All Is Silence Read online

  The whore who gave birth to her, he thought, how well she knew how to hit the spot. He came to the beached boat where two men were waiting, the veteran Carburo and younger Inverno. Garbled the message, tripping on his words because of all the running and the annoyance caused by the others, like carrying along a string of cans. ‘Rumbo says you can start unloading!’

  ‘Unloading what?’ asked Carburo. The boy needed training.

  ‘The tuna, of course!’

  The other two approached, running.

  ‘And these two Martians?’ asked Inverno.

  ‘Oh, these two will work for free.’

  The two men laughed. ‘Well, aren’t we the lucky ones?’

  The group started walking with Carburo at the front. His large head, his body slightly bowed. A sculpted figure wounding the night. Leda heard what Brinco said to Inverno and reacted bravely. ‘Free, my arse.’

  ‘She’s a wild one,’ said Inverno. ‘That’s it, girl, make sure you protect your interests.’

  In a whisper, to Brinco, ‘That girl, in a few years’ time, will be pure dynamite.’

  From the end of the breakwater, a man signals in Morse with a torch. Another replies from a boat not far out at sea. It’s summer and the sea is calm. Shortly afterwards there is the sound of a nautical engine, and the silhouette of a fishing boat comes into view.

  The fishing boat docks. Heavily laden, fore and aft, with large shapes covered in nets and other fishing tackle, such as buoys and creels. When the sailors remove the camouflage, cardboard boxes containing smuggled tobacco are revealed. Mussel-raft blond. More people have arrived, mostly men, but also some women, moving between the darkness of the nearby pine groves and the light of the moon, which illuminates the ramp of the old harbour.

  A Mercedes turns up and out gets Mariscal. All the carriers take up position, quickly forming a well-spaced human line. Mariscal follows their movements from the promontory. He has a good panoramic view, but he also knows that he is visible. Raised in the night. The mouth that talks.

  ‘Everything all right, Gamboa?’

  ‘Everything OK, boss.’

  ‘Carburo, get these people moving!’

  ‘Everybody listen. At full speed. In order and in silence. There’s no need to worry. The guards are still at the dance.’

  One of the women taking part in the procession starts singing a ballad, ‘Did you dance, Carolina? Yes, I danced! Tell me who you danced with! I danced with the colonel!’ and Mariscal smiles. Orders quiet. Claps his hands in the air.

  ‘Now let’s get to work. It’s not true that God gives time for nothing.’

  The line begins transferring the packages in absolute silence, from the ramp to the old salting factory, a sombre stone building of a single storey. There are about twenty of them. They work with diligence and normality, except for the children, whose sweat shows they’re doing it for the first time. When it’s all over, Mariscal pays everybody in person. Listens to the murmured litany of appreciation. When it’s Brinco’s turn, he grabs him by the shoulders with satisfaction.

  ‘This time you’ve earned yourself a Catholic Monarchs!’

  Then he whispers in his ear so that only Brinco can hear. Does so with a paternal smile. ‘Don’t bring volunteers without telling me first, got it?’

  ‘But they stick to me!’

  ‘I know, they’re just stray dogs.’

  ‘Boss, the guards are coming!’

  ‘Not to worry, Inverno. They come when they have to.’

  Sergeant Montes emerges from the pine groves. Vargas quickly takes up position behind him.

  ‘Nobody move!’ shouts Montes. ‘What’s going on here?’

  Nobody says a word. Mariscal waits. He knows how to let the gears of time engage.

  ‘Forgive me, sergeant,’ he says finally. ‘Would you mind if we spoke alone for a moment?’

  Once they’re at a certain distance, Mariscal casually drops something on the ground. ‘Sergeant, I do believe you dropped two notes. Two green ones, sensu stricto.’

  The sergeant glances at the ground. Yes, there are two thousand-peseta notes.

  ‘Excuse me, sir. Sensu stricto, I do believe I dropped at least ten.’

  And Mariscal proceeds to free the other notes, as if he’s already made the calculation.

  13

  BACK FROM UNLOADING the tobacco, Fins placed his thousand-peseta note on top of the oilskin tablecloth. His mother, Amparo, put down her knitting in surprise. His father was listening to the radio closely, making an ear trumpet with the palm of his hand. Cassius Clay, newly named Muhammad Ali, had just been stripped of his world heavyweight title due to his refusal to be inducted into the military during the Vietnam War. Lucho Malpica turned down the volume and jumped to his feet. ‘What’s this money?’

  ‘Mr Rumbo gave it to me for cleaning the vats.’

  ‘He never pays that much for cleaning vats.’

  ‘Well, it was about time he paid more,’ said Fins uneasily.

  Lucho Malpica waved the note in front of his son’s face. ‘Don’t ever lie to me!’

  The boy remained silent, feeling uncomfortable, chewing over the words of before and afterwards.

  ‘The worst lie of all is silence.’

  ‘Mr Mariscal gave it to me,’ said the boy eventually. ‘I helped unload some tobacco.’

  ‘That’s more like it. More than I can earn fighting with the sea for a whole damn week!’

  Now two of them were chewing over the past and present.

  ‘Have you any idea how that bastard got rich?’

  ‘Wasn’t it in Cuba, before the revolution?’

  ‘In Cuba?’

  Lucho Malpica had always dodged the issue of Mariscal. He even avoided saying his name, would take a roundabout route in the conversation, like someone sidestepping a turd. But now the issue had been blown open. And the unstoppable destination was irony.

  ‘What did he do in Cuba? What was his job?’

  ‘Wasn’t he a boxing promoter, organising fights, with a cinema or something? I don’t know, Dad, that’s what I heard.’

  ‘Selling peanuts in a cone. In Cuba? That guy never set foot in America.’

  Lucho Malpica realised it wasn’t going to be easy to tell the story of Mariscal. Even for him, who was of the same generation, there were large areas of shade. Mariscal vanished and came back. With a shadow that grew and grew, and made him more powerful.

  ‘After the war, his parents worked on the black market. They’d always been involved in smuggling.’

  ‘Everyone was involved in smuggling,’ said Amparo suddenly. ‘Where there’s a border, there’s smuggling. Even I, as a girl, went over one time with a flat stomach and came back pregnant, God forgive me. I took over sugar and three pairs of high-heeled shoes and came back with coffee and silk. I did it once and never again. It wasn’t a sin, but it was a crime. They once shot a Portuguese kid who didn’t stop when he was supposed to. He was carrying a pair of shoes. His mother came to see where he’d fallen. There was still a trace of blood. She kneeled down, took out a scarf and wiped it up. Didn’t leave a speck. Shouted, “I don’t want any to remain here!”’

  ‘What you’re talking about was survival,’ said Malpica. ‘There were people who hired themselves out, smuggled things in their bellies . . .’

  ‘That’s what I was like,’ replied Amparo. ‘Though I lit a candle to St Barbara first, so it wouldn’t thunder.’

  ‘What I’m talking about wasn’t to feed people’s hunger. The Brancanas ran an organisation. Like today. There were lots of part-time smugglers. Smugglers for hire. Women with bellies. But the way they made their money was with wolfram. Then oil, petrol, medicine, meat. And weapons. Whatever was needed. And the mother, who’d been a maid, when she went up in the world, got it into her head that one of her children could be a bishop or a cardinal. Someone ironically suggested they could be a marshal. And she replied with evident glee, why not? A cardinal or a marshal. Which is how Maris
cal the Marshal got his name. You know how quick people are on the uptake round here. So she decided to send her precious boy to the seminary. In Tui. He was no man’s fool. Always a smart one. And even then he was good at solving problems. His own and others’. He got a private room in the seminary and turned it into a marketplace. Of course there was the odd priest who shared in the profits. And that’s where he met Don Marcelo, who was also a student.’

  ‘Don Marcelo is of a different vintage,’ intervened Amparo.

  ‘All saints are endowed with manhood,’ said Malpica.

  ‘Don’t talk for the fair, Lucho! A good speaker is one who stays silent.’

  ‘I talk in round terms, keep nothing silent from the sun’s son . . . Oh, enough of that! It went from mouth to ear, as they say around here.’

  ‘Then why did he leave the seminary?’ asked Fins.

  Malpica smiled at Amparo, seeking her complicity in the story.

  ‘He must have been there for three years. When he’s drunk, he says it was because he wanted to become pope. What he doesn’t deny is that he started a roaring trade in foodstuffs. Had a grocery store beneath his bed! There was cold and hunger. And he took advantage of the situation. He had coffee liqueur and Western novels. He always was a competent supplier. But I don’t think they chucked him out because of that. The trouble is, a chalice and image were stolen during a pilgrimage he went on as an acolyte. They found the chalice under his mattress. Nothing was ever known about the Virgin. Though he always had a taste for virgins. The family covered it up, compensated the Church with money. It all remained under wraps. As did what came afterwards.’

  Fins’ father turned to the radio and slowly moved the dial in an effort to tune into some frequency. For radio waves as well, A de Meus was a place in shadow. Fins was afraid his struggle with the static would put paid to the story about Mariscal.

  ‘So what happened afterwards that people don’t know?’

  ‘He went to prison.’

  ‘Mariscal was in prison?’

  ‘That’s right. Tomás Brancana, Mariscal, was in prison. And not as a visitor either. He started by helping out in the family business, which was well established. But he was ambitious, and he found another, more lucrative activity. He got himself a tanker, but didn’t transport oil or wine. He transported people! He had his agents, his engajadores, in Portugal. The emigrants gave him everything they had in order to get to France. And during the night, on top of some mountain, he’d tell them to get out and shout, “You’re in France, for crying out loud. La France, remember! Run, run!” Of course it wasn’t France. He left them sometimes on this side of the border, lost on some snowy mountaintop, without food or money, dying of cold. One day there was a collision, an accident, and they had no choice but to declare it was him since he was the one who’d been driving. He went to prison, but not for long. Nobody knows. I’m not sure there was even a court case. Evil knows how to float. It floats like fuel, just beneath the surface. And he had a tidy sum of money set aside. And partners! So when people say he was in America, you can give that country this name: the clink on Prince Street in Vigo!’

  Fins Malpica recalled the first time he’d listened to Mariscal up close. That sermon he’d spouted in the School of Indians when they discovered the stash of whisky. He tried to remember his Latin phrases, the rhetoric they were couched in. Learn that and you’ve gained half a life. The rest is also very simple. Oculos habent, et non videbunt. They have eyes, and see not. Aures habent, et non audient. They have ears, and hear not.

  They have mouths, and speak not.

  ‘You’ll be thinking I know a lot about a man I never talk about. Well, you’re right. And do you know how I know? Because I also tried to get to France . . . Later on, when I could have gone there legally, I didn’t want to. I still had icicles on my beard from the first time. That man only ever did one good thing in his life, which is when he burned his hands in the School of Indians. They say it was on account of the books, but it was because of the desiccated animals. Even better. Desiccated makes you feel more sorry for them. Not even the fox got away. That’s what he did. God knows why.’

  Fins stared for a moment at the burn scars on his father’s hands. Lucho Malpica rolled his son’s note into a ball and flicked it across the table. The ball veered to one side and came to a halt in front of Amparo.

  ‘She’s also partly to blame,’ said Amparo suddenly.

  ‘Who?’ asked Lucho.

  ‘That loudmouth who drives him crazy, Antonio’s daughter. You should say something to Antonio. You spend all that time together out fishing.’

  Lucho glanced at his son and then at his wife. They should know by now that sorrows on a boat were for spitting into the sea. ‘What am I supposed to tell him? That he should keep her tied up at home?’

  ‘That wouldn’t be a bad idea. She’s far too wild. She’s always going barefoot. Like a beggar or something.’

  ‘It has nothing to do with us,’ remarked Lucho bitterly. He could barely hide it when a topic of conversation annoyed him. ‘Let her walk however she likes.’

  What bothered him even more, however, was a breakdown in the domestic order. And so he adopted a more conciliatory tone. ‘We do talk, from time to time. But you can’t touch Antonio’s daughter. She’s the most precious thing he has in the world. He’d do anything for her.’

  14

  MALPICA HAS A small motorboat which he uses for coastal fishing. It handles well, is definitely seaworthy, but Lucho and Antonio Hortas rarely stray from their familiar marks. They have their points of reference along the coast, the main one being Cape Cons. With these marks, their eyes trace invisible lines, the coordinates of their sardine shoals for fishing. Underwater places that almost never leave them empty-handed.

  This time they go further out. Even the seabirds seem surprised by their new direction and abandon them. The boat bobs up and down, in unfamiliar territory. The men are two grafts who resist the swaying of the boat impassively. It’s Malpica who decides where they’re going, who acts as captain from time to time. And now they’re headed north. Antonio neither asks anything nor makes any comment. He’s one of those who respect silences. They pass Sálvora. Head towards the outer sea. The cormorants on Death Coast peer at them with the look of medieval sentinels. Lucho Malpica still hasn’t said a word, but Antonio can hear his nasal hoarseness, his sibilant pout, those two murmurs that compete in his friend’s silences.

  The captain opens a wickerwork basket lined with canvas. Antonio knows what’s in there. He knows Malpica visited the Ultramar the previous night. He didn’t enter the bar, but he saw him arrive on his ‘little horse’, as he calls his Ducati. He must have gone in through the shop door. The attendant called to Rumbo through the hatch which communicates with the bar. And the barman disappeared for a while. Then Antonio heard Malpica leave. Heard the motorbike. The put-put of the engine. The annoyance of old engines at having to start up again. They left in daylight, too early. When Fins came round with the countermand that they would be heading out to sea, Antonio knew the fishing would be special.

  He’s seeing all this now, with absolute clarity, in causal sequences. He may not have heard the engine from the bar. It may be the engine on the boat, its laborious bad temper, providing a soundtrack to his memory.

  The sticks are wrapped in an immaculate white cloth inside the basket. Even there he’s being too careful, observes Antonio. Dynamite doesn’t like being thought about so much. Antonio remembers seeing maimed people. The idea has to get back to the hands. If the idea stops to think, it doesn’t reach the hands. That’s when you get injured people. Amputees.

  ‘Leave that to me, Lucho.’

  ‘Why?’ he says, turning around with an angry expression.

  ‘You haven’t the experience.’

  He was going to say, ‘You don’t know how.’ Like someone saying, ‘You don’t know how to fuck.’

  Antonio doesn’t mind. He knows others use dynamite. The sea takes whatev
er’s thrown at it, etc., etc. But deep down he’s annoyed that Malpica has given in. Has lit the damn fuse.

  ‘What science is there in this, Antonio?’ says Lucho uneasily, waving the stick in his hand. He’s on the starboard side and heads towards the bow.

  ‘To start with, it doesn’t have a very long fuse!’ shouts Antonio.

  Malpica turns around. See? Do you see what’s happening? The idea has got caught in his head, entangled in the brambles en route to his damn consciousness, and isn’t going to reach his hand in time.

  ‘What’s that?’ asks Malpica.

  The idea doesn’t get there. It’s the dynamite which has decided to explode. And explodes.

  Fins starts throwing stones at the sky. There are so many seagulls he has the impression he hasn’t hit any of them. Then he takes it out on the sea. Looks for the flattest pebbles and skilfully hurls them by arching his body. Like a discus thrower. His initial intention is for the stones to skim the surface of the sea. To jump on the back of the waves. After that, he doesn’t mind. Small, big. In a fury. Let the stones explode. It’s the sea’s fault. That generous, greedy giant. That crazy lunatic. ‘The sea prefers the brave ones and that’s why she takes them first,’ says the priest at the funeral. Everyone nods. They all wear expressions that suggest agreement with that part of the sermon. Enough said. What happened happened. It was written in the stars. It was out of his hands. Fins thinks he’s being looked at askance. Are you brave too? Are you like your father? Yes, there is compassion in their gaze, but also a hint of suspicion. He never put to sea with his father. It was time he lent a hand. Are they in on the secret? Do they realise he’s not fit for the sea?

  His father was certainly brave. You could see that when he carried the cross. A first-rate Christ. Verisimilar. Did the priest say that, or was it an echo emanating from his mind? Do they know he suffers from the petit mal, has absences?

  Like now.

  He can see his father shaving himself. The mirror, which has a diagonal crack, reflects two faces. His mother asking. Not asking.