Books Burn Badly - Manuel Rivas [92]
Harmony tells me off, ‘There you go again! You think everything’s a joke.’
No. I don’t agree. The thing is I like talking to myself. Sometimes I can’t wait to be alone, so that I can talk to myself. I start walking and talking and feel a special joy in my legs. My whole body is talking. There are times when I’m about to invent a word and have to stop. Not a good idea. There was one I saw that looked invented to me. A brickie was carrying a sack of cement, which said PORTLAND in big letters. I thought that word was invented. Hadn’t existed before. I could have asked him. He was pretty dishy in that skimpy T-shirt. After that, I saw lots of them, who weren’t bad-looking either, all carrying that word on their shoulders. PORTLAND cement, I mean.
The only one I have to explain myself to is Harmony. Harmony, you see. I know I have to pay her attention.
The painter told me she’d found an alarm mechanism which warns you when the boy is going to pee in his sleep. A mechanism from abroad. I think that’s good. We all need an alarm, whatever the fault. When I saw it, I realised the world was changing. The importance of machines. And those yet to come. Some people are opposed to medicines. For the head. It’s easy to say, but if I get ill, they can give me anything. Acetylsalicylic acid straight off. Whatever’s necessary. I don’t mind being left alone, but not without something to take against a migraine. Sometimes, when I go too far, when I stand against the world, I’m afraid she who organises things will get upset and leave me. Because, of all the women inside, Harmony’s the most affable. She’s great at tidying up the mess, at picking up the pieces, all the scattered rubbish, at putting the mouth back on its hinges and above all at pairing socks. Because if there’s something that bothers me, come nightfall, it’s having odd socks. Not one, not three, but up to half a dozen socks without a partner, which on their own are a question: what happened to the other? It’s one thing for that to happen in a room, quite another at the washing place, where it’s cold, damp, and you’re searching for socks which, when they’re loose, are like insects with a mind of their own. They like to be unpaired. It’s the same inside your head. You’re about to go to sleep when you notice there’s a mess, the things you thought or said are missing a sock. One’s caught on a bramble bush, in a corner behind your eyes, and you have to go and look for it. That’s where Harmony comes in. And she still has time to talk to you with the voice of a bonesetter putting the bones of words in their place, so that you can sleep without pain, without itching, without the cold that makes you lose your hands and feet. That can really happen. Suddenly you don’t feel your hands. You’re washing, but you can’t feel them. They’re the colour of elder wood. You smack them to get the blood running. You breathe on them, as much as you can, like an ox in the crib. Though the best solution is to pop them up your skirt, between your thighs, in the nest. There they warm up. There they revive. But it’s much worse when you lose your hands in a dream. Then it’s Harmony who comes to the rescue and gives you some new hands, like those of a mannequin. What a relief!
Harmony, Harmony. How I love Harmony! There are lots of other women stuck in my head, each doing her own thing. Each with her own tics and peculiarities. There are some that disappear one day and come back when you’re least expecting it. Some you don’t miss so much, but Harmony I can’t let out of my sight. When I lose her, when I’m desperate about something, when the socks are unpaired, the first thing I have to do is find Harmony. Which I almost