Books Burn Badly - Manuel Rivas [56]
‘You.’ ‘Me?’ ‘You too.’ Ten men he pointed to. With rakes and shovels. Rakes? It was August, but I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn the leaves were falling off the trees. That was the first thing I did. As soon as we entered Cantóns, I looked to the right to see if the beech still had leaves. It was beautiful, in season, like the bust underneath belonging to Mr Pondal. I mean the bust was also in season, with the dark age of bearded men in white marble. If we have to collect leaves, then I hope they’re the beech’s. That beech’s. But the lorry went straight past at an improper speed. Even if all the men in the back of the lorry were disaffected, the speed was still improper. We’d heard the order. To pick men who were disaffected. There we were, park and garden employees, and the new manager pointed to ten men. ‘You, you, you,’ and so on, up to ten. That finger stung like a horse-fly. It doesn’t matter what it’s for, who likes suddenly to be called ‘disaffected’? Because just now, a few days ago, there weren’t any disaffected. I mean I was unfamiliar with that label. Had I had to introduce myself to the world, I wouldn’t have started: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, my name’s Francisco Crecente, Polka to my friends, municipal gardener, specialist in pruning palms, oh and by the way I’m disaffected.’ It was like an oedema appearing that hadn’t been there before. Or a tic. He pointed with his index finger, ‘You! You! You!’ And with the same reflex action of pointing to ourselves, we replied, ‘Me? Me? Me?’ Like that. As if we all had tics, which we didn’t. On the lorry, swaying from side to side, the disaffected, clinging to the rakes, more than that, physically attached to the rakes, which have the solid shape of tools that put down roots even on a violently unstable lorry. The lorry had acquired the arrogant attitude, the cheek of heavy machinery that’s been relieved of its scruples. The soldier who gave the order and the new manager who carried it out travelled in the motorcycle and sidecar combination behind. We disaffected, with tics, dancing around for them. Stuck to our rakes. Estremil looked to see which way we were going and then tried to explain something, something important, but couldn’t make himself understood because it was like riding a horse, your teeth cut the words short.
‘What?’
The lorry turned sharply. The wheels creaked. It braked suddenly.
We were next to the port in a kind of low, grimy mist. I now understood the reckless driving and the hollow feeling in the stomach. We hadn’t travelled horizontally, we’d fallen. Now I could hear Estremil, the echo of what Estremil had been trying to say. He was cursing. ‘Blasted mouth of hell!’
‘Out!’
The ground was giving off a thick, sticky smoke that, rather than leaving, seemed to return. Sniffed around the embers. A smoke that, instead of disappearing, came back to the trail left by the rakes’ teeth. It wasn’t until we were down by the docks that we realised why we were there. To rake up the ashes and smoking remains of books. Some of those who’d burnt them hung about, sifting through the pyres, kicking at the bones of books. This gesture reminded me of the first image I had of death. Not the first time I saw a dead person, when I was small, which didn’t frighten me since it was my grandfather, who looked very peaceful, cradled by women’s prayers, his arms over the sheet, one hand on top of the other as if he’d caught death with his fingers, but the first time I saw death out of a box, another image. There’d been a fight between two men after a party. They got on badly, but that night, strangely enough, they’d been drinking together like lifelong friends. I remember my father interpreted it as a bad sign. Afterwards he was annoyed with himself for getting it right, ‘If it’s a bad sign, son, don’t say so, because words hanker after what they’ve said.’ Someone woke us early the next morning with the news. One of them was badly wounded, the other dead. They’d come to blows at the crossroads. We children ran to have a look. The corpse had been piously draped