He gave the book back to Parallelepiped, ‘You can throw it!’ Parallelepiped might have wondered why he didn’t throw it himself though, given the circumstances, that would have been a strange thought. So he just carried out the order. Should somebody ever write a history of the burning of books in Coruña, they could add a non-gratuitous detaiclass="underline" Ánxel Casal and Federico García Lorca were murdered that same morning. The Galician publisher in a ditch outside Santiago, in Cacheiras, and the Granadine poet in the gully of Víznar, Granada. At about the same time, six hundred miles apart.
The book landed on some copies of Man and the Earth by the geographer Élisée Reclus. It was still there, safe for the moment, on those sort of rocks which formed a mountain range the fire ascended. Samos kept looking at it. He was sometimes superstitious and trusted his instinct. Now he was thinking this little book could one day be a rarity. A work printed in the Galician language might become a relic. A first edition of the Six Poems would be as valuable as a medieval parchment.
‘What? Feeling sorry for it?’ Parallelepiped asked him.
Prattler, thought Samos. But right now he didn’t mind him being so nosy.
‘Not sorry,’ he said. ‘Those initials! I’ve just remembered why they could be useful to me. See if you can fetch it. .’
‘Here it is, boss. Just in time.’
‘In extremis,’ said Samos with a sigh.
‘In extremis,’ whispered Parallelepiped. He was learning lots, he thought, while the books burnt. That’s it, in extremis.
‘Wells, Wells, Wells!’
There’s a flurry of activity.
‘Wells, Wells, Wells!’ shouts the one we already know as Parallelepiped, throwing a book each time he imitates a dog’s bark.
‘More Wells! There’s lots of him. Wells, Wells, Wells!’
For a moment, for the briefest of moments, when he heard that mocking onomatopoeia — ‘Wells, Wells, Wells!’ three books into the fire — there was an acidic reaction somewhere in Samos’ digestive system, which caused him a slight indisposition, a rumbling in the bowels, part of which involved remembering fragments from The War of the Worlds, not as they were, but in Héctor Ríos’ penetrating voice, ‘Does time pass when there are no human hands left to wind the clocks?’ It’s Easter 1931. They’re in the Craftsmen’s Circle, in a group of declamation and amateur theatre directed by Ríos, who is studying already at Santiago University, in the Faculty of Law. Two years older, he’s in front of Samos, but they still work together at weekends on that project that so excited them to begin with. A radio version of The War of the Worlds. ‘The radio’s an extraordinary invention,’ asserts Ríos. ‘It’ll transform communication, culture, everything. It’ll cross borders through the air. Coruña Radio is due to start broadcasting soon.’
‘Wells, Wells, Wells! Out the door, and you’re not coming back.’
Samos felt bad and was about to say something. Pull him up. Why did he have to be so uncouth? He was going to ask him to be a little more polite. A bit of culture, please. You don’t have to bark. But he realised the absurdity of such an order at that time. They’d all burst out laughing. That’s a good one. Some of the older soldiers might recall the impresario Lino’s historic intervention in his Pavilion of Spectacles when, at a charity performance in the presence of some nuns, he attempted to subdue the top gallery, ‘Manners, gentlemen! Manners! There are ladies in the audience, some of whom are even decent. Ho, ho, ho. Your manners, please!’
But he didn’t say anything. The gripes were building like an inner storm. He had to suppress his body’s rebellion. The upset of some scruples. He addressed Parallelepiped in an energetic voice, ‘Throw them all in at once, for fuck’s sake. Without consideration. I’ve had it up to here with Wells!’
And then he seized the moment, sidled up to Parallelepiped, who had a good eye. A bit of culture and he’d make a good hunter of books. He said, ‘Don’t forget the New Testament.’ Went further, ‘It’s not any old book. It’s of great historical value, got it?’
‘How will I know which one it is, Comrade Samos? Scripture, there’s plenty. Even the Masons on Nakens Street had a stack of Bibles, more than in my parish.’
Samos suddenly hesitated whether or not to carry on giving information to that numskull. ‘You have to be discreet,’ he said to him. ‘Find the book, talk to me. Only to me. You’ll get your reward.’
‘Right, but how will I know which one it is?’
‘It’s easy. It’s the only one with. . a dedication.’
Samos bit his lips. There was no going back.
‘What’s the key, boss?’
‘It says: “For Antonio de la Trava, the valiente of Finisterra”.’
‘I like that,’ said Parallelepiped. ‘I’ve got relatives in Finisterre.’
‘Good then. But be discreet. Don’t start shouting. Bring it to me by hand. No noise, no fireworks.’
Parallelepiped was a bit annoyed by Samos’ superior tone. There was a coldness about him. But he replied seriously, ‘Not to worry. I also know how to get on in the world, comrade.’
Next to the first fire, Curtis took another step forwards.
To be more exact, the burning books smell of leather mashed with flesh. Of boxing gloves.
‘Hey you with the cap! You like books? Can’t take your eyes off them!’
‘He probably likes the fire. If he’s here, he must be one of us.’
Curtis pretended not to hear. He’d spotted a living book which the flames were just starting on. A Popular Guide to Electricity. Arturo da Silva wasn’t a professional boxer. You couldn’t live from boxing unless you made the jump to Madrid or Barcelona. And he hadn’t wanted to. He was a plumber by trade. His job, directing the forces of water, had something in common with the way he behaved inside the ring. He’d convinced Curtis his future was in electricity. More specifically, in air conditioning. So Curtis had gradually become the champ’s right hand. ‘You’ll succeed him. Hercules of Shining Light’, Abelenda in the gym had told him. He was sure of it. On the poster for his first fight, he could see the words ‘Hercules of Shining Light versus. .’ But there was no poster for his first fight. There wasn’t time. It would be on 17 July. His debut as an amateur boxer then would be with another youngster called Manlle. There’d been a cancellation and they’d agreed to include them. The typical warm-up fight while the spectators found their seats. But for Curtis it was the most important event of his life. He’d trained hard with Arturo. ‘On one condition.’ ‘What?’ ‘You’ll start as an apprentice in a workshop for climatic installations, soon to be opened by the Chavín factory, which makes Wayne refrigerators. I’ve a friend there. But to get in, you’ll have to know something about electricity. You’ll have to study. What do you think?’ He thought it was great. If he ever had a business card like the ones he’d seen travelling salesmen use at the Dance Academy, he could write: ‘Boxer and Climatic Electrician.’