Books Burn Badly

The Lead Locomotive and the Flying Boat

THE LEAD LOCOMOTIVE climbed the ascending railway with all the twists and turns. A line of bodybuilders waited their turn. If it reached the top, a firework would go off with a lot of noise. But it never arrived. None of the hopefuls managed to push the lead locomotive to the summit, which was waiting to make a boom. Luís Terranova paid and asked Curtis to have a go, to accomplish that bodybuilder’s mission. He did it without breaking into a sweat. The lead locomotive whizzed up the railway and crashed against the top. It was like a performance of lightning and thunder. The silence that ensued, rather than recognition or envy, seemed to contemplate the inexplicable. Luís raised Curtis’ arm in triumph, as if he were his manager. He was wearing his white suit and darting around the fairground like someone who’s both happy and worried.

He’d decided to break with Dez. He’d got involved to avoid going to prison, but it was now he felt like a deserter. He’d gone with Curtis to a remote part of the city, where he wouldn’t look for him, but now he realised how sticky Dez’s shadow really was. He never thought freedom could adopt such a stormy expression. Cause so much fear.

Two days earlier, he’d taken a decisive step. He’d gone looking for Curtis and invited him to eat in the restaurant Fornos. They’d stopped in front of the menu before. ‘Shrimps, prawns, crab, clams in seafood sauce, Pontesampaio oysters, Andalusian tripe, stewed lamprey, Fornos kidneys.’ They’d peered through the window at Sada’s paintings. It was like opening a submarine door and discovering a mass of fish and seaweed. ‘Come in, take a look,’ Sada said to them, ‘you can eat in your dreams as well.’ But Terranova promised they’d return and eat in reality. And there they were, sitting down, asking for the menu. Terranova was happy. He’d finally kept a promise. Bad luck. It was Curtis who spotted Commander Dez as soon as they entered the restaurant. At the far end, at a table with three others. Dez, for his part, didn’t just see them come in, part of his face did not recover its initial position, that of someone joining in a lively gathering coloured with vermouth. His face was split down the middle. This may not have been visible to the rest, but it was to Curtis. The part of his face that did not go back to its first position watched them with a mixture of surprise and rage. Luís adjusted Curtis’ tie, laughing all the time, because, as he said, the knot had never become completely undone since the first time it was tied.

‘Samantha’s knot!’ Luís proclaimed. ‘You’d need an imperial sword to undo it.’

He either hadn’t seen or was pretending not to have seen Tomás Dez. He had his back to him, so the line drawn by his guardian’s rage through the air hit the back of his neck and bounced against Curtis’ eyes. Luís summoned the waiter with all the ease of a regular and read the menu out loud, in the tone of a futuristic herald he adopted in high places.

‘He’s over there, at the far end,’ warned Curtis when he’d finally calmed down.

‘Who? Bela Luvoski? How terrifying!’

‘Well, it is a bit,’ whispered Curtis, moving his head as if his shirt collar was bothering him.

‘That’s his tactic,’ said Terranova. ‘The next stage is to threaten. Another tactic he has. Only he doesn’t know that today I’m with Galicia’s champ.’

They avoided the subject. Curtis swept it aside with a wave in the air. But he didn’t lose sight of the danger. He was serious. Eyes in the back of his head.

‘Do you know what you remind me of?’

He didn’t. He hadn’t seen Terranova like this for quite some time. He was both cheerful and vulnerable. In suspense. His eyes smiling, but about to break into pieces. Everything in his body was awake, as when they went fishing for barnacles and confronted the ocean’s hydromechanics. The moment when terror and euphoria combined at their feet. In case of doubt, it was best to crouch down in single combat with the sea, never to turn around. When it came to it, the worst thing you could do was doubt. Luís always jumped. Everything had to be decided and carried out in the pause between each puff of the sea. He held his knife, prised off the best fruit and jumped again just as the foam covered the whole rock. All this in the time it took the sea to breathe. For him, it wasn’t a heroic deed, but a joke. The veterans didn’t like him fooling about in the middle of that warlike roar.

‘Every single wave,’ Mariñas told him one day to earn his respect, ‘has an impact of thirty tons per square metre. This is the most powerful machine in the whole universe.’

‘But the winkle hasn’t even moved!’

There was no point arguing. Luís Terranova had the right to laugh at the sea if he wanted to. Everyone deals with fear as best they can.

To leave the restaurant, Dez passed next to them without saying hello. With a look of hostile indifference.

They’d talk about it at home. That was the message.

‘Why did you have to take him there?’

‘Why not? He’s a friend of mine from childhood. There’s no reason to be jealous.’

‘Officially you’re now my ward. You were my assistant and now you’re my ward. That’s a promotion! Which is why you’re in this house, because I’m your guardian and you’re my ward. You know what people will say. “You’ll have to take Hercules in as well. And the horse. A large family. Who’ll pay for it all, Dez, for fodder for the wooden horse?” And so on.’

‘As you’d say, that’s your fault for consorting with commoners.’

‘And what was that about being jealous? Who do you think you are?’

The night was too warm for the Atlantic coast. As if waiting for people to let down their guard, a stormy armada had gathered behind the Sisargas. For anyone wanting to see it, the front of storm-clouds advanced in thick darkness, adding night to night. So the first bolt of lightning was mistaken for a breakdown in the firmament. The thunder, however, came from a magazine at sea. Everyone noticed the fleet of storm-clouds. And carried on dancing.

Part of the gleam landed on Luís Terranova’s white suit. He let the shock go through him and then gave Curtis a friendly punch on the shoulder. ‘Hey, that was you! You did it with the lead locomotive.’

The sea suddenly wanted to devour the houses, but the orchestra carried on playing. It sounded like an ancient dispute. Pucho Boedo was singing. Luís Terranova got on the flying boat. Singing the same song. Against the wind. Gusts that changed perspectives, tore off faces and left only expressions. Only the musicians’ stage and the flying boat held on to the scene. And the fairground owner, who was removing the lead locomotive, because all hands were now fighting the sea, pulling boats out of its mouth, turned to Luís and went straight to the point, ‘Ride’s over!’

‘A bit longer, please.’

Surprised that his thunderous voice had not had the desired effect, for the first time the fairground owner sought out the eyes of that figurine dressed in a white suit and a red cravat. Curtis had stopped pushing and the boat had slowed right down. He was dark, but his eyes were very clear, aquatic. The fairground owner felt like doing something he’d never done: letting off one of the lead locomotive’s fireworks. But, on the other hand, he needed that boy to sing, now that the orchestra had stopped.

‘The wind’ll take everything.’

‘I’m owed another ride,’ said Luís.

The storm was carrying the sea inland.

‘I’m not responsible,’ said the fairground owner to Curtis. ‘I’m not responsible for that boat your friend’s in.’

It was then his three blond sons appeared. They’d been helping secure the boats and were drenched and out of breath, as if dressed in water and grease. One of them dismantled the railway with his father. The other two stopped the flying boat, ignoring Terranova’s protests.

‘I’m owed another!’

‘Do you want to end up in the sea like Faustino?’

The other laughed at his brother’s joke. Faustino was a very well-endowed straw man who was thrown into the sea during Carnival. Having fallen, he stayed floating for a while with his huge penis sticking up like a mast. A procession of mourning women wept over the loss, ‘He was the best, the best!’ Some men laughed, others didn’t.

‘I’m not afraid of you, little owl,’ Terranova mocked them. ‘Little owl, I’m not afraid of you.’

‘Let him be,’ said the flying boat’s father. ‘He can go as often as he likes, so long as he keeps on singing!’

He then spat on his hands, which were covered in grease from the lead locomotive’s wheels. ‘The night is whimsical indeed!’