Before falling asleep, O hears Olinda calling to Polka, ‘A lot of hare your mother must have eaten when she was pregnant with you!’
It’s true. He sleeps with open eyes.
O wakes up with a start. Sweating. Has the sensation the imitation leather on the hospital chair has been grafted on to her skin. She was asleep for a few minutes, but saw herself descending one staircase in Polka’s arms, and climbing another, holding him.
‘What do you do in that hospital?’
‘The laundry, Polka.’
‘Are you your own boss?’
‘Mine and the washing machines,’ replied O ironically.
‘That’s good. The washing machines kicked you out of here and now you press their buttons. Let the machines do the work, damn it!’
‘Before going to London, I worked in the house I told you about. In Sussex, invisible man country.’
‘I don’t suppose you saw him,’ said Polka.
‘No. I was the one who became invisible.’
‘You said you liked it there. You wrote and said you were happy. It was all fun and games.’
‘What was I supposed to say? When I write, my sorrows stay inside. The others saw me – Mr and Mrs Sutherland, Pinche, Popsy the dog. But I didn’t. They were very kind to me, but I lost sight of myself. All that peace was finishing me off. So I decided to leave.’
‘I always said the countryside is good for a visit,’ remarked Polka. ‘For what the Portuguese call a pickenick.’
‘Pinche’s the one who likes it. To start with, he came with me to London, but couldn’t get used to it. He even worked as a sandwich-man for a time. Dressed up as Sherlock Holmes to advertise the detective’s museum. He also worked as an executioner of tourists. That photo . . .’
‘The uniform didn’t suit him,’ observed Polka. ‘He didn’t look very comfortable with the axe.’
‘No. He went back to Sussex, far-flung Chichester. He loves it there. Mr Sutherland, Lena’s husband, the pilot, lives for his fuchsias. He’s a breeder. Mixes them, obtains new colours. Produced one so white, virtually albino, he called it Miss Griffin. Shame the invisible man didn’t find his invisible mate. Another time. Mr Sutherland barely speaks, but chats away to his flowers. Gets on very well with Pinche. Says he has green fingers, a way with plants. One day, he’ll be the best at fuchsias.’
‘There’ll be something else in Pinche’s life apart from fuchsias.’
‘He’s a girlfriend who rides a bike.’
‘Bike woman!’ exclaimed Polka. ‘I thought so.’
Yes, O thought, they passed each other so often they fell in love. Passed each other every day without speaking. Started to communicate with the calligraphy of their bikes. She once performed an unexpected 180° turn, ended up facing him. And so on. The most important day was when the wind tried unsuccessfully to push them over. He gazed at her admiringly. She was older than him. Perhaps twice his age. Until then, he’d seen very few women on a bike. The first was called Miss Herminia, who was said to be mad. Now he thought it wasn’t like this, she was probably pedalling against her madness. He fell in love with the cyclist who stood up to the wind. Their outings got longer. When he thought she was about to leave, he’d draw another phrase on the road. This made him happy, drawing circles around her. When he told O, she burst out laughing, ‘She’s much older than you!’ ‘The bike, you mean,’ he replied. Winked. And walked off.
‘I didn’t tell you,’ said O to Polka, ‘but before I found that job in the hospital, I was a waitress. Wasn’t much fun. I had an argument, that’s why I didn’t tell you. The owner was on my back all the time. One of those guys who do their own work badly, but are always watching what others are up to. I went after some people who’d forgotten to pay. When I came back, he told me off for leaving the café without his permission. So I grabbed him by the neck, lifted him clean off the ground, and he said something no one’s said to me before, “You are a half-man!”’
‘What did you do?’
‘I yelled at him, “Not half, I ain’t.”’
‘Well said, that girl!’ cried Polka.
‘You’re at home. You’ll be better here than in hospital.’ Polka keeps quiet. He knows what this means. He’ll be better for as long as he lasts. But there’s nothing he can do about it. What amazes him is the bed.
‘And this bed?’
‘It’s orthopaedic,’ said O. ‘Goes up and down. Has a little engine.’
‘Well, give it a go! That’s brilliant! Does it go any higher? Make it go higher.’ Then, looking worried, ‘It must have cost a lot . . .’
‘Social Security paid for it.’
‘Did they?’ he asked with mistrust. ‘Well, we may as well make the most of it. Move it up and down.’
In this way, whenever he had a visit, Polka would ask to be lifted aloft and from up on high would greet the visitor with the gesture of a carnival minister:
‘Sursum corda!’
One day, with the bed raised, he tells her he can’t see.
‘What is there to see, Papa?’
‘I thought I’d see better from up here. But I can’t see a thing. Here or there. A bit of mist, that’s all.’
‘Mist?’
‘Dust. More like dust. Like dots on the television screen when there’s no signal. I struggled with that television you sent me. Not because of me. I’d got used to the dots. I wanted it to be ready for your arrival. I tied the aerial to the top of the eucalyptus tree. But eucalyptuses grow very quickly and the trunk half swallowed the aerial. It was like having a metal branch. When crows landed, broken lines. Starlings, little black dots.’
‘Now what can you see, Papa? Lines or black dots?’
‘Nothing. The quality’s gone.’
She shows him things. ‘It’s Élisée’s book. Can’t you see?’
‘Here, let me touch. Books are so well made, damn it! It took them a while to get the hang of it. But now it’s as if they’re natural, like grafts on hands.’
‘What about my hands?’
‘I can’t see anybody’s hands, girl.’
She strokes his cheek. ‘But you can feel them, right?’
He falls silent. Everything on his face acquires a subtlety of movement.
‘What about me, Papa? Can’t you see me?’
‘You I can, girl. You I can.’
Something Special
The judge had a serious relapse. Gabriel went with Sofia to the house by the marina, intending to pick up some of his things. He hadn’t been inside for a long time. Was surprised by the suspended animation, the watchfulness of things. The spectral attention of the begonias, which had extended their vegetal forms into the semi-darkness, giving the shadows a withered smell. He set Grand Mother Circa going. The house’s heartbeat. Time that didn’t leave, a present that remembered. Gabriel opened the shutters. The light went after them. Caressed them. A warm command they obeyed. The sensation they weren’t making love, love was making them.
The front doorbell rang. Insistent and energetic. An old man who more than ever resembled Inspector Ren, with his supplier of Bibles’ suitcase.
‘Is Mr Samos in?’
‘No, he isn’t.’
Gabriel recognised the large, ill-tempered body’s reaction, on the verge of ripping his ashen suit asunder. The voice as well, the way he chiselled his speech, ‘You’re the son, right? Yes, you’re the son. Gabriel. Katechon! So how’s the judge then?’
Gabriel’s own voice surprised him, ‘Come in, Mr Ren. The judge insisted you leave whatever you brought with you.’
‘He said that?’
‘With great interest.’
Ren looked doubtful. He knew about the old disagreement between father and son. Glanced at the suitcase with metal rivets. ‘I’ve brought the judge something very special.’
Gabriel’s voice carried on and he decided to let it, ‘I’m sure you have. That’s what he’s expecting. That’s what we’re expecting. Something special.’
; He invited him into the study. For old times’ sake. Ren alighted on the mahogany table, opened the suitcase very slowly, as if something might escape. Gabriel Samos wondered what effect a handful of Coccinella septempunctata might have, carrying seven little dots on their wings. The tic in his hand had gone, the way it opened and closed.
‘Here it is.’ Ren’s face was red. His cheeks, inflamed.
‘Borrow’s book. The New Testament. Here, look at the signature. The dedication written with a quill. A wild goose quill, I dare say.’
For Antonio de la Trava, the valiente of Finisterra.
‘See! Look at the date: Madrid, 1837.’
‘Is it very valuable?’ asked Gabriel Samos with a show of indifference.
‘Very valuable, you say? You’ve no idea how much work a thing like this can give. Your father’s been after this book for years. But I told him, “For books, you needs must wait.”’
The pimple, the spot on his nose, was also inflamed.
‘Like this one. See, it’s in English. A first edition. Ulysses. Now I’m no expert, but I have a rough idea of the value of things. And this is worth a lot.’
‘That’s strange!’
‘What is?’
‘That you should find it now. Here.’
‘What’s strange about that, Master Samos? Here there were always highly cultivated people. And good libraries. Even workers had libraries. No, Master Samos, this is not the back of beyond.’
To start with, Gabriel thought he might be teasing him. The way he called him ‘master’. The way he praised workers’ ransacked libraries. But then he realised he wasn’t. He was being serious.
‘It’s not easy to find what you’re looking for. And I’m in no fit state to rummage around. If I made an effort now, it was because of your father. He called me from hospital the first time he was admitted. He was excited. Very excited. Had a lead. So old Ren here got back on his feet.’
He flourished Ulysses. ‘It would seem half the world would go crazy for this book. It has only one little defect, apart from the fact you can’t understand it. A flyleaf is missing.’
Gabriel anxiously flicked through the pages. Muttered, ‘I wonder if it has an ex-libris.’
Ren was sweating. Took off his hat and laid it on the suitcase. Wiped his stunted head with a handkerchief. Breathed in through his nose. Seemed to be sniffing a new scent that had found its way into the house. A scent sewn to the plants.
‘It may have. I don’t know, nor do I care.’
‘It’d make it more valuable,’ said Gabriel.
‘More valuable? I doubt it. Who the heck cares about ownership? These pieces are of incalculable value.’ He whispered the word again, like an echo, ‘Incalculable.’
‘How much is incalculable, Ren?’
Ren dried his hands on the handkerchief and stuffed it, withered and hanging, back into his jacket pocket. Said, ‘Let’s see. These objects are difficult to value. Some things are just priceless. Your father would have paid well. Extremely well. In this case, I’d have said the payment would have been splendid.’
‘How much?’ asked Gabriel again.
Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
Copyright
Also by Manuel Rivas
Dedication
Author’s Acknowledgements
Books Burn Badly
1. The Water Marks
2. The Night of the Moths
3. The Newspaper Seller
4. The Breadcrumb
5. The Matador
6. The Burning Books
7. The Books’ Burial
8. The Invisible Man
9. I’ll Just Go and See Who It Is
10. The Rabble and Providence
11. Natura Est Maxima in Minimis
12. Live Phosphorus
13. Open Body
14. Dead Man’s Slap
15. The Doorknocker
16. The Street Singer
17. The Lead Locomotive and the Flying Boat
18. Dez and Terranova
19. Curtis’ Second Fight
20. The White Roses
21. The Prickles of Words
22. Grandpa Mayarí’s Cane
23. O and Harmony
24. Chimpanzee Language
25. The Strategy of Light
26. The Urchin Woman
27. Jolies Madames!
28. The Apprentice Taxidermist
29. The 666 Chestnuts
30. The Gravedigger
31. King Cintolo’s Cockroach
32. Acetylsalicylic Acid
33. The Witch’s Kiss
34. Pinche’s Bike
35. The Woman at the Window
36. The Judge’s Drawer
37. The Mysterious Outsider
38. The Yoke Collector
39. The Supplier of Bibles
40. I Was Forsook
41. The Bramble Sphere
42. The Unfalling Leaves
43. The Star and Romantic the Horse
44. The Prohibited
45. The Championship for God
46. The Photos
47. The Paúl Santos Smile
48. The Inhabitants of Emptiness
50. The Roswell Man
51. The Chemin Creux
52. O and Famous Men
53. The Phosphorescent Diver
54. Your Name
55. The Price
56. Élisée’s Book
57. Nel blu dipinto di blu
58. Banana Split
59. Montevideo’s Cabin
60. The Song of the Birds
61. Leica and Silvia
62. A Dramatic History of Culture
63. ‘A Sacred Feast’
64. The Compulsive Writer
65. The Lighthouse’s Novel
66. O and Animals
67. The Portuguese Architect
68. The Hotel of Mirrors
69. The Lights Going Out
70. The Denunciation
71. The Notebook
72. A Load of Suspicion
73. Judith
74. The Whale’s Belly
75. The Tachygraphic Rose
76. Ren’s ‘Museum’
77. Blue Mist
78. The Arrest
79. Popsy’s Delivery
80. The Lucky Gambler
81. Disguises
82. The Camden Town Fire-Eater
83. Felicity of Expression
84. The Medal
85. Purple Rain
86. Coccinella septempunctata
87. Working for Eternity
88. Bigarreaus
89. You I Can
90. Something Special