Books Burn Badly

The Street Singer

HE’S ON HIS way to the censor’s office. Glances at the window of Camisería Inglesa on Real Street. There they are. The musicians’ shirts. This is where all the orchestras and bands buy their costumes. Shirts with lace adornments. Frills, embroidery, tassels, flared sleeves, large collars with sickle-shaped corners. They even have mariachi outfits. A festive assortment of shirts. That zone of intense colours. With the fuchsia shirt. Blasted bees! He should go straight in and get that fuchsia shirt. Not think about it. The day is luminous. All the sea and city mirrors work towards the light. A sin, fuchsia.

Today he’s in civilian clothes. No one’s going to shout out, ‘The censor, Commander Dez, has just bought the fuchsia shirt!’ You can never tell. No, Commander Dez knew he wouldn’t enter Camisería Inglesa this time either. He needed an assistant for such things. He’d already mentioned it at headquarters. Yes, like others, he needed a soldier for his domestic affairs. He carried on. Stopped outside Colón, previously the Faith bookshop. An avant-garde hang-out in the 1930s. With a name like Faith. Who’d have thought it? Words are like shirts. Here we go. He’d stopped to give his eyes a rest. To forget about the fuchsia. He certainly didn’t feel like looking at books today. He had a stack of them waiting at the office, as yet unpublished. Recently he’d been lazy. And he had this problem with his fingers. This contagious dermatitis.

By the Obelisk. Now that’s a good voice.

‘It’s ten and the clock chimes as I take a step into God’s time.’

Good? Extraordinary. A true voice. A spring. And he dares to sing that tango about someone who’s been sentenced to death right here, in the city centre. Coppery skin, clear eyes. What a guy!

He chucked him a coin. A big one. It fell outside his cap and rolled further along the pavement, as if making fun. The coin did a dance and finally settled near Curtis, the instant photographer, that tower of a man, thickset and silent, so still he seemed made of wood like the horse.

‘Some money’s fallen on the ground,’ said Commander Dez to Terranova. ‘Aren’t you going to pick it up?’

‘I didn’t see it fall,’ said Terranova, squinting comically up at the sky.

His reaction amused Dez. He was in a good mood. Anything this guy did had to have style. He put his hand in the inside pocket of his jacket, opened his wallet and produced a note which he held aloft, clinging to his fingers, and then released. The fall of the note seemed unreal. A period of slow motion which spread to all the movements on Cantóns. The note fell unwillingly. Landed near the cap and trembled uneasily on the ground like someone who, having been warm, is now uncomfortable.

The street singer glanced over. The note struggled, didn’t want to stay put. Finally Terranova bent down for it.

‘I sometimes make exceptions.’

‘You sing well,’ said Dez. ‘You shouldn’t be here, begging in the street.’

‘I’m saving up to buy a suit. A white suit with a coloured shirt.’

Dez the censor smiled. He was going to ask what colour shirt he wanted, but felt a tingle inside his mouth.

He said, ‘Is that what you’re begging for? For a shirt?’

‘And to buy my passage.’

‘Where to?’ asked Dez for the sake of asking. He knew where people bought passages to.

‘Buenos Aires!’

‘Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires!’ the commander mocked him.

He turned around. Started to leave. Another bout of nausea. He looked back and shouted at him:

‘Do what everyone else does, stupid! First leave and then buy a white suit and coloured shirt.’

‘No. I want to board the ship in my suit and shirt. A shirt that’s visible from the lighthouse!’

Tomás Dez retraced his footsteps. Glanced at the impassive cowboy photographer and produced another note.

‘That should buy you a shirt. This is no place for you. You could be a prince.’

He was still there. Coppery skin, clear eyes. ‘Chessman’ again. When it came to tangos, he could always sing ‘Street Gang’ or ‘For a Head’.

For a head,

all that madness. .

This time, he was in uniform. The percussion of his military boots on the paving stones kept time with the song. He walked purposefully, martially, and when he did this, he had the impression the echo of his footsteps thundered in an imaginary bell-jar that contained the city.

He went straight up to him. Looked at him carefully. Took a coin out of his pocket and, tossing it in the air, caught it again. Only he saw whether it was heads or tails.

‘You’re not a gypsy,’ said Commander Dez to Terranova. ‘You’re not a gypsy or a showman and you’re certainly not Portuguese.’

Terranova fell silent. Looked like a squirrel at Curtis. Who looked like a woodcock at both sides of the street. Two military police jeeps had just pulled up and a black Opel parked behind them.

‘I know who you are,’ said Tomás Dez. ‘I know more than you can imagine. I even know where you were in hiding.’

Terranova again sought Curtis’ eyes, which had the same texture as the horse Carirí’s.

‘You’re both deserters,’ said Dez. ‘You should have joined up. A long time ago, I grant you, but your papers are waiting for you in a file somewhere. Should someone open that file and find those papers, you’d be in for a bad time.’

‘And who might you be?’ asked Terranova.

‘Someone who’s going to give you an opportunity. And I’ll tell you why. Some voices are a divine gift. A gift that must be protected. Come with me. I’ve an office near here. There’s no point in trying to escape, God himself won’t save you.’

Luís Terranova pointed to Curtis, ‘What about him?’

‘Who? That clown? He can take his horse somewhere else!’

‘An assistant. About time too, Dez. He’ll have to train, I’m afraid. Three months and you’ll have him permanently at your service. He’ll have to show his face at the barracks every now and then. Is that the guy? Good-looking. Your parents’ housekeeper’s son? Of course you have to help out. And if he’s an artist, as you say, if he’s talented and does wonders with his voice and would have made an excellent falsetto, then it’s quite right he shouldn’t be on sentry or night duty. Of course you should have an assistant. If he needs domesticating, just send him back to the barracks and we’ll do the rest. Everything in order, Dez.’