Free The Manual of Darkness by Enrique de Hériz Page B

lay there no longer looked like a dead body but a moulted skin he had shed. As he put on his clothes he realised he was tired, but he was thankful for the feeling of relief that came with that exhaustion. Galván placed the chairs back under the spotlight, told him to take a seat and asked him about the song. Before he got to the important part, Víctor described Armstrong, the white teeth, the gravelly voice, the scat. He mentioned Evans, Hargreaves and Damerell, who had written the music and lyrics, remembering their names from the record sleeve read so often during hischildhood. He talked about the versions by John Gary, Perry Como, Billy Eckstine and Dean Martin, pointed out that Art Tatum was the only person to record an instrumental version and ridiculed Mario Lanza’s attempt to turn it into an aria.
    Until that moment, Galván had never heard his student utter more than a dozen words at a time. And so, though this was not the particular information that interested him, he decided not to interrupt, until Víctor mentioned his father for the first time.
    ‘Name?’ he interjected.
    ‘What name?’
    ‘Your father. What was his name?’
    ‘Martín.’
    ‘Martín Losa.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Carry on.’
    ‘My father started singing me this song …’
    ‘Martín Losa,’ the maestro interrupted him again, ‘Martín Losa used to sing this song to his son Víctor …’ then he waved his hand for him to continue.
    Víctor understood what the maestro wanted and tried to please him, though he remained unconvinced. He began uneasily, his words disjointed and vague, feigning detachment, as though the story of this Martín Losa and his son Víctor was really about someone else. Gradually, forced through words into some sort of order, the unfortunate events of his childhood began to conform to a certain logic: feeble and governed principally by luck and recklessness, but a logic nonetheless. He had recalled a thousand times his father’s death almost ten years earlier. His imagination was so attuned to the uncertainties and the miseries he associated with that period of his life that, when he came to recount it, and though the words poured from his mouth in a torrent, every detail naturally began to find its place and the tale took on a surprising consistency. From time to time, he was astonished to find himself relating something he thought he had forgotten, but he had no time to savour the feeling because, like water too long dammed up bursting its banks, the story hurtled on, carrying him with it. The feeling of relief was so great that Víctor was sorry when he came to the end of the story. He said nothing for a moment,searching his memory, and glanced at Galván as though a question from him might help him rescue some important detail from oblivion. The maestro simply nodded, as though Víctor had just performed some new exercise perfectly, and told him to pick up the deck of cards. The lesson was over. Before he said goodbye, Galván gave him a list of the exercises to practise for the following class and the corresponding page numbers in
Modern Magic
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An Exciting Case
     
    ‘D o you know what day it is?’
    He has to think. He has to think back to the night of the party in his honour, which, he guesses, was Monday, and count from there, but he picks his way through as though this were a minefield. Thursday? He can’t bring himself to say it.
    ‘What day of the week?’
    The neurologist frowns and looks at him dubiously.
    ‘Or the date. Whichever you prefer.’
    ‘The date? But I never know what date it is!’
    The neurologist glowers.
    ‘Thursday. I think it’s Thursday.’
    ‘Good. Do you know where you are?’
    ‘In a doctor’s consulting room. At least that’s what I thought; right now it feels like a nursery.’
    ‘Don’t be impatient. The questions may sound ridiculous, but I have to ask them.’
    ‘It’s just that what’s wrong with me is …’
    ‘I know. Your eye. But I need to give you a