A Manuscript of Ashes by Antonio Munoz Molina

Author:Antonio Munoz Molina [Molina, Antonio Muñoz]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

6

"AND NOW HE'S LYING DOWN in the room," Manuel thought, "with the shutters closed, his eyes closed, his hands folded over the buckle of that absurd coat that smells of the train and that he hasn't taken off because he's trembling with cold even though Teresa lit the fire that faces his bed, his hands folded, his fingers interlaced over the coat, his thumbs rhythmically tapping each other, as if he were marking shapeless, limitless time with no precise destination, just as one marks the beats of one's heart or the drip of water falling at night from a half-closed tap. He heard me when I went in and he pretended he was sleeping, or perhaps he really was sleeping and his sleep resembles an exhausted insomnia as he lies on the bed, dressed, his unopened suitcase in the middle of the room, his shoes with the laces untied dirtying the edge of the bedspread with mud, and that smell of rough blankets and cold dawn that I had forgotten." Even before his mother came into the dining room, examining everything in a single glance as she searched for some sign that would proclaim the arrival of her guest and enemy, Manuel knew that Solana's presence in the house would weigh on the predictable silence in which supper would take place, even if his name weren't spoken, for Dona Elvira had always known how to use silence as an accusation and an insult, and Solana was one of the names she never pronounced, obeying a fierce standard of pride inculcated in her in her youth. When she finally appeared in the doorway of the dining room, flanked by Amalia as if she were an ancient lady-in-waiting, Manuel and Utrera stood at the same time, but it was Utrera who hurried to pull out the chair reserved for her at the head of the table, holding the back while Doña Elvira sat down, bowing too deeply, like a hotel waiter. In those years, Medina said then, Utrera seemed determined to maintain a certain air of a cinematic hotel receptionist, always solicitous, somewhat South American, slightly oily, with his pinstriped suits, hair stiffly waved with pomade, and the very thin black mustache that exaggerated his smile, the soft line of his mouth.

"Señora," he said, as Doña Elvira opened her napkin and placed it on her lap, looking without expression at the other side of the table but also, very much out of the corner of her eye, at Manuel, who was sitting to her left, "I have no words to thank you for accepting my invitation tonight. With your permission, I shall tell Amalia to begin serving supper." The municipal council of a nearby town had commissioned a very large allegory of Victory, and since, like the painters of the Renaissance, he was paid according to the number of figures, he had invited Manuel and his mother to a supper that he himself classified as special. After requesting permission from Manuel, who

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