Books Burn Badly (45 page)

‘What was that champ’s name?’

‘Arturo da Silva,’ said the crane operator. ‘You know where Silva is, don’t you?’

‘Yeah. The ends of the earth. So what makes him a champ too?’ he asked, looking in the direction of the horse photographer.

‘I told you a thousand times,’ replied Ramón Ponte. ‘That’s Hercules. He’s called the champ of Galicia because he was the one who carried the champ’s gloves for him. They were friends. Went everywhere together. Arturo died without losing. Which means he’s still champ. Isn’t that right, Curtis?’

Curtis nodded without speaking, a forced, polite movement. He had two cherry stones in his mouth, which he moved patiently around like a set of gears, as if he were chewing a clock’s escape mechanism.

‘Arturo da Silva,’ said Korea, again addressing Curtis and adopting a boxer’s stance. ‘What was he good at, eh, Hercules? How did he fight?’

It looks as if Curtis won’t reply this time either. Across his big, open eyes, like a hare’s, pass large films. Not fuzzy patches, but real forests. Through the clouds, the eyes watch the legendary cranes, the irresistible machines of Maritime Awakening’s operators. In the past, they each had a name on the cabin: ‘Carmiña’, ‘Greta’, ‘Eve’, ‘Belle Otero’, ‘Pasionaria’. These had also gone, though Ramón Ponte still had the name
Carmiña
, given by his father, on his cabin. Inside he still kept, and had added to, a small library, some stills and his cabinet of curiosities, whose prize exhibit was the
Diligent
’s ball.

Curtis’ eyes reflect what’s outside and the view outside behaves like a thought. The hundred thousand starlings drawing a giddy cloud, a protective bird in the city’s firmament. The mullets joining in a single marine muscle that snakes between the pontoons. The jumps of the Sea Club’s Tritons and sirens, magnificent dancers of the tango too. Three sea urchins that Arturo da Silva throws in the air in a risky piece of juggling.

‘Nothing. He’s got stuck again,’ says Korea. ‘Hey, champ! Hey, Hercules! Nothing.’

Marconi goes by, quickly, in a pair of espadrilles. He keeps making a sound, a constant hum. Ommmmmm. Occasionally he bursts into onomatopoeias. As if he were spitting out screws into the oily waters of the port. A few mullets leap up to snatch a kataplum. A plof. A pliss plam boom. Tackateee! The crane operator calls out to him. Marconi panics when he hears his own name. Who’s calling? Why? What for? At first, he remains upright. Rigid. Even his eyes are so frightened they don’t move. He’s hoping a mute let slip a word. But the operator again bawls out his name, ‘Hey, Marconi!’ And then he jumps in the air, doesn’t look back and accelerates on the back of his hum. Ommmmmm. All he remembers from the last time they took him – ‘It’s nothing, just routine’ – is he’d decided to stop being who he was. He explained to his captors that beating affected his skin a lot because he was diabetic. He had the innocence of people who watch the operation of cause and effect. ‘What union do you belong to?’ ‘The Union of Light.’ That was the name of the electrical workers’ union. He shouldn’t have said that. When he regained consciousness, his body was no longer bruised, it was almost rotten. They did it badly. They hit him so hard, in the barracks of the Falange, instead of killing him, they took him past death. They smashed his insides. Realised he’d gone crazy. All that came out of his mouth was a rasp of words. Disconnected phrases, bits hanging off his lips, which he only got rid of with his onomatopoeias, blisters bursting with language. Shhhhhh, kataplum! Maybe they didn’t kill him out of superstition. Or because they’d gone a step past death. As he strode through the city, his humming was a broadcast, a constant reminder. He’d opened a door into fear. So he had to find a solution. Live in another sphere. At an ultrasonic frequency. It was on that wavelength he came into syntony with Galatea of the Seaweed and Shells, spokesperson for the Hypernauts of Infinite Space and the Inhabitants of Emptiness. He searches again with the dial. Finally locates the point. Ommmmmm.

There’s Marconi. Everything he owns is in that sailor’s canvas bag. All his belongings. Valves, cables, coils, washers, bulbs, all kinds of screws, stuff he’s collected to build the decisive machine, a transmitter and receiver of Souls to communicate with the Inhabitants of Emptiness and transform their signals into cosmozoons, invisible spores like pollen, words with a translucent samara or wings like the pine-seed, carriers of a different life. He wanders around the city at night, rummaging through the rubbish from electrical repair shops, ironmongers, mechanical workshops. Apparently his house is full of faulty equipment. A house full of faults. During the day, he puts a new prototype of the Soulder into his bag and heads for Hercules Lighthouse. He always tests the machine in the same place. Sitting on the same stone. With a little exaggeration, it might be said the rock is gradually taking the shape of a chair where Marconi sits. It was there he was interviewed by Stringer, who introduced him as a Galician Roswell. The Hercules Man, a human body carrying an extraterrestrial being. The first time a UFO incident had been recorded in Galicia.

‘Where are you from?’

‘I belong to an astral diaspora, the Inhabitants of Emptiness.’

‘What are you doing next to Hercules Lighthouse?’

‘It’s a point of cosmic convergence. It appears in the genetic information of the Explorers of Infinite Space. Among extraterrestrials, it’s vox populi. This is where I hope to start the Soulder, an apparatus for receiving cosmozoons.’

‘What are cosmozoons?’

‘Particles of life from other systems.’

Marconi always sitting on the same stone.

‘Why do you always sit on this stone?’

‘It’s not a stone. It’s the Soulder’s stator.’

‘What exactly is a Soulder?’

‘A space vehicle I’m trying out, which one day will move as a result of the energy accumulated in this ancient lighthouse. The historians of antiquity talk of a Large Mirror in this lighthouse of Brigantia which shows a reflection of Ireland. What are we talking about? A cosmic observation point, an equally old UFO base.’

It was the first time an article had been written about UFOs in Galicia. Stringer highlighted the similarities between the Roswell Man, who appeared in 1947 near Corona (New Mexico, USA), and the Hercules Man, who landed for the first time in Coruña in 1957, as he himself has confessed. They’re both pale. Both completely bald. Only that the famous one died and disappeared while the other, who so far has escaped notice, lives on among us with an assumed identity. In his own words. An exclusive interview in the evening
Expreso
.

‘See, it made the front page!’

Tito Balboa or Stringer is elated. It’s his first piece. A report that will set tongues wagging. His first journalistic scoop.

Curtis blinks as he reads the news item.

‘But that’s Marconi!’

The travelling photographer eyes Stringer differently, with disappointment, distrust. ‘So you think you’re clever?’

‘I have to do another report on you, Mr Curtis. Imagine the headline: “FOUND: HERCULES”.’

‘Right,’ said Curtis. ‘On one condition. You have to put, “FOUND: HERCULES, SON OF A WHORE”.’

That seemed to shut him up.

Marconi, sitting on his stone chair, the stator, gazes at his own portrait in the paper’s photomontage, next to a strange, membranous being. Emits murmurs. If the question is whether the earth is a shadow of the sky, the answer is yes.

The
Diligent
’s Ball

On one occasion, he let them play with it, the first football. It fell off the deck of the British ship the
Diligent
. Some crewmen jumped down, but couldn’t catch the boy who took it. He ran and ran down Luchana Alley, across Rego de Auga, until he reached Ovos Square, where his pursuers realised there was nothing they could do. The fugitive was safe among the stalls and the forest of skirts belonging to women selling birds and eggs. The ball was part of the city’s secret.

There must have been a grain of truth in this epic story. When you held the ball in your hands, if you brought it close to your body, you could hear a beating that wasn’t yours. The boy’s race. The hero’s heart.

‘Who was it?’

‘One of my grandfathers,’ answered Ramón Ponte proudly. ‘He was self-taught. Had his own scales for weighing the value of historical events. And you know what? That boat, the
Diligent
, went and sank in the entrance to the bay. Must have been as a result of losing the ball.’

‘Can I report it? Make an interview with you?’ asked Tito Balboa.

‘No way. It might lead to an international protest. It’s not a stone, boy. This is history.’

They were playing on the Western Quay. A place where, between nets and stacks of wood, you learnt how to control your pass, given the limits of the sea. Which may explain why Coruñan footballers such as Chacho, Cheché Martín, Amancio and Luis Suárez were so good at it. At passing accurately.

Ramón Ponte was there, watching. Suffering on account of the
Diligent
’s ball and at the same time moved, as if this were a Biblical game being played with the terrestrial globe. The stacks of wood, like large blinds, enclosed the area and acted like barriers to stop the ball embarking. But even so, between the piles of wood, there were corridors, gaping mouths, down which the ball would sometimes disappear together with friends Gabriel had made in this dockside universe, which as a child he’d only been able to contemplate from the gallery. They left the field and didn’t come back. As if they’d been swallowed up by the ghost of the
Diligent
returning for its ball. When they picked the teams the next day, one would be missing and someone would casually exclaim, ‘He’s gone!’ Which didn’t mean he’d gone for a walk. It meant he’d gone for ever. There was no need to explain. On that border, those who were leaving played with those who weren’t leaving. And Gabriel realised that his family would never have to emigrate. An inequality that bothered him.

‘You can’t have everything,’ whispered Destiny’s Irony in his ear.

That summer, the day after the match with the Father of Footballs, they picked the teams and one called César was missing.

‘César’s gone!’

Another carried off by the ghost of the
Diligent
.

‘Where to?’

‘Burgos. To see his Dad in prison.’

‘In prison? What’s he doing there?’

‘What do you think?’ asked the crane operator. ‘He’s inside.’

‘What for? Why’s he in prison?’

He felt the others’ silence and looks were directed towards him. He received a word warning, but this time the fear was external, not internal. It was the others being careful with their words. Keeping them in the dark.

The Roswell Man

‘You can write about the Holy Company and all that. Beings at night. Holding a cross or whatever. Whether they’re superstitions or not, these fears help religion. Happenings go well with faith. But extraterrestrials cause alarm, widespread panic. It’s as if God and his representatives aren’t protecting us. After almost twenty-five years of peace since Franco’s victory, such stories create insecurity, the impression we’re vulnerable. So forget about the Lighthouse Man, the Galician Roswell and all those fantasies about Hercules Lighthouse being a cosmic meeting place and write about ordinary people, ordinary people doing ordinary things, otherworldly things, but normal otherworldly things, got it? If you like this stuff, OK, go after it. You’ve got Corpus, where there are women expelling demons. Apparently there was one last year, all hairy, seen running down the rows of maize, followed by a bunch of children. Shame there’s no photo. We’ve got all these devils in Galicia and no graphical evidence. Vicente Risco wrote reams. But he didn’t have a Bolex camera, what to do? Then you’ve got the pilgrimage to Santa Marta de Ribarteme, with devotees being carried to the chapel in coffins. Don’t tell me there’s a lack of material. Right next to the city, you’ve possessed women going to Pastoriza, spitting out iron nails against the door. You’ve a brilliant future if you’ll take some advice. What do we want with extraterrestrials in Galicia? What are we going to do with them? Encourage tourism? They’ll attract a few loonies. Just what we need! To become the world capital for raving lunatics. Now, if we had a Loch Ness monster, that would be different. Then we’d be talking!

‘We’ve enough with witches. Witches, imps, the Holy Company and, at a push, between you and me, in confidence, the apostle James’ white horse. Every country has its limit. And, as for spatial matters, we’ve the Betanzos hot-air balloon. Now that’s a civilised superproduction. Compare it with those who chuck goats off a bell-tower! Whatever next? I understand we have to keep up with the times, the fashion. I’m on your side, I feel the beating of the teleprinter in my blood, I understand what you’re saying. Nowadays a country without aliens, well, it’s second-division. All right, don’t tell me about the teleprinter again, I know it’s informed about a UFO sighting in Gaintxurizketa, Errenteria, Euskadi. I tried to explain this to the Delegate of Information and Tourism, we’ve as much right to spot UFOs as anyone else. But we live where we live and we’re not going to change it, me with my gastronomic dishes, you with your cosmic theory.

‘In short, Balboa, what I mean is the governor doesn’t want extraterrestrials in his province. Nor does he want Hercules Lighthouse being presented as a cosmic reference point, an operations base, where, if I didn’t misunderstand you, sowers of cosmozoons are planning a landing. So there’s an end to aliens in the
Expreso
. A whole squadron of UFOs with Hypernauts and Inhabitants of Emptiness can turn up, we’re not reporting it even in brief.’

‘I still don’t understand why.’

‘Take my advice. Stop asking why! We’re journalists, that’s all. We’re not philosophers or . . . selenotropes? Did you ever see a newspaper with question marks? This is not an industry of whys. Why’s the US conducting a war in Vietnam? Why’d they demolish the Cooperative, one of the city’s most beautiful buildings? Why’d they pull down Primitive Baths and the Health Spa, which is a lot of pulling down? Well, my friend, to build a garage. No more Primitive or Health, that’s what great words have in store for them. We could print a full-page WHY? A local, universal, cosmic WHY? It’d be a great day for Spanish journalism. And our evening paper’s last.’