Books Burn Badly (33 page)

The Woman at the Window

Zonzo’s mother was almost always at the window. Or rather she walked up and down the gallery as in a glass cage. Gabriel had never seen her outside the house and there came a time he couldn’t imagine her away from the window. The large house they lived in was very similar to the Samoses’, which was also near the marina, facing the bay. The entrances to these buildings, erected for the well-to-do in the space left vacant by the collapse of the Old City wall, give on to María Pita Square and Rego de Auga on the westward side. With regard to the architects’ initial plans, what happened was a curious revolution involving light. The part that was going to be the back, with a stone wall and small windows, was transformed by means of a radical shift into an eastern front. Instead of the dour expression of smooth granite, they built large, glazed balconies. Boxes of light. A large area that gathered and harvested light. And gave it back a thousand times. Chelo Vidal was working on an essay for the forthcoming magazine
Oeste
, in which she described this as the most important act in ‘the history of the city’s body’. A serious essay with several drawings of ‘Women at the Window’.

Zonzo’s mother seemed never to leave the window. There she was whenever he accompanied him. Smoking. Doing her nails. Talking on the phone. Occasionally looking at the docks. And the bay beyond. On a small table for the phone were some binoculars. Zonzo barely mentioned his family. He sometimes let out the odd snippet. For example, his father was a musician on tour. He was always on tour. And if Zonzo said something, it was because Korea was there. Korea knew things.

He said, ‘What’s amazing is the mark your Dad has on his lips. A perfect circle.’

‘That’s because he plays the trumpet,’ replied Zonzo.

‘A brilliant musician,’ said Korea. ‘Have you ever heard him?’

‘Course I have,’ replied Zonzo, feeling offended.

‘All right, keep your hair on,’ said Korea.

That day, Zonzo had a fishing rod with an automatic reel. A brand-new fishing rod. From America. The three of them were going to fish for squid at night up by San Antón Castle.

‘Keep your hair on, mate,’ repeated Korea. ‘Hey! That house with the light on, isn’t that your place?’

‘Could be,’ said Zonzo almost without looking.

‘Your mother’s like a train,’ said Korea. ‘His mother, the painter, she’s all right. But yours, Zonzo, yours is gorgeous. Did she really used to sing under the name Pretty Mary?’

‘Piss off,’ said Zonzo, leaving with his brand-new fishing rod.

‘All right, I won’t say anything else,’ shouted Korea. ‘We’re not going to catch squid by hand. They’ll all bite tonight, Zonzo. Look at that moon!’

‘Watch it, Korea. One day, I’ll kill you.’

Zonzo was special. He had no fear. No fear of Korea, and that was brave. He remembered one day he went to his house. His mother at the window. In came a man, wearing a smart suit. Tall and strong. He occupied the centre of the room with the absolute control of someone who conquers territory with an imposing look. No one heard a knock at the door for the simple reason he opened the door himself. ‘Hello, boys.’ He threw a package at Zonzo, who neither looked at it nor opened it.

‘It’s all arranged for you to sing at La Boîte. If you don’t like Pretty Mary, we’ll have to think of another name. How about Nostalgic Mary?’

‘Nostalgic? I hardly feel nostalgic. I feel like something the cat brought in.’

He burst out laughing. Went over to the woman at the window. Embraced her and kissed her on the lips.

‘Let’s go,’ suggested Zonzo. He didn’t say goodbye. Outside, he opened the present. A pair of new, genuine football boots, which he dropped down the stairwell.

‘One day, I’ll kill him.’

‘Temper, temper!’ Korea exclaimed. ‘This guy’s hung up on his mum. Lucky I didn’t say anything about Manlle.’

‘Who’s Manlle?’

‘Ask Mr Justice,’ said Korea ironically.

The Judge’s Drawer

This drawer, the largest in the desk, on the bottom right, was where the judge kept the folders with his manuscripts, Syllabus’ articles and the legal affairs he was currently involved in. He locked it. Always. But the hiding place was hardly a secret. He locked it and kept the key with others in what Chelo called his
potiche
, a present she had given him, a small rounded jar made of enamelled glass with vegetal designs. His
potiche
stood on a shelf to the left as you came in, flanked by thick volumes.

The judge never told Gabriel he wasn’t allowed to open the drawer and rummage through the papers. The fact of opening, locking and then hiding the key was enough to let it be known this was a reserved space. What’s more, despite what you might think if you saw him acting as judge, Samos was not in the habit of giving orders at home. Both he and Chelo were methodical in their own way. Gabriel would never mix his mother’s colours in the Chinese Pavilion without her permission. Nor would he rummage through the drawer with his father’s manuscripts. If he did rummage through the drawer, it was because of that surprising discovery. The day he saw him pull out a western novel.

When the opportunity presented itself, he opened the drawer and searched archaeologically through the different layers in among the folders. And found not one, but half a dozen western novels, all signed John Black Eye. And all looking as if they’d been read many times. With slips of paper marking pages where some passages had been underlined with a red pencil. Almost all these sentences, some of which seemed rather strange for a western novel, had a single protagonist: the Judge of Oklahoma.

So it was he read:

On one of the folders, he saw the name John Black Eye. Inside was a carbon copy of one letter and the original of another. The first was dated in Coruña and addressed to the publisher of the Far Off West series. The person writing introduced themselves as ‘an unconditional follower of John Black Eye’ and quoted some of his titles as examples of ‘masterpieces in the western genre’.

‘Such galloping prose,’ it said, ‘is only possible against the backdrop of a vast culture, whose qualities are stressed in the learned historical and ethnographical references and detailed geographical descriptions. What stands out, however, is the ironic style, the great subtlety, the unmistakable talent that suggest the presence of a great and hidden artist.’

Finally the letter’s author enquired about John Black Eye’s real identity or, if this were not possible, his address so that he could send him ‘an admirer’s humble tribute’.

There was one surprising detail in the letter. It was signed R. Mandivi and it took Gabriel some time to realise this was his father’s initial and second surname. He wasn’t the one who asked questions. The questions came to him. Why not put his own name?

The other letter, written at a later date, came from Barcelona. The typed text was brief:

He carried on excavating. The title of one novel in the Far Off West series was indeed
The Judge of Oklahoma
. There was also
The Mysterious Outsider
,
The Yoke Collector
,
The Peace of Graveyards
 . . . But what he anxiously sought, and could not find, was
Word of Colt
. There was something else, however, a folder that had nothing to do with westerns, marked ‘12 Panadeiras Street’.

The defendant was about to put the book away when the judge ordered it to be handed over. ‘My word, this looks interesting!
The Spirit of the Laws
by Montesquieu. I’ll have to read it. It’s been confiscated . . . By the way, what were you before you turned up here?’

From
The Mysterious Outsider
by John Black Eye, Far Off West series.

The director, publicist, only editor and typographer of the newspaper
Maritime Awakening,
Ernest Botana, walked in a daze, having received the order to close issued by the Judge of Oklahoma and carried out by the sheriff, Trigger Happy, and his not very bright sidekick, Light Weight.

Suddenly, on the main street, he bumped into a poorly paved shadow. He rolled his newspaper into the shape in his passionate columns he called ‘the Winchester of freedom’ and looked up to find the flinty profile of the supremo. His heart told him to express contempt. That the lives of people in Oklahoma should be in the hands of individuals like the judge at this stage of civilisation made him feel a fatigue he defined as ‘reticulate drowning’. There was a time his optimism knew no bounds and grew on top of itself, step by step, like a cabbage. It was then he’d written a brave and memorable denunciation of State abuse and corruption:
The Yoke Collector.