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By Root 774 0

described in agreeable terms and, since then, he’d appeared as a poet in the wake of the so-called ‘creative youth’, those who after the war had followed the banner of Garcilaso de la Vega, poet and soldier. Not unintentionally had he begun his work with a quote from Garcilaso’s Second Elegy: O crude, o rigorous, o fierce Mars, clad in diamonds for a tunic and always so hard! His strategy worked. An initial review in the local press, which was unsigned, talked of ‘poems of virile race’, a formula that was repeated in other commentaries. He’d also sent the book to Agustín de Foxá, with a humble dedication in which he deliberately used Foxá’s own verses evoking Madrid: From my eucalyptic shadows, these poems travel in a landau with cinnamon horses to visit the master and kneel while he drinks from the pink shell with rainbow veins. He was a real admirer of Foxá. He’d memorised the two centaur sonnets, the young and the old. Reciting them was one of his coups de théâtre among friends. But Foxá never answered. He may not have liked the image of someone kneeling while he drank from the pink shell. The truth is it was a ridiculous dedication. He realised this as soon as he’d posted it. As often happens with extreme eulogies, it smacked of parody. Nor did he reply to a second attempt, when Dez sent a copy of Tableau of the Middle Ages, asking for it to be signed, for which he enclosed an envelope with the necessary stamps. He had better luck with Eugenio Montes, when he did the same with his book The Star and Trail, published by Ediciones del Movimiento. He went straight to the point and paraphrased Sánchez Mazas’ preface in a spirit of Fascist camaraderie: ‘With thanks for placing human letters at the Falange’s service.’

I Was Forsook, that is The Moment of Truth, would signify a radical change. A literary bomb. ‘Garcilasistic’, my foot! He was going to shock the literary world beyond this oyster city, stuck in its own shell. And then this had to happen. He had to do something about it. Right away.

He again visited the Sahara boarding-house, where Anceis had stayed during his last two years as a grounded sailor. No, said Miss Dalia, the owner, no one had asked after Aurelio Anceis. No relative had turned up. No one had made any claim.

‘No one?’

She didn’t find it so strange. In a boarding-house like hers, with a majority of long-term guests, the world was seen differently. Some people, some sane people, who were like hermit crabs, only ever came out of their rooms to eat. Talked to nobody. Lived like zeroes.

‘Zeroes? Why do you say zeroes?’

‘Don’t get me wrong,’ replied Miss Dalia. ‘What I mean is nobody missed him. Nobody came looking for him before you.’

Dez would remember this visit. It was the last time he saw him alive.

Anceis barely said anything. He complained of a strong migraine. He was dressed under the bedspread, with his sailor’s hat pulled down as if he wanted to hold on to the pain rather than letting it go. He asked him, out of courtesy, how he felt and unexpectedly Aurelio Anceis replied he felt guilty.

‘Guilty for what?’

‘For having survived. Don’t you feel guilty?’

‘No, not really,’ said Dez.

‘I’d like you to return I Was Forsook.’

‘Why?’

‘You heard me. All the paperwork. The poems, applications. Everything. It’s my last wish. I can’t demand it of you, so I’m asking you as a final wish, as a plea. If it doesn’t reach me in time, burn it. I was going to burn it anyway.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I wanted the poems to come out as a book so that I could burn them. Make a bonfire down by the docks. They were written to be burnt.’

He was seized by a violent cough he quickly tried to stifle with a handkerchief, though all it did was redden his face. Dez associated Anceis’ words with that cough and the abrasive change in the colour of his skin.

He stood up, turning away, averting his eyes from him. This was not the proper way to behave. To hell with it. He was in the company of an ex-man.

He turned back at the door. ‘Goodbye, Mr Anceis. I hope you get better soon.’

When he reached the censor’s office,