The Manual of Darkness (9 page)

One might even say that he was able to recognise the melody before he was born. His father had heard or read somewhere that, if you sang the same song regularly, mouth pressed to your wife’s belly, after the fifth month of pregnancy, then after the birth the song would help calm the baby when it cried or needed help in getting to sleep. Every night, for four months, he sang ‘If’, trying to emulate Armstrong’s gravelly voice; he even included the rhythmic, meaningless scat Armstrong crooned between each verse: ‘If the world to me bowed, yet humbly I cling to you. Baa Daa Doo Dee. If my friends were a crowd, I’d turn on my knees to you. Doo Baa Doo Dee.’ When Víctor was born, singing it softly into the child’s
ear became a routine, regardless of its supposed benefits: it did not always stop the baby crying.

The lyrics hardly seemed appropriate for a lullaby. Perhaps Martín Losa chose the song for practical reasons: if he were looking for a way to calm the child he could not find a better ballad than this, slow almost to the point of solemn but with a swing beat that made it miraculously happy and delightful. It was difficult to listen to it just once. When Víctor inherited the record, the needle of the record player had ploughed the grooves so often that Armstrong’s voice sounded as though it were competing with a chorus of crickets. But still he played it. Over the years, he collected every available version of the song, though none seemed to be as good as the original.

The magical effect, if it had ever had one, vanished when he needed it the most. For Víctor, there came a time when his tears were all too real and his father was not there to sing ‘If’ to him. In fact, it was his absence Víctor mourned, so the very mention of the song made him cry all the more. And yet still he went on playing it, singing it so often that it became a sort of automatic reflex, not only in the face of sorrow, but also when something threatened his peace of mind. Whenever he felt scared or nervous, or when he simply needed to concentrate, the notes to ‘If’ came from his throat unbidden, so changed that they no longer seemed to form a melody. It was a habit Galván supposedly rid him of once and for all, but one would have to come very close to Víctor to know whether the tremulous sound he makes constantly these days is a whimper of grief or the first six notes of ‘If’: B
, C, B
, A, G, A. Is that it, Víctor? Again? If they made me a king? But they have made you a king. You are king of the world. The finest magician. Dethroned by a song. Song? Which song? This one, Víctor, the same song as always.

Galván made you strip. First the glasses, then the shirt. Then, when your terrified hands sought refuge in your pockets, he made you take off your trousers. He took away the table and the chairs, stepped back into the darkness and commanded you to sing. You wanted to disappear. Why didn’t you just pick up your clothes and leave? You stayed in order to side with him. Standing there, bashful. Stripped of everything, even your short-sighted eyes
naked, you bowed your head and the blurred pile of clothes at your feet made you think there was a dead body lying there, that it was bitterly cold, that the dead body could be you. You made the sound again, a sound like clearing your throat, but now it is recognisably B
, C, B
, and Galván’s voice kept hammering in your ears, Sing, sing louder, I can’t hear you, Víctor, sing. Perhaps it would have been enough to give form to the melody – after all, he only wanted to make you sing, to make you realise. But then you sang the first line: ‘
If they made me a king
’. You shivered a little, brought your knees together like the helpless little boy you claimed not to be any more, but you did sing. Softly, out of tune, you sang the first verse almost without moving your lips, and when you reached the second verse, it was not Galván who was urging you on, but Armstrong himself, until you thought you could see his pearly teeth shining in the dark. Or perhaps it was your father. Your father, Víctor. His face, not Armstrong’s. His face bending down as though he could press his lips to the belly of time and ask you to sing to put an end to all the tears, so that your voice rose to sing the third verse at the top of your lungs: ‘If I ruled the earth, what would life be worth, If I hadn’t the right to you Baa-Daa-Baa-Doo Baa-Dah-Boo-Dee’. You thought you could see him smiling, and when you finished you were sure it was him clapping until Galván took a step forward, became visible, his arms wide, and said, ‘Come here, come here, you silly boy,’ and though three minutes earlier you would have sworn undying hatred, you rushed into his arms, which were Armstrong’s arms and your father’s arms and your own arms, hugging them all at once. Put your clothes on, Víctor.

It worked. When Víctor bent down to pick up his clothes, what 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 his
childhood. 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
.

‘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 general examination.’

For twenty minutes he feels as though he is going crazy. First, the doctor asks him to name three things in the room. Víctor scans it with deliberate care and answers: ‘A clock, a bed, a photo of your wife and son. I assume.’ Then the neurologist asks him to clap his hands; then clap them again, then look at the ceiling. He keeps Víctor talking constantly as though trying to coax some secret from him. He picks up a stick and holds it by one end. Close one eye and look at the stick. What were the three objects: clock, bed, photo. Now the other eye. Can you see the red dot?

‘Really? It’s red? It’s just that with the left eye …’

The doctor sighs. That’s it. He’s found something. Something
serious. Maybe it’s not just that he’s going blind. Maybe it’s something terminal. A brain tumour.

‘You see, I have this little spot …’

A little spot, a small smudge, a tiny moon. The diminutives don’t make it sound any less serious. From that moment, Víctor interprets every word, every action of the neurologist, as proof that his brain is harbouring some foreign body, something living, deadly, an enemy lying in wait. The doctor systematically checks his motor reflexes, his manual dexterity, strength and sensitivity, his co-ordination and his reflexes. He checks his torso, then begins to examine his legs. When Víctor sees him pick up the hammer to check his knee reflexes, he can stand it no longer. He pushes the doctor’s hands away, sits up on the bed and protests: