When Pinche worked as a sandwich-man for the Sherlock Holmes Museum, we sent Polka a photo so he could see a detective’s style. He looked wonderful in his deerstalker and matching cloak. With a magnifying glass in one hand and calabash pipe in the other. We also sent him a photo of Pinche as a Beefeater, the summer he worked as a Yeoman Warder in the Tower of London. Very smart in his Tudor outfit. He had a go at everything, including executing tourists, but I didn’t want to send Polka a photo of his son with an enormous two-edged axe, pretending to cut off heads.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Pinche. ‘Dad likes Carnival more than anything.’
‘In this photo, you’re an executioner.’
‘Yes, but an English executioner. What an axe! What civilisation!’
What Pinche said was true. I remember, at carnival time, Francisco would completely disappear, change skin, leaving only Polka. It was forbidden back then to wear disguises in the street. Thing is they’d have had to post a policeman at every door. There came a time they did post one at the end of each street especially to stop men dressed as monuments, femmes fatales, reaching the city centre.
I can see them now. The monuments. It’s very early. I’m with Amalia in Torre Street. Suddenly men dressed up as women start to turn the corners. Some of them are impressive. Sailors from San Amaro and Lapas looking like queens of the night. Hairy chests sprouting between pinnacled breasts. They have a taste for rouge, fishnet stockings and stiletto heels. ‘Oh my, don’t look, Amalia, don’t look.’
‘Hey O! Look, look, look, look. The one with a flower in her hair, isn’t that your father?’
She would have to spot him of all people. There are dozens of monumental women, but she goes straight like an arrow to Polka in his print dress, short like a miniskirt, you can see his bulge, lace knickers containing that packet, how horrible, even a tutu would have been better.
‘There, there! The one acting all innocent. He looks great!’
There’s no shutting her up. She turns to me and points out a defect, ‘His legs are like matchsticks.’
Lame, with legs like matchsticks. She’s even impressed she noticed.
‘Come on, let’s go,’ I say.
‘What’s wrong, O? You’re all red. Hey, you’re blushing! We have to greet him. We can’t leave here without saying hello to your father. Polka, Mr France, Francisco!’
‘Why don’t you shut up?’ I mutter, getting more and more annoyed.
And then he readjusts the padding in his bra and walks towards us. Completely ignores me. Says to Amalia, ‘Miss, what’s all this fuss about? I may not be La Belle Otero, but it’s the first time someone calls me “Mr”. Your desire for a man is making you see things.’
He’d disappear for three days and nights. First on his own, dressed as a monumental woman on Mount Alto, then he’d join the procession that left Castro on Ash Wednesday to bury the Carnival. By then, he was a bishop or cardinal. One year, they threw the dummy into the River Monelos. I didn’t quite understand what was going on, but I know several men were beaten up by the civil guards. Fled cross-country. The guards then came to arrest them. To take their statements in the barracks. And they started with him, with Polka. Because they hadn’t forgotten. Because he was important enough to have a record. As a child, I didn’t know what this meant. I heard at home he couldn’t get a job because he had ‘antecedents’. And I confused ‘antecedents’ with ‘ancestors’. Who were these ancestors that kept causing problems? Were they men dressed as monumental women? Were they carnival priests?
They were kept with the horses. They’d been taken to the stables underneath the barracks. And Polka used the term ‘commander’ to address a corporal, who didn’t object to the sudden promotion, and explain, ‘My commander, there’s no need for us all to be conveniently interrogated.’
The corporal looked with suspicion at this freak wearing an alb on top of his work clothes. He was joking. Parodying the phrase always used in police reports and press releases: ‘conveniently interrogated’.
‘There’s no need for us all to be conveniently interrogated, my commander, because I’m the one who’s to blame. They simply responded to my invocation, my Kyrie eleison.’
‘I like brave people, so I’m going to show you a kindness,’ replied the corporal. He led him to a cupboard hanging from the wall, which he opened by pulling the handle with the tip of his rifle.
It was full of whips. Different makes and sizes. One with iron balls.
‘Domine, non sum dignus,’ murmured Polka.
‘Between you and me,’ said the corporal, ‘it takes balls to do what you did. Throw a dummy of the Generalissimo into the river. With a bit of Latin to boot.’
‘It was Carnival.’
‘Doesn’t matter.’ He pointed to the cupboard with whips. ‘You can choose one. You deserve it.’
In Polka’s words, ‘It became clear to me then that, deep down, he was a very liberal Fascist.’
‘What a pig!’ exclaims O as she recalls the story. ‘Even made him choose a whip.’ She looks at Pinche and the photo of him as an executioner at the Tower of London, about to crop a tourist at the neck. ‘What the hell! Send it to him. He’s sure to laugh. He sees the humour in everything.’
The Camden Town Fire-Eater
SOME WOMEN CARRIED fire on top of their heads, factory workers who sometimes placed oil lamps there on wintry nights, on their way to the factory, to play at being souls, though it may not have been a game, like this girl with the green crest ejecting flames through her mouth in Camden Town, having juggled torches while balancing a larger torch on her forehead, between her eyebrows, flames rising to the sky, that’s what I call art, no need to put on an act, risk your neck, like Pinito del Oro, the trapeze artist who fell at Price Circus, set up in Riazor Field, slipped out of the sky without a net, only the arms of a man to break her fall, of course I’m sorry she fell but, since she fell, I’m also sorry not to have been there, it’s all people talked about, seemed everyone was there that night to see Pinito del Oro fall, I don’t have that bad dream about falling, they say it’s a common nightmare, but I am afraid of fire, a form of fear to me, which is what happened to Mary of the Shells, the one with the long, blond hair, Polka told us one night, there was a shipwreck and the locals went to collect what the sea gave up, the gifts of tragedy, among which they found some bottles they supposed could be used, liquor or something, but, when they got back to Mary’s, someone opened one of those containers, accidentally knocked it over next to the hearth, and the liquid rose in huge flames that licked the girl, she started running in the night towards the sea, Mary of the Shells, her beautiful locks burning in the storm, this for me was the image of fear, another that of the Morraza Vixen that could fly and projected flames through its mouth when it howled, be it true or not, what was true was that fire that burnt books in the city, real fear, a fire emerging from the mouth of hate, and the Girl with the Green Crest comes towards me, throwing flames through her mouth as if reading my thoughts, I can’t leave, I’m not going to leg it now, having seen the whole show, though other people are about their business, no one stops, they’re sure to think we planned it as she walks around me, spitting fire, me spellbound, like an idiot, it’s started raining and the flames are coloured, like a rainbow, they’re sure to think I’m an advert, or her mother trying to persuade her of something, to come home, or the opposite, the fire suddenly goes out and the Girl with the Green Crest stands and stares at me, clenching her teeth, she looks furious, of course she would be, it’s about time I loosened the purse-strings, I’d always planned to give her a coin, she deserves it, no one should be poor, especially those who cheer up our sad streets, musicians in the Underground, make lonely people feel safe, they should be paid a salary instead of being hounded by guards all day long, you need permission to sing or swallow fire, but not if you want to do nothing, you don’t need permission for that, to do evil, no licence for that, point is I’m going now, I’ll drop a coin on the plate the Girl with the Green Crest has left on the ground, drop it slowly so she sees it’s a pound, not pennies, and I value her, the way she swallows fire, I wonder what state her teeth, tongue, lips are in, poor thing, any day a gust of wretched wind, ravenous wind, shadowed wind, that’s the worst, girl, I know my airs, could suddenly turn the fire against you, your lashes, your crest, I didn’t like it at first, now it’s kind of funny, makes you look different in the night, an ancient being, wandering priestess, and up she comes, as if reading my thoughts, doesn’t say anything, slowly, her teeth clenched, though her eyes are laughing, I’ve dropped the coin, these things help, not being there, at the show, for free, Marshal Mountebank used to complain about that when he was in Castro with the troupe, art is a risky business, and there he was, as if he had two bodies, one that worked, the other stiff on account of his spine, that’s what he told Polka, two lame people meet, two classics, he said, though the art of parish gravedigger has a future, ours is uncertain, that box, the television, will finish us off, but he wasn’t a moaner, so long as he was fit, he’d never abandon his sublime, artistic duty of supporting the contortionist, La Bambola was her name, holding her with the harness he tied to his shoulders and head, which secured a bar with a small platform, tiny fulcrum so she could pirouette like an elastic woman, incredible dance in the air, the only man I knew to carry something on top of his head, the contortionist with her beautiful, long hair, one day she came to wash it in the river, dry it with a comb, I’d never seen hair like it, you could wear it as a tunic, but then in the evening, during the show, she’d fasten it in a ponytail, the moment came, the decisive moment, with a bugle call and roll on the tabor, when La Bambola tied her ponytail to the bar and started turning dizzily round and round, Benjamin, the Marshal of Deza, unmoved, with his Napoleonic coat and tricolour sash, that’s how they’d met, La Bambola needed a broad-shouldered man, her husband, Homer, the ventriloquist, was skinny, an intellectual, though he did help with the naughty number, pointing with a stick at the anatomy of the contortionist wearing a bathing suit, sitting on a high stool, and asking where do women have most hair — on their head? — and the public would laugh and shout lower, lower, a number that gave them a few problems, once they ended up in jail, Benjamin covered the contortionist while she slept on a bench with his marshal’s coat, and the jailer said every Napoleon had his Waterpolo, and Benjamin said something to La Bambola in French, the advantage of being on the road, languages stick to you, what he said was Il est très dur de tête, to which the jailer replied with the typical speak normal, or you’ll know about it, the fool didn’t realise how happy he felt protecting his fair lady, a circus artist’s life is full of self-sacrifice, and then came the chance to join the Circus of Portugal, welcomed by a director who was extremely polite, tamed elephants, female elephants, though one was called Dumbo, treated everyone right, as if they were elephants, and theirs really was a very artistic piece, though the historical background was a bit confused, the central motif being a large whale, he was introduced as the knight Donnaiolo, who had to fight in order to get into the whale’s mouth, which involved various trials, out of that mouth came, for example, a Samurai archer shouting halt, you bastard, twit, twat, or I’ll have your balls for garters, which had a certain impact on Portuguese children, and shooting an arrow that stuck in his chest, which he pulled out with his own hands, applause, followed by an old, tame, half-blind lion, which Benjamin frightened by showing it a live mouse, further applause, and so on until the magnificent moment when Donnaiolo finally made it inside the whale and came out with the contortionist La Bambola in his arms, standing ovation, placed her on the small platform secured with a harness, she climbed up on to the twister, the contortions began, figures in the air, a sublime elevation for which Benjamin was the support, everyone thought they were a couple, the contortions were so intimate, but no, there was no other kind of relationship between them, one was La Bambola, the other Benjamin, the Marshal, Donnaiolo, call me what you like, sometimes she’d even do a pirouette and land astride him, Polka said that must have been like cohabiting, Benjamin replied with a murmur it was more, a lot more than cohabiting, another thing was her husband, Homer, the ventriloquist, who also emerged from the whale, Benjamin muttered, he and the puppet — Manolo Pinzón! — the way he said it, it was obvious the puppet played a role, a pimp, that puppet, Benjamin affirmed, a real pimp, soon as he got on stage, he’d turn to the audience, shout wahey, anyone with purse-strings, hold ’em tight!