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By Root 703 0

there in the beginning and returned as if to a wreckage. He’d already made off with a stack of books and optical instruments. This time all he found in the hallway, lying on the floor, was one of the entomological boxes containing labelled insects. What he saw were some repugnant bugs that looked like beetles. He kicked it away with disgust. Why weren’t there any large butterflies? He then went to what must have been the girls’ bedroom. There was a china doll. Broken. On the window sill, a dried starfish and some sea urchin skeletons. He decided to shake the skeletons and out fell some jet earrings. That was something at least. From the window, he could see the garden with a large lemon tree in the middle. The garden’s back wall formed a border. On the other side: sin city. The dividing walls of Papagaio. He looked carefully. Something was stuck to the wall, in among the weeds. Something black. Possibly a ball. But balls weren’t usually black. He went downstairs and descended the garden steps. Swore again. The ball was a strange, oval shape, glistening from the rain. A head. But a head that wasn’t a head. He picked it up. Made of wood. It looked like a head. Eyes, mouth, nose barely discernible in thin lines. And a hole as of a bullet. You never know. Perhaps it’s meant to be like this. It could be a sculpture. Something valuable. The Casares were fashionable people. À la mode. He’d take it. It wasn’t bad, the black woman’s head. Something at least. And as he pondered the mysterious value of things, he glanced at the entomological box and read Coleoptera. If they’re Coleoptera, maybe they’re not beetles. Who knows? There are some strange folk around. Someone might even pay for them. This one, for example. What’s it say? Coccinella septempunctata.

Another book fell next to the scaffold. He picks it up by the back. A little higher. By the neck. That’s life. He steps aside and again opens the book. The supervisor, still a young man, turns the page. Starts reading slowly as he paces around the fire. He may have found an unconscious discipline in reading, a comma or a full stop on the bottom of his boot. He suddenly stops, closes the book and holds it to his chest, in his left hand, like someone carrying a missal, while with his right hand he removes his spectacles, rubs his eyes with the back of his hand and blinks like someone emerging from a cinema. He takes the book and places it on a small pile away from the fires. ‘This one’s staying with me,’ he says. ‘Under house arrest!’

‘On the Fertilisation of Orchids . . .’

One of them, the youngest, who to start with looked lazy, but gradually grew more enthusiastic, especially when he managed to repeat the impossible word, that abracadabra, to say ‘para-lle-le-pipeds’, which made him feel as happy as if he’d just vaulted a horse, three jumps in the air, after various unsuccessful attempts, is the one having fun reading out the titles. House arrest? He also has a peek at the pile of books the supervisor’s making.

‘On the Fertilisation of Orchids by Insects! By Charles Darwin.’

Parallelepiped sniffs three times as he reads. Fertilisation? Orchids? Insects? Something’s not quite right. Something bothers him. The idea of orchids being fertilised by insects.

‘That’s disgusting!’

He drops the book in the fire, fucking insects, orchid whores, spits and starts to move faster, using his jokes as a kind of manual lever.

‘Quo vadis? Straight for the flames! Another Conquest of Bread! How many Conquests is that?’

He lifts the book and shouts, ‘More bread! Make bread, ye baking women!’ He manages to attract a few sarcastic smiles. He then goes full out in search of a belly laugh, ‘If you’re not up the duff already!’ He chucks the book, which falls not like a parallelepiped, but like a concertina. A flame comes in search of this light being and he feels encouraged, as if there’s an understanding between them and the fire also likes his jokes. Where is everybody? Why isn’t there more of an audience? Has he got to organise the party and let off the fireworks?

‘What a lot of bread! Germinal,