Books Burn Badly - Manuel Rivas [135]
The other key figure was Samos.
He gave him a call. There was a problem with Oeste and he preferred to discuss it with him out of friendship and to avoid disturbing Chelo Vidal. He then made another call. To the printer’s. He’d decided to withdraw three poems he wasn’t quite sure about: ‘Zero’, ‘Infinite’ and ‘Standard Vivas’.
He met the judge that same afternoon in the Union Café. Oeste, he explained, was being considered by the General Direction in Madrid. He’d been favourable, even enthusiastic, in his report. Everything was going well until the fishing line, so to speak, unexpectedly got caught and became knotted. Someone had noticed some poems which were described as perverse and the fact of being anonymous made them even more insidious. In confidence, it was a senior official. He couldn’t say the name, the judge would understand.
‘Yes, I understand. In my situation, as you well know, I also understand how uncomfortable one can feel in front of texts that are anonymous or written under a pseudonym.’
Yes, of course. They’d come to that later, said Dez. He had some news. But going back to the problem of Oeste, circumstances had something to do with it. The state of emergency declared for two years, the Grimau case, the international campaign . . . It all had an impact and at such times controls were tightened. Each to his own. As for the poems, they may have been a little heated, he couldn’t say. He’d pulled some strings and been given a solution. The magazine could come out if those poems were omitted. But there was another demand he wished to discuss with the utmost discretion. The authorities wanted to know who’d written the poems. In short, he had to put together a confidential report. Their personal details and public conduct. The authorities had thought to go through the usual channels and seek information from the Brigade of Politico-Social Investigation, but he’d persuaded them that wasn’t necessary, at the head of the magazine were some highly respected individuals who were close to the regime and could be trusted, first among them his honour’s wife. This reference had sufficed, explained Dez. So he’d offered to look into the matter himself. Which is why he’d called and here they were. It was a question of avoiding any damages and making sure Oeste came out.
‘The most important thing for us all is that none of this has a knock-on effect.’
‘I understand, Dez. I’ll talk to Chelo. There won’t be a problem. She may seem to have her head in the clouds, but she’s rooted in reality.’
‘I know. That’s why I came to you. I thought it had something to do with Sada. A pseudonym. I spoke to him before, without telling him the truth. You know how it is, he needs feeding separately.’
‘We’ll solve the case of the perverse verses,’ said the judge ironically. ‘I mean it. Perversity is a concept of great importance in our legal history.’
‘As for the other matter,’ continued Dez, ‘I thought you’d want to know. Something’s come up in the case of Black Eye.’
The censor saw yet again how the mere mention of that name, for whatever reason, had an epidermal effect on the judge. It altered his disposition. To help him relax, he added, ‘I’ve taken a liking to western novels and brought you a present.’
To the judge’s surprise, he pulled a western novel out of his pocket. Samos went along with the joke and accepted it. It was called Romantic the Horse. And signed John Black Eye. Showing he already knew it, even though it had only just been published, he searched for the chapter where there was a trial and discovered that Dez had already underlined the relevant paragraph. The judge nodded in acknowledgement. He read, ‘Even after the verdict, the lawyer Henry Botana had the courage to tell the Judge of Oklahoma that the death penalty was a form of premeditated killing.’
‘Of course we couldn’t just leave that alone,’ said Dez. ‘With all this fuss about Grimau being shot! But in the censor’s office there’s a dislike for trashy literature.