Books Burn Badly - Manuel Rivas [205]
Anyone who stared at O for long enough felt like storing things inside those large, open eyes.
‘He started with wolfram. Do you know what wolfram is? No, of course you don’t!’
O nodded. She’d never actually seen it. She couldn’t discuss its colour or appearance. But she knew everything about wolfram. There were three wolfram mine shafts in Polka’s right leg. Two in his ankle and one in his knee. He’d been forced to work as a prisoner in the River Deza mines. Had been wounded while trying to escape. A steady supply of this mineral, which was abundant in Galicia, was essential to the munition factories in Nazi Germany. Polka’s scars changed colour according to the season. In summer, they were pink. In winter, they turned dark violet. Which was when he limped the most. He’d received poor treatment. Polka said it had given the ants time to come inside him.
‘And why do you live here?’ O dared to ask.
‘I live here because it belongs to me. But now he wants to throw me out. Leave me in the street like a beggar. What am I supposed to do – sleep in a doorway? Trouble is he finds papers where there weren’t any. He puts himself about and, wherever I go, buildings or offices, they look at me like I’m a scarecrow. I’m not stupid. He’s taking everything. Making a mint with the old Dance Academy. I had it all, girl. Almost all. A lot. Something. I had something. You never heard of me, girl? Never heard of the Dance Academy? Look at that portrait. That’s hardly a scarecrow, now, is it? That boyish haircut. You should have seen me dancing the Charleston, foxtrot, cuplé. And all the rest of it. I was always ahead of the fashion. I always loved life, girl, though it’s a bitch. I got up to all kinds of things. But you won’t catch me in a confessional. You have to have a little bit, just a little bit of shame.’
She pointed to another portrait on the wall, that of a thin woman wearing an Andalusian costume. ‘Take her. Her name was Flora. She was a brave woman. Always contradicting me. She was almost always right. I was a bit bossy. And she did look better dressed as a flamenco dancer. She was right about that too. She disappeared during the first days of the war. That was the last I heard of her. I suppose, if she could, she died fighting.
‘Others had a better time of it. Even during the war. That one there’s Pretty Mary. She seemed very shy and delicate, like an eggshell. She was very devout back then, I suppose she still is, you can be both things at once, there are mystical women you had to see in order to believe when they let themselves go. They really could drive a man crazy. Pretty Mary is Manlle’s sweetheart. She still sings from time to time, but her job is to stand at a window, OK, it’s a luxury apartment, watching out for boats. Customs patrol boats, if you get my meaning. All she has to do is sing down the phone. “They’ve just left, Daddy. They’ve just come back, Daddy.” That way, the smugglers never get caught. There’s a merchant ship which is always just inside international waters. Called Mother. With a bellyful of tobacco. That’s the one that keeps everyone supplied. Manlle knows more about port traffic than the customs chief and police combined.
‘You know why I know so many things? Because I’m also a Mother.’ She draped the boa artistically over her shoulders, stroked her breasts and burst out laughing. ‘I used to be more of a Mother than I am now. This boat’s spent lots of time out in international waters. And some things only naughty mothers find out.’
O was curious about a smaller photo which was more worn than the others, had a serrated edge and showed a woman with a mattress on top of her head.
‘That’s Milagres. The cook who fluffed up the wool.’ She again shrieked with laughter. ‘The cook who fluffed