Books Burn Badly - Manuel Rivas [130]
‘Do you mean whores?’
‘I mean sirens. For that, I turn to Mr Thomas Stearns Eliot and his idea about heights of sensibility. It depends on the height.’
‘What height?’
‘The height you’re writing and reading at. Or depth, if you like. Your vision is only partial. Think of men breaking up ice on deck. Not blocks of ice, ice covering the whole ship, every nook and cranny. And imagine then the skipper decides to head for St Pierre. They haven’t seen or stepped on land for months. Going to St Pierre, which is only a small harbour with a slope of wooden houses, is like a trip to paradise. They’re so happy lots of them start drinking in order to celebrate and, by the time they reach St Pierre, they can’t disembark. They can barely walk. For them, without the need to cite Mr Eliot, the simple fact of saying St Pierre, the decision to go, meant already being there. In paradise. That’s the power of simply saying words, they make a place, change bodies. But let me tell you about those who disembark. Lots of them queue up outside L’Étoile, which is soon Anglicised as the Star, the dance hall owned by St Pierre’s only professional diver, also known as the Communist, and they queue up, do you know why? No, it’s not what you’re thinking. Dozens of men waiting in a line, in the snow, to dance, just to dance with the one they call Hunchie, La Bossue, Miss Hunchback. To put their hand on her hump while they dance. Skippers will pay her up to a thousand francs to go on board ship and pee on the nets. A kind of magic charm. Dancing, washerwomen, lucky sirens.’
The censor Dez couldn’t help cracking his fingers in a sign of sudden discomfort.
‘Well, I’m glad, Anceis, you met Eliot and whoever else out at sea.’
Those of the G, dancing around the axis mundi,
in the Flaming Star . . .
‘I know something about Freemasonry, Anceis. The G, the axis mundi, the flaming star, the next bit about the liber mundi. I’m not a complete fool. What’s it got to do with fishing for cod in Newfoundland?’
‘Very simple. The geometry of a dance. The most popular dance hall among fishermen in St Pierre was the Star. The stage was a wooden table. On top of the table was a chair. On top of the chair, an accordionist, the Diver. On top of the accordionist, a lamp. This is the axis mundi. The accordion is the liber mundi, which is both open and shut, virgin, fertilised matter.’
‘After all that,’ said Dez, ‘it’s no surprise my ecclesiastical colleague, with his divine eye, should be confused before what he terms “a muddy mare magnum”.’
‘I like that,’ said Anceis. ‘“A muddy mare magnum”. A realistic reading.’
He again made to retrieve the manuscript.
‘I’d better take it. Truth is,’ said Anceis, ‘I’m not sure I want to publish it.’
But Tomás Dez’s hand, swift as a claw, grabbed the folder containing two handwritten copies of I Was Forsook.
‘No, leave it. I’m going to defend this book as if it were my own. We have an obligation to try.’
He said this with a vehemence that took Anceis by surprise. That word as well. An obligation. It was true. To him, the only reason for writing and publishing it was because he felt a strange obligation, something akin to fate.
‘I’m going to defend this book,’ repeated Dez. ‘Do you know why? Because, talking of heights, above all I’m a poet, Mr Anceis. I haven’t a civil servant’s soul. You’ll think it contradicts my role, but being contradictory is part of the human condition.’
‘You said before the ecclesiastical censor wouldn’t change his negative opinion. Wouldn’t give his nihil obstat. Had it in for my book.’
‘Yes, he does. He’s set against it. We’ll see what he puts down