Mirror City

Jay Conrad

Description

Sombrayagua, a Spanish megalopolis,autumn of the year 2022...Book trader Diego Moranetti receives an unexpectedletter from Nuria Santos Malaboca, Sombrayagua's Water Archaeologist. Nuria opens by returning to her sex-driven, pot-head adventures in the late 1970s, when the Regent, the seemingly immortal dictator, has died at last. Amidst the nation-wide euphoria, Nuria's sardonic father, Ral, a socialist army colonel during the Civil War, retires to his native Monegros Desert, leaving his barely qualified mod-punk daughter in charge of the family business, 'SantosSunshades & Umbrellas'. Following Ral's accidental death in an olive grove, Purificacin, his bohemian, proudly alcoholic widow, and Ignacio 'Pencil-sharpener' Sacapuntas, his mutilated accountant, reveal to Nuria the origins of her 'damned bourgeois' enterprise, embarking her on a terrifying time travel adventure through the Civil War. Meanwhile, Nuria discovers a connection between past and present in Sombrayagua's subterranean 'Voyages of Water', begun by the Arabs in the early Middle Ages... 'A wicked vision of a tormented country. An utterly Spanish work of contrasts. Delightful reading, unforgettable characters, unbelievable situations. As a Spaniard, I found great pleasurein reading this quite unromantic rendering of a nation'shopes and despair.'POLLUX HERNUÑEZ (Spain), author of, among others, Monstruos, duendes y seres fantsticos de la mitologa cntabra. 'Employing the stratagems of sci-fi fantasy, Aesopian fable, magic realism, docufiction, and one or two genres yet to be charted, Jay Conrad, a Hollander who writes full-throttle in English, has crafted a parable of modern Spain that is prodigious in its scope, imagination and exuberance.'TIM STEFFA (United Sates), author of Finnish Trench Art

Sujets

• Historical fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 28 février 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528948012
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Mirror City
The Left Panel of the Sombrayagua Diptych
Jay Conrad
Austin Macauley Publishers
2019-02-28
Mirror City About the Author Epigraph Dedication Copyright Information APOLOGIA First Book: Voyages of Water Conversation in Central Harbour The heart of Spain, in the autumn of the year 2022: we fly into an ancient world Wisecrack for a Nation In which we meet an Argentinian expatriate and peek over his shoulder to read a letter The Alcubilla Delusion In which Nuria defies the laws of physics A Flaw in the Administration In which Nuria meets a crew of enlistment officers News from Sinperdón In which Nuria reads a confession in a badland town The Salt Lake In which Puri and Nuria go for a swim Second Book: November Days Science City In which we learn about the coming of age of Ignacio Sacapuntas Shooting Lessons In which Sombrayagua braces itself for the Mirror Army offensive Enlistment In which the logic of statistics is tested against the rules of war The Army of the Parallel In which bar-room brawlers from Barcelona make a difference A Stay of Execution In which Sombrayagua is saved – in the nick of time Barren Rooms In which Nuria has no time for mourning Third Book: Metropolitano Return of the Yoyo Man In which Benjamin León, the author of the WISECRACK FOR A NATION, reports for work A Letter to the Dead In which Nuria goes out for coffee The Pitfalls of Finance In which we learn of a fine sample of Catholic superstition No Matter In which Nuria’s telephone call wakes up Sr Sacapuntas’s old demons The Hyena Club In which the construction of an underground railway leads to political intrigue The Roaring Twenties In which newspaper headlines conclude a tumultuous decade Little Julio The Uncle from Uruguay In which Nuria and Ignacio discover a rotund lie The World’s Greatest Nightmare Tamer In which Nuria is dragged through the mud Sumra-Yaqan In which Nuria becomes part of local mythology Annexes Glossary Mentions and Quotations BOOKS RECORDINGS & FILMS Special Mention Acknowledgements
About the Author

Photograph of the author by Chloé Liradelfo.
Jay Conrad ( b . Netherlands, 1955) has worked in London, the former West Berlin, Barcelona and Amsterdam as bartender, pizza cook, night watchman, musician and book trader. He described his experiences in the short story section of NRC Handelsblad , the daily newspaper published in Rotterdam. Nowadays, Conrad, a singer-songwriter and self-taught Hispanist, lives in Brussels.
Mirror City is his first novel.
As a singer-songwriter, Conrad released two albums ( A Penniless Gentleman and Steeltown Girls ), to be followed, in early 2019, by Carrizo Springs (in Spanish, with lyrics of the poetess Raquel Lanseros) and The North London Line (autumn, 2019).
The Right Panel of the Sombrayagua Diptych ­– The Lens of Ibn Sahl is being written.
Cover illustration by Julie Sobotik.
Epigraph
*…España,
madre de ríos y de espadas y de multiplicadas generaciones,
incesante y fatal.*
(…Spain,
mother of rivers and swords and multiplied generations,
incessant and fatal.)
Jorge Luis Borges, Buenos Aires, July 1964.
Dedication
For my children, and in the memory of my parents.
Copyright Information
Copyright © Jay Conrad (2019)
The right of Jay Conrad to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528901697 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528948012 (E-Book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
APOLOGIA
For the historical background of this narrative, I consulted, among others, the following sources: Las aguas de Madrid, en paz y en guerra, de la segunda republica by José María Sanz García, Los Viajes de Agua de Madrid by María Isabel Gea Ortigas, Las galerías de servicios en Madrid by A. Sánchez Trasancos, The Spanish Civil War by Hugh Thomas, and the collective work, La Guerra Civil Española, Vols V, XV, XVIII and XIX.
The story about Cardinal Cisneros murdering a mountain cat (in the chapter The Pitfalls of Finance) is featured in Los nombres de las calles de Madrid by María Isabel Gea Ortigas.
Some Spanish terms (explained in the Glossary) are preceded by reversed (¡, ¿) exclamation and question marks, as customary in that language.
Atentamente,
J.C.
First Book: Voyages of Water

Conversation in Central Harbour

The heart of Spain, in the autumn of the year 2022: we fly into an ancient world
In the shimmering light of the rising sun, a few thin clouds that had been slumbering around Mount Malicious shook off their lethargy and slithered over the boulder-ridden Sierra heights. Her duty done, the Satellite dimmed in the skies of early morning. A dry wind rose and the beasts awoke; a pack of yawning wolves stretched their limbs before trotting off to new adventures, wild cows sniffed around in the freshly fallen autumn leaves. A scorpion meditated on a slab of rock.
The governor of the Sombrayagua Sierra, Brutus Tranquillius, the most intimidating eagle in the Royal Federation, was out on dawn patrol. Drifting over the sweeping valleys, with their holm oaks and juniper groves, he stretched his wings, feeling the wind caress the tight muscles underneath his feathers. He did a few flying exercises to see whether he was still on top of things: a few spiral loops to scare some scurrying rodents below, followed by a mighty surge towards the ascending Star. Closing his eyes, he felt his body shiver in ecstasy. But because his left wing still hurt slightly from a bullet that an eagle-sniper had fired at him a few years before, he corrected his upward flight, swooped around and set course to the thermal pleasures of the urban world.
Reaching Sombrayagua’s Outer Belt, Eagle swayed over comfy bungalows, with potted plants dreaming on the verandas. He spotted a man drinking lime juice on the lawn, talking to his young daughter who bent over a jigsaw puzzle. The girl’s mother sat in their cabriolet on the driveway, studying a map, planning the weekend’s outing. Their polo pony stood still asleep between the yucca bushes behind the house.
Such a delicate biotope, the huge bird thought, bringing such overwhelming responsibilities.
The summer had been exceptionally hot and dry, even by Meseta standards; Eagle frowned as he saw that the water reservoirs lay like dark stains on the Sierra slopes. Further away, in central Sombrayagua, the fountains had been turned off in Fariq Park that tapered for miles along the struggling Mayra River. Avoiding the dry midday heat, groups of tanned women in halter-tops jogged along the shores, while their men played basketball with excited little boys. On the riverside terraces, pensioners stared at their chessmen over morning coffee with a shot of Veterano Brandy.
Eagle drifted gently to the Inner Sectors, spreading across the high plain; the lights on the Sundial’s bionic skyscrapers winked at him in greeting, rising majestically from their semi-circle. He flew down to a Sombra Link Train and peered into the carriages: among the tightly-packed commuters, a lovely waitress, going home after her night shift at the all-hours bar at the Sierra Grand Hotel, was asleep, her head resting against the window.
The Royal Cliff rose beside the tracks, with Sabatini’s palace looming high above the ravine, gleaming as if wrapped in shiny gift-paper. From Vipers Field, the slim, sparkling 8AM Hour Tower reached for the motionless heavens.
Eagle followed the train, which ground to a halt in the Rock, in the soft echoes of West Track Terminal. Below him, on Zero Level, he saw Mole trains of the Circle Line vanish into the underground labyrinth; on Minus One, further down, people waited for their Bullring trains.
Eagle landed on a beam under the glass dome of the station. His gaze sweeping the crowd, he noticed a lean, tired-looking man slumped on a bench, with a backpack between his feet, drinking coffee from a paper cup. The man seemed lost among the milling office women, so graceful with jackets thrown over naked shoulders, as they boarded their trains to the suburban Polígonos. Eagle cocked his head and saw with his piercing vision that the label on the man’s luggage read: Diego Moranetti Partnoy . Then he scanned the backpack: a few shirts, underwear, a pair of rolled-up jeans, a light wing airline ticket, a hotel reservation in Barcelona and an ominously brown envelope. Zooming in, Eagle stiffened in shock at its contents.
He narrowed his eyes: his uncanny sense of perception revealed to him that Diego Moranetti Partnoy carried information which could have disastrous consequences for his sonar friends who lived by the dark waters deep below the Rock. But he did not want to cause unnecessary panic and decided to return to the Sierra to ponder the disturbing matter at length.
He swooped out of West Track Terminal and landed half an hour later in the early snow on the Peak of Reflection. There he spent the rest of the morning meditating in the sunlight: warning the commanders of the underground army would mean that he might be held responsible by the Glaring World for their possible reprisals. Yet, ignoring the signs of impending danger could harm their community and jeopardise his relations with the half-blind brigadier-general in charge of the fighting force, who considered Eagle to be an agent whose reports always made sense.
He prayed to the Empress-Mother Eagle for counsel wh