Books Burn Badly

Purple Rain

IN LA BOÎTE de Pandora. People betting around the aquarium. Twin dragons fighting. Small fish, large jaws. Destroyed in seconds. The host introduces new combatants with the seriousness of a croupier dealing out cards. Zonzo offers him the house speciality. A drink called Purple Rain. She’s there, singing fados. The reason he came after so long, at nightfall. The effect of her voice: a brush running over his hand, painting a souvenir, walking on soft grass near the cliff face.

‘So you’re a judge?’ asks Zonzo.

‘Yes. That’s my job.’

‘It’s a good job. Meting out justice and all that. But you have to be stricter. The world’s in a terrible state. No moral principles. No authority.’

‘How did Manlle die?’

‘I don’t know. Don’t know the details. Seems he died in his own way. Slowly.’

‘People don’t usually die because of a harpoon.’

‘Why not? He was by the sea.’

Gabriel Samos thinks the conversation will end there. He remembers Zonzo. He’s capable of closing in on himself like a mollusc. There’s no point insisting.

‘He shouldn’t have gone,’ says Zonzo surprisingly. ‘But then you know what he was like. No, you don’t. How could you? He wanted to be in all places at once, do everything. What was he doing combing the beach for a lost shipment? Someone had got a hold of the bales, OK, and so what? I heard rumours. Remember that Bible full of banknotes I showed you? He went with it to buy a woman in Brussels central station. A woman from the east. Why’d he have to go? He didn’t. He found out later the woman was missing a toe. Wanted to try her out in a small pension. At his age, he still wanted to do everything. And saw she was missing a toe. He should have let it go. It’s a way women for sale are sometimes branded. So he went back to the central station, wanted to reverse the agreement, to get the Bible back with its banknotes. He’d been buying a woman who was whole. He wanted to do everything. Ended up with a harpoon stuck in his chest. I don’t know who it was.’

‘Your mother sings better than ever.’

‘She comes from time to time.’

‘I remember she was always at the window.’

‘Still is. Watching out for boats.’

‘Customs patrol boats?’

‘No.’ Ironically, ‘yachts.’