Books Burn Badly - Manuel Rivas [158]
‘In short, Balboa, what I mean is the governor doesn’t want extraterrestrials in his province. Nor does he want Hercules Lighthouse being presented as a cosmic reference point, an operations base, where, if I didn’t misunderstand you, sowers of cosmozoons are planning a landing. So there’s an end to aliens in the Expreso. A whole squadron of UFOs with Hypernauts and Inhabitants of Emptiness can turn up, we’re not reporting it even in brief.’
‘I still don’t understand why.’
‘Take my advice. Stop asking why! We’re journalists, that’s all. We’re not philosophers or . . . selenotropes? Did you ever see a newspaper with question marks? This is not an industry of whys. Why’s the US conducting a war in Vietnam? Why’d they demolish the Cooperative, one of the city’s most beautiful buildings? Why’d they pull down Primitive Baths and the Health Spa, which is a lot of pulling down? Well, my friend, to build a garage. No more Primitive or Health, that’s what great words have in store for them. We could print a full-page WHY? A local, universal, cosmic WHY? It’d be a great day for Spanish journalism. And our evening paper’s last.’
He stood up. He looked fatter when he was annoyed. Today Stringer attributed this abdominal enlargement to his theory on the restriction of whys. He brandished the newspaper in front of him.
‘See this photo? Who is it? Yes, it says so in the headline. It’s Carmencita, Franco’s daughter, water-skiing. Right here, in Coruña Bay. You ever see someone water-ski in a long skirt? No, of course not. Well, she wasn’t wearing one either. Her legs were bare as they should have been. So why’s she in a skirt? Because we received an indication, got it? Someone upstairs picks up the phone and indicates the Caudillo’s daughter has to appear in a skirt, so her legs can’t be seen. You don’t ask why. You just cover her legs. See this article. There’s a quote from a song where it should say, ‘Leaning against the jamb of the brothel’. What does it say? Go on, tell me.’
Stringer read the bit he was pointing to, ‘Leaning against the jamb of the hostel’.
‘Nonsense, right? Why? What for? You want to know why? The guy in charge of words is in charge of us, inside and out. I’ll tell you something else, but I don’t want it leaving this office.’
His habit of glancing to the sides. He looked as if he was going to withdraw his offer. He believed in oaths. He repeated in a deep voice, ‘I don’t want it leaving this office.’
‘You have my word, sir.’
‘I was thinking of publishing a childhood memoir by Salvador de Madariaga. No politics. Memories of a Coruñan child. An intimate piece with a strong regional flavour. Quite innocent. There weren’t even any chlorocephalids.’
‘Chlorocephalids?’ enquired Balboa. The director of the Expreso, who was often reserved, had these expansive moments when he even invented new words.
‘Yeah, those little men with green heads eating astropops, like the ones you saw around the lighthouse. Anyway, I was thinking of printing this piece by the Spanish historian, which would require authorisation since, as you know, the illustrious Coruñan may not be an extremist, but he does live in exile. For this reason, I went to Madrid, to the Ministry. Naively I thought the fact the three of us – the Minister, the writer and me – were all Galician would make it easy. But remember one thing, Balboa. All this pretence about being from the same country is a letter of credence, a visa, for someone who’s planning to stab you in the back. The Minister received me in person and I thought no problem. I explained what it was about and he asked to see the document. He read it right there, in front of me. Very calmly. He was obviously interested. He knew the areas where the child had spent his life. And