All Is Silence by Manuel Rivas Read Free Book Online Page A

the ground.
    They were searching for survivors. Leda finally came across an intact body. A black, female mannequin. She bent down and wiped the sand from its mouth and eyes. Its face had sculptural features and was attractive.
    ‘Pretty, hey?’ she said.
    The dry sand resembled silver make-up. Fins gazed at this face that was both alive and dead, that seemed to be forming itself as its features emerged. But he didn’t say anything.
    ‘Give me a hand, will you?’ said Leda, standing up. ‘We’re going to take this one.’
    ‘Take it? Where?’
    Leda didn’t answer, but grabbed the mannequin by its ankles. ‘Hold it by its shoulders. With tenderness, mind!’
    ‘With tenderness?’
    ‘Just hold it.’
    Leda and Fins carried the mannequin along the coastal road, following the shoreline. The girl took the lead, holding the figure by its calves. Fins went behind, supporting the mannequin by its neck. Their laborious walk accompanied by the heaving sea.
    What fills the valley now is the sound of a Western trailer. Wind on the back of wind. Shots in the air. A requiem for mannequins. Advancing slowly along the road, in the opposite direction to Fins and Leda, is a car, a Simca 1000, with a roof rack to which is tethered a loudspeaker emitting the trailer, an advert for a film to be shown the following weekend in the cinema Paris-Noitía, at the Ultramar.
For a Few Dollars More
. The way the shots resound in the valley. The wind climbs on top of the wind. That music counting down to the showdown. Rumbo feels happy. Not just because the film is going to fill the cinema, which it is, but on account of this exhilarating ride on horseback, this taking the film out for a spin in the valley. Setting all and sundry on edge. Stunning birds and scarecrows.
    Quique Rumbo stopped the car on reaching the mannequin bearers and turned off the cassette blaring out of the loudspeakers. He always gave the impression of being a man of experience. Someone who was used to the unexpected and trained to give a suitable response. And yet, according to Lucho Malpica, Rumbo – Quique Rumbo – had moments when he spat blood. He wound down the car window with a look of curiosity.
    ‘Why don’t you get
Los chicos con las chicas
?’ Leda began.
    ‘That’s a very fine dummy, Nine Moons!’ he exclaimed ironically. ‘How much do you want for it?’
    ‘It’s not for sale,’ replied the girl firmly. ‘It doesn’t have a price.’
    This wasn’t the first time Rumbo or Fins had heard her sound off like a trader just beginning to bargain. What she did, however, was start walking again with a sudden impulse that took in both Fins and the mannequin.
    Rumbo leaned out and shouted from the car window, ‘Everything has a price, you know!’
    At Chafariz Cross, she took the road leading uphill to the Ultramar. Fins hoped she might agree to sell the dummy after deciding on a price. But to his surprise, she kept going, turning left along a sunken path. She stopped to catch her breath. The two of them were exhausted. But their tiredness was different. His amounted to a dissatisfied fatigue. That dummy was heavy. Weighed like a blasted robot.
    ‘You’re not thinking of taking it there, are you?’ he asked.
    ‘I am.’
    ‘You’re not!’
    Leda smiled with steely determination, and lifted up the rigid beauty.
    ‘I am.’
    Inside the School of Indians, the blind mannequin made a pair with the one-armed skeleton. They called it a skeleton, though it wasn’t exactly that. It was more of an Anatomical Man. You could see the different-coloured organs and muscles, some of which had disappeared over time, starting with the heart, red-painted latex, and the glass eyes. But there he was, the homunculus, complete with bones. It was a question of entering and selecting the spot. One was calling out for the other.
    They decided to clean and explore the floor of the world, each in a different direction.
    ‘Where are you, Fins?’
    ‘In the Antarctic. And