Books Burn Badly - Manuel Rivas [41]
‘That’s enough science for one day,’ said the operator. ‘Let’s see, Luís, sing us that carnival tango, the one about the Columbine who put smoke from the fire of her heart under her eyes.’
Terranova was at home there. He felt relaxed in the cabin on ‘Carmiña’, the house that moved without ever leaving, which was simultaneously on land, at sea and in the sky. Very rarely, the wind would get up inside his head and he’d battle with the world. He seemed to be collecting all the nicknames pumped out of all the ships’ bilges. You had to let him wander alone, with his hands in his pockets. When Curtis learnt this from Arturo, it was the first thing he passed on to Terranova. A human’s best training is with his shadow. You have to fight with your shadow.
‘Who told you that?’
‘Arturo da Silva. When he was in prison, years ago, he said he spent the time fighting his shadow. It taught him a lot.’
They were on Atocha Alta, on their way to Hercules Cinema. They took up combat positions by the wall next to the entrance. Each of them ready to fight his shadow.
‘But I don’t have a shadow,’ said Terranova in surprise.
It was true. They stood staring at Hercules’ shadow, which was squat and broad-shouldered.
‘Let me fight yours for a bit.’
‘You’re not allowed to kick. Look, like this. One two. One two.’
It was when he moved that Luís Terranova saw his slippery shadow take off from the kerb.
‘There it is, there’s my shadow!’
He ran and danced along the kerb, one two three, one two three, trying to stamp on it.
‘Don’t be stupid. You can’t tread on a shadow. It won’t let you.’
‘With my shadow, I’ll do what I feel like.’
He was also the Man of a Thousand Voices. This voice that expressed irritation, the one he’d just used with Curtis, was what he called his impulsive voice. The one his mother used when discussing price or quality. A fishwife’s voice. Her firm conclusion, which there was no going back on, was that the fish was fresh so long as a woman was carrying it on top of her head.
Luís twisted around, keeping an eye on his shadow, until he saw its profile on the wall, next to the stills.
‘A talented shadow! A film star.’
He picked up whatever he could find in port, most of all information. When he earned a few coins guiding sailors around the city’s lesser known parts, one of his favourite destinations was the Dance Academy. Luís had the nerve Curtis lacked. He’d promised his mother he’d take her to make a dress in the Paris-Coruña-New York style of the designer María Miramontes. He’d been there, spying on the seamstresses, having helped Vicente collect a stack of books for the Faith bookshop. María Miramontes’ husband was the publisher Ánxel Casal. Rumour had it the printing machine kept working thanks largely to her needle. It was true, the day they went, the designer and seamstresses were sewing books. But Luís Terranova was interested in the models. There was one, a rayon dress with a red silk bow around the waist. Imagine wearing that! It’d make anyone look cultured.
Luís had fun in the Dance Academy. The two extremes of a nomadic existence were the cabin on the crane ‘Carmiña’, with Ponte the operator, and the premises in Papagaio. Sometimes, when the madame, Samantha, previously known as Porch, was having a bad day, she would treat him like a mosquito that had come inside, trying to get away from the clouds and attracted by the lights. But other times she was the one who demanded silence and asked him to sing, one of those child prodigies born with the gift of voices, a thousand voices, who could sing like a man, a woman. Or a eunuch.
‘Why don’t you sing The Flea, Samantha? Where’s the flea, Samantha? It must have bred by now!’
A foul-mouthed spectator, reminding her of times that for her had not been better. Distant. Like Chelito after her stint in Lino’s Pavilion. But Samantha knew how to gain respect.
‘Well, now, I haven’t seen the flea for some time. It must have slipped down your mother’s fanny.’
It