Books Burn Badly - Manuel Rivas [32]
Among the attractions at the festivities in Recheo Gardens were distorting mirrors and a Travelling Theatre of Live Impalpable Spectres. Luís Terranova had taken him to hear the voice of Mirco, the amazing queen with a glass eye. The German Circus had set up shop on the Western Quay, near the Wooden Jetty. To advertise the fact, a chimpanzee was driving in stakes, tightening ropes and, dressed as a field marshal, appeared to be in charge of erecting the big top. The beaches were crowded. Swimwear this year was more colourful, brilliant hues that enamelled bodies, but also smaller, revealing shoulders, stretches of thigh, hitherto unseen. Ancient and modern wonders filled the gardens on canvases photographers hung like stage sets and completed with wooden or papier mâché props. You could have your portrait taken in front of images from all over the world. The pyramids of Egypt, the skyscrapers of Manhattan, the Eiffel Tower, the Alhambra in Granada, the Statue of Liberty, Gaudí’s Sagrada Família, a winter landscape in Dalecarlia, the Plus Ultra hydroplane in Buenos Aires, riders at the Seville Fair, Machu Picchu, the Taj Mahal, the entrance to the Paris Métro at Porte Dauphine, the Pórtico da Gloria, Hercules Lighthouse, a picture of garlanded boats at Caneiros. Lots of people wanted a portrait in front of the snowy landscape of Dalecarlia in Sweden, with its sleighs and wooden cabins, but the longest queue was for Manhattan. Curtis and Terranova stood staring at the canvas of the river and a model boat with the sign ‘Caneiros’.
‘Do you want one of the Excursion to Caneiros?’ asked the idle photographer.
‘No thanks. We’re going on that universal cruise this year,’ said Terranova. ‘We’ve a ticket and everything.’
‘Nature imitates art,’ said the photographer. ‘Go on, as a kind of advertisement. A free photo. Everyone’s mad about skyscrapers today. That’s it, look this way, pretend you’re rowing, see if anyone wants a boat. Manhattan, they all want Manhattan. How folkloric!’
Apart from the soldiers, the place was empty, but Curtis thought about the attractions at the festivities as a way of protecting his back. Everything he’d experienced had come from behind, on the lookout, cautiously following in his footsteps. The spectres. Mirco’s glass eye. The people and their portraits in front of landscapes from around the world. Some in Swedish Dalecarlia, others queuing up for Manhattan. Luís Terranova imitates Mirco, waves a fig leaf as a loincloth while reciting ‘I am that vast, secret promontory . . .’ No. Luís Terranova isn’t there. He knows nothing about him. Feels guilty for letting him down. Because he’s got both their tickets. The tickets for the special train to Caneiros.
From time to time, as a leaf curled up, he saw words that were burning. He tried to reach, to catch them before they turned into smoke. He realised now why there were so few flames. The fire burnt inwards, down the furrows of printed words. Rooted in paper, words can be like heather. It can rain on the book, but the words still give off heat. There are some that take longer to burn than others. Which explains why they end up on their own in the ashes, on the surface of small membranes like those of crickets, cicadas and grasshoppers. He’d heard this from Polka. A mountain fire in summer smells of a mixture of vegetation and cricket and cicada wings, burnt song.
It was night still. He opened the skylight. Clambered over the roofs. At last felt the foxgloves’ rosy touch. His jealousy of cats and seagulls. When he dropped down on to one of the lower roofs and managed