‘It being a madman. .’
Dez was not happy with the meeting. He failed to understand how Samos, who was intelligent, sly when necessary, could have exhibited his paranoia with that western novelist so publicly, albeit among friends. He appeared now to be taking it lightly, but Dez knew how much it bothered him.
‘Strange the way it continues,’ said Father Munio, who with his white gloves turned every book that fell into his hands into an object for dissection.
Ernest Botana the journalist tipped his hat to the pruned, skeletal, naked poplars:
‘Courage, old friends!’
Then he saw the judge coming and stretched out his hand:
‘I absolutely will not allow you to consider me an enemy.’
The servant of the law was confused and blushed. He left, irritated by the weight of that pious affront.
The judge held out his hand to retrieve the novel. He’d have preferred it if Father Munio hadn’t chosen that particular passage to read aloud. It had quite upset him, which is why the page was marked. And now hearing someone else read it aloud finally revealed the source of the unsettling echo in his head. There was the memory of a similar sentence addressed to him.
It was the last time he’d talked to Héctor Ríos in Mazarelos Square, Santiago, outside the Law Faculty, that Christmas Eve in 1935. The day he refused the gift of a book by Wells and Ríos had the audacity, the unbearable goodwill, to comment, ‘I absolutely will not allow you to consider me an enemy.’
A fine coup de théâtre.
That’s right, he refused the book from Ríos, with whom he’d shared a passion for bibliography ever since they were children. He refused the book by Wells, an essay on The Salvaging of Civilisation.
‘I already read it,’ Samos lied.
‘And I read your article,’ said Ríos eventually. ‘“Germany’s Scholars Align Themselves with the Führer”. I think you’ve forgotten one or two. .’
There was Héctor Ríos, saying goodbye to Professor Del Riego on the steps of the Law Faculty and then jovially turning towards him, with his Kantian categorical imperative spectacles, a bundle of books in one hand and bulging jacket pockets. Who knows? He may still have been carrying his notes on cards from Xohán Vicente Viqueira’s lectures in Coruña on ethics, which the pupils of the Free Teaching Institute exchanged with lay devotion, like prayers. ‘Listen, Samos, to what Viqueira has to say: “Conscience is the mental activity of esteeming the good”. Could anyone have put it better?’ Once, in the spring of 1931, Ríos had persuaded him to attend a tribute to Viqueira in Ouces Cemetery. One of the participants, Bieito Varela, knocked on the gravestone and said, ‘Mr Viqueira, the Republic has arrived!’ The atmosphere was pleasant and effusive, with lots of cultured people, but Samos felt uncomfortable. Viqueira’s grave was outside the Catholic cemetery. Why was he buried outside? Ríos looked at him the way he did sometimes, through ironic spectacles that made him feel a fool, and said, ‘He’s outside because they wouldn’t let him in.’
Now, in 1935, Héctor Ríos is on his way to Madrid, to the hall of residence, with his brilliant academic record and plans to become, with the help of the prestigious penologist Luis Jiménez de Asúa, one of the youngest public prosecutors in the Spanish Republic. Héctor Ríos, with whom he’d shared children’s games on Parrote Beach, secondary studies, declamation classes in the Craftsmen’s Circle and a youthful passion for Herbert George Wells.
‘You’re not going to consider me an enemy, Mr Samos?’ His Kantian glasses looked at him with irony and Samos again felt small. ‘If you are,’ declaimed Ríos on the faculty steps, ‘I will not allow it.’
He came down the steps.
Held out his hand.
Samos was slow to accept the gesture, but did so in the end, unwillingly. He knew this meant carrying on the conversation. He now despised what he had once thought of as a virtue. Héctor Ríos enjoyed a polemic. Never gave in. So he didn’t pass up the opportunity to suggest, for his forthcoming thesis on Juan Donoso Cortés’ influence on contemporary thought and more especially on the prominent German jurist Carl Schmitt, he’d do well to read the Austrian jurist Hans Kelsen, to which Samos replied he’d already read a bit and he wouldn’t last a round with Schmitt. ‘With the rise of Nazism,’ answered Ríos, ‘while most jurists went into hiding, Hans Kelsen had the courage and the clarity to say there were only two possible kinds of State: a democracy or an autocracy. That is to last not just a round, but the whole fight. Kelsen is no wizard, but he’s right. It’d be crazy to put the terrestrial globe on your Mr Schmitt’s head.’
Right? There was no point arguing now. The sun’s gone past the door already, Ríos. No, he didn’t say that. It wasn’t the right time. Héctor still lived in his old liberal world, full of ideas. Nor was he going to answer the question Ríos then asked, begged him to think about. ‘Can you be a Christian, a Catholic conservative, and approve of Fascism? Isn’t tyranny the ultimate moral failure?’
In conversation, Samos was usually cautious. Not in writing. Recently, under the pseudonym Syllabus, he’d been expressing himself more and more freely, getting more and more excited. He converted this ardour into speech. He felt like talking with ferocity.
He had nothing to think about. That was his answer.
‘I’ve nothing to think about,’ he said suddenly.
It felt good, addressing him like this, boldly. Ríos had always been up front, but now he’d taken over his position. It was a strange, thrilling sensation. Ríos, the mature young man, struck him now as naive. His revered Schmitt talked of a ‘providential’ meeting with Donoso Cortés’ Speech on Dictatorship. He felt the same ‘providential’ moment with Schmitt. He gave Ríos some information he lacked: history was preparing to move with steely ferocity. Ríos still trusted in Wells’ fiction in one pocket and Viqueira’s cards on ethics in the other. On his way to the hall of residence in Madrid, with his jacket worn out at the elbows.
‘No, I’ve nothing to think about. And since you ask, I have an answer to that, which Donoso Cortés gave me in 1849.’
Héctor knew what he meant, he was talking about a dictatorship. He jokingly pulled a pocket watch out of his waistcoat. ‘1849? I haven’t time to go so far back, Ricardo. I’ve a train ticket for tomorrow.’
Samos looked at him in such a way it was clear he never wished to see him again. ‘That’s not an answer, it’s a frivolity.’ He then turned his back on him and strode off. He didn’t mind if Ríos thought he was running backwards.
‘Your priest, Mr Schmitt, is wrong when he affirms the history of the world begins with Cain. After that, everything in him is mistaken.’
Ricardo Samos turned around for a moment. He felt invincible, stimulated by the idea of steely speech. He could speak boldly. Now Héctor Ríos would be the fool. ‘Auctoritas non veritas facit legem.’
‘Come back, Ricardo!’ shouted Ríos. ‘You’re a couple of centuries past 1849. Come back for the book, for civilisation!’
He spoke theatrically, but was really sorry Samos had refused the book by Wells. He felt a pain in his stomach. Poor Wells. It’s lunchtime. I’ll look after you.