Pepe looked up from the newspaper that lay open on the bar. “You’re late today.”
“I was up half the night, practicing a new piece. On the piano.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you play.”
“Give me a caña, would you?”
Pepe held the glass at a slant under a silver tap, adjusting it as it filled with beer, then he deftly scraped the foam off with a plastic knife. It was always a pleasure to see him go about his trade. You could feel the years of experience in every action, no matter how small or insignificant.
He asked where Ari was.
“He’s up the coast,” I said, “with Cristiani.” I drained half the beer, then sighed with pleasure and lit a cigarette. The smoke turned from gray to blue as it coiled through a ray of sun.
“How is Cristiani? I haven’t seen her in a while.”
I tapped my Camel against the edge of the ashtray. “She’s fine. She’s visiting a friend, in Tossa.”
“Are they away for long?”
“I suppose it depends on the weather. It’s been nice up there, apparently.” I slid my empty glass towards him and watched it fill with beer again. The scene that lay before me—the bottles lined up in their neat rows against the mirror-tiled back wall, the sunlight slanting in—was bright and colorful but thin somehow, like a fabric that might tear. All of a sudden, I wasn’t sure how long Cristiani had been gone.
“You going to join them?” Pepe asked.
“I might.”
He glanced at me, and then away again. “Nice-looking woman like that.”
I stubbed out my cigarette, then studied him for a moment. “What are you trying to say?”
“It’s none of my business.” Pepe rinsed out a rag and wiped the counter, even though the counter was already clean.
A silence fell.
Then Sergio, another regular, pushed through the door and tapped his thumb on the side of his forefinger, the signal we all used to tell Pepe to activate the cigarette machine.
First Maite, now Pepe. What’d got into everyone?
* * *
—
THAT EVENING, the phone rang. By the time I found it, stuffed down the side of the armchair Ronnie had been sitting in, the ringing had stopped. It was Cristiani, and she had left a message saying she’d decided to stay in Tossa for another week or two. She sounded distracted, remote—not like herself at all. When I called her back, it went straight to voicemail. I tried again. Same thing. I could only think there wasn’t too much cover where she was.
The next morning, on a whim, I asked Pepe if I could borrow his car. I wanted to drive up to Tossa and surprise Cristiani.
“It’s only for the day,” I said. “I’ll take her shopping, then we’ll have dinner. I’ll be back before midnight.”
“The window on the driver’s side is stuck—”
“I thought you fixed that—”
“And the air-con doesn’t work, not unless you turn it up to maximum.”
“All right.”
“Don’t go over a hundred. The whole thing starts to shake.”
“You’re beginning to sound like my mother.”
Pepe gave me a look, then put his car keys on the counter.
“And don’t drive drunk,” he called after me as I headed for the door.
Once on the carretera, I opened the window on the passenger’s side, but the air that blew into the car seemed hotter than the air I was already breathing. In the distance, to the northwest, the foothills of the Pyrenees showed up gray-white in the heat haze. Feeling drowsy, I took a nip of brandy from the bottle I’d stowed in the glove compartment. What bothered me was that I couldn’t remember Cristiani leaving for Tossa. I had no memory of her packing a bag or saying goodbye, no memory of me standing on the street outside our apartment, waving. And yet the car was gone, and so was she. Had I been there when she left? If not, where had I been?
I turned off the A7 towards the Costa Brava, passing through Tordera, then circling the seaside town of Blanes. After Lloret de Mar, the road began to climb, curve after curve, the pine trees and aloe vera closing in. Sharp brown rocks tumbled steeply to a Mediterranean that looked almost purple. The sky had darkened, and I heard thunder, even above the mumbling and rattling of Pepe’s beaten-up old SEAT. I sped over a ridge and down a long straight stretch of road, passing a grilled-meat place, then I swung round one or two more bends, and there was Tossa, wedged between two headlands, with its fairy-tale castle and its high-backed, dun-colored church. I remembered the life-size bronze statue of Ava Gardner that overlooked the bay. Not long after the war, she had made a movie in Tossa, and the townspeople had never forgotten her. The air had fallen still, an ominous, unsustainable stillness, like a big man hiding in a cupboard, and as I rounded the roundabout with the octopus sculpture on it a crooked vein of silver showed up in the sky to the east. The thunder that burst right above the roof was so loud that I ducked. My knuckles whitened on the steering wheel.
When I reached the narrow street where Cristiani’s friend lived, I saw my own car parked at an angle, one tire on the pavement. Cristiani had passed her driving test at the fourth attempt. Sometimes I wondered if she should have passed at all. I tucked Pepe’s SEAT into a small space farther up the hill, near the Hotel Neptune, then I walked back down. The storm had cleared the streets. Nothing moved except a three-legged cat that was picking its way along the top of a wall. My knees ached after the drive, but I was feeling lucid. Confident. This surprise appearance was exactly what was called for. It was a demonstration of my love. It would show I cared.
I knocked on the front door just as the first fat drop of rain came down. There was no answer. I knocked again. This time the door opened, and Aristides stood in the gap. He seemed to have grown since I’d last seen him. How old was he now? Fourteen? Since I was standing up against the door, trying to stay dry, my face was close to his, and I felt I was seeing his father, the coke dealer, before me, the man I had always feared but never known. This new insight caught me off guard and robbed me of all the words that I’d prepared on the way up.
“What do you want?” he said.
I noticed he no longer used my name, and I had the feeling this had been going on for quite some time. All the same, I smiled.
“Is that any way to address the king?”
Ari scowled.
Behind me, I could hear the rain landing on parked cars. The sudden smell of wet dust plunged me back into my childhood, and for a few vertiginous moments I was younger than the boy who stood in front of me.
“I’m here to see your mother,” I said.
Ari leaned his right hand on the door frame so his arm was blocking my path. “She doesn’t want to see you. She’s had enough.”
“What?”
“You heard.”
Adolescents, I thought. Honestly. Though he did frighten me a little, with his brutal, unformed face and his sketchy new mustache and sideburns.
I reached out and fingered the fake gold pendant he was wearing. “What did you get this for? It’s crap.”
He pushed my hand away and glared at me.
“Where’s Cristiani?” I said.
“I’m not saying.”
“Is she here?”
He sniffed the air in front of my face and then recoiled. “I thought as much. You’re drunk.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake—” I knocked his arm aside and shoved my way past him, into the house.
Cristiani was in the back room, sitting at a pine table. The sliding glass door behind her opened onto a narrow, tiled terrace. There was a mop and bucket, a coiled hosepipe, and a blue plastic washing line with clothes hanging out to dry. Though it was raining, no one had thought to bring the washing in.
“Where’s your friend?” I said.
She looked at me but didn’t speak.
She was wearing a tan skirt, a white T-shirt, and open-toed, wedge-heeled shoes. The bruising around her eye had faded. The sight of her chipped scarlet toenails brought a lump to my throat.
“I drove all the way from Castelldefels,” I told her. “I had to see you.”
I felt heroic, like a knight in a legend. I had proved my loyalty and passion, simply by appearing in Tossa. All this despite the presence of her son, the brutish gatekeeper, who lurked behind me. The air in the room gusted, and I thought I could smell his socks.
“Whose house is this?”
I looked around for clues. The room had the perfect, deadening neutrality of a holiday rental. The glass coffee table with its obligatory conch shell, the dog-eared thrillers on the bookshelf. The modest boxlike TV. Nothing actually belonged to anyone. It was just stuff.
I reached for Cristiani’s arm. “I’ll take you back with me. You can’t stay here.”
She made no attempt to get to her feet. I stood beside her, bending from the waist, as if to hear what she might say. But she still hadn’t spoken. She hadn’t said a word since I’d arrived. Could it be that she was overwhelmed?
“Come on,” I said. “I’ll take you home.”
“Leave her alone!”
I had forgotten about the boy. Tightening my grip on Cristiani’s arm, I whirled around. “Stay out of this. It’s got nothing—”
He came towards me fast, his hand closed into a fist. I heard a cry. Then the world shrank, until all I could see was that shell on the table—the polished, speckled curve of it, the ridges where it opened in a lip.
* * *
—
I WOKE UP ON MY BACK, rain splashing onto my face. My upper body was on the pavement, but my legs were in the gutter. The hard edge of the curb pressed against my spine. My jacket had been pulled half off, and my shirt had lost two of its buttons. I could see part of my stomach. Its softness and pallor sent a thrill of fear through me.
I sat up. The rain tapped on my skull, making a mockery of my thin hair. My cheek throbbed. When I touched the place where it hurt, there was no blood, only an egglike swelling. There was a sound in my head like the sound you used to get on TV after the channels closed down—but channels don’t close down anymore, do they. They just go on and on, dozens and dozens of them, right round the fucking clock.
The house was behind me, and I had the sense that they’d gone out. I imagined the two of them stepping over me, my girlfriend and her pale thug of a son. Once again, I thought I could smell his feet, and this time I saw a color too, a smooth, slightly oily slab of yellow. I leaned sideways and retched, but nothing came up.
I got to my feet, feeling I was made of several large pieces that were barely held together. An old man walked along the pavement towards me, the shoulders of his light summer jacket dark from the downpour, a green plastic bag in one hand. He stopped and stared at me, his head wobbling a little.
“So you got caught in it as well.”
Like an oracle, his words seemed rich with meaning.
I climbed back up the hill. It felt much steeper than before, and I had to stop three or four times to rest. When at last I reached Pepe’s car, I pulled out the half-empty bottle of brandy from under the passenger seat, unscrewed the metal cap, and took a few swift gulps. The world sprang back into position. I took off my jacket and my shirt, which were both wet, and threw them on the back seat, then I got behind the wheel and slammed the door.
As I passed the house, I sounded the horn three times—I’m not sure why—then I drove on towards the octopus roundabout. Tourists plodded down the main street in flip-flops and cagoules. The shops were open. All those boogie boards and blow-up whales. All those postcards, curling at the edges, damp. I took another nip of brandy, to keep the despondency at bay.
On the way out of Tossa, I switched on the radio and found a music station that was playing Herbie Hancock. I didn’t much care for jazz fusion, but I left it on. Clouds hid the tops of the hills. Everything was dark green and soft swirling gray. I could almost have been in Japan. Somewhere oriental, anyway. The fast, intricate music helped me to negotiate the countless bends, and before too long I was dipping down into Lloret again, with its 24-hour discos and its 500-room hotels.
At Blanes, I turned inland. A stud farm, a row of dripping poplars. The last time I had taken the country road between Sant Pere and Hostalric I had been with Vic, the guy from London. He’d had some business on the coast, and I’d gone along for the ride. That day, we must have seen at least half a dozen hookers sitting on white plastic chairs in outsize sunglasses and thigh-length boots. They looked out of place on that deserted road, under the pines. They looked too vivid. To my surprise, Vic stopped on a curve and told me he would be five minutes. I had to wait in his fancy black Lexus while he took one of the girls off into the trees. Today, there was no sign of them. They must have heard the weather forecast and stayed indoors. As I joined the A7, I finished off the brandy. I didn’t want to think about what had happened in Tossa. I needed to focus on the job in hand: getting home.
Somehow I missed the exit for the Ronda Litoral, which cut through Barcelona by following the coast. It didn’t matter. The Ronda de Dalt would do just as well. As I veered to the left, heading for the west side of the city, I flicked through the stations until I found a song I knew, then I sang along with it as loudly as I could.
* * *
—
I HAD JUST PASSED the turning for Sant Cugat when I noticed a blue light whirling in my rearview mirror. How long had that been there? The police car swerved into the middle lane and drew alongside, the officer in the passenger seat pointing beyond me, signaling that I should take the next exit. I sped up a steep ramp to a roundabout and parked as soon as I could, on a narrow road that led off into the trees above the Ronda. Since the window didn’t work, I opened the door and waited. The police pulled in behind me. Two officers got out. The one who approached me had a big round head, with all the features squashed into the middle. I was amazed by how much of his face was blank. The other policeman was circling the car.
“Could you turn the music down?” said the one with the big round head.
I did as he asked.
“We’ve been following you for three kilometers,” he said.
“I didn’t notice,” I said. “I was in a world of my own.”
“Have you been drinking?”
“I had a few nips of brandy, just to warm up.” I wondered where the bottle was. On the floor, hopefully. Out of sight.
“You were cold?” the policeman said.
“I got caught in the rain, back in Tossa de Mar.”
“Is that why you’ve got no clothes on?”
“Yes.”
I looked where he was looking. The empty brandy bottle was lying in full view, on the passenger seat.
“You look like you’ve been in a fight,” the policeman said.
I touched the swelling on my cheek. “This? It happened last night, in my kitchen. I was cooking spaghetti.”
“Eventful life.” The voice came from behind me, making me jump. I’d forgotten about the second policeman.
“Step out of the car,” the first policeman said, “and get dressed.”
I did as I was told. The two officers watched gravely as I buttoned my shirt. It seemed to take forever.
“Still damp, is it?” said the policeman with the big round head.
I nodded. “It is a bit, yes.”
“It’ll soon dry out.”
He was young enough to be my son, and yet his behavior struck me as avuncular—he really seemed to care about me—and I felt a surge of hope. Perhaps there would be a few moments of reprieve in this otherwise relentless day.
They weren’t traffic police, he said, and they didn’t carry a Breathalyzer, so what he proposed was this: either I accompany them to the nearest police station,
which was just down the hill, in Sarrià, or else I could leave the car where it was and pick it up in the morning.
“Your second proposition sounds more agreeable,” I said.
The policeman nodded approvingly. It was clear that if he’d been in my predicament he would’ve come to the same conclusion. “Where do you live?”
“Castelldefels.”
“Call a taxi and go home.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Do you have a phone?”
“I do.” Reaching into the map pocket in the car, I took out my mobile and waggled it in the air. “And thank you, officer. I appreciate it.”
As the two policemen walked back to their car, I pretended to punch a number, then I put my phone to my ear and began to pace up and down, like a zoo animal. It’s what people do when they’re talking on their phones. I’ve seen them.
“I’d like a taxi,” I said. “I’m just off the Ronda de Dalt. Exit 9.”
There was no one on the other end, but I sounded so convincing that I wondered if I’d missed my calling. Could I have been an actor?
I was still talking and gesturing when the police executed a neat three-point turn and drove away. My phone pressed to my ear, I gave them what I hoped was a respectful and law-abiding wave. As they disappeared round the roundabout, I slipped my phone into my trouser pocket and walked onto the bridge that overlooked the Ronda. I watched the cars slide, one by one, into the wide dark mouth of the tunnel. A taxi to Castelldefels would cost me at least fifty euros. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I’d have to come back in the morning. Such a bore. My eyes drifted across to Pepe’s scruffy red SEAT. Now the police had gone, there was nothing to stop me getting back in the car, was there? I mean, who would ever know? I would drive with—what was the phrase they used?—“due care and attention,” taking only the smallest roads. I would meander through Pedralbes, Cornella, and Electricitat, only rejoining the carretera when I was past the airport…
I moved cautiously towards the car, as if it was a bomb that might explode. I put my hand on the door handle. It was warm. I looked this way and that, but there was nobody about. Only a deserted car park, a modern building that seemed to be part of a university, and the tunnel’s air filters, which rose out of the nearby shrubbery, reminding me of the funnels on an ocean liner. I was in an area called Can Caralleu. I had the feeling I’d been there before, when I was still with Montse. A children’s party, perhaps—or a dinner with people I no longer knew. In fact, didn’t Montse live somewhere close by with her second husband, that pretentious intellectual, Jaume? In the distance, I heard the eerie piped notes knife grinders use to advertise their presence. Moments later, he appeared on an ancient powder-blue Vespa, his grindstone strapped to the back. I opened the car door and got behind the wheel. If the two policemen returned to check on me, I would tell them I’d felt tired and a little faint, and that I’d decided to wait in the car until my taxi arrived. No harm in that, surely.
Barcelona Dreaming Page 11