Manuel Rivas - All Is Silence

As her hair unfolds and falls, she appears hieratic, expressionless, but everything on the outside, starting with the wind and the restless light, is in the eyes. Sira watches a car on the coastal road moving slowly, as if wanting to linger over the potholes. It’s Mariscal’s white Mercedes. It passes in front of a clothes line where the yellow shirts and black shorts and socks of the Noitía football team are hanging out to dry like flashing pennants.

On the ground floor, in the bar of the Ultramar, closed at this hour of the afternoon, Rumbo is using a white cloth to wipe a glass. From time to time the wind can be heard whistling and an old iron sign creaking. The barman’s wearing spectacles. The way he’s polishing the glass even the most casual observer would describe as obsessive. He lifts it to the light, stares at it, as if seeking a sporadic stain that hides and then reappears.

Rumbo’s intensive work is interrupted by Mariscal knocking at the door. Rumbo can see his face on the other side, behind the thin curtain with lace edges. He’s dressed like an emigrant in a white linen suit, a red bow tie and a thin straw hat. His cane is hanging off his arm by the handle.

Rumbo takes one last look at the glass and places it upside down on the counter, on top of a white cloth, next to the other polished glasses.

He makes his way to the door. He’s wearing a white apron. Before he opens up, the two men exchange looks through the gap in the curtain. The barman seems to hesitate, looks down at the lock, but carries on anyway, takes the key from his pocket and quickly opens the door.

Mariscal’s cough could be understood as a greeting. Quique Rumbo turns around and goes to switch on the television. He presses the button with the end of a broom handle. A meteorological map appears on the screen, complete with isobars.

Mariscal glances at Rumbo, Rumbo’s back, the television in the background, and starts to climb the stairs.

‘They haven’t a fucking clue,’ he says. ‘Here they never get it right. We’re terra incognita for them! Tomorrow’s the first of April, there’ll be drum rolls in the sky…’

Rumbo keeps his position. Doesn’t comment. Meanwhile Mariscal continues with his forecast in a monotone, as if trying to disguise the percussion of his feet on the wooden steps. ‘… and the first spiders will start to weave their webs.’

He moves slowly through the chiaroscuro of the landing. There are lamps on the walls now with green shades, and a series of small pictures showing English country scenes, horsemen chasing after foxes. A job lot. All of which gives the impression of a colonial setting, provisional screens, that fluttering of the curtains as they’re lifted by the wind. A tunnel of flags, he thinks. Don’t they ever shut the blasted windows? He stops at the door to the suite, at the far end of the landing. Hangs his cane from the wrist of his left hand and slowly removes the white gloves. It’s the first time we see his bare hands with the old burn scars on the back. His right hand hovers in the air for a moment. Eventually he knocks gently. Takes a handkerchief from his pocket to hold the handle and open the door.

Sira doesn’t move when Mariscal comes in. She still has her gaze on the seascape outside the window. Mariscal looks at her and then follows her gaze. Without saying a word, he goes to the other side of the bed. Sits down, wipes his brow with his handkerchief, that tic he has, and carelessly stuffs it into his breast pocket.

‘There’ll be a storm tomorrow.’

On the wall, on wallpaper decorated with acanthus leaves, is a souvenir picture showing a wooden bridge in Lucerne covered in flowers, with the Alps in the background. Mariscal stares at it, as if he’s only just discovered it’s there, this photograph of flowers and snow.

‘We should go somewhere together. At some point.’

Sira doesn’t reply. She carries on gazing at the seascape outside the window. The wind is there, beating with a world of things on its back. Mariscal stands up. Goes to wash his hands in a bowl on top of the chest of drawers. Before doing so, he takes a couple of sachets from his pocket and pours the contents into the water. As the grains mix with the water they produce a kind of bubbling, and that is when Mariscal places his hands inside the bowl. In the meantime:

‘There are places that are a wonder, Sira. You always wanted to go to Lisbon, I know. All your life singing fados , and we never went to Lisbon. “In the Madragoa district, in Lisbon’s window, Rosa Maria was born…” We have to go to the Alfama during the feast of St Anthony, Sira! We never even went to Madrid! I could take you to a good hotel. The Palace, the Ritz. To the Opera. The Prado Museum. Yes, the museum…’

In the bar on the ground floor, Quique Rumbo stares at himself in one of the vertical mirrors that flank the central shelf of bottles. In the mirror frame is a cover plate concealing a lock. Rumbo takes a key from his pocket and slowly unlocks the mirror door. Inside is a weapon. A double-barrelled shotgun. And a pack of cartridges. Rumbo takes two cartridges and loads the weapon.

Mariscal bends down, looks at the ground. He’s searching in his memory, and his voice becomes more grave.

‘The truth is, it had never occurred to me to enter the Prado, but the meeting was there. Something to do with Italians, I thought. But what a piece of luck, Sira, what a marvel. Museums are the best places in the world. Better than natural landscapes. Better than the Grand Canyon or Everest, I’m telling you. Always at the same temperature. The climate is ideal.’

Something is happening on the other side of the bed. Sira’s gaze is now that of someone trying to stem her tears.

‘It’s because of the paintings. The temperature has to be… constant. Paintings are very delicate, you know. More than people. We cope with hot and cold much better than paintings. Funny, isn’t it? A scene with snow cannot withstand the cold as well as we can. We’re the strangest thing in the universe, Sira. Remember those people who used to go fishing for cod in Newfoundland? They’d stick breadcrumbs between their fingers so their skin wouldn’t fall off. And on their genitals. They say nothing burns like the cold. That must be true! That girl whose mouth was dry and she stuck her tongue on a block of ice, remember? She couldn’t get it off, had to call for help… Who’d have believed it?’

He opens the drawer of the bedside table and rummages around. There’s plenty to rummage through. His postcards, perhaps?

Basilio Barbeito spent his final days here. So he’d be more comfortable. His presence has had a lasting effect on the room. This is something Mariscal and Sira share without mentioning it. From his time in the room, he left a shelf of handwritten notebooks as an inheritance. All from the same factory, Miquelrius. All the entries for his poor, infinite dictionary are there, in alphabetical order. Write, he wrote everywhere.

Mariscal sits down again on the bed. Leans over towards the woman. Strokes, gently tugs her hair. Lame was in the habit of putting everything to good use. His pockets were always full of words. He wrote on envelopes, on the back of cinema programmes, on bus tickets, scraps of brown paper from the shop, on the palms of his hands, like a child. He didn’t leave his hands behind, of course, just the sensation of written skin. Everything full of scraps of paper. The drawer overflowing with word worms.

‘Call me names, Sira. That encourages an old man like me. Pimp, mangy dog, rogue, crook, swindler, lech, toothless, serpent, bastard, Beelzebub, whoreson, entrepreneur, son of the four letters, beast… archaic! Out of date. No, out of date, no. Archaic’s a good one. And beast is even better.’