeply. As the fresh air doused that inner fire, he corked the bottle, wrapped it in the brown paper and pleaded with his feet to arrive in time before his father had lifted the cross.

Back at the procession, he shouted with delight, ‘Dad, Dad!’

And his mother murmured, ‘Don’t call him that, not when he’s holding the cross.’

How well he did it, what conviction he put into his performance.

‘What a Christ, so verisimilar!’ he heard Exile remark to Dr Fonseca. In Noitía, everyone had a second name. Not exactly a nickname. Like having two faces, two identities. Or three. Because Exile was also Lame. And both were the schoolteacher, Basilio Barbeito.

How well he did it, Lucho Malpica. His face contorted with pain, but also dignified, with ‘historic distance’ as Exile would say, the look of one who knows that the flatterers of yesterday will be the deniers of tomorrow. He even stumbled during the procession.

The weight he carried was great. Some of the lashes, owing to the theatrical enthusiasm of his tormentors, ended up really hurting. And then, along the way, that canticle of women: ‘Forgive your people, Lord! Forgive your people, forgive, Lord! Do not be eternally angry.’ Exile pointed out that the celestial scenography helped. There was always a passing storm cloud on hand to eclipse the sun.

‘Verisimilar. All they need now is to actually kill him.’

‘What a horrendous song!’ complained Dr Fonseca. ‘A people on its knees, sick with guilt, pleading with God for a smile. A crumb of happiness.’

‘Yes, but don’t believe it. There’s always a touch of irony in what the people do,’ remarked Exile. ‘Notice it’s only the women who are singing.’

Ecce Homo glanced over at his son and winked his left eye. This image would remain engraved on the boy’s memory. Together with the teacher’s admiring comment. So verisimilar! He sensed what it could mean, but not entirely. It had something to do with the truth, but was somehow superior to the truth. One notch above it. He kept a hold of this word so he could use it to define what most surprised him, amazed him, filled him with desire. Having finally embraced Leda, having finally been able to take that step, leave the islands and advance towards her, that body from the Tenebrous Sea, what he thought was it couldn’t possibly be true. It was all so barbarous, so free, so verisimilar.

WITH THE SWAYING of the coffin, in that dark, enclosed space, Fins found it difficult to breathe.

The space was a real coffin floating on the sea, not far from the shore where the waves break and foam. Like a barge, it was tethered by a rope which Brinco held on to. He pulled on the rope, bringing the coffin closer and then letting it go with the ebb and flow of the waters. Next to him, on the sand, were caskets, some broken, some intact, strange moribund containers, their red lining on view, perplexed remains of a shipwreck in the beyond.

This game began to unsettle him. To calm down, as he did whenever he felt himself suffocating, Fins timed his agitated breathing to the sound and rhythm of the beating waves.

He counted ten inhalations. And shouted, ‘Brinco, Brinco! Get me out of here, you bastard!’

He waited. He didn’t hear a voice or notice any special movement that might indicate his call was being heeded. Sometimes he’d talk to himself. He thought this was another peculiarity of his, a further derivation of the petit mal . But when one discovers a fault, one normally tries to find out to what extent that fault is commonplace. And he’d come to the conclusion that everybody spoke to themselves. His mother. His father. The fishwives. The gatherers of shellfish and seaweed. The washerwomen. The milkmaid. The navvy. Blind Birimbau. The priest. Exile. Dr Fonseca on his solitary walks. The man in charge of the Ultramar, Brinco’s dad, whenever he was polishing the glasses. Mariscal after knocking the ice cubes together in his glass of whisky. Leda with bare feet on the frill of the waves. Everybody seemed to do it.

‘What a bastard. I’m going to tear your soul from your body. All the worms off your head.’

He deliberately banged his forehead against the coffin lid. Started shouting again, at the limit of his strength by now. An international cry for help. ‘Víctor, you son of a bitch!’

He reconsidered. There was another possibility. One that made him really mad, ‘I curse the father who made you, Brinco!’

Well, if that didn’t arouse an immediate response, he would have to give up. He took a deep breath. Dreamed that Nine Moons had come to lend him a hand. And along the seashore, barefoot, playing at walking the high wire with her flip-flops in her hand, Leda arrived. She was balancing a basket on her head, crammed full of sea urchins.

When he saw the girl, Brinco tugged the coffin towards the shore.

‘What are you doing? That brings bad luck.’

Brinco brought his forefinger to his mouth to make her be quiet. Leda deposited her basket on the sand and hurried over to see the remains of futuristic death scattered all over the beach.

‘Stop messing around and help!’ said the boy.

Leda paid attention and helped to pull on the rope until the floating coffin was back on firm ground.