At this point Belvís unexpectedly jumped up and whirled his arms like wings. ‘It’s me! It’s me!’
The simpleton had been sitting in the pew for young people. Next to Brinco from the Ultramar. They spent a lot of time together, because Brinco enjoyed his company. And treated him well. Could even be said to be fond of him. Always had been. Which might be why he smiled. Others turned to look at Belvís in surprise, but the priest decided to ignore him. This was a day to remember. Everything was going swimmingly. The speakers were working. So he picked up from where he’d left off, with an explanation of the Holy Spirit.
Belvís did the same. Whirled his arms as if he was going to fly, like one of those wading birds that need a run-up in order to take off. ‘It’s me! It’s me!’
I remember it well because it was the day the outdoor speakers were first used. The priest couldn’t take any more, and from the pulpit, without realising that his words were being broadcast over the whole valley, as far as the sea, blurted out, ‘That’s right, yes. The Holy Spirit is everywhere. But that doesn’t give you an excuse to fool around!’
Several adults went over to where Belvís was, and he was forced to leave. He never returned to church. I’m told that in St Mary’s, during Mass, whenever the priest makes reference to the Holy Spirit, there are still some who spontaneously turn around and glance at the spot where Belvís was, moving his arms like wings: ‘It’s me! It’s me!’
He stayed in Noitía for a few more years. He’d run errands, take fish and shellfish to the restaurants, goods to old people who were unable to fend for themselves, always gadding about on his imaginary motorbike.
‘Will you be long, Belvís?’
‘No, I’m on the Montesa.’
Vroom vroom.
He ended up in the loony bin in Conxo. By which I mean the psychiatric hospital. But I don’t think he was mad either then or now. He had no father, and suffered a lot when his mother died. When he was a child, his mother looked after him as best she could. In abject misery. The child walked around half naked, without nappies, his willy and bits hanging out in the wind. Which meant he did his necessities wherever he felt like it. One day he chose as a firing range the porch of a neighbour living in the Big House. She had plants, begonias and so on, it seemed like a good enough place and he dropped his entire payload. He needed to go and so he went. But it so happened that the neighbour spotted him and gave him a real spanking. He returned home in floods of tears. When his mother found out, she took him in her arms, went to the Big House and called to the neighbour until she appeared on the balcony. Then Belvís’ mother lifted him up, his naked bum in the air, kissed him on his buttocks and shouted out, ‘What a bottom, what a blessing!’ Now that is love.
He was so taken aback when his mother died that he lost all his voices, even the Montesa. He’d always been good at voices, ever since he was a little boy. A man or a woman’s. He could make puppets out of anything, out of cardboard and rags, and get them to talk. He did a fine impersonation of the singer Four Winds, who starred at local festivities and had this nickname because of four missing teeth. He would sing, ‘Let the boat leave the beach, it will come back again. There is his lover, she is constant, constant, constant, constant… in her feelings towards him.’ This repetition of the word ‘constant’ occurred to him as a boy and people couldn’t stop laughing. He had that ability. His best voice was definitely Charlie the Kid, by which I mean Charlie Chaplin with a Buenos Aires accent. He was good at that. The puppet and voice were all he inherited from a great-uncle who came back from Argentina to die.
Then things changed at the hospital. They let him out. Well, they discharged him, but then they let him come back. On account of the Kid, he says, who feels better there. At weekends he hits the road, a kind of one-man orchestra, out with his puppet to make a few pesetas. He’s very good, though that is hardly surprising. So much time talking to themselves. That must be why Víctor Rumbo hired him to perform at that club of his, the Vaudeville. So he could earn himself a few pesetas. He probably did it as a joke. But I don’t think that was any place for Belvís. People who go there are after something else. And I don’t just mean the scroungers and hangers-on, as the Kid would say. That’s the thing about Brinco, he was always like that. Attracted to strange people like Chelín or Belvís. Those he loved, he loved a lot. But those he hated, he hated with enthusiasm.
I’m getting ahead of myself.
Now I can see them as children. They’re playing football in a flat area of the old dunes, halfway between A de Meus and Noitía. A good place to use as a pitch. The dunes protect them from the north-east wind and act as a wall to stop the ball running down to the sea. You have to see Belvís, who is broadcasting the game as if it was a match between football legends, in which he himself is an ace. And now they’re going to take penalties. Chelín is in goal. He’s just made a superb save from Brinco. He’s euphoric, having just stopped Fins’ pile-driver. And now Leda is running up. It’s her turn to shoot. She takes aim, but has to stop all of a sudden. Chelín abandons his post.
‘Where the hell are you going?’ asks Leda, feeling annoyed.
‘Women don’t take penalties.’
‘Since when?’
Belvís darts and swoops about them. Continuing to commentate in his exaggerated style. ‘There’s a moment of great tension in the stadium of Sporting Noitía. Nine Moons has got in the way of Chelín the goalkeeper. Chelín’s not happy about it. Attention. Fins the referee is having to intervene,’ etc., etc.
‘Tell the truth, Chelín,’ barks Brinco, who finds the whole situation very amusing. ‘You’re shitting yourself.’
‘No, it’s just I’m not a homo.’
In a rage, Leda picks up speed and drives the ball with all her might. But Chelín shows his reflexes, makes an arc in the air and stops it. He embraces the ball, lying on the ground, his face in the sand, smiling, victorious and out of breath.
‘See? I’m not afraid. It’s my hidden powers.’
‘You fool,’ she says. ‘I’ve always stood up for you. Now you’re going to have to kiss my feet.’
12
THEY WERE ALWAYS there, as volunteers, to help turn the cinema into a dance hall. Rumbo would give them a few cold drinks as a tip. And let them take the bits of celluloid he cut in order to splice the film when it was broken. To tell the truth, they all ended up in the hands of Fins, who was crazy about stills. He’d put together his own collection, and would order all those fragments of cinema at home. One memorable day Rumbo came back to A de Meus, the sea heaving in the background, with Moby Dick and Captain Ahab, Gregory Peck, in his pocket. That was several years ago, though the film was still included each season because it was one of his favourites. He had his obsessions, one of which was Spencer Tracy. He showed Captains Courageous more than once, and the film about the life of Thomas Alva Edison. When Edison invented the filament of light, all the audience applauded. But Rumbo’s admiration for Tracy could be summed up in a single gesture. He’d take his arm out of the sleeve of his jacket, which hung down like a one-armed man’s, and declare the title with great exaggeration: ‘Bad Day at Black Rock!’ He always said the name of that accursed place, Black Rock, with a croak in his voice. His attraction for this actor may have had something to do with the fact that Rumbo looked like him. Whenever anybody pointed this out, he would reply ironically, ‘Or vice versa!’