Books Burn Badly - Manuel Rivas [5]
‘In Madrid, we printed five thousand copies of the New Testament. Soon after I arrived, in May 1837. I distributed a large number myself through Spain by hand. Otherwise they’d have rotted in some dungeon, as some of them did a year later, when I was arrested and it was forbidden to sell or circulate the New Testament. The Papists didn’t want the people reading the Gospel! The Vatican assigned Spain the role of butcher and always kept the people apart from the Word of God. A scandal that was never talked about. In the most Catholic country in the world, people were afraid to buy the Holy Scriptures. You could see their nostrils quivering when I put a book in their hands. They could smell the flames of the Inquisition.’
‘There’s one thing I didn’t understand today or yesterday,’ said Henrietta. ‘Did you actually sign the Holy Scriptures?’
‘Not sign. It was an act of thanksgiving, a bold step I never repeated. I wrote a dedication: “For Antonio de la Trava, the valiente of Finisterra”. And then my signature. The man saved my life. And there’s no denying that whoever saves a life saves mankind. You’re inclined to agree with the Talmud, especially when it’s you being saved. I presented him with the book on a night like this. He’d escorted me to the town of Corcuvion, to the house of the head alcalde, a conceited man who laughed at me for travelling with the New Testament. Antonio, however, was moved. He told me he would read the Word of God when the winds blew from the north-west, preventing their launches from putting to sea. I think he was a little merry. He’d been drinking brandy during my interview with the alcalde. He addressed me as captain and told me, when I next came to Finisterre, to come in a valiant English bark, with plenty of contrabando on board. He was clearly a liberal through and through.’
A second moth crashed into the lamp. A huge, white-haired saturniid. The moths first banged against the window and then found their way in with the breeze, together with the scent of lavender.
‘I’m going to bed,’ said Henrietta. ‘You should do the same.’
It was the month of July 1881. Summer had irrupted into the old man’s body. Now, having told the story of the storm at Finisterre, he seemed to have calmed down. He took a few unsteady steps towards his desk, wanting to translate some Armenian poems.
‘Good night,’ said Henrietta.
‘Knife!’ he answered.
The Newspaper Seller
16 June 1904
His. He thought it was his. Just as a new swarm, when it leaves the hive and takes to the air with the queen, belongs to whoever catches it. He’d caught a newspaper dated 16 June 1904. Today’s newspaper. He was in the docks, on his way to the far end of the Iron Quay, it being about time he embarked, when the newspaper flew in front of him. The sluggish flight of newspapers that haven’t been read yet, pursued by the seagulls’ mocking calls. Not since his childhood had he been able to let a printed piece of paper take off like that. Others went after bird nests or bats, but he, Antonio Vidal, went after printed matter. Anything would do so long as it had writing on it. Even toilet paper, strips cut up with no respect for the columns’ order, so he’d soon learnt not only to read, but to put the pieces back together. Which helped him to see the world. To spot what was missing.
Antonio Vidal trapped the newspaper by stepping on its wings. He then picked it up and folded it. Calmed it down. The newspaper was no longer alone, it now had someone to read it. It contained news of important events. A Greek freighter had sunk off the Lobeira Isles in the Corcuvion estuary. There’d been so much fog the members of the crew had been unable to see each other on deck. This was followed by reports of adulterated wine, fishing with dynamite . . . But his eyes were drawn to the section of Telegrams. He had an instinct for the latest news.
MADRID 15 (23 h.) Parliament extremely dull today. Most MPs went to the bullfight.