Books Burn Badly - Manuel Rivas [14]
The Matador
17 July 1936
Curtis listens. ‘Everything he owns is in that canvas bag, that sailor’s bag.’ He’s standing with Arturo da Silva next to the Obelisk. There are lots of people outside the Oriental Café, the Palace Hotel and a little further back, outside the Galicia Café. They’re handing out leaflets advertising an anti-Fascist meeting to be held in the bullring. One of those who take a leaflet gives them a friendly wave. Curtis notices the contrast between what he’s wearing, a suit and tie, and his luggage. A simple canvas bag.
‘That’s Sito Marconi. He knows more about radios than anyone. Everything he needs is in that sailor’s bag. Give him a screwdriver and he’ll locate the voice of stones.’
Curtis is standing with Arturo next to the Obelisk. The boxer’s way of handing out information sheets is very formal. It’s as if he’s handing out a parchment. He doesn’t distribute them haphazardly, but frugally, as if their message were decisive in the life of both giver and recipient. It reminds Curtis of his mother’s relationship with electric light. She can’t stand a light being on when there’s no one in the room. Arturo looks each person in the eye. Perhaps he’s wondering what their fortune and direction will be, as if it’s not a scrap of paper but a rare papyrus. On the flyers, the largest letters are those stating where the meeting is to be held. IN THE BULLRING.
‘Bulls? What you got against bulls? I shall summon the head matador immediately!’
He’s a tall man with a Cossack’s moustache. His voice is threatening, carefully modulated to be intimidating. But while Curtis’ reaction is to take a defensive leap backwards, Arturo’s is to go forwards. In search of a warm embrace. This is how Curtis met Fernando Sada. He told them how he’d just played the ogre for the Barraca Theatre and the pedagogical missions. He’d done other things, of course, some of them more complicated, but it was his dragon’s voice that had made him famous. Arturo introduced him as an artist, but Sada emphasised he was also a spokesperson for the International Union of Puppeteers.
‘They won’t get past Africa,’ he said in such a thunderous voice it really did remind Curtis of a dragon’s. ‘They’ll fall flat on their faces, just like General Sanjurjo four years ago.’
He showed Curtis the clock on top of the Obelisk. ‘There’s his lordship, Time. Wouldn’t it be better if there was a cuckoo? My childhood hours were struck by Mr Tettamancy’s cuckoo clock. The cuckoo’s song. The knife-grinder’s whistle. And the ships’ sirens. All under the sweeping light, the luminescent fan, of Hercules Lighthouse. Those were the foundations of jazz in my life. When I fall over, it’s that liberal cuckoo’s song that keeps me going. That’s right! Cuckoo in the Clock. A big cuckoo telling the time on top of the Obelisk. Or a ship’s siren. Every time we hear the word “sea”, we should all fall on our knees.’
He turned around and stretched out his arms like an orator’s. ‘People of Coruña, kneel before the sea! Neptune, Poseidon, Andrés de Teixido, these should be our gods, forever at the feet of the scallop-shell goddess. All the best things arrived by sea. Saints and virgins on stone boats. Who but King Lear is buried in Santiago?’
Sada looked at Arturo. The boxer’s anxious silence. He changed voice and abandoned his declamatory tone.
‘Truth is I’m a very good prophet. When it comes to predicting the past, I always get it right.’
He then had a look at the flyer and adopted a more confidential tone, ‘ANTI-FASCIST MEETING IN THE BULLRING? Take care who you hand these leaflets to in case you end up giving one to the head matador. Sewn in here,’ he said, pointing to his earlobe, ‘is Juan Luis Vives’ warning to Erasmus: “You can’t talk or be silent without risk.”’
He told them how when he was a boy, something happened he always interpreted as a bad omen. His father had been campaigning against bullfighting, demanding an end to all bullfights, which were described