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By Root 731 0

Even a short course in Esperanto he’d given at a cultural association. This also had been noted down. It was a terrible nightmare, as if a camera had been following him all his life. And then the extortioner mentioned the Law of Political Responsibilities. He could be tried not just for having Republican links. He could be tried, eighteen years after the end of the war, even for what he hadn’t done. For the crime of passivity. He was ready to resist, but the following day two members of the Political Brigade came to carry out a search. They turned everything upside down and took away his passport. In the afternoon, the guy came back. I was present that day. He again insisted that everything could be arranged. I remember his gesture. He brushed against a keyboard and said, “Carriages won’t go unless you grease them.” That’s what he said. He then hinted something about me and the academy. That’s when Montevideo gave in, I think. I didn’t know he’d paid. He retired to his room, the cabin, as if into a second exile. And started writing non-stop. He hasn’t stopped writing since. But you know that part.’

Yes, he knew that part. How he wrote western novels to earn a few pennies and then that work that filled his head day and night, A Dramatic History of Culture. He could hear the doctor, during a break in the class of advanced stenography according to the Martí method, asking him, ‘Do you consider yourself brave, Mr Santos?’ ‘I think so,’ Santos replied after pondering the question. It was then Montevideo said to him, ‘I’m only a little brave when I write.’

The echo of the question came back to him. ‘Do you consider yourself brave, Mr Santos?’

He could have guessed the ending to the story Catia was telling him since his incursion into the museum of horrors that was Ren’s house. But Santos didn’t dare say, ‘I know.’

He replied, ‘What you’re telling me is awful. Things’ll change, Catia. History will do justice. To Dr Montevideo as well.’

Shame about history, thought Paúl Santos. He also had a matter to settle with history. He was about to tell Catia something about the mystery of his biography, but his scientific gaze was stubborn. It was now examining colours. The various crimson shades of her lips, nails, knitted dress.

‘I have to go,’ she said, rising to her feet suddenly.

The knitted dress was cherry-coloured and had a black belt.

Paúl Santos stood up as well. He was going to protest, but he thought better and said, ‘I’ll go with you.’

‘No, I’d rather be alone today.’

That adverb, the word ‘today’, struck him as a trail worth following. An adverb to be studied through a magnifying glass.

Before leaving, however, Catia turned and spoke to him at high typing speed, ‘Do you know anything about two men in ashen suits who followed me down the street? Do you know why they were taking photographs?’

Paúl Santos picked up the chemical signals of imminent danger, but had no reply. He stopped seeing cherry colour and, looking into her eyes, shook his head. A scientific failure.

Ren’s ‘Museum’

The shutters were closed, the darkness thick and humid, a condition that seemed to belong to the house, a darkness incorporated, infiltrated, into the building, where the strange thing would have been light. But Santos picked out, with what he imagined was a mole’s eyesight, the scent of outlines, regardless of the position of windows and lamps.

He lifted the torch very slowly, feeling it in his grasp. As a boy, he liked to think it was the light that moved, using his hand. This torch was his companion, his weapon, a continuation of his body. He knew he could trust Catherine Laboure the night he was caught in the Room for Secret Deliveries and his torch wasn’t confiscated.

The whole of Ren’s sitting-room resembled a history museum. At first glance, Santos didn’t realise almost everything on display was recent. In the light of the torch, objects expressed mute surprise, helplessness. Even the swords.

Swords? Yes, swords. Swords with gold and silver embossed hilts and scabbards, decorated with ornamental or symbolic leaves. Lying