* * *
—
ON A THURSDAY at the beginning of June, Mireia asked if I wanted to go for a drink. At eight o’clock I took the stairs down to the street. The air smelled of jasmine, and the low-voltage yellow glow of the streetlamps made the sky look midnight blue. To the south a half-moon tilted high up in the dark, like the white part in a fingernail. I could easily have caught a bus to the Eixample, but it was such a beautiful evening that I decided to walk.
When I reached the Dalí, Mireia wasn’t quite ready to leave—she had to wait for the night manager to arrive—and I sat on a small sofa in the lobby, watching guests come and go. I never minded waiting for Mireia. If anything, I relished it, since I could look forward to the moment when she walked towards me. I would feel privileged, important. I would feel lucky.
We had mojitos at a large, brash place just off Passeig de Gracia, then I took her to Flash Flash for dinner. She had always loved the decor there. The walls were stenciled with life-size black-and-white silhouettes of a Twiggy-lookalike photographer, lights placed where the flashbulb on her camera would be, and the waiters were dressed formally, in white jackets and black bow ties. We ordered tortillas and a bottle of white wine. There was a faint line between Mireia’s eyebrows, as if something was bothering her, but when I asked if she was all right she just smiled and blinked.
“Everything’s fine,” she said.
I insisted on treating her that night. I’d just been paid for a translation. For once, I had some money in the bank.
Later, she suggested we go to a bar near the main square in Born. There was no name and no sign, only a medieval wooden door with hinges as long as my forearm. Set into this large door was a much smaller door that was guarded by an old man in a tuxedo. You walked up to him and asked if you could go inside for a drink, and he said either yes or no. I didn’t understand how he arrived at his decisions—I’d been on the wrong end of them several times—but I was never turned away if I was with a woman. Once through the door, you found yourself in a paved courtyard where classical music concerts took place in the summer. The bar itself, which was full of stuffed animals, oil paintings in gilt frames, medieval weapons, Tiffany lamps, and moth-eaten velvet sofas, was like a cross between a junkshop and a museum.
We had been there for about ten minutes when I noticed Vic on the far side of the room. He was sitting with two women in low-cut dresses, and a man who looked like a flamenco dancer, his eyebrows dyed and plucked, his tight black trousers revealing muscular thighs.
“You’re not listening,” Mireia said.
“Sorry,” I said. “I just saw somebody I know.”
She glanced over her shoulder. “Who?”
“The man in the shiny suit. He’s got his back to us.”
At that moment Vic happened to turn sideways to ask the waiter a question, and I watched as something like alarm flashed over Mireia’s face.
“I’ve met that guy before,” she said.
“Really?” I said. “Where?”
“At the Dalí. He was a guest.”
“A guest? But he lives here. Why would he—?”
“We should leave—” Mireia was already on her feet.
I thought about saying hello to Vic, but something stopped me. He was with glamorous people. I didn’t want to show him up. I paid the bill, then hurried after Mireia.
Out on the street I looked one way, then the other, but there was no sign of her.
“The young lady took a taxi.”
I glanced round. The gatekeeper was watching me.
“You mean she’s gone?”
The old man looked up into the night sky, his lips tightening in a small knowing smile. In his time he must have seen it all.
On the way to Via Laietana I called Mireia.
“I’m sorry, Jordi,” she said. “That was a really lovely evening.”
“It ended kind of suddenly…” I tried not to sound resentful.
“Seeing that guy upset me.”
“Upset you? Why?”
One afternoon she’d fallen into conversation with him, she told me, in the hotel lobby. He seemed pleasant enough. Before they parted, he asked if she would like to come up to his suite for a drink after she finished work. He saw her hesitate, and smiled. It wouldn’t just be her, he said. He was having a few people over. She might find it interesting.
“Interesting?” I murmured.
It was a word Vic often used, and he always made it sound like an understatement. It was his way of drawing you in. Bringing you closer.
But Mireia was still talking.
When she walked into the suite that evening, she said, several people were standing around. They were mostly older—in their forties and fifties—and the atmosphere was hushed, expectant. The man who had invited her introduced himself as Brett. He offered her a glass of champagne. She was wearing a strapless sundress. Her shoulders were bare.
Brett turned to the others. “You see? What did I tell you?”
She talked to a Brazilian called Emerson. He had left the top few buttons of his shirt undone, and a number of gold medallions gleamed and shifted in the V-shaped gap. She should come to Castelldefels sometime, he said. He ran a club down there. Next, she met a woman in a Chanel suit who had bad teeth. The woman asked if she had ever acted. Only at school, she said.
A silver-haired man spoke to her next, his mouth close to her ear. “You’re exactly what we’re looking for, my dear.”
She had a growing sense of being hemmed in, or even consumed. Finishing her drink, she told Brett she had to go.
He handed her a ring-bound manuscript. “Take this with you.”
She asked what it was.
“It’s the screenplay for a movie. We’d like you to star in it.” He smiled. “This could be your big break.”
The title of the movie was THE KEY, which seemed like a reference to all the keys she’d been finding recently. Everything was connected, but not in a good way. She felt dizzy, slightly faint.
“Take it home and read it,” Brett said, one hand on her upper arm. “Then you can decide.”
She asked how she could contact him, then wished she hadn’t, since it conveyed an interest she didn’t feel. The question had been prompted by her nervousness, her overwhelming need to leave the room.
“We’ll contact you,” said the woman with the rotten teeth. “We know where to find you now.”
Everyone laughed softly.
Mireia interrupted her story to give directions to her taxi driver.
“His name’s not Brett,” I said. “It’s Vic.”
“How do you know?”
“He’s my neighbor.”
“Maybe Vic isn’t his name either.”
I thought about that for a moment. A drunk girl knocked into me, then told me to look where I was going.
“I didn’t know he made movies,” I said. “He never mentioned that.”
Mireia gave a little hollow laugh. She told me she was outside her building. She would ring me in a minute.
I reached Via Laietana and waved down a taxi.
On the way back to Sant Gervasi I tried to call Mireia but she didn’t answer, and by the time I opened the door to my apartment I was so tired that I went straight to bed and fell asleep.
* * *
—
MY PHONE WAS DEAD when I woke the next morning—I had forgotten to charge it overnight—and it wasn’t until after midday that I received Mireia’s messages, asking me to come over. That evening, after I finished work, I took the metro to Provença. Mireia answered the door in a black sweater and checked shorts, her legs long and elegant in sheer black tights.
“I hardly slept last night,” she said, then turned and moved off into her apartment, leaving me to close the door.
I found her on the sofa in the living
room, a lit cigarette held to one side of her mouth. It was already dark, but there were almost no lights on, only two small lamps with crimson shades. I walked over to the window, which looked onto a bricked-over area enclosed on all four sides by the backs of tall apartment buildings. I had always thought it resembled a secret but derelict arena. Sometimes there were stray dogs or cats down there, or sometimes boys kicking a football about. Mireia had told me there was a car park underneath. I liked imagining the rows of silent glinting cars. The petrol-scented gloom.
“There’s something I didn’t tell you last night,” Mireia said.
I looked at her over my shoulder.
“The screenplay he gave me,” she said. “It was pornographic.”
“Oh.” I leaned on the sill, the huge empty space below me, and for a moment I felt I was falling.
“He didn’t call it that, of course, your neighbor.”
“What did he call it?”
“Art house.” That little hollow laugh again. “He said it was a real opportunity for me. Said it could change my life.” She stubbed out her cigarette. “He was quite persuasive, actually.”
“So you read it, then?”
“Only the first few pages. After that, I felt sick and had to stop.”
“Can I see it?”
“I threw it out.” She looked at me across the room, her face flushed. “It makes me feel dirty even thinking about it.”
I felt a surprising, furtive twinge of lust, which I disguised by asking what part they’d wanted her to play.
“My character is locked in an asylum by mistake,” she said. “She gets raped by some of the other inmates—by a doctor too.” She lit another cigarette and dragged hard on it. It was as if the experience she was describing had really happened, and she was trying to come to terms with it.
I thought of Vic’s business card. STORAGE SOLUTIONS.
“Something else,” she said. “As I was leaving, when we were by the door, he asked if he could come round to my apartment. He needed pictures, he said, for his producers. I asked what sort of pictures he was talking about. Nude, he said. He wasn’t remotely embarrassed. In fact, I think he even smiled.” She flicked some ash into a small glass dish, then shot me a glance. “You didn’t give him my address, did you?”
“Why would I do that? I didn’t even know you knew each other.”
“This guy—he’s a friend of yours?” Her voice had sharpened, in disbelief.
“He’s not a friend exactly. He just lives in the same building. Sometimes we have coffee.” I sat down on the sofa, at the other end from her. “Have you got anything to drink?”
“I want you to do something for me.”
I couldn’t help noticing she had used the same words Vic had used. “Of course,” I said. “What is it?”
“You promise?”
“Yes.”
“Next time you see Brett or Vic or whatever the fuck his name is, I want you to tell him to leave me alone.” She stood up and smoothed down her shorts. “Is red wine all right?”
* * *
—
THE THOUGHT OF CONFRONTING Vic kept me awake for most of that night. Up until that moment, I hadn’t known what to make of his story about the chest of drawers. I didn’t believe it, but at the same time I didn’t not believe it. Now, though, I began to wonder if he might have intended it as an illustration of the sort of world he inhabited. What if in a roundabout, almost allegorical way he was trying to warn me about himself? At first glance, he might seem open and accessible, someone you could talk to, but he was capable of unexpected and terrifying transformations. As for the carpenter, he wasn’t a threat, or even an enigma. He was just an extra, drafted in to give the scene some texture and veracity.
On Monday night I chose not to take the lift to Vic’s apartment. In an attempt to delay the dreaded moment, I climbed the stairs instead. Out of breath by the time I reached his floor, I waited on the poorly lit landing until my heart slowed down. At last, I pressed the bell. No one answered. Thank God, I murmured. I was about to retreat towards the stairs when the door opened suddenly and Vic’s wife appeared. She was wearing a dressing gown or housecoat made from a pale-pink quilted material, and her face was swollen, as if she’d been asleep. Over her shoulder I saw the chest of drawers, back in its usual place, and was struck once again by the eerie pallor of the wood. I asked if Vic was in. I was a friend, I added. I lived on the third floor.
“He’s in London.” She blinked slowly, as a cat might. “Can I give him a message?”
“It’s all right. It’s not urgent.” I stepped back, towards the lift. “When will he be home?”
“He didn’t say.”
I thanked her, then pressed the call button on the lift. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the door begin to close, with Mrs. Drago watching me through the gap.
* * *
—
BY THE MIDDLE OF JUNE I was hard at work on the last few pages of the French novella. The climax took place on a weekday evening. The married couple, Marc and Jeanne, are in the supermarket. As Marc emerges from an aisle, he sees his lover, Sophie, in the dairy section, choosing a yogurt. Backing away, he finds Jeanne and tries to persuade her to return to the car. He says he has a migraine. Can’t they do the shopping later, or tomorrow? We’re already here, Jeanne says. Let’s get it done—and anyway, you don’t get migraines. Well, I’ve got one now, Marc says. Some instinct or intuition tells Jeanne to ignore her husband, and it’s not long before she finds out why. As she moves on through the supermarket, she sees Sophie standing at the deli counter. She shouldn’t recognize her, of course, but she does. The young woman looks fragile, Jeanne thinks. A bit unstable. And no wonder, when you consider some of the “presents” she has received in recent weeks. A savage rape story, cut from a tabloid newspaper. A noose. A three-day-old dead rat. Actually, Jeanne is surprised that Sophie hasn’t contacted the police. Not that she’s bothered by the possibility. She’s pretty sure that none of the presents can be traced back to her. She moves towards the deli counter. Perhaps she’ll buy some cheese, she thinks, though she knows perfectly well that they don’t need any.
She takes up a position next to Sophie, who gives her a quick, uncertain smile. Sophie has no idea who Jeanne is—why would she?—but she does, in that moment, catch a glimpse of Marc, who is lurking near the fruit and vegetables. Marc? she says. Marc walks over. He doesn’t say anything to Sophie. He doesn’t even look at her. Instead, he takes Jeanne by the arm and steers her towards the checkout. Sophie follows them. She calls his name again—in a soft voice at first, then louder. Someone wants to talk to you, Jeanne says, looking over her shoulder. She’s curious to know how the scene will play out. She has never seen her husband and his lover together. She has only imagined it. Sophie blocks their route to the checkout and stares at Marc. How can you be such a monster? she says. Marc doesn’t know what Sophie’s talking about, but he feels guilty nonetheless. Of behaving badly. Of something. You’re a monster! Sophie shouts. Jeanne looks at Marc to see how he will respond. He seems paralyzed. Do you two know each other? Jeanne asks. Marc and Sophie both answer at the same time, their words overlapping. Marc says, I’ve never seen her before. Sophie says, He’s been fucking me for months. The word “fucking” lifts clear of the muzak like a shark’s fin in calm water, and several shoppers turn their heads. You shit! Sophie tries to slap Marc across the face, but he grabs her wrist. She cries out in pain. Get away from me, he says through gritted teeth. He pushes her hard. Off balance, she topples backwards. The shelf behind her collapses. She sprawls on the floor, surrounded by packets, tins, and jars, some of which have shattered. She has a cut on her hand, and her summer dress is rucked up around her thighs. She looks like what she is—the victim of an assault. Marc stares down at her, hands clenched. A security guard appears. Is there a problem? Jeanne can’t take her eyes off her husband. He has never see
med so unsympathetic. So ugly. He turns to her. Let’s go, he says. No one’s going anywhere, says the guard. Sophie sits in a pool of fluid, black olives all around her. She inspects her hand. He hurt me, she tells the guard. He really hurt me. I think I need an ambulance. For God’s sake, Marc says. Jeanne steps away, her eyes shifting from Marc to Sophie and back again. What have you been doing? she says to Marc. What have you done? It’s as if she has only just realized that he has been having an affair. As if the truth has finally dawned on her. She’s behaving how she should have behaved at the start of the book. She is, at last, conventional. She’s acting, of course, playing a role, but she feels it so keenly that she doesn’t just convince the people who have gathered around them. She convinces herself as well. Now, all of a sudden—and for the first time—she becomes a woman who has been deceived, betrayed. Keep away from me, she says to Marc. Stay away. Behind her, in the supermarket car park, blue lights are whirling. Jeanne? Marc says. But she has already turned her back on him. One hand over her mouth, as if she’s about to vomit, she hurries out into the night.
I found the ending a little melodramatic—it felt American, somehow, rather than French, and I would have preferred something more ambiguous or slippery—but there was no denying the effectiveness of the prose style. With its clipped, almost abstract quality and its warped logic, it appeared to replicate shortness of breath or panic. Also, I very much liked the way in which the faked discovery of Marc’s infidelity at the end of the book ironically mirrored the real discovery at the beginning, and seemed to carry more weight. It was in that moment, I thought, that the morbid and corrupting power of the work found its true expression.
* * *
—
DID YOU SPEAK to your friend yet?”
I was having a drink with Mireia, in our usual bar on Santaló. More than two weeks had elapsed since she asked me to have a word with Vic, but I hadn’t tried his apartment again, and I’d been avoiding the café on Plaça Kennedy. I told myself I was leaving it to chance. The right moment would present itself. In truth, though, I was putting the whole thing off. I was apprehensive. Scared.
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