Books Burn Badly - Manuel Rivas [54]
‘When are you taking that horse out?’ Curtis had asked him not long before. He couldn’t understand why he kept it shut up in his studio. It would draw the crowds in Recheo Gardens. The finest photographer’s horse. And Coruña was a city that had lots of wooden and papier-mâché horses. It even had a horse factory at the bottom of the hill of Our Lady of the Rosary. But the horse Carirí, the horse that had come all the way from Cuba, was quite a horse. ‘When are you taking it to Recheo?’
‘I’m not. It was my father who brought it from Cuba. The whole lot came together. Cameras and horse. I think it was the horse he liked most. But I don’t want to be an instant photographer. I want to take artistic photos. Why don’t you have it?’
The page of an illustrated magazine nestled at Antonio Vidal’s feet the day of his departure in July 1933 on the quay in Havana. This lost, flying page, which had reached the end of the pier, along the ground, and was about to fall into the sea, but suddenly gained height, spun in the air and came towards him as if it had found a direction. It landed at his feet, he didn’t have to harpoon it, spear it with the tip of his cane.
Spirals of smoke rising from their coquettish lips
He felt the smoke had nothing to do with tobacco or the picture of a happy life, but was a message in itself, aimed at him, rising from the paper like a swift climbing plant. He could read so well because a large part of the surface was taken up with photos of women’s faces. He couldn’t tell them apart. They were smiling, but each one seemed to contain a mystery. At this distance, for a man who, to walk, had to overcome his legs’ resistance and whom others were beginning to regard as a watch running slow, all the smiles were as one before disappearing into the cone of the paper wrapped around the cane.
Farewell, Havana.
The page searching for him now in Coruña has other concerns. Mayarí shakes the sheet in an effort to get rid of it. While he finds it difficult to resist paper flying in front of him, today he’s on another mission. To reach the coach as soon as possible and save his son. The son pulling on the wooden horse. Ever since he set eyes on that horse, he’s always trusted it.
He tries to shake it off, but now it’s the page that doesn’t want to let go and enfolds him. Antonio Vidal’s attempt to shake it off, the rotatory movement of his arm, a slap in reverse, seems to provoke the large sheet, which sticks to him, holds on with the desperation of someone who doesn’t know how to escape. So he has to stop. Put down the camera.
‘Come here,’ he says to the sheet of paper. ‘Calm down. The world’s such a big place, didn’t you have anywhere else to go?’
A photo. It catches his eye because it’s the only photo and the scene is very real. It looks as if it’s been taken from where he’s standing. And what can be seen in the background of the photo is what he can see as well. The fires. The burning books, but also the Falangists who are burning them, making the Fascist salute. He now understands why the sheet clung to him. It was fleeing from the flames.
‘Hey you, photographer!’
On seeing the cameras and horse, everyone seemed to lose all interest in the boy next to the fire.
Hercules, meanwhile, was focused on something else.
Yes, he’d swear it was him, Terranova, with his hands in his pockets. Now he takes out his hands and puts them to his mouth. For God’s sake, don’t shout, don’t give yourself away. What’s he doing? Whistling with his fingers. Yes, it could only be him. The whistle attracts the Falangists’ attention again, puts them on their guard. They peer through the clouds of smoke to see where it’s coming from. What’s that idiot up to? Now he wears the horn in the artistic style of Lucho, maker of Andalusian costumes. This apparition, whistle, ornamental gesture with the horn, upsets everything. Curtis takes a few steps back and performs an unusual manoeuvre.