Books Burn Badly - Manuel Rivas [253]
His eyes are on the glass. He sees the puppet’s reflection.
‘Shall I tell you a joke, sir?’
‘No.’
He was about to say he didn’t like jokes or jokers. I despise jokers even more than jokes. He kept quiet. He could have spoken, but he’d renounced the art of conversation. It didn’t seem reasonable to have to explain himself to a puppet. On the other hand, he didn’t have the energy to lift his head and observe the puppeteer. If he had to speak, he preferred to speak to the puppet.
‘Have you seen a boomerang go past, sir?’
‘No, not today.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said the puppet. ‘Did you know you’re flying low? The weight of the silent dagger.’
He looked at his flies. It was true. They were open.
‘Thank you. Much obliged.’
‘Don’t mention it, sir. Manolo Pinzón at your service.’
It left. He was sorry now. Really a very interesting puppet. Sharp-witted. And not at all boring. He went back to his glass. Who knows? Perhaps, if he followed it, he’d come to a city beyond the sea. They’d go down street after street until suddenly the puppet started moving him. He’d be the one hanging on strings. They’d stop in front of a building with a shop sign on which was written Invisible Remedy. The puppet would say, ‘Now, Leica, raise your head. Look up there, at that window on the third floor. It’s her.’
‘Impossible! I can’t see anything.’
‘Don’t be daft, Leica. It’s her!’
He sits on the terrace of the Dársena Café, his eyes sunk in a glass of amber. Liquid photos. Curtis goes by with the horse Carirí. Leica recognises them, but is not sure why. They must be coming from the lighthouse, Hercules Lighthouse. He sometimes thinks people coming down from Mount Alto are amphibian and also aerial creatures. They stop. The travelling photographer greets him with affection. He likes creatures that give you a wave and then carry on. They leave a wake in the amber and that’s all. Farewell, friend. Farewell, horse. Farewell.
You I Can
Today he won’t listen to an extract from The Invisible Man, as he usually does. Today he’ll be late. Who knows what time he’ll turn up? After funerals, the men invite him for a drink. And he has to go. Says it’s part of his duty to toast the souls. Give them one last push.
He has his very own toast for bars: ‘Matter is neither created nor destroyed, it is simply transformed.’ He always says this, with feeling, and the deceased’s relatives are grateful because it sounds convincing. Scientific. Like a commandment. ‘Another round?’
It’s what he says when Olinda tells him off for drinking too much.
‘A fine state you’re in!’
‘Matter is neither created nor destroyed, sweetheart, it is simply transformed.’
When Polka drinks too much after a funeral, he sings hymns to everything. You can tell he’s drunk by the way he opens the door. Today scientific proof, as he’d say, because when he opens the double door, the upper leaf bangs against the wall. He’s always telling us to open the door slowly so the upper leaf doesn’t bang against the wall and spoil the paintwork. Pinche makes him suffer every time he bangs the door when he comes in. So whenever he opens the door and there’s a slam, Olinda and I know that Polka, in an attempt to dissemble, is going to shout out some vivas – long live electricity, long live Carballo bread, long live fillets of cod and cauliflower, long live the Umbrella Maker’s whistle – and then sing ‘The moth alights in a very pretty way’. He pops into our bedroom in the hope that Olinda will go back to sleep and forget about her invisible man. Sits next to my bed and murmurs the refrain: ‘Till it finds a flower, it never wants to alight’.
He sings the one about autumn leaves.
‘This is no time for singing!’ shouts Olinda from bed.
He likes that song a lot. I like it when he sings it. ‘We’re two autumn leaves’.
‘We’re out of time, girl.’ Then he asks me one of his scientific questions, ‘Why do leaves change colour?’
‘To save light.’
‘Why?’
‘To live longer. There’s