CANEIROS-BETANZOS BY SPECIAL TRAIN
‘Leave two blank lines. That’s it. Now continue.’
The two of them slowly caressing the keys, making a caravan of letters. The whole night in front of them.
Curtis was in a dark room. He’d forced an entry, opened the windows, but the light seemed reluctant to return. They’d taken everything. Even the electric current. He went to switch on a bulb hanging from interlaced wires in a cloth casing, but they’d cut off the supply, so from the interlaced wires hung the absence of light. If he found the typewriter, he could make the train to Caneiros go. Hear the stationmaster’s whistle. The movement of connecting rods. He’d sold a lot of tickets for that train. He’d heard so much about it, but never been to Caneiros, on that trip upriver to the heart of the forest. After leaving the train, you had to walk a bit and then board some boats. ‘The boats,’ Arturo da Silva had told him, ‘are all decorated with garlands and covered in laurel branches.’ Although he’d never been to Caneiros, he adopted the project as his own. With the titbits of information he picked up along the way, he composed an enthusiastic proclamation, as if the one selling the tickets came from the fairground, had been conceived there and was speaking in the name not of the organisation, but of the river.
Since his childhood, he’d been given errands, odd jobs. Almost always as a carrier or messenger. Pombo had talked of putting a telephone in the Dance Academy.
‘In case of need, Samantha. We have to modernise. What if you receive a call from King Alfonso?’
‘Come on!’
‘Or from a millionaire like Juan March?’
‘Put him through. Start drawing up an estimate.’
While they were waiting for the telephone, which would take some time, there was young Hercules with his nimble legs and telegraphic races. Once, when he was still a little boy, he’d sat down in the Dance Academy’s kitchen and fallen asleep with his head on the table. Flora came in, saw his eyes were open and spoke to him. She got frightened. Shook him. He blinked and woke up. She was on the verge of tears. Embraced him. ‘Are you all right, are you all right?’ ‘Sure I am, I was just asleep.’ ‘But your eyes were open!’ ‘I know, but I was just asleep.’
The Shining Light premises were empty. Huddled in a corner, he fell asleep like the last time. With his eyes open. He’d acted as a messenger for the special train, but the train was unable to arrive. They’d taken everything. The furniture, the posters, the Ideal typewriter. All the books. It was so dark, so empty, it seemed they’d taken the place itself, the painting on the walls, the words that had been spoken there. They’d taken the special train, the garlanded boats, the buffet, the orchestra. The river.
He’d managed to persuade Milagres, who never got out, even of her own self. She’d come with Mr Lens the harpooner. He’d also sold Flora a ticket. Of course they’d all travel in the carriage with Arturo da Silva and Holando. The bagpiper Polka with Olinda, his Spark. And the carriage would attract attention, on the way there and on the way back, because no less a personage than Luís Terranova had a ticket. On 18 July, they’d still been able to go and see Melodía de Arrabal together at Linares Cinema in Catro Camiños. Luís needed Curtis’ company in the films of Carlos Gardel because Curtis had the gift of memory. Three showings were enough for him to learn the lyrics to the songs. And what’s more, sometimes, at the request of the audience, the projectionist would rewind so that they could listen to the song again. Applause.
Old quarter. .
Forgive me if when I evoke you
a tear dwops
‘Let’s see. Try again.’
He tested him on the songs, quips and gibes but in the last department Curtis was so calm you had to wind him up constantly to get a response. Arturo da Silva, Galicia’s lightweight champion, trained with him in the ring. For Terranova, Curtis was a kind of sentimental sparring partner. Luís kept throwing the double meaning of language at him because Curtis, however alert he might be, always believed what they were saying. He paid attention to the smallest things. There were times Terranova couldn’t bear such confidence. He wanted to break this unbreakable friendship. But in the end he loved him like no other. Curtis looked after the best of himself. To start with, he carried the songs, all the songs, in his head. Luís’ memory lived inside his friend’s. And he didn’t hold back on the adjectives. Portentous. Curtis’ memory was truly portentous. He said it in syllables, por-ten-tous, and with his right hand rotated an imaginary bulb in the air. Or, with both hands, his fingers were orbits, a celestial globe. Such gestures were precious gifts to Curtis. He felt his memory. Was aware of carrying it and that it was comfortable. Arturo had taught him always to protect his head. His head worked for his body and so his body should protect his head. Even his legs, dancing in the ring, were taking his head into account. And there was his memory, like a child with wide open eyes, riding on him.
The idea of a child on his back was something that stuck in his mind, an image his memory had of itself after a visit.
Neto, a friend of Arturo da Silva’s, had had a fight the day before in the bullring and the words hurt as they came out. His eyebrow had split open and they’d stitched it up there and then, without anaesthetic. He also had knocks and bruises and bloody ribs at each commissure of the lips and eyelids. And his nose displayed the enormous surprise of prominent things that have survived an unexpected catastrophe.
Curtis and Luís Terranova had come with Arturo and another boy from Shining Light who was a boxing fan, Pepe Boedo. They’d come to see the victor. And now they were feeling a little disappointed. According to local legend, Neto was a kind of gladiator. So they’d been expecting to hear a description of the fight, a glowing account of his exploits, but instead they were shown into a poorly lit room. The boxer had his feet in a bucket of hot water. Around his ankles, the bubbles looked like a flower arrangement, which was the only concession the scene allowed the hero. Even Carmiña, his wife, appeared to be forging the seven swords of Our Lady of Sorrow, though what she was in fact doing was hammering at a slab of ice in the kitchen. She’d bring in handfuls of irregular pieces, some like rocks, others like nails, for him to choose.
A newspaper was lying on the floor. It seemed to have been written there. Printed in that very room. The matrices of the letters scattered by Neto’s broken anatomy.
CHAMPION’S CALVARY
Good headline, thought Curtis. That newspaper was a bit like a mirror. He watched Arturo da Silva pick it up off the floor and casually put it out of sight.
Neto spoke through the cut in his eyebrow. Monosyllables, short sentences that pushed their way through the stitches. The rasping of words. Craters in some sentences where syllables had been punched out. Arturo da Silva administered the necessary dose. They now understood the reason for their visit was to cure, not celebrate, his victory.
‘All I can see are clouds. Your face looks like a storm’s coming.’
‘Every cloud has a silver lining. Who was it told me that rubbish?’
‘Could have been me,’ said Arturo with the same irony.
‘Culture’ll be the end of you, Arturo. Silver lining, my foot! Are you still attending the Rationalist School?’
‘In the evenings. Occasionally.’
‘I liked it, but I’d doze off. Without my knowledge, as I lay snoring on the desk, old Amil would use me to talk of the evolution of species.’
Curtis and Terranova also attend Master Amil’s evening classes. Arturo persuaded them. Curtis’ first teacher had been Flora, the Girl, the Conception Girl. She hated being interrupted when she was teaching him letters and numbers, but then she still held her tongue. Looking back at his life, in front of the pyres, Curtis remembered the last time he’d seen Flora, when she caused an earthquake in the Academy.