All Is Silence (4 page)

‘That book came from the School of Indians,’ he said. He poured himself a glass of claret and emptied it in one go.

‘Why was it called that? School of Indians?’

Lucho’s hurt gesture. His smile. He always made the most of this opportunity. Fins knew what he was going to say, the same old joke about playing cowboys and Indians, being an Apache and so on. But this time a flicker of pain interrupted his smile. A spasm introduced by memory.

‘Many from here – many! – left for America. Most were stonemasons, carpenters, bricklayers, day labourers . . . and sailors. Once they’d got themselves a bit of silver, the first thing they’d do is go and buy themselves a suit for dancing. The next thing, get together in order to set up a school. That’s what they did. All over Galicia. It was for them the Modern School. But after the war, when it was abandoned, it got this other name, School of Indians.’

He glanced over at Amparo, who was slowly inserting pins into the cushion.

‘It wasn’t just any old school. It was the best school! Everything they had hoped for. Rationalist, they called it. And they sent typewriters, sewing machines, globes, microscopes, barometers . . . They even packed in a skeleton so we could learn the names of all the bones. They set up loads of schools, but this one had something special. An extraordinary idea that the floor of the school was the world. They made it out of noble wood. That floor was built by the very best carpenters and carvers. Every now and then, you’d sit in a different country.’

He fell silent. Made an inventory. In this composition of the thinker, he held his head with such pressure, so horizontally, that he seemed to be stopping a leak in his temple.

‘That’s all that’s left, more or less. The floor and the skeleton.’

He stood up and with his right forefinger started pointing at his left hand, ‘Trapezium, trapezoid, capitate, hamate . . .’ One word jumped on top of another. Lucho Malpica was content. He noticed the fizz of memory on his lips, the fact that he could remember. That salty taste.

‘Do you know which is the most important bone of all? No, you don’t.’ He smacked his son on the nape. ‘The sphenoid!’

Lucho then made a bowl with his scarred hands and declared, as if holding a human skull, ‘I can hear the teacher now. Here’s the key, the sphenoid! The bone with a chair like a Turkish bed and a bat’s wings, which opened in silence all through history to make room for the enigmatic organisation of the soul.’

He stared at his hands in surprise, the bowl of eloquence they’d made. Then exclaimed in amazement at himself, ‘Blessed hosts!’

The other two, mother and son, also stared at him in wonder. He was a taciturn type. On the quiet side. At home there was a connection between his ruminations and the knocking together of the boxwood needles. To Fins, when he became aware of it, this was a wounding sound. A chattering of the house’s teeth. But there were these moments, increasingly rare, when the sound became transfigured. And the cud showed itself.

‘Which parts of the world did you sit in, father?’ asked Fins with shared enthusiasm.

Lucho Malpica suddenly changed tone. ‘I don’t want you going there.’

‘Any day now the sky will fall on top of you!’ added his mother.

Lucho went over to the window to take a look at the sea. From there, he spoke to his son in an imperative tone. ‘Listen, Fins, you need to go and clean the vats again.’

‘He’s too big to be getting into those vats,’ remarked Amparo angrily. ‘Besides, he gets dizzy.’

‘Not half as much as at sea,’ mumbled Lucho.

He got down on his knees by the hearth in order to stoke the fire. At his back, the smoke imitated the seascape, taking the form of mists and storm clouds. ‘What do you want me to do, woman? Rumbo asked me. I can’t tell him no.’

‘Well, it’s about time you learned to say no once in a while!’

Lucho ignored his wife. If only she knew the times he’d had to say no. He decided to speak to his son, and did so vehemently. ‘Listen, Fins! Don’t go telling anyone about your absences. If you talk about it, you’ll never get a job. Understand? Don’t ever talk about it. Ever! Not even to the walls.’

Amparo took up her work and the boxwood needles resounded again like the house’s anguished inner music. There was now a thread connecting the lacemaker’s imagination and the way the needles knocked together. In Amparo’s mind, seeing what she’d seen, there were new and old times. On occasion, the new times even gave birth to the old. Which was why she preferred not to let the memories show themselves. The shadowy mouths had had their say. When she was a girl, anyone who suffered from epileptic fits or prolonged absences ended up being considered mad. A simple nickname like that could land you in the madhouse.

A great-aunt had died there. Back when each internee had a number tattooed on their skin. There had even been professional loony hunters who’d visited remote villages and poor districts in covered wagons like cages, searching for suitable candidates. The Church, in league with some powerful families, had founded a hospital. And the administration took money from the local councils according to the number of internees. The more loonies, the better.

Oh yes. She knew what she was talking about. Which was why she kept quiet. And her fingers ran further away.

FINS HEARD THE
door knocker and knew who was at the door. Three knocks in succession, followed by another. The knocker was a metal hand. A hand Lucho Malpica had found in Corcubión Estuary. He said it came from the
Liverpool
, which had sunk in 1846. He’d cleaned off the rust and polished it very carefully – like a real hand, he said – until it shone again like metal. According to him, the hand of the knocker was the most valuable object in the house. Whenever he came home drunk from one of his personal shipwrecks, he’d stroke the hand, taking care not to bang it.

The three knocks were repeated, followed by another. His mother also knew who this Morse code belonged to. She stopped her knitting and gazed at the door with distrust.

Fins ran to open it. It was her. Leda Hortas.

He had no chance to ask questions. She pulled at him excitedly. First with her eyes. Then she grabbed hold of his arm. Even she wasn’t aware of how strong she could be.

‘Come on! Run!’

She let go and started running barefoot towards the beach. Fins didn’t have time to close the door. When he heard his mother’s voice again, he didn’t want to. He knew she’d be sitting down, muttering, ‘Nine Moons!’

‘Where are we going, Leda? What’s up?’

But no, she wouldn’t stop. Her legs, dark feet, pale heels, seemed to grow as they ran. They laboured their way up the side of the largest primary dune, between corridors of storm, until they reached the top.

She was beside herself, her eyes wide open. ‘Look, Fins!’

‘My God! It cannot be!’

‘That’s nothing.’

The beach near where they were was covered in oranges discarded by the sea. The two youngsters remained motionless. Grafted on to the sand. Feeling the Bermuda grass, being tickled by the spikes of marram. In amazement. Turned to wind.

It was a while before Leda and Fins heard the sound of heavy machinery. They were about to jump down the vertical face of sand. Touch the mirage with their hands.

From the top of the dune they saw the lorry making its way with difficulty along the dirt track. It stopped in the clearing at the end of the road, in an area used for extracting sand. A man and a boy got out of the cabin. They knew them both very well. The elder one was Rumbo, who was in charge of the Ultramar. The younger, Brinco. In the trailer three others, Inverno, Chumbo and Chelín, unloaded some baskets or panniers with which to collect the fruit.

Brinco pretended not to notice them. They realised he was pretending.

That’s what he was like, thought Fins. When he was absorbed in his own things, he was absorbed in his own things. He’d get annoyed if you stuck your nose in. Turn invisible. Deaf. Mute. But when he wanted your interest, your attention, there was no way of getting rid of him.

At Rumbo’s orders, the group started gathering the oranges the sea had brought in from the listing-over of some ship.

‘Take a look, Víctor. The sea is a veritable mine,’ said Rumbo. ‘It gives out everything. Without a single shovelful of manure! You don’t have to fertilise it, like the blasted earth.’

Leda jumped down the vertical face and marched towards the group of harvesters. Fins always had the impression that his feet sank in the sand more than hers. She didn’t sink, she seemed to walk on the surface. Especially when she had an objective in mind. A destination.

‘These oranges are mine!’ she shouted. ‘I saw them first!’

Rumbo and his companions stopped working. Stared at her in amazement. Except for Brinco. Brinco turned his back on them. Sometimes, when he got annoyed, he’d say, ‘You’re always sniffing at other people’s farts.’ But now he preferred not to see them.

The girl squared up to the boss. ‘You know the rules. A shipwreck’s remains belong to the one who finds them.’

Rumbo gazed at her with a mixture of amusement and confusion. ‘How much is the cargo worth then, girl?’

‘A lot!’

Leda took in the possessions on the beach with her hands. There were still oranges emerging from the foam. ‘Although I’m not sure yet if I want to sell them.’

Rumbo pulled a coin out of his pocket. ‘Here you go. For the trouble of seeing.’

‘What the hell is that? That’s a piece of shit, Mr Rumbo!’ said Leda.

The man held the coin between his thumb and forefinger and twirled it mysteriously in front of Leda. ‘Close your eyes.’

Leda did as she was told. Fins wasn’t sure what was going on. Rumbo flicked the coin in the air and called to the others, ‘Now you’ll see!’

Rumbo crouched down. Let his hands slide along Leda’s naked legs, from the knees downwards, grabbed her right foot, which was bare, and placed it on top of the coin. All the others were waiting, Brinco as well, who’d returned from the land of the invisible.

Rumbo was absorbed in his experiment and murmured, ‘Now you’ll see, yes, now you’ll see what a woman’s skin is like.’

Then, out loud, ‘Tell me, girl, heads or tails?’

Leda still hadn’t opened her eyes. Without a moment’s hesitation, ‘Tails!’

She moved her foot and uncovered the coin. It was tails. They could see the imperial eagle. Rumbo had a quick look at the other side, Franco’s head, where it said
Caudillo of Spain by the grace of God
.

‘She’s right. It is tails!’

The group of workers burst out laughing. Rumbo produced a wallet from his back pocket and pulled out a hundred-peseta note with the image of the beautiful Fuensanta painted by Romero de Torres. ‘Take this. A darkie! The most popular in the whole of Spain! Lots of people keep these stuffed in their mattresses.’

Then, addressing the others, ‘Now you see what a woman’s skin is like. Even the skin on her foot! This one was born wise. She’ll be rich one day. It’s written in the stars.’

Leda placed the back of her thumb on her mouth. Quickly made the sign of the cross. And spat in the direction of the sea.

‘Poor I won’t be.’

TO BE IN
the dark and scratch darkness with a broom. The dark’s boundary smells acrid. This is his work. To scratch the crust of shadows. He feels drunk and dirty inside. Possessed by a putrid intoxication. But his instinct tells him to climb the slope and exit through what resembles a fleshy mouth, opening and closing for him. He lies face up on the stony ground. Out of breath to start with. Then, in and out of his body, he feels a tingle like never before. As if, for a moment, all the attention of the cosmos is centred on him.

He gets up. Looks at the mouth of hell. The great vat. He’s still holding the small broom in his hand. His arms and face are covered in grime spread by his sweat. He’s wearing old, patched-up clothes stained by the work of cleaning. He feels better, even attracted by the mouth, by the now succulent memory of the dizzy spell and his escape.

It has been a day of great heat, of burning noon. In the yard of the Ultramar the sun is still strong, but the large gate at the end frames a hazy sea, a depression spreading along the coast. Fins Malpica blinks. Finally comes to completely. And swings towards the mouth of the other huge vat, next to the one he’s been cleaning.

‘Brinco! Hey, Brinco! Can you hear me? Can you hear me or not? Víctor! Brinco!’

Faced by the other’s silence, he decides to get into the dark vat. He pulls at Víctor Rumbo with all his might. Grabs him by the ankles, lifts him in his arms and places him on the ground, taking great care not to knock him against the stones. Víctor is unconscious. Alarmed, unsure how best to proceed, Fins kneels down, searching for a pulse or heartbeat, for signs of life in his eyes. But the other boy’s hand is limp, his chest doesn’t heave and his irises seem to have disappeared. Fins hesitates, then makes up his mind. Gets ready to apply the mouth-to-mouth. He knows how to do it. He is a fisherman’s son and has seen cases of people close to drowning on Noitía’s beaches.

With both hands he opens Víctor’s mouth as wide as he can. Takes a deep breath, and bends down to apply his mouth to the other’s. The unconscious victim pouts his lips with mocking exaggeration in preparation for an amorous kiss.

‘Mmmm!’

Fins understands he’s being made fun of and stands up in annoyance.

Brinco gets to his feet as well and bursts out laughing. He can’t stop himself. His laughter seems to have no end. But then he suddenly stops laughing. This happens when he hears the sound of an engine, turns his gaze and sees a car coming up the hill with treacherous calm.

The car halts in the yard, next to where the others are standing. It’s a white Mercedes and out gets Mariscal. Looking elegant, always like some kind of beau, in his white suit and panama hat, his shoes white as well. His hands in white gloves like the ones used at gala ceremonies.

‘How are things down in hell, boys?’

Brinco looks at him, shrugs his shoulders, but remains quiet.

‘Getting by, sir,’ replies Fins.