Books Burn Badly - Manuel Rivas [213]
Adulterous conduct consists of carnal union between two miscreants that can be expressed by the terms: lying together, carnal access, copulation, cohabitation, leading a joint, intimate or marital life. It is essential that the lying together be evident or deduced from proven facts but, given the difficulty of surprising someone in the complete, material act, its existence can be deduced from facts that are more symptomatic, such as spending eighteen days in a hotel . . .
Eighteen days?
Why eighteen days?
Despite its absurdity, this law tested the imagination. The penalties were severe, involved imprisonment and related only to woman. According to the law, she could be convicted if she was surprised once with the other miscreant in bed. Adultery is committed by a married woman who lies with a man who is not her husband, and by the one who lies with her, knowing her to be married, even if the marriage is then declared null and void. Paúl Santos, however, was thinking about something else, not the judge or his wife. Eighteen days in a hotel room with the Tachygraphic Rose. He tried to trigger his imagination, but couldn’t get past the first day. He was happy like this. Went back to the typewriter. Pressed a few keys. The word cohabitation. The word miscreant. The word bed. The metal bars got entangled and prevented the carriage return. He started again. Arms at right angles. The optic nerve connected to the fingers, but without looking. That’s right. Have another go. I embark on this poem in the hope its felicity of phrase will speed the boat towards St Pierre and Miquelon.
The Notebook
‘You can be present if you wish, Mr Samos.’
‘No, it’s better if you talk to him alone.’
Gabriel didn’t talk. He read from his notebook. After saying goodbye to the docks, or on the boat to the Xubias, or when crossing Ponte da Pasaxe, or going inside the boat-houses, or taking the tram to Sada, or on the train to Betanzos, and once (‘Surely not!’ muttered Chief Inspector Ren), once it even happened on the upper deck of a trolleybus, one of those red trolleybuses from London, the number 2, Porta Real–Os Castros, there too they did it, made love or something, his hand up her skirt.
‘Surely not!’
Yes, she’d been protected, covered by this city of Mist Pee, Fly Pee, Wind on the Side of Hunger, Widows’ Wind, Night Enclosure, Sky with a Shell, with an Awning, Bramble Sky, Oza in a Thunderstorm, thunder and lightning, this city with its carnal, voluptuous, promiscuous sky.
Between thunder and lightning, when it cleared, thanks to Gabriel’s tale, everyone began to see clips of Chelo Vidal kissing and loving the Portuguese architect. Or whoever it was. And in this third party’s tale there was an enjoyment, a lingering, that acted like a sucker on the temples of all who listened.
Everything Gabriel said was noted down in shorthand or in handwriting no onlooker could read. But Santos wasn’t looking at the strange notebook, he was watching the window, which was a moving picture of boats and cranes. Everything inside him was moving too. Rarely had he felt such excitement on account of language.
‘In the sea?’
‘Yes, they’d stay there for two, three, even four minutes and then emerge, blowing a siphon of water. In Canaval, when there was no one about, they’d wrap themselves in seaweed and roll in the sand.’
When he turned around, Ren was blowing smoke rings, which Mancorvo followed as they rose to the ceiling. The central table was empty, completely bare, except for Gabriel’s notebook, which gave it the air of an incendiary device. The eyes, facial muscles, position of the body, suggest an initial critical reaction to the text. The line of the mouth, for example, is a type of pronouncement. They were satisfied to begin with. Both were in a stupor, but it was a victorious stupor. With his smoke signals, Ren seemed to be savouring this surprising tale like a triumph. Having