National Registry accepts a dead teacher’s name

Previously: Casimiro Lete, author of the 1974 book, signed the application with a handwritten condition: that the schoolteacher Herminia Sasal be listed first.

On 18 June there were forty titles left on the trolley and the article-nine box closed at two in the afternoon. Ainhoa Cortabarria, book restorer at the Provincial Library of Huesca, scanned the two stapled sheets at twenty past nine — Casimiro's signature in ink and the three cramped lines in the margin — and sent them to the National Registry.

At a quarter past ten the file came back. Not refused: returned, which is a different thing and a worse one, because returned means starting again with the clock running.

Fabián Oyarzun, head of the reading room, read the reason over her shoulder.

"'The name entered in first place does not match the name recorded in the co-author's file,'" he said. "And underneath they spell it out in full."

"Herminia Sasal Nogueras," Ainhoa read.

"And the application says Bergua."

"He wrote it himself, by hand, without checking anything."

"Well, if it doesn't match letter for letter, it doesn't go through. A name wrongly written is not a name."

Otilia Bergua, keeper of the old collection for thirty-one years, came up from the basement with the box from the Ayerbe school and opened it on the work table. Inside were still the registers, the minutes and the monthly reports from '68 to '79. She took out the report for January 1974 and laid it beside the form.

"Signed by her and typed by her," she said. "The administration has been keeping that piece of paper for sixty-four years. If the Registry wants proof of the co-author, it is asking itself for it."

"The report will do," said Fabián. "Casimiro's sheet will not. It has to be corrected and signed again in ink."

"Ayerbe is forty kilometres away."

"And the box closes at two."

Ainhoa printed the corrected sheet at twenty to eleven and left with it in a folder. She reached Ayerbe at ten past twelve.

Casimiro Lete Arbués, eighty-nine years old, retired, read the paper twice with his magnifying glass before picking up the pen.

"Nogueras?" he asked.

"That is what her teaching file says."

"In the village she was Miss Herminia. I never did know the second surname." He put down the glass. "And this doesn't knock out my condition?"

"It is the same condition. One word changes."

"Then read it to me again."

Ainhoa read it aloud, all of it, with the name corrected. Casimiro wrote the three lines again in the margin, more slowly than the first time, and signed inside the box. Then he folded the paper in half, sat looking at it, and opened it again.

"Tell me something. If this goes through, where does anyone read it?"

"On the copy's record card. And in the state catalogue."

"But not in the book."

"Not in the book. The book is from 1974."

"Right." He handed the sheets back. "She marked homework in red pencil and always wrote the full name at the top. She used to say that work without a name belongs to the school, not to anybody."

Ainhoa photographed the two sheets on the kitchen table, with the January 1974 report behind them, and sent it all at twenty to two. She drove back to Huesca with the radio off, verified nine more titles before six, and left the trolley at thirty-one.

At half past six Otilia brought up two more boxes and sat down opposite her with her list of four hundred titles.

"If this goes through, it doesn't only go through for 215," she said. "A file number comes out of it. And a file number is what they ask you for when you turn up with the second case."

"Do you have a second case?"

"I have four hundred titles and thirty-one years of looking at them. There'll be one." She squared the boxes with the edge of the table. "What I didn't have until today was somewhere to take it."

Ainhoa left the list under the form. At a quarter to seven she verified one more and brought the trolley down to thirty.

The telephone in the room rang at twenty to eight. The wall clock, eleven minutes fast since March, said seven fifty-one.

"Carmela Ibarrola, National Registry," said the voice. "I am confirming this afternoon's decision. Joint authorship accepted for 'Oficios de invierno', Huesca, 1974. File 2038/1174."

"With both names?"

"With both, in the order the applicant asked for. First Herminia Sasal Nogueras, second Casimiro Lete Arbués."

"How many of these do you approve?"

"Joint authorship with a deceased co-author? Counting yours," said Carmela, "one. Since 1987."

Ainhoa wrote the number in her notebook, on the same page where on Tuesday she had crossed out the fourteen false verifications: 2038/1174. Underneath she wrote the time, twenty to eight, and subtracted what was left before the lorries came in through the back dock: ten hours and twenty minutes.