‘Do you mean whores?’
‘I mean sirens. For that, I turn to Mr Thomas Stearns Eliot and his idea about heights of sensibility. It depends on the height.’
‘What height?’
‘The height you’re writing and reading at. Or depth, if you like. Your vision is only partial. Think of men breaking up ice on deck. Not blocks of ice, ice covering the whole ship, every nook and cranny. And imagine then the skipper decides to head for St Pierre. They haven’t seen or stepped on land for months. Going to St Pierre, which is only a small harbour with a slope of wooden houses, is like a trip to paradise. They’re so happy lots of them start drinking in order to celebrate and, by the time they reach St Pierre, they can’t disembark. They can barely walk. For them, without the need to cite Mr Eliot, the simple fact of saying St Pierre, the decision to go, meant already being there. In paradise. That’s the power of simply saying words, they make a place, change bodies. But let me tell you about those who disembark. Lots of them queue up outside L’Étoile, which is soon Anglicised as the Star, the dance hall owned by St Pierre’s only professional diver, also known as the Communist, and they queue up, do you know why? No, it’s not what you’re thinking. Dozens of men waiting in a line, in the snow, to dance, just to dance with the one they call Hunchie, La Bossue, Miss Hunchback. To put their hand on her hump while they dance. Skippers will pay her up to a thousand francs to go on board ship and pee on the nets. A kind of magic charm. Dancing, washerwomen, lucky sirens.’
The censor Dez couldn’t help cracking his fingers in a sign of sudden discomfort.
‘Well, I’m glad, Anceis, you met Eliot and whoever else out at sea.’
Those of the G, dancing around the axis mundi,
in the Flaming Star. .
‘I know something about Freemasonry, Anceis. The G, the axis mundi, the flaming star, the next bit about the liber mundi. I’m not a complete fool. What’s it got to do with fishing for cod in Newfoundland?’
‘Very simple. The geometry of a dance. The most popular dance hall among fishermen in St Pierre was the Star. The stage was a wooden table. On top of the table was a chair. On top of the chair, an accordionist, the Diver. On top of the accordionist, a lamp. This is the axis mundi. The accordion is the liber mundi, which is both open and shut, virgin, fertilised matter.’
‘After all that,’ said Dez, ‘it’s no surprise my ecclesiastical colleague, with his divine eye, should be confused before what he terms “a muddy mare magnum”.’
‘I like that,’ said Anceis. ‘“A muddy mare magnum”. A realistic reading.’
He again made to retrieve the manuscript.
‘I’d better take it. Truth is,’ said Anceis, ‘I’m not sure I want to publish it.’
But Tomás Dez’s hand, swift as a claw, grabbed the folder containing two handwritten copies of I Was Forsook.
‘No, leave it. I’m going to defend this book as if it were my own. We have an obligation to try.’
He said this with a vehemence that took Anceis by surprise. That word as well. An obligation. It was true. To him, the only reason for writing and publishing it was because he felt a strange obligation, something akin to fate.
‘I’m going to defend this book,’ repeated Dez. ‘Do you know why? Because, talking of heights, above all I’m a poet, Mr Anceis. I haven’t a civil servant’s soul. You’ll think it contradicts my role, but being contradictory is part of the human condition.’
‘You said before the ecclesiastical censor wouldn’t change his negative opinion. Wouldn’t give his nihil obstat. Had it in for my book.’
‘Yes, he does. He’s set against it. We’ll see what he puts down in writing. He told me he considers I Was Forsook a case of overt blasphemy. I told him God can look after himself. But this is a man who goes around with the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in his pocket. Don’t think he’s particularly fond of me. What to do? For me, fanaticism is to religion what hypocrisy is to virtue. In short, we’re up against a wall, but there may be a key. We have to find it. I’ll see what I can do. Where there’s excommunication, there’s absolution. It may take months. Even years. But I swear to you I Was Forsook will see the light of day.’
He’d redone the bit about sirens in ‘Standard Vivas’ as a separate text, whose language, being explicit, was provocative but infused with the moral lesson of a cruel fate awaiting transgressors. An edifying scandal. Aurelio Anceis talked of ‘God’s punches’ as the blind blows of an arbitrary, brutal force, a sworn enemy of beauty, enjoyment and happiness. In Tomás Dez’s version, God’s punches were always well aimed and even the misfortunes of the righteous or innocent had a positive purpose: the quality of their laments, the height of their tragedies.
In Oeste, the poem was kept the same.
He banged his fist on the table. On that worm that had wormed its way out of the table. He’d kill Oeste. He’d kill that bug any which way.
The application to publish the magazine, which was described as ‘An Independent Cultural Weekly’, was signed by Chelo Vidal, Ricardo Samos’ wife. ‘Playing the prima donna,’ he snarled. Its director, who had to be an accredited journalist, was the guy from the evening Expreso. On the editorial board were Sada the painter, that young poet friend of his, Avilés, Dr Abril, the teachers Eloísa Garza and Dora Castells and the two Vidals, Chelo and Sebastián the photographer. There was then a long list of contributors, a mixed bag among whom, with his magnifying glass, he could detect the odd liberal survivor, youngsters who were suspicious from the moment they started writing, and a few exotica, who were above suspicion, travelling companions, like that pretty girl in National Formation, Laura. But he had Ren’s report. And pretty Laura, the Carlist, so beautiful in her traditionalist uniform, was now keeping company with ‘existentialist claptrap’. It had all been carefully planned to lend an air of respectability to the invention, which showed all the signs of being a second Atlántida, closed years before by a specific order from Madrid based on a report he’d never publicly acknowledge as his own, the terms of which he only had to repeat to cause excitement on his palate: ‘A group of degenerate, existentialist Bohemians.’
Among the promoters of Oeste, the young poet would soon be out of play. Ren had in mind a simple operation to intimidate him and force him out of the country. He would open his post, make it clear he was being watched. Or issue one of his favourite warnings by phone, ‘You’re living by permission.’ Dez centred his suspicions on Sada. He was the oldest and had the constitution of a cobweb. He seemed to hang in the air, like a dream, but with moorings everywhere. He had to confirm it. He had to locate the source as soon as possible. I Was Forsook, with its new title The Moment of Truth, was about to appear in his name. Yes, The Moment of Truth. That was his contribution, his touch, and he liked it. He felt the paternity of the title somehow justified his appropriation of the work. It was like an adoption, he thought. And the title was perfect.
Eight months after this final attempt to have I Was Forsook authorised for publication, Aurelio Anceis died. It was a poetic death. He threw himself into the sea from the Coiraza wall in Orzán on a day of swell.