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

you?’
    ‘I’m in Polynesia.’
    ‘You’re miles away!’
    ‘Just whistle if you want me to come closer.’
    Fins didn’t wait long. He gave a whistle.
    She replied with another whistle, which was better and stronger.
    In this way they drew closer. She didn’t say so, but walked with her eyes closed. Felt a geographical feature at her feet. Came to a stop. Opened her eyes and looked down.
    ‘Hey, I’m on top of Everest!’ she shouted. ‘Where are you?’
    ‘In the Amazon.’
    ‘Well, be careful!’
    ‘You too!’
    They were interrupted by a creaking of roof tiles. Dust trailed down, along the line of light. A few bats exited the shady zone, flying with the clumsiness of sleepwalkers.
    The couple looked up. The noise stopped. The light focused on them. They decided not to worry.
    ‘I’m in . . . Ireland,’ she said.
    ‘I’m in Cuba.’
    ‘Now we have to be really careful,’ said Leda. ‘We’re going to cross the Tenebrous Sea.’
    They approached each other. Met. Felt. Touched with their hands. The hands are for touching. They embraced. When they started to kiss, another, louder noise was heard coming from the ceiling.
    Leda and Fins, half blinded by the dust, looked up again. Brinco popped his head through the crater, imitating the sound of an owl: ‘Twit twoooooo!’
    The intruder expelled a gobbet of spit, which sank to the floor next to the standing couple.
    ‘Pig Island!’ shouted Leda.
    ‘There’s nothing that can’t be eaten!’ he replied. Then they heard him moving off across the tiles.
    ‘We’d better leave. He could bring the whole roof down.’
    He stopped himself because Leda was staring at him, gently wiping the dust off his shoulders.
    ‘Don’t worry, nothing’s going to come down.’
    Nine Moons surveyed the map of Fins Malpica’s face with her fingers.
    ‘Arctic, Iceland, Galicia, Azores, Cape Verde . . .’
    Fins is now seated at the teacher’s desk, to the right of the blind mannequin and the one-armed skeleton. Pretending to type. Banging on keys that move a carriage without paper.
    Nine Moons is holding a book. She opened it to have a look, but started turning the pages and is now absorbed in her reading.
    ‘What are you reading?’
    ‘It has lice marks.’
    ‘Did they eat all the letters?’
    ‘Just type.’
    ‘I’m not sure I can. I don’t have any paper.’
    ‘That doesn’t matter, stupid! Look, type. “All is mute silense . . .”’
    ‘Shouldn’t it be “silence” with a “c”?’
    ‘No, it says “silense” with an “s”. It must be for a reason.’

11
    THE PARISH PRIEST climbed into the pulpit and, before speaking, tapped the microphone with a mixture of caution and shyness until several smiling faces nodded in his direction. It was working. At which point Don Marcelo said that we all more or less knew that God was eternal and infinite. He lasts for ever and is omnipresent, knows no limits. Which is why he is said to have invented human beings, so he had somebody to attend to the minor details. Somebody, so to speak, who could use the Decimal System. Who’d look after the smaller things. Such as changing broken roof tiles. Unblocking drains. Watching the introduction of novelties that make all our lives more bearable. ‘To give free rein to the spirit, one must keep an eye on worldly matters. Which is why it is so important to recognise the progress represented by the outdoor speakers we are using for the first time today owing to the kind donation of our fellow parishioner Tomás Brancana, known to all and sundry as Mariscal the Marshal’ – though obviously he didn’t say this – ‘to whom we owe other improvements in this church of St Mary, such as the recent repairs to the roof. One day such generosity will be repaid,’ etc., etc. And Mariscal, who had Dona Guadalupe to his right, and to his left the couple formed by Rumbo and Sira, responded with a reverential bow. Don Marcelo, with the increasing confidence supplied by new