Books Burn Badly (38 page)

‘I know something about Freemasonry, Anceis. The G, the axis mundi, the flaming star, the next bit about the liber mundi. I’m not a complete fool. What’s it got to do with fishing for cod in Newfoundland?’

‘Very simple. The geometry of a dance. The most popular dance hall among fishermen in St Pierre was the Star. The stage was a wooden table. On top of the table was a chair. On top of the chair, an accordionist, the Diver. On top of the accordionist, a lamp. This is the axis mundi. The accordion is the liber mundi, which is both open and shut, virgin, fertilised matter.’

‘After all that,’ said Dez, ‘it’s no surprise my ecclesiastical colleague, with his divine eye, should be confused before what he terms “a muddy mare magnum”.’

‘I like that,’ said Anceis. ‘“A muddy mare magnum”. A realistic reading.’

He again made to retrieve the manuscript.

‘I’d better take it. Truth is,’ said Anceis, ‘I’m not sure I want to publish it.’

But Tomás Dez’s hand, swift as a claw, grabbed the folder containing two handwritten copies of
I Was Forsook
.

‘No, leave it. I’m going to defend this book as if it were my own. We have an obligation to try.’

He said this with a vehemence that took Anceis by surprise. That word as well. An obligation. It was true. To him, the only reason for writing and publishing it was because he felt a strange obligation, something akin to fate.

‘I’m going to defend this book,’ repeated Dez. ‘Do you know why? Because, talking of heights, above all I’m a poet, Mr Anceis. I haven’t a civil servant’s soul. You’ll think it contradicts my role, but being contradictory is part of the human condition.’

‘You said before the ecclesiastical censor wouldn’t change his negative opinion. Wouldn’t give his
nihil obstat
. Had it in for my book.’

‘Yes, he does. He’s set against it. We’ll see what he puts down in writing. He told me he considers
I Was Forsook
a case of overt blasphemy. I told him God can look after himself. But this is a man who goes around with the
Index Librorum Prohibitorum
in his pocket. Don’t think he’s particularly fond of me. What to do? For me, fanaticism is to religion what hypocrisy is to virtue. In short, we’re up against a wall, but there may be a key. We have to find it. I’ll see what I can do. Where there’s excommunication, there’s absolution. It may take months. Even years. But I swear to you
I Was Forsook
will see the light of day.’

He’d redone the bit about sirens in ‘Standard Vivas’ as a separate text, whose language, being explicit, was provocative but infused with the moral lesson of a cruel fate awaiting transgressors. An edifying scandal. Aurelio Anceis talked of ‘God’s punches’ as the blind blows of an arbitrary, brutal force, a sworn enemy of beauty, enjoyment and happiness. In Tomás Dez’s version, God’s punches were always well aimed and even the misfortunes of the righteous or innocent had a positive purpose: the quality of their laments, the height of their tragedies.

In
Oeste
, the poem was kept the same.

He banged his fist on the table. On that worm that had wormed its way out of the table. He’d kill
Oeste
. He’d kill that bug any which way.

The application to publish the magazine, which was described as ‘An Independent Cultural Weekly’, was signed by Chelo Vidal, Ricardo Samos’ wife. ‘Playing the prima donna,’ he snarled. Its director, who had to be an accredited journalist, was the guy from the evening
Expreso
. On the editorial board were Sada the painter, that young poet friend of his, Avilés, Dr Abril, the teachers Eloísa Garza and Dora Castells and the two Vidals, Chelo and Sebastián the photographer. There was then a long list of contributors, a mixed bag among whom, with his magnifying glass, he could detect the odd liberal survivor, youngsters who were suspicious from the moment they started writing, and a few exotica, who were above suspicion, travelling companions, like that pretty girl in National Formation, Laura. But he had Ren’s report. And pretty Laura, the Carlist, so beautiful in her traditionalist uniform, was now keeping company with ‘existentialist claptrap’. It had all been carefully planned to lend an air of respectability to the invention, which showed all the signs of being a second
Atlántida
, closed years before by a specific order from Madrid based on a report he’d never publicly acknowledge as his own, the terms of which he only had to repeat to cause excitement on his palate: ‘A group of degenerate, existentialist Bohemians.’

Among the promoters of
Oeste
, the young poet would soon be out of play. Ren had in mind a simple operation to intimidate him and force him out of the country. He would open his post, make it clear he was being watched. Or issue one of his favourite warnings by phone, ‘You’re living by permission.’ Dez centred his suspicions on Sada. He was the oldest and had the constitution of a cobweb. He seemed to hang in the air, like a dream, but with moorings everywhere. He had to confirm it. He had to locate the source as soon as possible.
I Was Forsook
, with its new title
The Moment of Truth
, was about to appear in his name. Yes,
The Moment of Truth
. That was his contribution, his touch, and he liked it. He felt the paternity of the title somehow justified his appropriation of the work. It was like an adoption, he thought. And the title was perfect.

Eight months after this final attempt to have
I Was Forsook
authorised for publication, Aurelio Anceis died. It was a poetic death. He threw himself into the sea from the Coiraza wall in Orzán on a day of swell.

Dez had already decided, before Anceis’ death, that
I Was Forsook
had to exist. But in his own way. It would now be Tomás Dez’s second book, the sequel to his literary debut,
From Mars to Daphne
. A decade had gone by. It was a prudish book, but he had to be grateful to a work he was deeply ashamed of. It had enabled him to make contacts, there’d been a few reviews in which the book was described in agreeable terms and, since then, he’d appeared as a poet in the wake of the so-called ‘creative youth’, those who after the war had followed the banner of Garcilaso de la Vega, poet and soldier. Not unintentionally had he begun his work with a quote from Garcilaso’s Second Elegy:
O crude, o rigorous, o fierce Mars, clad in diamonds for a tunic and always so hard!
His strategy worked. An initial review in the local press, which was unsigned, talked of ‘poems of virile race’, a formula that was repeated in other commentaries. He’d also sent the book to Agustín de Foxá, with a humble dedication in which he deliberately used Foxá’s own verses evoking Madrid:
From my eucalyptic shadows, these poems travel in a landau with cinnamon horses to visit the master and kneel while he drinks from the pink shell with rainbow veins.
He was a real admirer of Foxá. He’d memorised the two centaur sonnets, the young and the old. Reciting them was one of his
coups de théâtre
among friends. But Foxá never answered. He may not have liked the image of someone kneeling while he drank from the pink shell. The truth is it was a ridiculous dedication. He realised this as soon as he’d posted it. As often happens with extreme eulogies, it smacked of parody. Nor did he reply to a second attempt, when Dez sent a copy of
Tableau of the Middle Ages
, asking for it to be signed, for which he enclosed an envelope with the necessary stamps. He had better luck with Eugenio Montes, when he did the same with his book
The Star and Trail
, published by Ediciones del Movimiento. He went straight to the point and paraphrased Sánchez Mazas’ preface in a spirit of Fascist camaraderie: ‘With thanks for placing human letters at the Falange’s service.’

I Was Forsook
, that is
The Moment of Truth
, would signify a radical change. A literary bomb. ‘Garcilasistic’, my foot! He was going to shock the literary world beyond this oyster city, stuck in its own shell. And then this had to happen. He had to do something about it. Right away.

He again visited the Sahara boarding-house, where Anceis had stayed during his last two years as a grounded sailor. No, said Miss Dalia, the owner, no one had asked after Aurelio Anceis. No relative had turned up. No one had made any claim.

‘No one?’

She didn’t find it so strange. In a boarding-house like hers, with a majority of long-term guests, the world was seen differently. Some people, some sane people, who were like hermit crabs, only ever came out of their rooms to eat. Talked to nobody. Lived like zeroes.

‘Zeroes? Why do you say zeroes?’

‘Don’t get me wrong,’ replied Miss Dalia. ‘What I mean is nobody missed him. Nobody came looking for him before you.’

Dez would remember this visit. It was the last time he saw him alive.

Anceis barely said anything. He complained of a strong migraine. He was dressed under the bedspread, with his sailor’s hat pulled down as if he wanted to hold on to the pain rather than letting it go. He asked him, out of courtesy, how he felt and unexpectedly Aurelio Anceis replied he felt guilty.

‘Guilty for what?’

‘For having survived. Don’t you feel guilty?’

‘No, not really,’ said Dez.

‘I’d like you to return
I Was Forsook
.’

‘Why?’

‘You heard me. All the paperwork. The poems, applications. Everything. It’s my last wish. I can’t demand it of you, so I’m asking you as a final wish, as a plea. If it doesn’t reach me in time, burn it. I was going to burn it anyway.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I wanted the poems to come out as a book so that I could burn them. Make a bonfire down by the docks. They were written to be burnt.’

He was seized by a violent cough he quickly tried to stifle with a handkerchief, though all it did was redden his face. Dez associated Anceis’ words with that cough and the abrasive change in the colour of his skin.

He stood up, turning away, averting his eyes from him. This was not the proper way to behave. To hell with it. He was in the company of an ex-man.

He turned back at the door. ‘Goodbye, Mr Anceis. I hope you get better soon.’

When he reached the censor’s office, he told his secretary, ‘If that seafaring poet turns up again, I’m not in and I’m not expected. Get rid of him straightaway.’

‘Yes, Commander Dez.’

Commander. He liked it when his secretary called him that.

‘Anything to report concerning Aurelio Anceis?’ Tomás Dez now asked the owner of the Sahara boarding-house. Dalia had shown him into that lounge which still had a gramophone. Mute, but there it was, lending a certain style. The woman also looked more ancient and more attractive than the first time, with those painted nails dancing like dragonflies. ‘Anything new turn up, any request?’

‘You know what he wanted. Everything of his to be burnt. What a fright he gave me when he tried to do it in the kitchen. He wasn’t very good at handling fire. At the end, this became his obsession. In the lounge, he’d start writing verses on scraps of paper and then set fire to them in an ashtray. It was the only time I had to ask him to be careful.’

It was better to confront your ghosts than to carry them on your back, thought Dez. There was a certain matter rolling around in his mind. He realised he was talking to a smart woman, who maybe didn’t just read the fashion magazines with faded covers scattered about the small lounge of the Sahara boarding-house like holidaymakers caught out by winter. The same could be said of Miss Dalia. Her hairstyle, jewels, make-up, nails, everything about her shared a family likeness with the gramophone and those illustrations in
Belle époque
summer programmes.

‘I wonder if you share my opinion,’ said Dez. ‘There was something wrong with Aurelio Anceis. I mean apart from his illness. Recently he’d become very suspicious, don’t you think?’

‘I know people who spend their lives at sea and come ashore to die, Mr Dez. They can’t accept things. They find us strange. But he never used to complain. On the contrary, to him almost everything was wonderful. In his last days . . .’

‘The man was a wretch!’ Dez blurted out in a loud voice that was petulant and accusing.

‘Did he never tell you about the dance in L’Étoile?’

Now it seemed to be the characters in the cover photos listening to her narrative. Dez guessed she wasn’t the kind of woman to start crying, but she blinked and rubbed her hands, ‘In his last days, of course we didn’t know it, he’d pay tribute to the smallest things. I’d give him an apple for dessert and he’d carry on looking at it for hours. He’d say to me, “Isn’t it wonderful, Miss Dalia?”’

Dez glanced in the same direction as the Sahara lady, but found nothing that could be described as wonderful. She abruptly shook her head and said, ‘If what you mean is whether Mr Anceis had a secret, I’d have to reply I don’t know. If he had any secrets, he took them with him. All he left me was a Festina watch.’

‘That’s all very interesting from the point of view of Anceis as a poet. But right now I was thinking about something else. Do you think there’s any possibility Aurelio Anceis hasn’t died?’

She was stunned. Dez would have liked to know whether her contemplation had to do with him, an assessment of his sanity, or whether she was really considering the hypothesis Anceis might not be dead.

‘Listen, sir. It was very polite of him to die the way he did.’

The Sahara lady had adopted a hard tone that sounded quite genuine.

‘He spent the nights coughing,’ said Dalia. ‘I even considered throwing him out, fond as I was of him. “Mr Anceis, why don’t you go to a hospital or some home?” When I said this to him, he fell quiet. He got over his cough for a time. Either that or he smothered it, who knows? He then had the decency to go and die outside. Without bothering anyone. He even made his own bed. He wrote a farewell letter, which I gave to the police. But first he made his bed. He’d smooth out the creases in his quilt with his hand, like an iron. It was very kind of him to die like this. One thing about sailors, they can fend for themselves.’