Books Burn Badly

Chimpanzee Language

19 August 1957

ON THE CLIFF, next to the lighthouse, Antonio Vidal thrust his cane like a quick harpoon. Swish! There, pinned to the ground, still breathing, wagging its tail and beating its navigational wings, was the sheet of newspaper.

The two of them looked in amazement. Grandpa Mayarí still nervous about having caught a living being.

‘What’s it say?’

Gabriel read aloud, ‘Before furnishing your home, visit the Mist.’

‘“Visit the Mist?”’

And he stared down at the rocks, at the sea grottoes belching forth mist.

‘It’s a furniture shop.’

‘Go on. What next?’

Gabriel read slowly, ‘Northwestern Tie Industries. Manufacturer of fine ties and unique underwear with no stitching behind, more comfortable than anything you’ve worn before (American model).’

‘“American model”?’ asked Mayarí in surprise. And after a pause, as if speech had just returned from a reconnaissance mission, he added another unanswerable question, ‘“No stitching behind”?’

‘It’s just an advert, grandpa.’

‘You never trip up when you’re reading. Did you realise?’

He moved the tip of his cane. ‘What’s it say there?’

Gabriel read carefully, ‘Lumumba says he’ll ask “the devil” for help if necessary to get rid of the Belgians.’

The two of them, mesmerised. As if a porthole had opened up in the ground.

‘The first thing you have to know when dealing with the devil,’ said Mayarí, ‘is that it’s best not to call him by his name. If you’re speaking Spanish, you can address him as Sir or Caballero, he rather likes that. He also doesn’t mind Prince. Prince of Darkness, Prince of the Air and so on. And then there’s Your Excellency, Your Eminence, Your Lordship. He’s terribly keen on protocol. If you address him as Don, he’ll even whistle for you. Not that he whistles well. A fault of the devil’s. What to do? I shouldn’t worry if I were you.’

The sheet of newspaper stayed still. Overhead, with an eye on the cane’s prey, the seagulls and their mocking calls.

‘It’s best to talk to him in languages he doesn’t understand,’ added Mayarí.

Gabriel suddenly felt courage, the need to share what’s inside. Only once had he spoken to somebody in chimpanzee language. A lanky girl with long, skinny legs and a flat chest. From a distance, she looked like a cut-out piece of cardboard. On the dunes in Santa Cristina. When the tide came in, the huge beach became like an archipelago. The huts for selling drinks and snacks stood over the flat part, which was now underwater, like wooden palafittes with roofs of straw, palm leaves or broom, supported on stakes driven into the sand. The softly invading waters brought foam trimmings and strips of sun soaked in green shadows. This unreal oil painting surrounded the buildings, cut the adults off in the colonnade of a happy settlement, as if nature obeyed floating Sunday orders. Gabriel had his back to them, looking westwards over a fairly extensive territory, where freedom meant above all not running into other beings who, like him, were digging holes in the sand and excavating wells they then fortified. It was time to talk to himself in the secret language he was fluent in.

‘Kagoda, sord ab?’

‘Kagoda!’

He felt the chill of a wet shadow. He was leaning over and digging. The shadow passed over him and stretched along the dune’s valley. He thought of a Mau Mau. Everyone was talking about the Mau Mau rebels in Africa. Perhaps the Mau Mau, outside their territory, spoke Tarzan’s language.

‘Tand-ramba!’

Should he obey? His survival instinct told him yes, he should stand up. He did so with trepidation, not daring to look back.

‘Tand-unk!’

He obeyed. No, he wasn’t going to move.

‘Tand-utor!’

Followed by a guffaw. The shadow slipped away and turned into a body rolling in the sand, in a fit of laughter. He ran towards her in an unfamiliar rage. But she got up, started running and climbed the other side of the dune with feline agility. Now he’d reached the top and was trying to catch his breath while she was down the bottom. She was very thin and taller than him. Her skin was very white, a little sunburnt on the shoulders, as if she’d been let loose on the beach for the first time, her bones jutting out so much it seemed her skeleton had just been hastily assembled. She had blond, curly hair and freckles. Her big mouth maintained a smile, like a tic to protect her from the sun, which was now right in front of her. But what most disturbed Gabriel was that she wasn’t wearing a swimsuit like all the other girls. Just a pair of knickers. Her chest was practically flat, but her nipples, in Gabriel’s eyes, were circles of confusion in both colour and size. They contained all the imagination he’d stored up on the subject of sex, including Zonzo’s biro. The first day he saw it, he’d have swapped all the items in his cabinet of curiosities for that biro shaped like a transparent tube, full of liquid, except for a bubble of air, which allowed a naked woman to swim up and down. Even were it confiscated in customs, it was almost impossible for such an item to make it into his father’s hands. Something like that would always fall by the wayside. It could only be a present from Manlle, the owner of La Boîte de Pandora. One of Zonzo’s privileges. One of the things everyone envied and he appeared to attach little importance to. Because he had one overriding feeling. His hatred towards Manlle.

‘Where are you from?’ Gabriel asked the girl who spoke Tarzan’s language.

‘Dan-do!’ she shouted, very annoyed.

Gabriel obeyed. He stayed rooted to the spot. He’d have liked to go after her, but he didn’t move. And she vanished.

‘Zu-dak-lul!’ shouted Gabriel, encompassing the vastness of the sea with a sweep of his arm.

‘What does that mean?’ asked Mayarí.

‘Ocean. It means ocean.’

‘In what language?’

Gabriel hesitated. The shout had come from deep inside him and now he was afraid of appearing ridiculous. Mayarí said, ‘Don’t you worry. People who stammer are the best singers. There was one in Cuba who was the king of boleros.’

‘In chimpanzee language,’ said Gabriel.

‘It’s good to know languages.’

Mayarí released the sheet of newspaper and covered up the hole in the ground as if closing the indiscretion of an eye into the earth.