Barcelona Dreaming

by Rupert Thomson

  “Another drink?” I said.

  Vic pushed his empty glass towards me. “Cheers.”

  A fresh rum-and-Coke in front of him, Vic picked up where he had left off. The next time he heard noises, he was alone in the apartment. Joanna was in England, seeing family. Again he lay still and listened. A kind of tapping. A scuffling too. He eased out of bed and moved to the door, which he always left half-open. Had someone broken in? Fists clenched, he edged down the corridor and then turned right, into the hall. The chest of drawers was gone. How could that be? He checked the front door. It was locked. The tapping and scuffling sounded closer now. He crept towards the living room, then stopped again, hardly daring to breathe. The noises had stopped as well. The sliding glass door at the far end of the living room was open. From where he stood, he could see pinpoints of light flashing on the famous communications tower in the hills. He could have sworn he’d closed the door before he went to bed.

  He moved slowly across the room, keeping to the wall opposite the fireplace, where the shadows were deeper. Once he reached the door, he peered through the gap. The terrace looked the same as always. Could the intruder have escaped over the roof? Was that even possible? Or maybe it wasn’t an intruder at all. Maybe the tapping and scuffling had come from a neighboring apartment. But in that case where was the chest of drawers? And why was the door open?

  A gentle breeze stirred the plants Joanna had brought back from the garden center in Pedralbes. He slid the door shut and locked it, then he faced into the room, his head lowered, one hand wrapped round the back of his neck.

  He was halfway to the kitchen, thinking he would make himself a drink, when there was a sudden crash behind him. It was so loud and so close to him that he cried out. He swung around, then froze. A fully grown wild boar stood on the terrace, only ten or fifteen feet away. The boar was glaring at him through the door, its breath clouding the glass. Its two short tusks curved viciously. Its eyes were small and fierce. He stepped backed, towards the kitchen, then he froze again. It had occurred to him that if he moved he might antagonize the creature. As he was wondering what to do next, the boar trotted over to the railing at the far edge of the terrace. Then it turned and charged. Its tusks struck the door with such force that the plate glass seemed to bulge inwards.

  “Christ!”

  The glass held firm, and the boar stood there as before, its eyes fixed on him, knowing and unkind. How could he protect himself? His thoughts struggled to emerge. He remembered a gun he had owned once, in London. He could see it in his hand—the blunt muzzle, the steely half-moon of the trigger. Stepping forwards quickly, he shoved the sofa lengthways against the door. The boar still hadn’t moved. Its bristly flanks were heaving, as if it had exerted itself. He backed across the room, then turned and hurried down the passageway into his bedroom and shut the door behind him. He had never noticed how flimsy it was, no more than an inch thick. Wedging himself into the gap between the wardrobe and the wall, he pushed the wardrobe sideways until it covered the door, then he climbed into bed. He was sweating. His watch said ten past three.

  He lay in the dark and thought about the wild boar. He thought about the surprisingly delicate tapping of its hooves on the tiled terrace. He thought about its rank breath on the glass. He thought about its eyes. The wind rose. An awning had come loose somewhere nearby. He could hear it fluttering and flapping.

  The sweat cooled on his forehead, and on his throat.

  Vic gulped savagely at his rum-and-Coke. “I kept thinking it must have been a dream. But the wardrobe was in front of the door when I woke up.” He picked up his cocktail stick and studied it. “I’m telling you all this because you’re the most down-to-earth person I know.”

  Down-to-earth? I wasn’t so sure that was a compliment.

  “What happened the next day?” I asked.

  “The sofa was by the window, where I’d left it, but there was no sign of the wild boar.”

  “And the chest of drawers?”

  “It was on the terrace, lying on its side.”

  “How did it get there?”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  He seemed impatient suddenly. Did he think I wasn’t taking him seriously enough, or had he been hoping I would be the voice of reason? A wild boar on your terrace? That’s crazy, Vic. You’re nine floors up. But he had told the story so vividly—so persuasively—that I’d found myself believing it.

  Three women came in. Long hair, short skirts. Their slim tanned fingers juggled cigarettes and phones.

  Vic knocked back his drink. “Let’s go somewhere else.”

  Outside, the air was warm and still. A few long clouds were stacked in the sky above Montjuïc, their edges scalloped, silvery. Vic took out a key fob and unlocked a sleek black Lexus. I nodded to myself. It was just the kind of car I’d imagined he would have.

  As we drove back down the hill, a Phil Collins CD on the sound system, Vic asked how my girlfriend was.

  I smiled. “You mean, the girlfriend you’ve never seen?”

  He looked across at me. “I’ve seen her.”

  “When?”

  “A week or two ago, in the Eixample. You were with her.”

  He guided his Lexus down a slip road and onto the Ronda General Mitre. I wondered where we were going. The derelict ballroom in Les Corts?

  “I hit the horn,” he said, “but you didn’t hear me.”

  Perhaps because he had confided in me, I began to tell him about Mireia. I had loved her for years, I said, even though we hadn’t slept together more than a handful of times. I would do anything for her. But she thought of me as a friend, and she saw other men.

  “Sounds like she needs a good slap,” Vic said.

  I looked at him. He wasn’t joking. I remembered his wife carrying all the plastic bags from Caprabo, and him strolling in front of her, studying his phone.

  “What?” He had felt my shocked gaze.

  “You don’t know her.”

  He glanced at me, his eyes oddly sure and blank. “You’ve got to show them who’s boss or they walk all over you.”

  I laughed, but more out of nervousness than anything else. “That wouldn’t work with Mireia.”

  “Oh no?”

  I kept silent.

  As we approached Sant Antoni market, Vic turned onto a dark street and parked.

  “Mireia,” he said quietly.

  * * *

  —

  TWO DAYS LATER, on Saturday, I woke earlier than usual. I stood at the window in my bare feet, with coffee brewing in the kitchenette behind me and No es un día cualquiera on the radio, the sound down low. The hills at the back of the city looked veiled. Even the palm trees in the middle of Plaça d’Alfonso Comín lacked definition, their branches blurred by the milky air. These humid, almost tropical mornings always reminded me of Southeast Asia. I had flown to Bali once to try and forget about Mireia, but as I sat gazing out over the curving rice terraces near Ubud I had missed her more than I thought possible. Like a photo without a subject, the landscape only drew attention to her absence, and I felt more aware of her and more alone than I would have done if I had stayed in Barcelona. It was the worst holiday ever.

  The coffee was ready. I poured myself a cup and carried it over to my laptop, where this page of Giving was waiting for me. On Thursday night, after drinks at the Mirador, Vic had taken me to a party in a converted warehouse. He pressed the buzzer next to a metal door, and when the intercom crackled into life he put his mouth close to the speaker.

  “Lluis? Sóc jo. Vic.”

  “Ja ho sabia. Que vols?” The teasing voice was half submerged in talking and music.

  “Obre la porta, cabró.”

  There was a laugh, then the door clicked open, and we took a cagelike lift to the fifth floor.

  “Have you been working on your Catalan?” I asked.

&nbs
p; Vic rolled his shoulders under his yellow jacket. “I know a few words.”

  The lift came to a halt.

  “This should be interesting,” he said.

  We walked through double doors into a loft space that had rough brick walls, a polished concrete floor, and metal pillars. Tall windows at the far end looked towards Avinguda Parallel and Montjuïc. The glass kept changing color as a neon sign on the street outside shifted between blue and pink. There was a kitchen area in one corner. A short man with a shaved head was cooking squid.

  “That’s our host, Lluis,” Vic said. “He’s a DJ.”

  I felt out of place in my blue-and-white-striped shirt and my chinos, and wasn’t sure why I’d agreed to come. Not that Vic had given me much choice. A thin black-haired girl in a red sleeveless top asked if I had any coke on me. When I said no, she began to talk about São Paulo, where she’d just spent a year. Did I know São Paulo? I shook my head. She’d had a Brazilian boyfriend, she told me. He was a video artist. Really talented. They’d had an amazing life. She went on and on about São Paulo, and it wasn’t long before I was thoroughly sick of the place, even though I’d never been there. At one point, as I was listening, I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, the girl was still talking. She didn’t seem to have noticed—or perhaps she thought I was trying to picture her “amazing life.” I’d been holding my empty glass for so long that it felt like part of my hand.

  “If it was all so great,” I said, “why did you leave?”

  She didn’t answer. She was too busy telling me how her video artist lover had chartered a private jet with some hedge-fund friends, and how they’d all taken MDMA and flown up to Rio for a night of clubbing.

  Vic appeared and said he needed a favor.

  “Anything,” I said.

  To my relief, he guided me away from the São Paulo girl and into a corner.

  “Next time you’re downtown,” he said, “I want you to go and see Federmann.”

  “The carpenter?”

  “Just wander into his workshop. Talk to him a bit.” Vic lit a cigarette and let the smoke trickle from his nose. “You know about people, right? All that translating you do. I want to know what you think.”

  I watched Vic with what I hoped was an inscrutable expression—the kind of expression that someone who knew about people might adopt.

  “He won’t suspect anything,” Vic went on. “I mean, look at you. You’re so straight.”

  “Thanks, Vic.”

  “The way you dress—your hair, your glasses…”

  “You make it sound like I’m in disguise.”

  Vic laughed.

  But suddenly the idea of playing a cameo role in one of his bizarre scenarios appealed to me.

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll do it.”

  Vic gripped my shoulder, his eyes intense and dark. “I owe you one.”

  I stared at my computer screen. The document I was working on had been left untouched for so long that the screensaver had clicked on. Colors whirled and flared through a blackness that was like deep space. I stood up, went over to the kitchenette, and poured myself another coffee.

  What had I let myself in for?

  * * *

  —

  THAT AFTERNOON, when I finished work, I took the metro to Drassanes. In ten minutes I was standing on the street Vic had described. I walked to the far end, where a stone wall marked the edge of Montjuïc, the ground rising steeply, the dry earth sprouting weeds. There were a few parked cars, no people. Areas like this were common in Barcelona, buildings giving way to wastelands of colorless grass and pale dust. But it didn’t feel like the kind of place you came across by chance. It wasn’t on the way to anywhere. Would Daniel Federmann see through me? My heart was beating high up in my throat.

  I walked back to where the workshop was. The window was open. I put my head close to the metal grille and peered through. I could see the writing desk Vic had mentioned, and the wooden furniture beyond, ghostly in the gloom, but there was no sign of the carpenter.

  “Can I help you?”

  I jumped.

  Federmann was standing to my left, in the doorway. How was it that I hadn’t noticed him?

  “Are you open?” I said.

  “Yes, I’m open.”

  He was in his early forties, with smooth skin and wavy black hair that was beginning to go gray. I thought there was something indeterminate or evasive about his good looks. If the police had asked me to create a Photofit, I would’ve found it difficult.

  “Do you mind if I look around?”

  He didn’t answer the question. He simply stood to one side and let me through, then followed me into the shop.

  “How did you hear about me?” The question was casual, but his gaze was intense and focused, like a thumb on a pressure point.

  “I didn’t. I just happened to be passing.” I hesitated, then had a flash of inspiration. “I’ve always liked old places. Places that seem—I don’t know—hidden…”

  I turned my back on him and moved slowly past a row of chairs and tables, pretending to admire the craftsmanship. Had I said too much? I reached the skylight Vic had mentioned. The pane of glass was cracked and smeared, the blue sky barely visible beyond. But I shouldn’t be thinking of Vic, I told myself. I shouldn’t even let his name enter my head. I just happened to be passing, and I was curious. Thought I’d take a look around. I forced myself to come up with a question.

  “Did you make all this furniture yourself?”

  “Some,” he said. “Not all.”

  His eyes were on me again, calm and yet insistent. I moved deeper into the workshop. The walls were naked brick, and the air had a motionless, grainy quality that felt ancient. Like the inside of a pyramid. Like a tomb. It was only a matter of time before he realized what I was up to. Don’t do anything, Vic had said. Just talk to him. I glanced towards the front of the shop and felt something of the panic Vic had felt. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make it to the door. As for the sunlit street, that seemed quite unattainable. Federmann was on his feet, still watching me. His gaze stretched between us across the dark interior like a beam of light or a length of silver wire.

  “There’s really nothing I can help you with?”

  I hurried back through the workshop, almost knocking a chair over. My legs felt unreliable. I brushed past Federmann without looking at him, and yet I was aware of his face close up, and had the sense that it had altered, become the face of someone else, someone less benign.

  “Sorry,” I said. “An appointment. I have to go.”

  Once outside, I broke into a run.

  On Avinguda Parallel, a dark-skinned man leaned against a third-floor balcony, smoking. He wore a pair of trousers—nothing else. He had a word tattooed across his chest. From where I stood, I couldn’t make out what it said. A parrot tore through the air above me. A blur of green, a single high-pitched screech. I wiped the sweat off my forehead, then sat down on a bench and watched the traffic.

  * * *

  —

  ON MONDAY MORNING I met Vic in the café on Plaça Kennedy. He had ordered his usual carajillo. The moment I sat down, he asked if I’d managed to see Federmann.

  “Yes, I saw him,” I said.

  Vic’s whole body tensed. “What did you think?”

  My first instinct, oddly, was not to divulge any information at all. It was as if I had unwittingly entered into a pact with the carpenter. Could Federmann still see me, even though I was on the other side of the city? Was he exerting some kind of influence?

  “Well?”

  I sipped my coffee and when I had replaced the cup on the saucer the feeling was gone. I began to try and describe my visit to the workshop. “There’s something—I don’t know…”

  Vic leaned forwards, over the table, and grabbed my wrist. “Come on, Jordi. S
pit it out.”

  “Something—suspicious.”

  “Right.” Vic let go of my wrist and sat back in his chair.

  I hadn’t really meant to say “suspicious.” I’d been looking for a word that was subtler, and more suggestive, but he had rushed me. Who was the real adversary here? And why was I even thinking in those terms? Vic finished his coffee, then looked out of the window. He seemed satisfied—temporarily, at least.

  I left the café not long afterwards. As I approached my apartment, Montse called. I assumed she wanted an update on my progress with the novella, but she had something else on her mind.

  “Jordi,” she said, “did I ever tell you about my ex?”

  “Yes, you did.” I remembered a story about an alcoholic jazz musician who lived down the coast.

  “He rang me the other night. Told me he’d been giving Ronaldinho Spanish lessons—”

  I couldn’t help laughing.

  “You think it isn’t true?”

  “If Ronaldinho wanted Spanish lessons,” I said, “Barça would have organized them for him.”

  “That’s what I thought.” She paused. “He was pretty drunk.”

  “Maybe I should give Ronaldinho Spanish lessons.”

  Now Montse was laughing. “You’d be better qualified, that’s for sure.”

  Later that same day, on the metro, I noticed two construction workers standing in the middle of the carriage, near the doors. Their clothes were flecked with dried cement, and they both wore rugged fawn-colored boots that resembled Timberlands. If I’d been asked to guess where they were from, I would have said Bolivia or Ecuador. Or maybe Peru. One of the men had his eyes closed. Though he was upright, he appeared to be asleep. There was a deep gash between his eyebrows, and as the train pulled into Sants station blood slid in a smooth straight line down one side of his nose. The grinding brakes, the flicker of the lights—the blood…It was like a horror film. And the man didn’t react at all. His colleague took out a tissue and wiped the blood away, then stanched the bleeding. The man with the cut didn’t even open his eyes. In that moment it came to me. Unearthly. That was the word I had been trying to think of earlier, in the café on Plaça Kennedy. That was the word that described the carpenter.