Books Burn Badly - Manuel Rivas [104]
The priest was enjoying himself, as in a skit, and surprised them with one of his modern metaphors, ‘Come, come! Your marriage is like a pair of scissors. One blade can’t function without the other.’
‘How very touching, Father,’ said Chelo, recovering from her astonishment. She knew Father Munio was primarily interested in the judge. He was the target, an influential and suitable candidate to join the Opus. She said, ‘Well, you should know she worked with three pairs of scissors.’
‘Who did?’
‘The knitter’s mother. With three brothers. And she had a daughter with each of them. Which makes three sisters.’
Chelo deliberately misquoted the knitter’s mother.
‘She married three times and said, “I liked them all, but the third was my favourite.”’
The judge laughed, ‘A magnet, Chelo. You’re a magnet for Galicia’s spirits.’
The Apprentice Taxidermist
The judge and master taxidermist were discussing how to mount the capercaillie so that it looked more lifelike. As lifelike as possible. Its wings extended, showing the total span. Meanwhile the taxidermist’s son, the apprentice, whispered to Gabriel, ‘Come with me!’ In a darker, adjoining room, illuminated by a lamp so dusty it seemed to have fur, the apprentice gestured proudly, ‘See. I invented it. I invented an animal.’
Duck’s body and hare’s head. The creature’s wings were outspread, but it crouched like a hare.
He smiled when he saw the boy’s look of astonishment, ‘They make the best pair. Wild duck and hare. I’m also working on a cat-gull, a cat with a seagull’s body, lord of the rooftops.’
‘What for?’ Gabriel ventured to ask.
‘My Dad’s a taxidermist. I want to be an artist.’
In a wooden box with cells like the one for buttons at the haberdasher’s, which Chelo loved so much and wanted to paint one day, or the box for type at the printer’s, where she went with Leica and discovered words were made up of solid elements that sometimes stuck in the throat, in this first box were all sorts of glass and resinous beads. The taxidermist’s son picked up a handful and poured them into his visitor’s hands. ‘How do you like eyes?’
He smiled with satisfaction at again causing a look of astonishment in Gabriel.
‘Silly. Nature does it too. Likes to deceive. Come and have a look. I’ll show you something the like of which you’ve never seen. And may not see again.
‘Come on,’ he repeated, gesturing mysteriously.
Windows on to a small, inner garden. Unkempt. Nettles. Several cats. Silent spectators in a museum turning into statues. Imitating the other, stuffed animals.
He drags him along, Gabriel is more confused by the air of mystery than anything else. They go up to a fridge door. The taxidermist’s son gives him a stern look. ‘Promise you won’t tell anyone.’ The apprentice grabs the handle with both hands. His last smile aimed at Gabriel seems to form part of the opening device, since it also rotates, turns into an expression of hardness, a feeling Gabriel recognises as contempt.
He opens.
Slams the door shut.
‘D’you see it?’
Gabriel nods. It was only a second and he’s frozen. He won’t tell anybody. Ever.
‘You’re pretty amazed, huh? Want to see it again?’
In a whisper, ‘Come on, let’s have another look.’
He repeats the procedure. But doesn’t close so quickly. There is the angel. Its white feathers. The cold blast is a kind of breath the body emits, an escape of colour.
‘Want to touch it? It’s a guardian angel.’
Gabriel preferred the apprentice’s mysterious contempt to this sudden tasteless intimacy. Deep down, he regrets the change. Stretches out his arm. Touches the feathers so that slowly, between the wings, driven from its lair by the other’s laugh, the swan’s head slides out and hangs in the balance.
The judge was not in the habit of showing what he called ‘internal documents’. His feelings. This lack of expressiveness was one of his main features. He considered it an obligation in his position to try to be dispassionate and to act always with discretion. This didn’t mean detachment from his ideals or political power. On the