Books Burn Badly (30 page)

‘What I find most difficult,’ she said, ‘are children’s socks. My mother’s pretty good at making socks. We never wore them. When she was pregnant, she started knitting embroidered socks for doctors’ children in Compostela. Making strips of
entredeux
, as we used to call it, in French. We’re three sisters, each with her own father. The fathers were brothers, three blonds who turned up one day, looking like Vikings around a campfire. The eldest died at sea, and Mum married the next brother. The second drowned in another shipwreck, and Mum married the third. Who was my father. Mum said, “Each time I got married, I married the one I liked.” As a girl, she found a crucifix on the beach, being lapped by the sea. There was only the upright, the arms had disappeared. It must have been pretty ancient since the wood had been petrified, moulded and converted by the sea, like a bone or shell, and the body, instead of breaking off, as presumably had happened to the arms, had merged with the sacrificial wood, hinged like a shell, as if handcrafted like that, and Christ was covered in a layer of limestone and nacre from the valves, but more surprising was the hair he’d grown, which to start with they thought was a clump of seaweed, since it was all entangled in siren’s string, a bunch of water-crowfoot, Irish moss and sea lettuce, but when they pulled, they saw the seaweed stuck, was entangled in real hair. They cut it with scissors and it grew again. I saw this with my own eyes.’

‘What? You saw hair grow? You’re more likely to see grass grow.’

‘What she meant was . . .’

‘Chelo, you act like a magnet for all the spirits of Galicia.’

And then, addressing the priest, ‘She’s like that, Don Munio. An epicentre.’

‘It may be true,’ said the priest. ‘The hair, I mean. The Christ of Finisterre was the same. They used human hair and it seemed to carry on growing. The ones from the sea were called Protestant crosses. There were virgins as well, images that arrived by sea with hair that grew. Wooden virgins with real virgins’ hair. When I was ordained and sent to that parish . . .’

‘You didn’t stay long, Don Munio. Such a pretty place. The rectory overlooking the sea.’

‘No, I didn’t stay long. I’m not a typical Catholic priest. I’m ambitious. As you are with art. Spiritually ambitious.’

Gabriel had told her what Father Munio had said recently, one morning he got the time wrong, ‘I cannot and will not tolerate my children being late.’

‘My children? Is that what he calls all the boys and girls?’

‘No. It was the first time he said it. I was really annoyed. Some of them started giggling.’

‘Don’t pay any attention.’

Another strange thing Father Munio said to Gabriel, ‘When I see you on your own, I’ll whisper a repertoire in your ear.’

‘A repertoire? Is that what he said?’

‘I suppose now you’re going to tell us it’s true what happened to the Metro lion,’ said the judge, enjoying the taste of irony.

‘The Metro lion?’

‘The lion in films, father. An informer of Chelo’s, one of her spirits, told her the lion was on Death Coast, not on the screen. Was one of the wild animals the Nil was carrying to Dublin Zoo. The ship sank and lots of the fauna swam all the way to Traba Beach. Including the lion. Right, Chelo? You’ll be wondering what happened to them. Well, they were frightened by the dogs and sat down to wait for the consul.’

‘You didn’t tell it well,’ said Chelo. ‘That’s what I get for giving toothless here something to eat.’

They pretended still to be in love. Tried to find a balance. For a time, she played jokes on him, which the judge classified as dangerous. One example remained with him, the day some friends they’d arranged to meet knocked at the door, which was ajar, and she shouted from the sitting-room, ‘Just a minute, we’re making love!’ She was in fact alone in the sitting-room. Painting. And she shouted this. The judge was in the hallway, heard Chelo shout they were making love and the chuckles that followed. He remembers the word that came into his head was ‘indescribable’, a word that related to him, to the expression on his face.

‘You see, Father Munio, we’ve run out of wedding cake!’

The priest was enjoying himself, as in a skit, and surprised them with one of his modern metaphors, ‘Come, come! Your marriage is like a pair of scissors. One blade can’t function without the other.’

‘How very touching, Father,’ said Chelo, recovering from her astonishment. She knew Father Munio was primarily interested in the judge. He was the target, an influential and suitable candidate to join the Opus. She said, ‘Well, you should know she worked with three pairs of scissors.’

‘Who did?’

‘The knitter’s mother. With three brothers. And she had a daughter with each of them. Which makes three sisters.’

Chelo deliberately misquoted the knitter’s mother.

‘She married three times and said, “I liked them all, but the third was my favourite.”’

The judge laughed, ‘A magnet, Chelo. You’re a magnet for Galicia’s spirits.’

The Apprentice Taxidermist

The judge and master taxidermist were discussing how to mount the capercaillie so that it looked more lifelike. As lifelike as possible. Its wings extended, showing the total span. Meanwhile the taxidermist’s son, the apprentice, whispered to Gabriel, ‘Come with me!’ In a darker, adjoining room, illuminated by a lamp so dusty it seemed to have fur, the apprentice gestured proudly, ‘See. I invented it. I invented an animal.’

Duck’s body and hare’s head. The creature’s wings were outspread, but it crouched like a hare.

He smiled when he saw the boy’s look of astonishment, ‘They make the best pair. Wild duck and hare. I’m also working on a cat-gull, a cat with a seagull’s body, lord of the rooftops.’

‘What for?’ Gabriel ventured to ask.

‘My Dad’s a taxidermist. I want to be an artist.’

In a wooden box with cells like the one for buttons at the haberdasher’s, which Chelo loved so much and wanted to paint one day, or the box for type at the printer’s, where she went with Leica and discovered words were made up of solid elements that sometimes stuck in the throat, in this first box were all sorts of glass and resinous beads. The taxidermist’s son picked up a handful and poured them into his visitor’s hands. ‘How do you like eyes?’

He smiled with satisfaction at again causing a look of astonishment in Gabriel.

‘Silly. Nature does it too. Likes to deceive. Come and have a look. I’ll show you something the like of which you’ve never seen. And may not see again.

‘Come on,’ he repeated, gesturing mysteriously.

Windows on to a small, inner garden. Unkempt. Nettles. Several cats. Silent spectators in a museum turning into statues. Imitating the other, stuffed animals.

He drags him along, Gabriel is more confused by the air of mystery than anything else. They go up to a fridge door. The taxidermist’s son gives him a stern look. ‘Promise you won’t tell anyone.’ The apprentice grabs the handle with both hands. His last smile aimed at Gabriel seems to form part of the opening device, since it also rotates, turns into an expression of hardness, a feeling Gabriel recognises as contempt.

He opens.

Slams the door shut.

‘D’you see it?’

Gabriel nods. It was only a second and he’s frozen. He won’t tell anybody. Ever.

‘You’re pretty amazed, huh? Want to see it again?’

In a whisper, ‘Come on, let’s have another look.’

He repeats the procedure. But doesn’t close so quickly. There is the angel. Its white feathers. The cold blast is a kind of breath the body emits, an escape of colour.

‘Want to touch it? It’s a guardian angel.’

Gabriel preferred the apprentice’s mysterious contempt to this sudden tasteless intimacy. Deep down, he regrets the change. Stretches out his arm. Touches the feathers so that slowly, between the wings, driven from its lair by the other’s laugh, the swan’s head slides out and hangs in the balance.

The judge was not in the habit of showing what he called ‘internal documents’. His feelings. This lack of expressiveness was one of his main features. He considered it an obligation in his position to try to be dispassionate and to act always with discretion. This didn’t mean detachment from his ideals or political power. On the contrary, his advice in legal matters was increasingly sought out by the authorities. He also wrote more for newspapers under his old pseudonym, Syllabus. Everyone – this was the word his friends in the Crypt used – ‘everyone’ knew that sooner rather than later he’d be promoted. Receive an appointment in Madrid. Perhaps – and why not? – what he most wanted. A place in the Supreme Court.

He was certainly very reserved. Professionally austere. But there were things he enthused about. A passion he’d long had, somehow inherited from his father. Collecting books. Another, hunting, he’d acquired later. He himself talked of a sudden conversion. He went on his first hunt for reasons of friendship, but what was supposed to be a hobby turned into a devotion. He recalls this happening not on the mountainside, but in a marsh, the day he brought down a wild goose. The swing after the specimen in the sky, the shot, the fall and, most of all, the tower of water it caused. The emotion was something else. The experience, unnarratable. The times spent hunting became an essential part of Ricardo Samos’ life. Which is why he attached so much importance to the trophies. They weren’t abstractions or symbols. In them, real nature had been overcome. Though he held in check the hunter’s desire to exhibit. He chose which specimens to stuff very carefully. The heads of a boar, a stag, an Iberian goat. Birds. A woodcock. A ptarmigan he’d shot in the Pyrenees. Later on, his most valued specimen, a capercaillie from the Ancares. But now he’s talking to Gabriel. That strange situation when it’s the adult who’s being childishly enthusiastic. Telling him his plans, adventures the boy finds illusory, albeit coming from a man who is seriousness itself. That afternoon, as they leave the taxidermist’s workshop, Ricardo Samos talks to his son about the Carpathian bear. Feeling happy and satisfied, he goes and confesses to him, a secret between the two of them, that he has two wishes: to catch a Carpathian bear and to find a very special book. No, it’s not an incunabulum. It’s a New Testament printed in Spain in the middle of the nineteenth century. Yes, he does have Bibles and Gospels from that period. But this book is dedicated and signed. A whim. An obsession. Yes, it could be called an obsession.

On the subject of obsessions, it’ll soon be time for hunting woodcocks.

It’ll soon be time for Eusebio.

This woodcock hunter was now Ricardo Samos’ essential guide and companion. In his trips to the city, he almost always paid them a visit. Apart from hunting, Eusebio was a mayor and had business. He almost always brought presents. Solid presents that forged a strong link. Fruits of the earth. Sometimes meat. As if he’d chopped nature up into cubes. But also books for the judge from some rectory or country estate fallen on hard times. Eusebio did all he could to avoid looking like a peasant. He dressed elegantly and sometimes overdid it.

Chelo would say, ‘To be a fox, all he’s missing is a tail.’

She who was always pleasant, flexible, able to turn into an art deco mask if necessary, was, however, brusque with this visitor. She didn’t hide her antipathy. ‘I can’t help it,’ she’d tell Samos. ‘It’s something physical.’

He turned up with a woodcock’s feather in a glass case.

‘The hunter’s most prized trophy,’ said the judge. He was clearly trying to mediate on behalf of his hunting companion. A historic assertion by the judge, ‘You can go out on to the mountain without a dog, but not without Eusebio. He was born to hunt. I swear he has a pointer’s scent. That’s his dog, a pointer, when he’s after woodcocks. They understand each other through a code of silent gestures. It’s impossible to tell who supports who. He’s always the first to spot the mirrors.’

‘The mirrors?’

‘Their excrement. White with a green centre. Their excrement is the only clue. The only thing that gives away the most secretive bird in Galician forests.’

Chelo, who’s not at all interested in hunting, is curious about this bird. She asks the women who come with things on top of their heads. Turns into an expert. The woodcock. The wood’s guardian. Its mission is not just to survive, but to warn the forest of danger. Its sudden flight is a signal to take cover, which all attend to. The earth’s accomplice. It raises its young among bracken, lays light, ashen eggs on the ground. The perfect camouflage. Light cream or brown colours with a dark band on its wings. It has the best defensive weapon. The most extraordinary vision. Without a blind spot. Encompassing 360 degrees, all around.

Eusebio sets off with his pointer’s scent to find the mirrors. He’s a crafty enemy. Transforms into the mountain. Has his own camouflage. He can be like a rock. In fact, he is that rock. His face resembles bark. His field of vision is not like the woodcock’s. He has a large blind spot. His field of vision is like the eagle’s. Not being able to see behind can be a disadvantage. But all he cares about is hunting precision. Getting as close as possible. Within range. Hitting the target. Bagging the guardian.

At the tip of a woodcock’s wing is a very fine feather. Of legendary quality for a painter’s brush, better than horsehair. A unique feather only the eyes and fingers of an expert can tell apart.

‘Amazing, Chelo! No hunter would give up such a trophy.’

Eusebio is wearing Ray-Ban sunglasses today, golden frames with dark green lenses. You can’t see his eyes. He smiles. He really does have sharp canines.

The 666 Chestnuts

Old lazybones, if he was in prison or a labour camp, he must have done something. I can see he’s got a limp. But even with a limp, a man’s got to bring home a wage. He can’t find work? Well, he should look in hell, God forgive me. They’ve been at it for hours, without a rest. What can they be talking about? There he is, like an equal, like a theologian with the priest. I don’t know why he permits it. Why he doesn’t shut him up with a spot of Latin. Though he knows Latin as well. He was Don Benigno’s altar boy and when he started losing his memory, there was Polka to prompt him during Mass. He’s not stupid, shame he got all those ideas. What does a poor man want ideas for? To complicate life, his own and his family’s.