Authors: Manuel Rivas
Mr Nosy starts typing without paper. Reads aloud what he’s typing.
‘All is mute silense . . .’
‘You see? Was I right or not?’ says Leda. ‘Didn’t I tell you she wrote “silense” with an “s”? And you kept laughing, saying how would Rosalía de Castro write “silense” with an “s”?’
‘You were right. She could hear. “Silense” is more silent when it’s written like that,’ remarks Fins. The hole in the roof has grown bigger and the areas of shade on the map are smaller. ‘You can see better now. Your nails are painted black. You’re in the ocean.’
‘Like always. In the middle of the fucking ocean. Where letters never arrive. Just condolences. It was kind of you to write whenever someone died. My dad, the schoolteacher, the doctor. The condolences looked as if they’d come straight out of a book of correspondence.’
‘I remembered you, everything here, more than you can imagine.’
‘Every day, at all hours, right? I could feel some kind of Morse. Keys from the beyond. Of course you were learning how to touch-type. That must have taken a while.’
Fins gets up and heads towards her. Leda retreats until she’s leaning against the teacher’s desk, back in the shadows. As he approaches, she spits on the ground, in the sea, between the two of them. He remains still, quiet.
‘Well, I didn’t. I learned how to forget. Every hour of every day. I’m an expert at forgetting.’
‘To tell the truth, I thought a lot about myself. My life. And time went by.’
‘The boy with the absences!’
‘That’s in the past. I’m better now. Far too present.’
‘I have a son,’ she says with growing confidence. ‘A son by Víctor.’
Yes, he knows.
‘What do you want? Me to talk about Brinco? About Rumbo? The Old Man’s business? The Ultramar’s secrets?’
She realises her own cocky tongue has lost control of its traction. She’s about to say something concerning dynamite. But the word gets stuck. Goes back. Like the mouse scurrying across the ocean, through the rubble.
‘Do you know why I’m here, Fins Malpica? I have a message for you. I never want to see you again. Don’t call me, don’t talk to me, don’t even look at me. Understand?’
‘I’m not going to ask you for anything, Leda,’ replies Fins. ‘Or give you anything. Even if you ask, I’ve nothing left to give.’
They’ve gone now. What a conversation! Straight out of some soap. But it moved me. It really did. I was feeling so well, my warm body in the cold of the Antarctic, a tingling in my feet, thinking about the art of sea urchins and hermit crabs. My God, there was pain in both of them. I could see them as children playing on the beach the day they found the mannequin and carried it here, to the School of Indians. The jokes they had to put up with that day. And now I stay in my dark corner, huddled up, stiff with cold, staring at the great couple, the blind mannequin and the one-armed skeleton. I wonder what the dealer would give for them. A lump of hash. A globe of smack. Enough for two shots at least. He wouldn’t even open the door, the bastard. They’re obviously priceless.
Mariscal had a habit of rising with the sun. Having gone around various miradors, a duty he liked to fulfil with proud punctuality, in the mornings he would sit by the window to read the newspapers. He’d sometimes stop to do the crossword. Like today. He didn’t turn around, but heard the blast that opened the door and noisily cleared a way between stools and chairs before coming to an abrupt halt beside him. He’d nearly completed the crossword. He made it obvious he was in some doubt by repeatedly tapping the biro. He could hear a hum, the electric field of Brinco Furioso.
‘Where is Leda?’
‘Give me a hand here, will you? “Part of the chequebook that is left once the cheque has been removed.”’
‘Fuck, Mariscal.’
‘F-U-C-K. No, it’s not “fuck”.’
‘I don’t give a damn if he has a badge. I’m going to eat him up and vomit him off the bridge.’
Mariscal puffed on his Havana cigar and chewed, ground down the smoke. When he exhaled, the smoke was thick and stuck to the word, which appeared in the squares.
‘S-T-U-B. Now that’s it.’
He turned his head and glanced at the crazed lover.
‘Listen, Víctor Rumbo. I don’t like being shouted at from above and certainly not from behind.’
Brinco sat down opposite him. With a furrowed brow, but subdued gaze.
‘I sent her to see Malpica. To find out what the bastard wants. We need information. Information, Brinco!’
THE OLD LIGHT
that spilled from the fluorescent strips still slid down the wall to illuminate the name of the dance hall and cinema Paris-Noitía. It could be spotted from the beach, at least by Fins Malpica. In the same way he could hear Sira’s voice, that refrain, ‘I’m not going, I’m not going’, which strangely made it easier to walk. ‘The prettiest love can go by, I’m not going, I’m not going.’ When, on a Sunday evening, she was persuaded to sing, things in the estuary already had their shadowy side. This was something Fins remembered, seeing his shadow projected on the shore. The eager progression of shadows towards the dance hall.
‘I’m not going, I’m not going.’
The cinema had closed some time before. And the dance hall opened only rarely to host some prearranged party. A footprint in the sand, ‘I’m not going’, another, ‘I’m not going’. He was far away, but inside he could see and hear. Memory had the intensity of an absence. He couldn’t tell anybody. He’d been back in Noitía for almost a year and the
petit mal
had returned several months earlier. The episodes were much more spaced out. But he could see them coming. They passed like intermittences. Blinks. The opening and closing of a window. He had a name for these absences. The Argonaut’s void. Because it was the
petit mal
, yes. But it was his
petit mal
.
Shortly after he left, the absences had disappeared. He thought the inconvenience would never reappear. And to begin with, when he returned, he didn’t have any short circuits. He could have said his mind went before him. Functioned well. He knew he had a long way to go, but he was starting to possess threads to weave with.
So the
petit mal
wasn’t exactly an illness. After a single absence, in an outburst of humour, he decided to make it a property. A secret belonging.
He stopped hearing the song, seeing the spectre of letters in the dance hall. From where he was, in the ruins of the salting factory, Fins could see San Telmo wharf. It was illuminated by a few street lamps. He could see people moving, but not distinguish them all clearly. Study their shadows. That was his trade.
At the end of the dyke, where there was a small lighthouse, stood two men. He could recognise them from a distance. One was unmistakable, with his hat and steel-tipped cane, moving in and out of the circles of light. When he was in a circle, Fins could see the white of his gloves and the tips of his shoes. It looked as if he was about to start tap-dancing. This was Mariscal. His eternal bodyguard, Carburo the giant, stood with his arms crossed, surveying everything, moving his head in time to the lighthouse beacon.
Brinco came marching down the new dyke. He was wearing a black leather jacket that turned into patent leather whenever it passed under one of the lamps. Behind him, in similar clothes, but with more zips and metal reinforcements, came Chelín, his lackey.
On several shallow-water boats preparations were under way to go out fishing. The sailors were laying out the tackle.
‘Hey, Brinco!’ shouted one of the younger sailors.
Víctor Rumbo carried on his way, but not without depositing a confidential greeting: ‘Everything OK?’
‘Doing what we can, Brinco.’ And then, to his companion, ‘See? That was Brinco.’
‘You sure?’
‘Of course I am! We played football together. Look. The other’s Chelín. Tito Balboa. A very fine goalie!’
‘Wasn’t he an addict?’
‘That guy always walked on the edge. For better and for worse.’
In his hiding place, however much the sea amplified their voices, Fins couldn’t make out their conversation. But he could hear the admiring salutations Víctor Rumbo received.
‘See you, Brinco!’
‘See you, champ!’
‘You sent for me?’
Mariscal responded with a cough, a kind of affirmative growl. Then cleared his throat. ‘It’s about time you were a little less formal, Víctor.’
‘Yes, boss,’ said Brinco as if he hadn’t heard.
The Old Man gazed at the waters, which appeared calm but grumbled discontentedly against the dyke. ‘All the best stuff comes from the sea! All of it.’
‘Without the need for a single shovelful of manure!’
‘Have I told you that before?’
‘Yes, boss.’
‘That’s the trouble with us ancients. We’re in the habit of repeating ourselves.’
Mariscal scratched his throat again. Stared at Víctor, adopting a more intimate tone of voice. ‘You’re the best pilot, Brinco!’
‘So they tell me . . .’
‘No, you are!’
Mariscal gestured to Carburo, who pulled a torch out of his pocket, switched it on and pointed it at the sea, creating Morse-like signals. They soon heard the sound of a motorboat that must have been waiting in the wings. Not a normal kind of boat. The roar of its horsepower overwhelmed the night.
‘Well, the best pilot deserves a bonus, an incentive!’
No such vessel had ever been seen in Noitía before. A speedboat of this length, its power increased by multiple engines on the stern. Inverno steered it towards the dyke.
‘How’s that barge then, Inverno?’
The subaltern was wildly enthusiastic.
‘It’s not a speedboat, boss. It’s a frigate! A flagship! We could cross the Atlantic in this!’
‘It has enough horsepower to travel around the world,’ boasted Mariscal. And then to Brinco, ‘What do you think?’
‘I’m checking out the horsepower.’
‘The flagship’s yours!’ said Mariscal. ‘And there’s no need to worry about the paperwork.’ He was overseeing delivery. ‘The boat’s in your mother’s name.’
This was what he liked to refer to as an ‘emotional coup’.
‘We’ll have to call it
Sira
then,’ replied Brinco, clearly waging an inner war to find the right tone of voice.
‘Why not? The name fits!’
The Old Man set off walking, with Carburo behind. Taking care not to step on his shadow. Measuring his distance. Suddenly Mariscal stopped, turned towards the dock and pointed at the boat with his cane. ‘Better name it
Sira I
.’
And then, ‘Well, aren’t you going to try it out?’
The last thing Fins saw was Brinco and Chelín boarding the powerful machine. Brinco taking hold of the steering wheel. And, after turning around, a swarm of bubbles rising and climbing in the night.
THERE WAS NO
moon, nor was it expected. A formation of solid storm clouds, brand name the Azores, gave depth to the night’s darkness. On the surface of the sea, squeezed between two stones, a vein of graphite clarity. The high-speed customs patrol boat was hidden behind one of the crane boats for gathering mussels, which in turn was moored to a platform under repair. They were waiting for him. For Brinco. The fastest pilot. The estuary ace. A hero to smugglers.
The gurgle of his entrails may have rumbled out across the sea. The customs officer caught him clenching his teeth in an attempt to quell his gut’s rebellion. He realised the other man felt unwell, but didn’t say anything.
‘What, you seasick?’
It was the navigator who asked, with what seemed like inevitable scorn.
‘Do I look like the deceased?’ said Fins.
‘No, just dead for now.’
‘When we’re on the move, I’ll be OK,’ he said, feeling like a conspicuous bundle. Then he added with bravura, in an effort to encourage himself, ‘The faster the better!’
‘Well, now’s the time to wait,’ remarked the officer. ‘Take a deep breath. It’s all in the mind.’
Fins didn’t have time to explain that he’d been born on a boat, so to speak, during a maritime procession. Something like that. His body’s discomfort was a sort of trick or revenge.
The information was first class. Could cure any amount of seasickness.
There he was. Judging by the impressive engine, it could only be him. The kind of boat that was displayed in San Telmo and would suddenly disappear, moments before an inspection. Though recently they’d changed their habits. Started hiding the most valuable speedboats in sheds or warehouses in the most surprising places, sometimes a long way inland, at distances that could be measured in nocturnal miles, on secondary roads. This journey towards secrecy was part of the biggest change ever in the history of smuggling.
From mussel-raft blond to flour.
From tobacco to cocaine.
No, there weren’t any billboards advertising this historical change. And there were few superiors ready or willing to hear, let alone believe, his endless storytelling. Fins Malpica was a bloody nuisance, a prick, a lunatic. He should be assigned to investigating UFOs.
The boat turned. Seemed to be moving away with a mocking curtain of foam. But it came back. The ticking-over of the engine, by contrast, was like a whisper in the night. They docked next to platform B-52, exactly the one Fins had indicated. The customs officer and two agents stared with a mixture of admiration and disbelief at this pale young police inspector clinging to his camera as to a child, dressed like an apprentice on his first outing.
‘Great, golden information, inspector. My congratulations.’
A surprising informer. A nugget dropped by chance. An angry person’s betrayal of trust. These were the sources the officer turned over in his mind. Fins should have revealed the true story behind platform B-52. The hours upon hours of poring over registers. Analysing operations for buying and selling rafts. Grouping suspicious cases in a ‘grey area’. Unravelling the front man and real owner. Use, output, repairs to the structure. A whole series of dead hours and occasional living ones. And there it was, B-52. Real owner, Leda Hortas.
Somebody leaps from the speedboat on to the platform’s wooden arbour. Inverno, thinks Fins, because of the way he moves. He opens a trapdoor in one of the platform’s large floats. These used to be old drums, hulls or boilers. Now they’re made of plastic or metal and look like submersibles. On one of them is Inverno or whoever it is. He climbs into the float with a torch.