Books Burn Badly

The Notebook

‘YOU CAN BE present if you wish, Mr Samos.’

‘No, it’s better if you talk to him alone.’

Gabriel didn’t talk. He read from his notebook. After saying goodbye to the docks, or on the boat to the Xubias, or when crossing Ponte da Pasaxe, or going inside the boat-houses, or taking the tram to Sada, or on the train to Betanzos, and once (‘Surely not!’ muttered Chief Inspector Ren), once it even happened on the upper deck of a trolleybus, one of those red trolleybuses from London, the number 2, Porta Real — Os Castros, there too they did it, made love or something, his hand up her skirt.

‘Surely not!’

Yes, she’d been protected, covered by this city of Mist Pee, Fly Pee, Wind on the Side of Hunger, Widows’ Wind, Night Enclosure, Sky with a Shell, with an Awning, Bramble Sky, Oza in a Thunderstorm, thunder and lightning, this city with its carnal, voluptuous, promiscuous sky.

Between thunder and lightning, when it cleared, thanks to Gabriel’s tale, everyone began to see clips of Chelo Vidal kissing and loving the Portuguese architect. Or whoever it was. And in this third party’s tale there was an enjoyment, a lingering, that acted like a sucker on the temples of all who listened.

Everything Gabriel said was noted down in shorthand or in handwriting no onlooker could read. But Santos wasn’t looking at the strange notebook, he was watching the window, which was a moving picture of boats and cranes. Everything inside him was moving too. Rarely had he felt such excitement on account of language.

‘In the sea?’

‘Yes, they’d stay there for two, three, even four minutes and then emerge, blowing a siphon of water. In Canaval, when there was no one about, they’d wrap themselves in seaweed and roll in the sand.’

When he turned around, Ren was blowing smoke rings, which Mancorvo followed as they rose to the ceiling. The central table was empty, completely bare, except for Gabriel’s notebook, which gave it the air of an incendiary device. The eyes, facial muscles, position of the body, suggest an initial critical reaction to the text. The line of the mouth, for example, is a type of pronouncement. They were satisfied to begin with. Both were in a stupor, but it was a victorious stupor. With his smoke signals, Ren seemed to be savouring this surprising tale like a triumph. Having this degree of information about a life doesn’t just give you the power to dispose of it, it grants you access to a particular kind of enjoyment: the dissection of someone else’s enjoyment.

‘He’s finished. How many meetings was that?’

When they looked at each other, Ren’s face seemed to hide a complex thought after he’d blown so many smoke rings into the air. But what he said, with clearly universal connotations, was, ‘Unbelievable!’

Mancorvo nudged him. ‘Just as well the judge wasn’t here!’ Ren ignored him. He was reaching the same conclusion as Santos. The boy had laid a trap. A tale moored to reality. He was pulling their legs.

It was Santos who took the initiative. ‘Tell us the truth, Gabriel. Everything you’ve written is a lie, isn’t it?’

‘Everything,’ Gabriel replied with certainty.

‘What’s Durtol, Gabriel?’

‘A sanatorium.’

‘Have you been there? Why do you write from Durtol? What happens in Durtol, Gabriel?’

‘Let’s leave it,’ suggested Santos.

‘Katechon!’ Ren exclaimed bitterly. He looked at Gabriel’s unintelligible notebook. ‘You know how to scrawl, don’t you?’