Books Burn Badly - Manuel Rivas [197]
His cabinet of curiosities, however, was relegated to a second level. Now, despite their value and meaning, they were more archaeological remains than anything. The typewriter was too big, too out of scale, and pulled him away from childhood, quickly through adolescence, to the doors of another age. That of secret, personal writing.
Eventually Neves, who was worried, decided to bring it up with Chelo. Gabriel had balls of paper in the pockets of his coat, jacket, trousers. He used to keep his notebooks tidy. Now he filled notebooks not only from school, but of different sizes. This may not have mattered. But sometimes, in the morning, his room would be full of loose sheets of paper covered in strange signs, as well as balls of paper, spherical forms that overflowed the wastepaper basket. Gabriel would rush out in the morning. If she’d come to have a word with Chelo, it wasn’t to stick her nose into other people’s business. She wasn’t a meddler. Besides, she wouldn’t have been able to understand anything even if she’d wanted to. They were scrawls. Unintelligible. She’d come because it seemed to her that Gabriel often didn’t sleep at night. When she got up early, she noticed a crack of light under his door. All night with scrawls, shorthand or whatever they called it, couldn’t be good.
‘What are you writing?’ his mother asked him that evening. With a smile, as if by chance. Without wanting to disturb him, without a hint of suspicion. (He’s little; the door opens and it’s her in a black felt hat with a white tulle veil almost covering her eyes; she bends down with open arms and he doesn’t know whether to stay still or run towards her, crouching down with open arms: doucement, doucement; now he’s the one wearing an invisible veil.)
He’s momentarily taken aback. Why’s she asking him this now precisely? He can’t read her what he’s writing.
My father entered the house in a rage. As he arrived, Medusa was leaving through the front door with a large fish, a bluefin tuna, on top of her head.
‘I don’t understand you, Chelo. Inviting her into the house. That meretrix!’
Meretrix. Look it up in the dictionary. Prostitute, a woman who engages in sexual activity in return for payment.
‘Do me a favour. Tell your models to use the service entrance. That’s what it’s there for. I’m a judge. I have to keep up appearances.’
‘She’s a woman. A human being.’
‘I can see what she is. Did you know she was in prison for having an abortion? The stupid girl almost killed herself with a knitting needle. They left her outside the first-aid post. Blood was pouring down Palloza.’
‘I see. There was a lot of blood. And, on top of that, she had to go to prison for it.’
‘Not as long as she should have. She was lucky. The doctor who saw her used vague language in his report. You know what I think. It’s possible to pity a criminal, but never a woman who aborts.’
‘Do you know why half her face is covered?’
‘What are you writing, Gabriel?’
‘Everything.’
The Lighthouse’s Novel
‘Mr Montevideo . . .’
‘Forget what I said. That joke about an inexperienced writer was a bit cruel. I’m always doing that. It’s like a tic.’
In fact, Tito Balboa or Stringer wasn’t worried about the joke. He’d heard it before. Santos, the one who turned out to be a policeman, may have been worried. Whatever the doctor might think, that policeman revered him. Catia as well, who didn’t? But he also had great admiration for Dr Montevideo. Either that or he was very good at pretending. He’d listen to him with rapt attention. Take down all his notes. Do all the exercises. The doctor was convinced he was trying to catch him out, was accumulating evidence, investigating, so that he could then report him. Most of the time, he held himself in check. Other