‘Who said that? I didn’t hear anything.’
‘They’ve been kicked out of the dance halls. And they’re no good for jazz or any of that. You’ll end up on your own, on the mountain, playing the bagpipes for the treasure dwarfs and their Moorish princesses.’
‘What do you mean, no good for jazz? You’re dumber than a baritone. Wind. .’
‘A trumpet, a saxophone. . That’s music, Polka. The music of the future.’
‘One day, you’ll hear the bagpipes in a jazz piece, you fool,’ replied Polka. He was really annoyed now. Everyone knew Polka was annoyed when he called someone a fool.
‘Polka’s right,’ said Seoane. ‘Mozart included a knife-grinder’s whistle in The Magic Flute.’
Luís Terranova danced on top of a rock, moving his pubis in voluptuous parody of a folk-dance:
All those steps
they’re now doin’
inside out
outside in!
‘Shame Curtis can’t sing,’ observed Arturo da Silva. ‘We’d have ourselves a Paul Robeson instead of a Luís Terranova.’
‘Paul Robeson! He’s the best,’ said the violinist Seoane with enthusiasm. ‘The voice of humanity, the earth and cosmos. Once, when he sang in New York, all the buildings of the banks on Wall Street started shaking. Supposing Robeson were to sing in Hercules Lighthouse, we’d be able to hear him over here, on Ara Solis. .’
Ol’ man river
Dat ol’ man river
He mus’ know sumpin’
But don’t say nuthin’
‘The length of the strings and the vibration of sound are in proportion. Robeson’s strings are made from gut. What we need is a Paul Robeson. A voice that’ll make bankers shake and stones wail.’
‘With or without Robeson, we can’t go to Caneiros without the bagpipes,’ declared Holando. ‘They’re our cosmic egg! The mother of all airs. Come on, Polka!’
‘I don’t know,’ said Polka. ‘I’m not sure I’ll take them.’
Luís Terranova slipped off the crag and knelt in front of Polka.
‘Your blessing, father.’
Polka made the sign of the Cross and murmured, ‘Verbum caro factum est et habitavit in nobis, etc. Now say three Our Fathers.’
Terranova stood up and wiped the earth and grass from his knees. ‘Three Our Fathers?’ he replied. ‘I only know one.’
While the others were getting dressed, Polka shielded his eyes and once again scanned the valley. On the other side of San Cristovo, beyond Agrela, was Fontenova. That glint had to be the quicksilver glass sign of Shining Light, which Isolino Díaz had made in the Rubine glassworks. It had been a good idea to put up a sign. A sun in the middle of a fire.
He was going to say this, proclaim it out loud. But the others were giggling about something. So he mentioned it to the person nearest to him, Arturo da Silva. After all, it had been his idea.
‘You see? That mirror over there is Shining Light.’ The glint caused a smile to spread across the boxer’s hardened features.
Look how easy it is to make a man happy, thought Polka. A glint in the distance.
They were laughing because of Holando, who’d sunbathed on a rock, but left the book of naturist commandments lying on his chest. This part of his skin had remained white and pallid while the rest of him was bronzed and done to a turn around the edges. The mark of a book on his skin. A natural print.
‘Minerva’ll be shocked,’ said Seoane. ‘Now you’ll have to add a title with a hot iron.’ He then announced, ‘Next Sunday, the 19th of July, we’re all going to that beach where the girls get dressed up in seaweed. And on the 2nd of August, it’s the trip to Caneiros. Anyone without a ticket for the special train, talk to Hercules.’
‘Here he comes again,’ said Polka. ‘Training for his first communion.’
There he was, running back along the paths in between the maize fields: Vicente Curtis, Papagaio’s own Hercules and Arturo da Silva’s sparring partner.
‘Yep, his first fight’s on the 17th,’ said Arturo. ‘He’ll need your support. This lad’ll be the glory of Galicia. He’s as much air in his lungs as the rest of us put together. He lets his fists do the talking.’
‘You know what I think of boxing,’ said Holando. ‘To defend yourself, you’d do better to learn how to shoe a donkey back to front.’
‘That as well,’ Arturo answered.
‘You did it deliberately,’ said Terranova to Holando. ‘A book tattoo to impress all the Minervas.’
‘Not at all.’ Holando showed off his chest with the book’s framed window. ‘It’s the instinct of culture choosing the best wood, nature achieving self-consciousness.’
Self-consciousness. Polka felt like a common criminal. He had to return that other book to the library as soon as possible. No later than next week. Every time he opened the book, he read it with greater devotion and guilt.
The Matador
17 July 1936
CURTIS LISTENS. ‘EVERYTHING he owns is in that canvas bag, that sailor’s bag.’ He’s standing with Arturo da Silva next to the Obelisk. There are lots of people outside the Oriental Café, the Palace Hotel and a little further back, outside the Galicia Café. They’re handing out leaflets advertising an anti-Fascist meeting to be held in the bullring. One of those who take a leaflet gives them a friendly wave. Curtis notices the contrast between what he’s wearing, a suit and tie, and his luggage. A simple canvas bag.
‘That’s Sito Marconi. He knows more about radios than anyone. Everything he needs is in that sailor’s bag. Give him a screwdriver and he’ll locate the voice of stones.’
Curtis is standing with Arturo next to the Obelisk. The boxer’s way of handing out information sheets is very formal. It’s as if he’s handing out a parchment. He doesn’t distribute them haphazardly, but frugally, as if their message were decisive in the life of both giver and recipient. It reminds Curtis of his mother’s relationship with electric light. She can’t stand a light being on when there’s no one in the room. Arturo looks each person in the eye. Perhaps he’s wondering what their fortune and direction will be, as if it’s not a scrap of paper but a rare papyrus. On the flyers, the largest letters are those stating where the meeting is to be held. IN THE BULLRING.
‘Bulls? What you got against bulls? I shall summon the head matador immediately!’
He’s a tall man with a Cossack’s moustache. His voice is threatening, carefully modulated to be intimidating. But while Curtis’ reaction is to take a defensive leap backwards, Arturo’s is to go forwards. In search of a warm embrace. This is how Curtis met Fernando Sada. He told them how he’d just played the ogre for the Barraca Theatre and the pedagogical missions. He’d done other things, of course, some of them more complicated, but it was his dragon’s voice that had made him famous. Arturo introduced him as an artist, but Sada emphasised he was also a spokesperson for the International Union of Puppeteers.
‘They won’t get past Africa,’ he said in such a thunderous voice it really did remind Curtis of a dragon’s. ‘They’ll fall flat on their faces, just like General Sanjurjo four years ago.’
He showed Curtis the clock on top of the Obelisk. ‘There’s his lordship, Time. Wouldn’t it be better if there was a cuckoo? My childhood hours were struck by Mr Tettamancy’s cuckoo clock. The cuckoo’s song. The knife-grinder’s whistle. And the ships’ sirens. All under the sweeping light, the luminescent fan, of Hercules Lighthouse. Those were the foundations of jazz in my life. When I fall over, it’s that liberal cuckoo’s song that keeps me going. That’s right! Cuckoo in the Clock. A big cuckoo telling the time on top of the Obelisk. Or a ship’s siren. Every time we hear the word “sea”, we should all fall on our knees.’