Books Burn Badly - Manuel Rivas [35]
Curtis and Luís Terranova had come with Arturo and another boy from Shining Light who was a boxing fan, Pepe Boedo. They’d come to see the victor. And now they were feeling a little disappointed. According to local legend, Neto was a kind of gladiator. So they’d been expecting to hear a description of the fight, a glowing account of his exploits, but instead they were shown into a poorly lit room. The boxer had his feet in a bucket of hot water. Around his ankles, the bubbles looked like a flower arrangement, which was the only concession the scene allowed the hero. Even Carmiña, his wife, appeared to be forging the seven swords of Our Lady of Sorrow, though what she was in fact doing was hammering at a slab of ice in the kitchen. She’d bring in handfuls of irregular pieces, some like rocks, others like nails, for him to choose.
A newspaper was lying on the floor. It seemed to have been written there. Printed in that very room. The matrices of the letters scattered by Neto’s broken anatomy.
CHAMPION’S CALVARY
Good headline, thought Curtis. That newspaper was a bit like a mirror. He watched Arturo da Silva pick it up off the floor and casually put it out of sight.
Neto spoke through the cut in his eyebrow. Monosyllables, short sentences that pushed their way through the stitches. The rasping of words. Craters in some sentences where syllables had been punched out. Arturo da Silva administered the necessary dose. They now understood the reason for their visit was to cure, not celebrate, his victory.
‘All I can see are clouds. Your face looks like a storm’s coming.’
‘Every cloud has a silver lining. Who was it told me that rubbish?’
‘Could have been me,’ said Arturo with the same irony.
‘Culture’ll be the end of you, Arturo. Silver lining, my foot! Are you still attending the Rationalist School?’
‘In the evenings. Occasionally.’
‘I liked it, but I’d doze off. Without my knowledge, as I lay snoring on the desk, old Amil would use me to talk of the evolution of species.’
Curtis and Terranova also attend Master Amil’s evening classes. Arturo persuaded them. Curtis’ first teacher had been Flora, the Girl, the Conception Girl. She hated being interrupted when she was teaching him letters and numbers, but then she still held her tongue. Looking back at his life, in front of the pyres, Curtis remembered the last time he’d seen Flora, when she caused an earthquake in the Academy.
‘I’m leaving,’ she said in the dining-room.
No one seemed to have heard anything. They carried on eating. The suspense of spoons striking the bottom of plates.
‘What are you leaving?’ asked Samantha.
‘This. All of this. It’s nothing personal.’
‘Are you not happy? Do you want a bigger share?’
‘It’s not a question of how much. I won’t sell myself any more.’
Samantha exploded, brought her fist down on the table, ‘There isn’t much to sell!’
‘Well, what’s left of me.’ Flora didn’t take her eyes off Samantha and spoke surprisingly calmly, ‘Don’t be daft. I already said it wasn’t personal.’
‘Who converted you? The boxer? You think he’s going to change your life?’
‘Don’t bring him into this. You don’t have to drill holes with your tongue.’
‘Plenty of beach now. What happens when winter comes?’
‘Carry on with your sums,’ Flora would tell Curtis when she was teaching him how to multiply and had to go at the request of a client. ‘Remember how many you’ve counted. I’ll be right back.’ He counted by piles. She’d taught him using beans, chickpeas, grains of rice. Whatever there was. Numbers had colour and value. But now he had nothing to hand, they’d taken Flora and he had to replace real things with downstrokes. Two by four. Two piles of four. He then discovered