Books Burn Badly - Manuel Rivas [119]
Hardly anyone knew about Professor Alfonso Sulfe’s second existence. They may have set out from a similar port, but he’d long since veered off on a course that had nothing to do with the judge Samos or those others who were convinced they had a direct link with God. If he’d renewed a friendship dating back to the 1940s and accepted Samos’ recent invitation to join their conversations in the so-called Crypt (which the judge, with intellectual coquetry, also termed his San Casciano in reference to Machiavelli’s retreat), it was for a reason he kept secret. To start with, he’d replied to the invitation with grateful politeness, alleging, however, that his teaching commitments and his own studies made it difficult for him to attend. He’d be delighted to do so occasionally. But then the embers of a memory revived, turning into a fire that blazed day and night in his brain.
‘It being a madman . . .’
Dez was not happy with the meeting. He failed to understand how Samos, who was intelligent, sly when necessary, could have exhibited his paranoia with that western novelist so publicly, albeit among friends. He appeared now to be taking it lightly, but Dez knew how much it bothered him.
‘Strange the way it continues,’ said Father Munio, who with his white gloves turned every book that fell into his hands into an object for dissection.
Ernest Botana the journalist tipped his hat to the pruned, skeletal, naked poplars:
‘Courage, old friends!’
Then he saw the judge coming and stretched out his hand:
‘I absolutely will not allow you to consider me an enemy.’
The servant of the law was confused and blushed. He left, irritated by the weight of that pious affront.
The judge held out his hand to retrieve the novel. He’d have preferred it if Father Munio hadn’t chosen that particular passage to read aloud. It had quite upset him, which is why the page was marked. And now hearing someone else read it aloud finally revealed the source of the unsettling echo in his head. There was the memory of a similar sentence addressed to him.
It was the last time he’d talked to Héctor Ríos in Mazarelos Square, Santiago, outside the Law Faculty, that Christmas Eve in 1935. The day he refused the gift of a book by Wells and Ríos had the audacity, the unbearable goodwill, to comment, ‘I absolutely will not allow you to consider me an enemy.’
A fine coup de théâtre.
That’s right, he refused the book from Ríos, with whom he’d shared a passion for bibliography ever since they were children. He refused the book by Wells, an essay on The Salvaging of Civilisation.
‘I already read it,’ Samos lied.
‘And I read your article,’ said Ríos eventually. ‘“Germany’s Scholars Align Themselves with the Führer”. I think you’ve forgotten one or two . . .’
There was Héctor Ríos, saying goodbye to Professor Del Riego on the steps of the Law Faculty and then jovially turning towards him, with his Kantian categorical imperative spectacles, a bundle of books in one hand and bulging jacket pockets. Who knows? He may still have been carrying his notes on cards from Xohán Vicente Viqueira’s lectures in Coruña on ethics, which the pupils of the Free Teaching Institute exchanged with lay devotion, like prayers. ‘Listen, Samos, to what Viqueira has to say: “Conscience is the mental activity of esteeming the good”. Could anyone have put it better?’ Once, in the spring of 1931, Ríos had persuaded him to attend a tribute to Viqueira in Ouces Cemetery. One of the participants, Bieito Varela, knocked on the gravestone and said, ‘Mr Viqueira, the Republic has arrived!’ The atmosphere was pleasant and effusive, with lots of cultured people, but Samos felt uncomfortable. Viqueira’s grave was outside the Catholic cemetery. Why was he buried outside? Ríos looked at him the way he did sometimes, through ironic spectacles that made him feel a fool, and said, ‘He’s outside because they wouldn’t let him in.’
Now, in 1935, Héctor Ríos is on his way to Madrid, to the hall of residence, with his brilliant academic record and plans to become, with the help