by Unknown
‘I wish you’d keep your fingers out of my eye,’ the invisible man was forced to protest. A sentence I never forgot. And often used as a retort.
Not being good at repartee is like being born without hands. A washerwoman is unarmed if her tongue stops working. Like any woman who lives from what she does. You have to know how to defend yourself. If you’ve lost an item of clothing, well, you’re in a tight spot and you’ve got to have what in crime films they call an alibi. Take unpaired socks, for instance. That’s a problem. Socks have a nasty habit of getting separated. If you stutter, the other people laugh. If they laugh, you stutter even more. And then you’re unarmed. You can’t defend yourself. Polka disentangled me, undid the knots we all carry inside.
‘You have to turn words slowly in your mouth. Think about it. A bird, a blackbird, for example, carries food in its mouth to give its chicks. What it’s carrying is a measure. A beakful. You are both mother and chick. You have to have a beakful with which to defend yourself. Take the necessary words. Turn and re-turn them so that they’ll sing to your tune. Know that you’re not afraid of them.’
Polka also taught me to practise in front of the mirror.
‘Don’t always say you’re right. That’s no good. The first thing you have to tell the mirror is that you don’t agree. Even if it isn’t true. You say, “I don’t agree”. The first commandment is to have the courage to say no.’
When we tried it out, I was good at that part. Better than at re-turning words. I eyed up my opponent in the mirror and spoke from the heart, ‘Well, I don’t agree . . . My dog caught a fly, now how about that?’
‘That’s my girl! Keep going. Don’t let her look over your shoulder.’
Of course not. I went and told my opponent in the mirror, ‘I wish you’d keep your fingers out of my eye.’
‘That’s my girl! A perfect retort.’
I walked around the house with a small mirror. To start with, I’d object all the time. But I couldn’t always be arguing. I looked pretty when I was annoyed, it suited me, but it wasn’t my natural state. So, from time to time, I’d say some nice things. And when Polka appeared, I’d put her back in her place. I didn’t want her taking liberties.
Everything changed when we began talking in the river. In the river, I couldn’t argue with her because she wasn’t exactly the same. She was different. For a start, we were both older.
And there were more people in the river. There were the water figures.
Dead Man’s Slap
It was the Castrelos iron bridge over the Miño. The night enlarged its arched contours. The night enlarged everything. The dark mountainside as well, crowned by a church with its fortress-like structure. When there’s no hope, everything seems to be on the side of the crime. The moon’s projector. The barn owl’s timed call. The metallic echo of footsteps. Everything grew bigger, the mouth of the river as well, the roar of its current, the yawning abyss, except for him. He felt smaller, the size he was when he visited the bridge for the first time with his father, who read out the inscription of the foundry, ‘Zorroza Bilbao 1907’, and talked to him of progress. The bridge was beautiful. ‘An improvement on nature,’ his father said. And he agreed that the riverbanks and mountains, even the church, looked better thanks to the bridge. Because there they were, in the middle, leaning on the parapet, seeing the river with the bridge’s new eyes. If they made a postcard of Castrelos, it would have to show the bridge. Being there now, on the bridge, at night, he knew what it meant. There was no need to write anything. Just the sender’s name. A sign of non-existence. Wherever the postcard went, they’d know he was no longer important to the force of gravity. What happened to him wouldn’t even be death. The murderers, if they drank, would say, ‘We took him for a walk by the river.’ There is no killing, only the dead.
When the murderers threw him off the bridge, he weighed the same as that postcard he’d imagined on his first visit. Suddenly he regained his real body. He gripped the two iron bars with such strength his hands were made of iron, formed part of the foundry, ‘Zorroza Bilbao 1907’. The landscape was not a hostile stage set. It was on tenterhooks, amazed, waiting for something other than that premeditated crime to happen. Perhaps the Castrelos iron bridge had also grown tired of being a place of horror in the hunt for humans. To start with, the murderers laughed. ‘He doesn’t want to fall,’ said one of them, kicking at his hands with the toecap of his boot. Gradually getting annoyed because he wouldn’t let go. ‘Blasted eternity! Let me.’ And the other rammed his fingers with the butt of his rifle.
‘They’re made of the same metal as the bridge! Considering he’s a teacher, he’s got a blacksmith’s hands.’
‘They’re not iron,’ said the other. ‘You’ll see.’
He took out a knife and flicked it open. For the victim hanging from the bridge, night again enlarged things. The voice of a face he couldn’t see. A blade glinting in the moonlight.
‘It’d be better if he let go,’ said the one with the knife, cutting into his first finger, addressing his colleague, not him, as if the latter no longer responded to the world of words. ‘Why won’t he let go?’
The second in the group (there was a third with a rifle at one end of the bridge) stood watching two fingers, wondering why, having been cut, they didn’t move. Like lizard tails. ‘I don’t think he’s going to let go,’ he said.
The group leader quickly sliced through the other fingers. He was furious and very offended by the victim causing all this mess. The normal thing would be for him to die as he fell against the rocks on the bottom and be carried off by the waters. When he did finally let go, the third soldier, feeling impatient, shot at the white shirt flying through the air as if it were the barn owl from before, enlarged and fallen. Then the three of them started shooting. At the human specimen, the river, the night. Another job for the Arnoia boatwoman, who’d have to recover another body from the water. Apparently the magistrate had said to her, ‘No more dead, please.’ But she rescued them for the families, who trudged up and down the river, searching for missing relatives. Besides, however careful they were, neither she nor the other boatmen downriver would ever find all of those who’d been sacrificed. Some bodies would end up going westwards, out to sea. Who knows where the ocean currents will take them? A man thrown off Castrelos bridge could end up off Rostro, or Galway, in Ireland. Or in the Atlantic trench by Cape Prior, at a depth of eight hundred fathoms, from where he’ll never come back.
Or he’ll come back on foot, upriver, to a bar in the Ribeiro region, in the self-same parish, twenty years later.
‘What are you having?’ asks the bar owner, a man they sometimes call Abisinio, sometimes Silvo. He has a bitter look. His wine isn’t made from the finest grapes.
‘A jug of wine,’ says the outsider.
The barman serves him a jug and cup. Time goes by. The outsider remains silent and motionless. Staring at the jug. The barman comes and goes. Also glances at the jug from time to time.
He doesn’t usually talk to his customers, especially if they’re strangers. When he clears his throat, it sounds like a snarl.
‘What? Not drinking?’
He doesn’t like being a barman. Behind the bar, he feels shut up inside a cage.
‘Not if you don’t serve me,’ replies the customer calmly.
He’s in the same position he was in when he arrived.
‘Customers here serve themselves,’ says the barman, suppressing his anger. ‘We’re all on good terms.’
The outsider then takes his hands out of his pockets. With stunted fingers.
All on good terms.
‘That’s what a dead man’s slap is like,’ related Polka.
The Doorknocker
26 July 1952
All sorts of things are done for money, even killing, the value of life and all that, there are even some executioners on a State salary. When it came to Foucellas, the most wanted resistance leader, apparently they sent him their finest executioner, so h
e can’t have been as bad as they made him out to be if they sent him an executioner from outside, from Salamanca, the best they had. Not the worst, the best killer. They kept the day and hour a secret, but people knew. Because the executioner got off the train in Teixeiro to have a coffee. And the one who served him realised it was the executioner as if he’d been wearing a badge or uniform. How did he know? From the hands. His hands were refined, manicured, hidden, peeping out of the burrow of their sleeves. And because he added a lot of sugar. No one had ever added so much sugar to their coffee in Teixeiro before. Some even said, ‘He had a good death, they sent him the quickest.’ Some consolation when you’re being garrotted! He had a thirteen-year-old daughter, who went knocking at the governor’s door to stop her father being killed. We were walking by, with our bundles of clothes, and my mother whispered to me, ‘That’s Foucellas’ daughter at the governor’s door.’ Very early, it was cold. The only sound in the city was that of the doorknocker. Everyone walking by, all the office clerks, the squad lugging an enormous carpet, the workers taking down the hoarding from Colón Theatre, the brickies with their tile-coloured pots under their arms, everyone moved away from there, from that sound of a clapper. The sticky trail a broom leaves on the road. The knocker sounding like a clapper made of bone.
The Street Singer
He’s on his way to the censor’s office. Glances at the window of Camisería Inglesa on Real Street. There they are. The musicians’ shirts. This is where all the orchestras and bands buy their costumes. Shirts with lace adornments. Frills, embroidery, tassels, flared sleeves, large collars with sickle-shaped corners. They even have mariachi outfits. A festive assortment of shirts. That zone of intense colours. With the fuchsia shirt. Blasted bees! He should go straight in and get that fuchsia shirt. Not think about it. The day is luminous. All the sea and city mirrors work towards the light. A sin, fuchsia.
Today he’s in civilian clothes. No one’s going to shout out, ‘The censor, Commander Dez, has just bought the fuchsia shirt!’ You can never tell. No, Commander Dez knew he wouldn’t enter Camisería Inglesa this time either. He needed an assistant for such things. He’d already mentioned it at headquarters. Yes, like others, he needed a soldier for his domestic affairs. He carried on. Stopped outside Colón, previously the Faith bookshop. An avant-garde hang-out in the 1930s. With a name like Faith. Who’d have thought it? Words are like shirts. Here we go. He’d stopped to give his eyes a rest. To forget about the fuchsia. He certainly didn’t feel like looking at books today. He had a stack of them waiting at the office, as yet unpublished. Recently he’d been lazy. And he had this problem with his fingers. This contagious dermatitis.
By the Obelisk. Now that’s a good voice.
‘It’s ten and the clock chimes as I take a step into God’s time.’
Good? Extraordinary. A true voice. A spring. And he dares to sing that tango about someone who’s been sentenced to death right here, in the city centre. Coppery skin, clear eyes. What a guy!
He chucked him a coin. A big one. It fell outside his cap and rolled further along the pavement, as if making fun. The coin did a dance and finally settled near Curtis, the instant photographer, that tower of a man, thickset and silent, so still he seemed made of wood like the horse.
‘Some money’s fallen on the ground,’ said Commander Dez to Terranova. ‘Aren’t you going to pick it up?’
‘I didn’t see it fall,’ said Terranova, squinting comically up at the sky.
His reaction amused Dez. He was in a good mood. Anything this guy did had to have style. He put his hand in the inside pocket of his jacket, opened his wallet and produced a note which he held aloft, clinging to his fingers, and then released. The fall of the note seemed unreal. A period of slow motion which spread to all the movements on Cantóns. The note fell unwillingly. Landed near the cap and trembled uneasily on the ground like someone who, having been warm, is now uncomfortable.
The street singer glanced over. The note struggled, didn’t want to stay put. Finally Terranova bent down for it.
‘I sometimes make exceptions.’
‘You sing well,’ said Dez. ‘You shouldn’t be here, begging in the street.’
‘I’m saving up to buy a suit. A white suit with a coloured shirt.’
Dez the censor smiled. He was going to ask what colour shirt he wanted, but felt a tingle inside his mouth.
He said, ‘Is that what you’re begging for? For a shirt?’
‘And to buy my passage.’
‘Where to?’ asked Dez for the sake of asking. He knew where people bought passages to.
‘Buenos Aires!’
‘Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires!’ the commander mocked him.
He turned around. Started to leave. Another bout of nausea. He looked back and shouted at him:
‘Do what everyone else does, stupid! First leave and then buy a white suit and coloured shirt.’
‘No. I want to board the ship in my suit and shirt. A shirt that’s visible from the lighthouse!’
Tomás Dez retraced his footsteps. Glanced at the impassive cowboy photographer and produced another note.
‘That should buy you a shirt. This is no place for you. You could be a prince.’
He was still there. Coppery skin, clear eyes. ‘Chessman’ again. When it came to tangos, he could always sing ‘Street Gang’ or ‘For a Head’.
For a head,
all that madness . . .
This time, he was in uniform. The percussion of his military boots on the paving stones kept time with the song. He walked purposefully, martially, and when he did this, he had the impression the echo of his footsteps thundered in an imaginary bell-jar that contained the city.
He went straight up to him. Looked at him carefully. Took a coin out of his pocket and, tossing it in the air, caught it again. Only he saw whether it was heads or tails.
‘You’re not a gypsy,’ said Commander Dez to Terranova. ‘You’re not a gypsy or a showman and you’re certainly not Portuguese.’
Terranova fell silent. Looked like a squirrel at Curtis. Who looked like a woodcock at both sides of the street. Two military police jeeps had just pulled up and a black Opel parked behind them.
‘I know who you are,’ said Tomás Dez. ‘I know more than you can imagine. I even know where you were in hiding.’
Terranova again sought Curtis’ eyes, which had the same texture as the horse Carirí’s.
‘You’re both deserters,’ said Dez. ‘You should have joined up. A long time ago, I grant you, but your papers are waiting for you in a file somewhere. Should someone open that file and find those papers, you’d be in for a bad time.’
‘And who might you be?’ asked Terranova.
‘Someone who’s going to give you an opportunity. And I’ll tell you why. Some voices are a divine gift. A gift that must be protected. Come with me. I’ve an office near here. There’s no point in trying to escape, God himself won’t save you.’
Luís Terranova pointed to Curtis, ‘What about him?’
‘Who? That clown? He can take his horse somewhere else!’
‘An assistant. About time too, Dez. He’ll have to train, I’m afraid. Three months and you’ll have him permanently at your service. He’ll have to show his face at the barracks every now and then. Is that the guy? Good-looking. Your parents’ housekeeper’s son? Of course you have to help out. And if he’s an artist, as you say, if he’s talented and does wonders with his voice and would have made an excellent falsetto, then it’s quite right he shouldn’t be on sentry or night duty. Of course you should have an assistant. If he needs domesticating, just send him back to the barracks and we’ll do the rest. Everything in order, Dez.’
The Lead Locomotive and the Flying Boat
The lead locomotive climbed the ascending railway with all the twists and turns. A line of bodybuilders waited their turn. If it reached the top, a firework would go off with a lot of noise. But it never arrived. None of the hopefuls managed to push the lead locom
otive to the summit, which was waiting to make a boom. Luís Terranova paid and asked Curtis to have a go, to accomplish that bodybuilder’s mission. He did it without breaking into a sweat. The lead locomotive whizzed up the railway and crashed against the top. It was like a performance of lightning and thunder. The silence that ensued, rather than recognition or envy, seemed to contemplate the inexplicable. Luís raised Curtis’ arm in triumph, as if he were his manager. He was wearing his white suit and darting around the fairground like someone who’s both happy and worried.
He’d decided to break with Dez. He’d got involved to avoid going to prison, but it was now he felt like a deserter. He’d gone with Curtis to a remote part of the city, where he wouldn’t look for him, but now he realised how sticky Dez’s shadow really was. He never thought freedom could adopt such a stormy expression. Cause so much fear.
Two days earlier, he’d taken a decisive step. He’d gone looking for Curtis and invited him to eat in the restaurant Fornos. They’d stopped in front of the menu before. ‘Shrimps, prawns, crab, clams in seafood sauce, Pontesampaio oysters, Andalusian tripe, stewed lamprey, Fornos kidneys.’ They’d peered through the window at Sada’s paintings. It was like opening a submarine door and discovering a mass of fish and seaweed. ‘Come in, take a look,’ Sada said to them, ‘you can eat in your dreams as well.’ But Terranova promised they’d return and eat in reality. And there they were, sitting down, asking for the menu. Terranova was happy. He’d finally kept a promise. Bad luck. It was Curtis who spotted Commander Dez as soon as they entered the restaurant. At the far end, at a table with three others. Dez, for his part, didn’t just see them come in, part of his face did not recover its initial position, that of someone joining in a lively gathering coloured with vermouth. His face was split down the middle. This may not have been visible to the rest, but it was to Curtis. The part of his face that did not go back to its first position watched them with a mixture of surprise and rage. Luís adjusted Curtis’ tie, laughing all the time, because, as he said, the knot had never become completely undone since the first time it was tied.