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By Root 656 0

’d wear to a wedding or funeral. Several details in their appearance soon gave them away. One above all. The rebellious nature of the knots in their ties. Stockbreeders’ ties had a life of their own and they, not their owners’ hands, seemed to decide when to loosen or tighten. Then there were their nails. Their sideburns and moustaches, if they had them, were carefully groomed, yes, but appeared to shy away from precise measurements and leave a gap, like a furrow, between fallow and arable land. As for their nails, they seemed resigned to belonging to themselves and to the earth as well. They were unlike any others and what Curtis found most strange is that they were unlike each other, the nails of one hand, like small stone axes or slates embedded in flesh. They didn’t wear a suit, the suit wore them. Curtis didn’t like these men who came from villages with a false modesty, a grimy shyness. A state that didn’t last long. Alcohol soon transformed them into braggarts and produced a mean, greedy monster. In the case of sailors, speech came before presence. Words hauled them in on threads. People who listen are a blessing for sailors on land. And Hercules was there to listen.

During the afternoon, in the long summer hours, when the Academy’s only client was Monsieur Le Clock, the odd sailor would drop by. Most of the women used the afternoon break to sleep in time’s embrace, under a quilt of shadows. And the sailor would look around in search of someone to listen and light on Hercules’ open eyes. Because while he also was in time’s embrace, even when he slept, his eyes stayed open.

‘Not completely, but a little bit, yes.’

‘That’s good,’ declared Pombo. ‘For someone like him, that’s good. He needs them on both sides, like a hare, all the better to see with.’

‘You’ve got them on both sides,’ said Flora, ‘like a sentry.’

‘Get over it, girl. At a certain age, you become invisible. Transparent. They can’t see you.’

‘Even with raised insoles?’

‘Hey Samantha! Will you go and see if that pussy’s laid an egg?’

‘The orphanage? No one’s leaving here for the orphanage,’ said Samantha and for once her authority and sentiment seemed to coincide. ‘The only thing I’m sorry about is I promised Grande Obra a baby Jesus for their nativity scene.’

‘And what’s wrong with the child?’ asked Flora.

‘You’re impossible to talk to,’ said Samantha. ‘He’s ugly. And that mark on his back . . .’

‘It’s no problem,’ said Flora suddenly, looking very serious. ‘He’s been offered to the Union as well.’

‘The Union has a nativity scene?’

‘And an Epiphany parade.’

‘Grande Obra asked first,’ said Samantha. ‘The Bolshies have enough with their revolution.’

‘They’re not Bolsheviks. They’re anarchists.’

‘Like me. From here on down.’

‘You’re a brute the size of a plough.’

‘I’m from the village, like you. And proud of it.’

‘I’m not from the village,’ said Flora. ‘I was washed up by the sea.’

‘Now listen here, you . . .’

‘The important thing,’ the Widow intervened, ‘is to have a godfather who can say the Creed. So the child doesn’t stammer.’

‘In Italy, there’s a baby Jesus who’s a girl.’

‘And in Vinhó he’s dressed up as Napoleon.’

‘Aren’t we international!’ Samantha exclaimed, while Pombo started singing a Peruvian carol:

Here comes the Mayor’s child

Here comes the Christ-child

It may have been the effect of having to draw back an entrance curtain, but many of the stories the sailors told Curtis or, to be more precise, told his open, attentive eyes were about things that turned up in whales’ bellies. Some brought not only the stories, but the things as well. Like the harpooner Mr Lens.

There were two big whaling companies in Galicia, the Spanish Whaling Company and the Spanish Crown Society. Behind both of them was the influential industrialist Massó. One of the factories was in Caneliñas, in Cee, with the whaling ships based in Coruña Harbour. Lens of Arou, the harpooner, knew nothing about Massó, but a lot about whales. They were his life. The first time he saw a whale was on top of a rock on Lobeira Beach. He was fishing for octopuses