All Is Silence

by Manuel Rivas

  A diver emerged on the port side of the boat where Chumbo was. Chumbo had his back to him. When he turned, alerted by the splashing, the diver fired a harpoon into his chest.

  Reality is an outer layer. There is a hidden world. And in this hidden world there is a conflict of forces which for her take on the shape of currents, underwater angels. For years the sea has sent her good signals. Even at the time of the accident, when the explosion sank Lucho Malpica’s boat, her father was saved. He almost couldn’t swim. The current took him in its arms, after he’d chafed himself against rock after rock, and deposited him on the beach.

  Leda got up in a state of agitation. Surveyed the blanket of water, the glittering crumbs, that infinite, ephemeral silverwork a hand of wind had wrought on the sunny sea. She suddenly felt this was a place of horror. She couldn’t shout. She ran and could hear – a sticky, faulty sound – the whistle of her own drowning.

  Santiago finally reappeared. Took off his goggles and waved at his mother.

  ‘How long can you stay under without breathing?’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘How long can you stay under without breathing?’

  Leda heard a violent roar. She quickly identified where it was. It was coming from the palafittic horizon of the mussel rafts. It was a speedboat heading quickly towards the beach. Inverno came out of his lookout post by the sea gate of Romance Manor. Tried to speak to Chumbo, but got no answer. All he could hear was the sea moaning. The strangest thing was that Chumbo was there, on his boat. Inverno could perceive his silhouette in the distance. He had his back to him. Must have been trying to work out the nature of this piercing sound approaching over the sea.

  He decided to expose himself and head for Leda and the child while trying to establish communication with Chumbo.

  ‘Chumbo, can you hear me? Over.’

  The sound of interference like a hum.

  Something burning tore into his shoulder. Another bullet smashed his head open.

  How could Chumbo possibly kill Inverno? Even for something like that, he’d have asked for permission.

  But there he was, firing a rifle from the deck. That blasted Judas.

  Instead of taking to her heels, Leda did something surprising. She took Inverno’s weapon, protected the child behind her and aimed at the place of betrayal. Let him see what rotten wood he was really made of.

  ‘Chumbo, you son of a bitch!’

  But the marksman responded by carefully aiming his precision rifle. Leda realised her reaction was absurd and they had no way out. Chumbo was part of the enemy. The marksman wasn’t going to stop the speedboat roaring towards them.

  She grabbed Santiago by the arm and they ran barefoot across the sand. The sand that loved her so much now seemed to restrain their feet. When the child fell on his knees and she tried to pull him up, to Leda’s disbelief, help came from the hidden world.

  ‘Lie down beside him and don’t move!’ shouted Fins.

  They waited for the speedboat to come alongside the shore. There were three crewmen. Two of them got ready to jump while the third kept the speedboat steady.

  ‘They’re not out to kill them, they’re out to kidnap them!’ exclaimed Mara.

  It was time to shoot. And for the sea to lend a miraculous hand. For the reports to multiply several times over. As sometimes happens.

  43

  THE TOLLING OF the bells has to make itself heard above the seagulls’ chatter, their scandalmongering on top of St Mary’s cemetery in Noitía.

  ‘They’re always after people, keeping an eye out, throwing insults.’

  The old sailor glances at the sky in disapproval. He is one of the few not wearing a tie, the same as his companion. The top button of his shirt squeezes his Adam’s apple. As he lifts his head, the white points of the collar grow tense. They’re dressed very similarly, in black suits and waistcoats, but the top button makes a difference. His companion’s collar is open. There’s also a contrast in the whiteness and style of their hair. His hair forms a crest ending in a summit, a kind of wick on top of his forehead. His face is heavily lined, but his seniority is somehow intemporal, as if he’s returned from another age. His partner’s hair has been carefully combed, a humid whiteness, possibly smarmed down in such a way as to conceal any bald patches. They’re both tall and upright for their years. The main difference is in the way they walk. The position of their arms. One seems to be carrying a weight. A sack. A body. His own. Without the use of hands.

  ‘Crows have a bad reputation, Edmundo, but theirs is a different way of knowing.’

  ‘Talking of birds, there was a guy in Veracruz who kept trying to tell me, “You sure know a lot about tweety birds!”’

  They walk slowly, at low tide, paying careful attention to the movements of the cars, mostly high-cylinder, bringing people to the ceremony.

  ‘Look at that, Companion! Never mind the width, feel the quality,’ mutters Edmundo, the sailor who played Christ on the day of the Passion.

  ‘The bigger the better!’ replies Lucho.

  When they reach the niches, they move apart from the rest of the gathering.

  ‘This is one of the healthiest places in the world! That’s why I came back,’ says Edmundo. ‘The niche was fully paid for.’

  ‘It’s certainly sunny.’

  ‘Great views, too.’ Edmundo wishes to encourage the Companion as best he can. He gestures towards the cemetery in contrast with the new urban buildings of irregular, exaggerated heights. ‘And just look at the skyline!’

  And then in the Companion’s ear, ‘They haven’t had to sleep out before.’

  ‘They certainly lived the way they wanted to. At a hundred miles per hour.’

  ‘Or more!’

  The two coffins are almost entirely obscured by ribboned wreaths. The Requiem Mass is led by the parish priest in a surplice and black stole, assisted by two other priests. ‘Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them . . . And upon the rest of us so that no other curse like this descends upon Noitía.’

  The people cluster around the priests in an atmosphere of commotion. Together with painful, tearful expressions, there are others marked by tense vigilance. At the axis of the ceremony, on the other side of the priest, is Mariscal, guarded by the impassive Carburo.

  ‘As it says in the Miserere mei, Deus, David’s penitential psalm, “Have mercy upon me, O God, wash me thoroughly from my wickedness . . . Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.”’

  As he speaks, he tries not to look at anybody. This is his habit. But today is starting to be a strange day for him. He’s receiving signals about a war he would have preferred to ignore. For a moment he notices Santiago, the boy with the patch, staring at him with a single eye. A panoptic eye. An eye that sees everything. Records everything. He observes Leda, the mother, curling a strand of the boy’s hair in her fingers. On the other side is Sira. Ever since the incident on Romance beach, considered a kidnap attempt, the mother and boy have been living in the fortress of the Ultramar. He’s heard the odd rumour that Mariscal has been studying Leda’s anatomy there. For goodness’ sake! The ears are for hearing. He knows full well they’re father and daughter.

  He wrote what he has to say the previous evening. He thought about it word for word. But now he’s unsure about the script. He also received a visit from Brinco last night. He’s sorry he couldn’t say no to this ridiculous idea of his. He’s ashamed to think that his faint-hearted attitude, his yieldingness, may have had a causal relationship with the payment for the funeral and the generous donation Brinco made on the spot. As he is looking around, he comes across another panoptic being, the impression of a single eye with dark glasses behind the image of a marble archangel on top of a sarcophagus. Another old acquaintance, Fins Malpica, attending the farewell ritual. He recalls what he said at his father’s funeral, ‘The sea prefers the brave ones.’ He was sorry about that death. He wasn’t a believer, he’d said to Lucho, but he’d m
ake a first-rate Christ. And when Lucho died as a result of the dynamite, he found it impossible to ask any questions. He blamed the sea. With a favourable report he helped the boy attend a school for orphans. And receive a grant for university. He also lent a hand so he’d be accepted in the police academy. Fins never attended Mass. Just once, recently, he’d come to see the priest. Behaved impertinently. Asked who the mausoleum was for.

  ‘What mausoleum? It’s a pantheon.’

  ‘A bit bigger than the rest, isn’t it? So who’s it for?’

  ‘Why are you asking if you already know? Doesn’t the Brancana family have the right to a pantheon?’

  ‘A palace, you mean,’ Fins had replied. ‘A monument to dirty money. You should know how such filth is viewed in the beyond, but the way I see it, everything started quite differently, with a manger in Bethlehem.’

  Here the priest had cut him short. Nobody had the right to lecture him on doctrine. ‘When you’ve finished, you know where the door is.’

  ‘Real judgement is not that meted out by men on earth. So it will be for our neighbours and brothers in faith, Fernando Inverno and Carlos Chumbo. They will have to appear before true justice. At the Last Judgement St Michael’s scales will weigh the value of souls for God. And then we will find out how much their souls weighed. All we know is that they were generous to those around them and to the Church of God.’

  The priest glances over at the temple and nods to a parishioner standing at the bottom of the bell tower.

  ‘Every year Inverno and Chumbo made their donations to Our Lady of the Sea, the Virgin of Mount Carmel. It was Inverno who paid for the new bells. So it’s only right they should ring at his funeral.’

  The bells begin to toll. Fins enjoys the sound. He thinks the historical prestige of bells is due to the fact that they don’t lie. There’s another sound that doesn’t lie in Noitía. That of the cow by the lighthouse which moos whenever the mist is so thick it swallows up the light of the beacon.

  In his position, half concealed by the angel, Fins removes his dark glasses. And looks at Leda. She imitates his gesture. Slowly takes off her glasses. Closes and opens her eyes in a blink that seems timed to the bells.

  The priest continues the funeral oration with an air of apparent routine:

  ‘“I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” God is light, he sees everything, hears everything. Knows everything. What’s going on in the darkest corner. In the grottos of the sea and the depths of the soul. Our faith may stumble. We may ask where God is, why he remains in silence.’

  Don Marcelo’s voice suddenly begins to shake. He seems bewildered, overcome by the turn of events. Gives the impression he is not going to be able to advance beyond that full stop, that ‘silence’. But suddenly he is transfigured. He’s not praying any more, he’s shouting:

  ‘God isn’t stupid! He hasn’t come to pussyfoot around. As the psalmist says:

  ‘He smote the first-born of Egypt,

  both of man and beast.

  He hath sent tokens and wonders into the midst of thee,

  O thou land of Egypt,

  upon Pharaoh and all his servants.’

  The psalm is like a deposit of wind and gives his voice an unusual preponderance:

  ‘As for the images of the heathen, they are but silver and gold,

  the work of men’s hands.

  They have mouths, and speak not.

  They have eyes, and see not.

  They have ears, and hear not.

  Neither is there any breath in their mouths.’

  He pauses. This hasn’t happened to him for quite some time, being able to hear and understand his own words.

  ‘Thus the Lord speaks. He gives us breath and takes it away again. May they rest in peace.’

  The workmen place the coffins inside their niches. This is followed by the sound of banging tools. A hammer nailing in wooden covers. The gravestone being slid into place. The final rubric. The priest quickly greets several family members. Offers a sentence of consolation that is left hanging in the air. Then turns to address Mariscal. ‘The religious ceremony has finished. It’s up to you what you do now.’

  ‘Thank you, Marcelo. You know that’s my favourite psalm. Shame not to hear it in Latin!’

  ‘Víctor came to see me,’ says the priest, cutting him off. ‘I don’t like the entertainment he’s prepared. This is sacred ground.’

  ‘It’s a tribute to both of them. Inverno played music all his life. He had the mark of the trumpet on his lips. There were even concerts where they rode on horseback. Noitía’s Magicians was their name.’

  ‘In Noitía a funeral was always a funeral, and a party a party.’

  ‘Patience, Marcelo. Remember the first-born of Egypt are in charge!’

  ‘I’m going. My work here is done.’

  ‘Thank God your work is never done, Marcelo. You have to take care of us, your flock. Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis. We must meet some day and have a chat about Unamuno.’

  As the priest leaves, from the far side of the cemetery, hidden until that moment, emerge the members of a mariachi quartet. The musicians, dressed in typical Mexican clothes, perform the ballad ‘Pero sigo siendo el rey’.

  A murmur of surprise ripples around the cemetery. Followed by several disapproving looks. This has never happened before in Noitía. The most there was, and this was some time ago, was a bagpipe intoning a solemn march. But as the ballad progresses, the faces take on a renewed sort of expression.

  ‘If the acoustics are good,’ says Edmundo, ‘in three minutes you’ll have yourself an age-old tradition.’

  ‘That’s the thing about death,’ replies the Companion. ‘It lends itself to everything.’

  44

  IT WAS A refreshing sensation to be in one of the miradors used by Mariscal and not to have to hide, stay under cover, but instead to share the view. What was happening was more than unusual. It struck him as nothing short of miraculous. Because of the person by his side and the topic of conversation. Grimaldo had bumped into him in the station car park. Fins had expected a peevish greeting. Or nothing at all. But in the end he’d spat out a kind of telegram: ‘Meet me at the mirador in Corveiro. In fifteen minutes.’

  ‘I know you don’t trust me,’ he said when they were there. ‘You do well. Never trust me. But today make an exception.’

  Haroldo Micho Grimaldo had the appearance of a dandy from the suburbs, just like the Old Man. A single policeman, he was the only guest in a boarding house whose mistress treated him like a king, viewing any other candidate as a small-time crook who’d come to the wrong door. He didn’t have a shining reputation, at the police station anyway. Though paradoxically he was, or proclaimed himself to be, the Scourge of Vice. One of his roles was to inspect so-called singles clubs, a euphemism he took it upon himself to clarify.

  ‘Singles clubs? Whorehouses, you mean.’

  Proceedings were sometimes begun, but none of the brothels was ever closed. Except when there was a scandal, an argument leading to injuries or casualties, which transcended the barrier of night. This control was vital in the fight against prostitution rings. So Micho Grimaldo was a cynic. Or more than that. Most people thought more than that. This being the case, the strangest thing about his behaviour was that he wasn’t more hypocritical when it came to his impression of an exemplary life. There were periods when he did his best. His virtuous days, as he liked to call them. When his tongue became sharper than usual, like a cut-throat razor. But after that he’d let himself go. Roll from club to club with the repellent air of a perfumer. If others put up with him, it was because he was on the verge of retiring. And because he knew a lot. Or so people supposed. In the past he’d worked for the Political-Social Brigade, whose job it was to hunt down opponents of Franco’s regime. He’d been involved in Barcelona and Madrid. And then returned to his birthplace.
He’d inherited a country house from his father, all refurbished, in a village inland, but hardly ever went there. He’d acquired an exciting new identity in his role against vice. Being a whoremonger.

  ‘Well, are you going to trust me or not? I can’t bear know-it-all silences.’

  ‘Go ahead, Grimaldo,’ said Fins.

  It was dusk. The estuary was like a log, burning from the inside out. Behind them, the darkness slipped whistling over the eucalyptus leaves.

  Micho Grimaldo took a stick and began to draw a map on the ground. The axis was the river Miño. He traced the iron bridge at Tui. Despite the conditions, he exhibited a wish for accuracy. He marked the main towns on either side of the border with dots and joined them up with lines representing roads.

  ‘This Sunday there’s going to be a party,’ he said. ‘An important party. With the excuse of a wedding. Not many guests, very select ones. The party’s going to be here, in the Lower Miño, in a place named Quinta da Velha Saudade. Not far away is an old quarry. There is a track, about a hundred yards long, with a turn-off leading to a site for abandoned machinery. A good spot to hide your car. You’ll have to climb a bit, then go through a forest which runs parallel to the road. On the other side of the road, after a bend, is the mansion. A large terrace overlooking the estuary. High walls. Two entrances. But cars can only go in and out through an automatic gate. When they leave, they have to observe a stop sign, which is right on the bend.’

  He’d leaned down in order to draw on the ground and straightened up slowly, holding on to his hips. He stared at Fins. ‘You have to be there! On the sly, of course. Take note of everything on your camera. And that’s all I’m going to say.’

  ‘Are you going as well?’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you it was an important party?’ he scoffed.