Books Burn Badly (49 page)

He gazed at Korea’s shaven head and started to make out countries where the blows had landed.

‘Give me a globe like this one and I’ll tell you I wasn’t here or here, the two places I haven’t been, and we’ll finish sooner. A friend of mine in the Merchant Navy I coincided with on the
Viking
used to write his name on the doors of toilets in dockside bars, “Carnocho I was here”. He went through life pretending he was a king from Mount Alto. Had I done the same, I’d be more famous than Captain Nemo, since I’ve travelled a fair bit more than Carnocho I. But I prefer to avoid the publicity. One night I was on board, on duty, I read a book called
The Invisible Man
from beginning to end. That’s an ideal state. Not normal or abnormal. Paranormal. A few years ago in South Africa, in Cape Town, I was walking down a long avenue, feeling exhausted, and was relieved to see a bench. The bench was perfect, in the right place, under a tree, for a quick snooze. When I went over to it, I found a large notice on the back. “Europeans Only”. Blasted bench. An abnormal bench. I circled it a few times. Paranormally. Should I or should I not sit down? Was my bum European? Only the blacks seemed normal. They walked as if they hadn’t seen us, the bench or me. They’d obviously decided they couldn’t sit down. I again circled the bench paranormally and found an inscription on the other side, “Carnocho I was here”. I’ve been to more ports than I can remember. I could relate many different adventures, sexual exploits and the rest, but the funniest thing that happened to me was in Korea.’

‘There’s a North and a South Korea,’ said Miguel.

‘Precisely. The captain explained that the city we were going to, Incheon, was in the south, but the port was on the border, right between the north and the south, on what they call the demarcation line.’ He pointed to a spot on Korea’s head and said, ‘Incheon must be here, right here. A line was painted on the ground. I was in a hurry to get out. As I disembarked, the captain said to me, “Stick to the line, don’t leave the line for any reason.” There were soldiers on both sides of the border, two rows facing each other. With me in the middle. You could hear the grinding of silent weapons. On board the ship, someone had said more than nine million people had died in the Korean War. That’s a lot of dead. I never thought there were so many. There was that comic book,
Hazañas Bélicas
, whose hero was an American called Sergeant Gorilla. He’d kill Koreans four at a time. I thought to myself, well, it must be true. All the dead on both sides seemed to be looking at me. I advanced slowly along the line, feeling dizzy, as if the line was in fact a tightrope. One false move on my part and a world war could break out. That’s when I understood what it is to be on the edge of the invisible. At one point, I froze. I couldn’t move forwards or backwards. The horror! How I would have liked to read on the ground: “Carnocho I, second engineer”, was here. But there was nothing. Just a line.’

He moved Miguel’s head like a globe, ‘Here you can’t see the line so well.’

The phosphorescent diver is very impressed by the underwater rifle Manlle bought for Zonzo on his travels. ‘Blimey, this could kill someone!’

Your Name

All Olinda remembered was my name. That’s a lot if you’re the one being named. Of all the names, the thousands of words, the only sound that comes out of her mouth (because she doesn’t complain, sob, groan or moan) is your name. What’s that? And she says your name. Like a stone figure suddenly calling out for you. She rounds her lips. Draws your name. That’s a lot of weight. Like carrying someone on top of you. Not inside or around, but on top of you. Only your name. She could have said anything. She could have howled. I’d have understood that, a howl rising from deep inside her. But no. She says your, my name. All she gives out is my name. A wee-wee, a slight trickle. Droppings, chestnuts, quails’ eggs, balls that get harder and smaller, like the pips of watermelons or morello cherries. Pips of life. You feel like planting them to see if they’ll grow like seeds. Putting them in damp cotton. They might just sprout. Lentils. Finally a few jewels, precious, shiny droppings like ladybirds. Spit, no. All that comes out of her mouth is my name. She eats a beakful, the amount a bird gives to its chick. That’s enough. She shrank. Withered. I could lift her in my arms like a baby. ‘There we go! When you’re better, we’ll count matches. We’ll fill box after box with matches.’ I found her lying on the carpet, bent double, just another geometrical drawing. ‘Leave me here,’ said Olinda on the carpet. ‘I’m popping out for a while.’ This was the last thing she said with any of the old, coherent meaning. After that, only my name. O. She’d say O and I’d use the O to give her something. She keeps going on a beakful. The line of her body. Wee-wee. Jewels. Seed. My name. A circle on her lips, a sigh. So it’s true she, what she was at least, left that day on the carpet.

The Price

‘What if you lose an eye in one of those fights?’ asked the engineer Roque Gantes from the deck.

‘If I lose an eye,’ replied Korea ironically, ‘then they’ll have to pay for it.’

‘Why do you fight over neighbourhoods, between Mau Mau and Red Devils?’

‘Why? You don’t ask why.’

‘You’re an idiot. An idiot, gentlemen, an idiot!’ shouted the crane operator.

‘If I lose an eye,’ continued Korea, ‘they’ll have to cough up for it. You bet they will.’

‘Ten thousand pesetas,’ said Gabriel suddenly.

‘You sure about that, judge?’

Korea thought about Medusa with her red tights.

‘And if a relative does the damage, your father, for instance, how much?’

‘Nothing.’

Everyone was talking about a boy who’d been kidnapped in the city. Pepito Mendoza. A crazy woman who’d wanted a child of her own had taken him.

‘Hey, judge, how much they pay for a slave?’ Korea asked Gabriel.

‘For cotton, in Virginia and those parts, three hundred and sixty dollars per head.’

Pinche became thoughtful. In Ovos Square and Santa Catarina, you could change dollars, pounds, pesos, bolivars. In secret. Under the eggs.

‘How much is three hundred and sixty dollars?’ asked Pinche absent-mindedly.

‘You wouldn’t fetch that much,’ said Korea, ‘if that’s what you mean. Besides, you’re boss-eyed. That lowers the price. You couldn’t even fight.’

Pinche did not reply. He had two eyes. Trouble is one of them was lazy and they were using a patch to correct it. If the guy in white shoes caught him for making a fire with planks of teakwood to warm twenty-five workmen’s pots, he really might take out his good eye. But he wasn’t going to catch him. Despite having a lazy eye, he could see much better than Korea. Which is why he was the first to sound the alert and start running:

‘Mau Mau!’

Élisée’s Book

‘We were going to the festivities on the 2nd of August. First by special train to Betanzos, from Coruña Station, then by boat up the River Mandeo to Caneiros Field. We’d spent ages preparing for it. This festive journey, this trip on boats with laurel awnings, swaying in time to the accordions, propelled by bagpipe airs, was like going to a place you’d dreamt of. So many turns and there it was, Libertaria. A day like that was worth a year. With a bit of luck, you’d set off empty-handed and come back in an embrace.’

Polka stood up and went in search of
Man and the Earth
, Volume I, by Élisée Reclus. With this book in his hand, Polka adopted the look of someone serious. The look of Élisée Reclus. Not that he couldn’t be serious without this book. But in this case, he’d say, his seriousness was well documented. It took a lot of effort to convince him to go to the eye doctor, as he called the ophthalmologist. He hated admitting physical failure. They then spent hours talking. The doctor told him he had presbyopia, which is why little words vanished on the page. Polka then listed the seven deadly sins. The ministers, he said, in the government of Carnival. The doctor was still a child, but he remembered the costumes on Cantóns. It had been a special Carnival, the best, following the elections in February 1936. Processions came with bands of musicians from every single neighbourhood. The child’s eyesight may have magnified the memory. Perhaps. It was the last great Carnival. After that came war, prohibition.

Yes, he remembered them well. The Ministers of Pride, Covetousness, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Anger and Sloth. The sins were all very stylish, wearing frock coats and top hats, each with a big cigar and ceremonial staff. Arm in arm with them, in very short, low-cut Charleston dresses embroidered with bugles and beads, with cigarette holders and boyish haircuts, came the virtues, the girls from Germinal, the eye doctor, though only a child, had a good look at them, at Humility, Charity, Chastity, Kindness, Temperance, Patience and Diligence. Diligence struck him as particularly beautiful. What he didn’t know, said Polka, is that there was an eighth sin. Presbyopia.

Polka put on his presbyopics and, before turning and becoming really serious, made a gesture he learnt from Pepe Pazos, a sailor who was caught by the revolution of October 1917 in the port of St Petersburg and saw the
Aurora
fire cannon shots at the Winter Palace, who was also in Madrid in July 1936 – a sailor! – and asked, ‘Where are you going?’ ‘To Montana.’ ‘What for?’ ‘To storm the barracks.’ ‘OK then.’ Pazos, who was an expert in icebergs for the convoys that went to the Arctic during the Second World War. Pazos, who steered a support ship during the Normandy Landings. Well, this Pazos, before talking, made a humble gesture that Polka imitated, ‘What can I tell you that will be lasting?’

Polka had gone off in search of Volume I of
Man and the Earth
by Élisée Reclus because it contained a key to what he wanted to say, to what that trip upriver, the festivities of that year, actually meant. But, as so often happened, he forgot what he was looking for and ended up staring at a globe in the book held by two hands. If he looked over his presbyopics, the globe moved, became hazy like a strange being. Through his glasses, it became crystal clear, in its place. He wasn’t quite sure how he preferred it, whether crystal clear or blurred.

‘You were going to read me something, Papa,’ said O.

Unlike his natural state, Polka’s seriousness was very dramatic. ‘You’ve got to leave, girl. As soon as possible. Without delay. Before the years trap you and nothing changes. Everything here smells musty. The air. Time itself.’

She knew what was happening. The River Mandeo, the festive river, was running down his spine. It was the same when he recalled the quicksilver glass sign of the Shining Light in the Abyss association in Silva district. That emery design with a sun in flames. The Fascists smashed it to pieces and replaced it with a sign that said ‘Winter Aid’. One night, somebody broke off the second part, leaving the word ‘Winter’ forever engraved on the façade. ‘Winter,’ like that, with a capital letter. So now the River Mandeo was coming back. Because the special train never left. Nor did the boats. And on 2 August they didn’t travel upriver to the field of festivities, Libertaria, for a day. Instead, lots of them travelled as corpses that August, thrown a little further up, from Castellana Bridge, on the Coruña-Madrid road. The dead who washed up in pools were collected by locals and buried. Dead dispossessed of life and identity. The Unknown. In Vilarraso, Aranga and Coirós. Those who were supposed to go upriver, on an outing to Libertaria, ended up travelling downriver. Having been murdered. None of these crimes was ever investigated. The terror of the families, if any were left, was such they didn’t dare look into the dead.

‘You were going to read me something, Papa. You were talking about a trip upriver. And were going to read me something.’

‘I was after a book about animal electricity, it was a bit of joke, to see what she’d say, the others were watching. And she, Minerva, the librarian Holando called Minerva, told me very seriously there was a book called
Hypnotism and Animal Magnetism
, so I told her the story about the duck. The day my mother took it and cut its neck, she was the only one at home brave enough to do that, to sacrifice an animal so that we could eat. The duck put up such a resistance it took to the air. Flew over us without a head. And my mother said, “That’s because it had a lot of electricity stored up inside.” Minerva listened with wide open eyes. She was obviously amazed by the story. She had a book on the desk. “If you’re interested in nature,” she said, “I recommend you read this one.” It was
Man and the Earth
by Élisée Reclus.

‘“Can I take it out on loan?”

‘“No, you can’t. There are six volumes. This is the first. You can start with this one. Here, in the library.”’

When it came to closing time in Germinal, on Sol Street, which leads into Orzán Bay, Polka was so absorbed by the book he decided to commit a transgression and take it with him, hidden under his jacket. That was at the end of June, just before St John’s Eve. He saw her at the bonfires and turned pale in front of the flames. He went to the library on several occasions, intending to return it, but on reaching the door, he saw Minerva there and was unable to enter out of guilt and shame. He, a park and garden employee, a bagpiper from Castro who could play as well in a tribute to Sacco and Vanzetti as in a procession for Our Lady of Mount Carmel, patron of the sea, shelter for castaways, he, member of the Shining Light in the Abyss association, reader of
Brazo y Cerebro
and
The Ideal Novel
– to have stolen a book like a petty thief! But he’d made up his mind. Without further ado, when he left work on Friday the 17th, before attending Curtis’ first fight, he would go to Germinal and return it. Very seriously, he would offer his apologies to Minerva. Volunteer to help out. He could do a bit of everything. That was the advantage of living on the border between city and field. But it wasn’t possible. That evening was the first time the ships’ sirens sounded on news of the military uprising in North Africa and people flocked down to the city centre. He spent all night with the book under his arm. There were demonstrations for people to be given arms in defence of the Republic. And he went as well, feeling a little crestfallen.