by jordi Nopca
“They have a butcher shop,” she said in the final words of her brush-off.
After their brief conversation, Míriam walked a couple of meters away from the man. She sat on a bench and watched people passing by. The drags she took on her cigarette were long but not very frequent. When she inhaled, her right leg started going up and down rhythmically until she noticed the nervous tic, and one of her eyelids automatically started to flicker. At least her hands had stopped sweating once she’d left the mall. She forced her leg to stop, but every time she sucked in smoke and nicotine, it happened again. Robin Hood showed up just as she was linking that tic with the gestures her father made when absorbed in his reading: compulsively running one hand through his hair and grinding his teeth.
“Hello,” said Robin. “I’m really late today. Sorry.”
The young man brought his hands together as he apologized.
“No worries. You don’t have to come see me. After we closed up the store, I thought about texting you to let you know I was leaving, but I don’t have your number. And you don’t have mine.”
“You’re right.”
Robin pulled his phone out of a pocket, but Míriam waved him off with a few discouraging words to keep him from chiming out his nine digits. Immediately after, she asked him if he wanted to go have a drink, but he shook his head.
“I’d rather just walk a little. Can we go down Passeig de Gràcia?”
They strolled slowly, passing closed stores and the occasional practically empty restaurant. Even now, the night of the Magi had something sacred, even preapocalyptic, about it, forcing most people home past a certain time, either after Balthasar, Melchior, Gaspar, and their entourage had wound through the city or once the last-minute gifts had been purchased. Even those who’d gone to the movies or the supermarket or on some prescribed walk, with a dog or without, through the park closest to their homes were already safely back in their nests.
Míriam and Robin Hood got to Plaça de Catalunya and headed down Pelai, stepping on broken candies and confetti. Traces of the royal visit led them to Plaça de la Universitat. They stopped for a moment at the metro entrance, as if one of them were going to take it home.
“Are you sure you don’t want a beer, or to get some dinner somewhere?”
Robin Hood kept his eyes on the ground. Míriam’s intuition kicked in and she made a suggestion: “Come on up.”
She said it in such a whisper that she had to repeat her words, then added that she lived only five minutes from where they were standing. Robin let himself be carried along without explicitly taking a stand. Come on up. They headed along Ronda de la Universitat, passing camera shops and then an electronics store. They turned down Floridablanca. When they passed by a huge, empty, sinister Chinese restaurant—four waiters watched them through its floor-to-ceiling windows—Robin made a couple of witty comments, which didn’t manage to mitigate the premonition hammering inside Míriam’s head: He had something to tell her but couldn’t spit it out. Come on up.
Once inside her apartment, he asked what kind of bird lived inside the empty cage and what its name was.
“That birdcage has always been empty,” she replied. “We kept it because we liked how it looked.”
Her unintentional use of the plural sent her fleeing into the kitchen.
“What would you like to drink, Toni?” she called out from there.
“Beer?”
Míriam opened the fridge and grabbed a couple of Budweisers. Ramon’s half-empty bottle of cava was still in one corner, next to some catsup and a tiny jar of hot sauce.
“Your beer,” she said when she returned to the living room. Robin Hood was still standing beside the sofa. “Sit, please.”
She gave him the beer and, instead of sitting down next to him, went into her room to find her laptop. She turned it on and connected it to the speakers of her mini stereo. She was still not ready to hear the story that Robin was carrying inside him. It was probably about his girlfriend. I had to tell you before anything happened between us, she imagined him saying. Then he would pat her hand, the way foxes pat hens to make sure they’re dead before sinking their teeth into them. Then he would kiss her passionately. That’s where the real problems would start: a secret affair; rotting with jealousy; failure after a resentful ultimatum. Come on up.
For the moment, Míriam played the first song on the most recent list she’d created on Spotify a couple of weeks ago. “Best Days,” by Blur, sounded, then “Le temps de l’amour,” by Françoise Hardy. Robin explained that he couldn’t stand to listen to Blur for a long time because of some girl he’d liked who wouldn’t give him the time of day. Now that years had passed, he could enjoy the song’s effete ostentation. He’d always found Françoise Hardy depressing, the enormous sadness, sincere or not, in her voice.
“Next up is Carla Bruni. Just warning you,” said Míriam playfully. “I’m sure you hate her for a thousand different reasons, but this song is special. The lyrics are a poem by Michel Houellebecq.”
They listened to the ethereal introduction to “La possibilité d’une île” in silence, and when Bruni started to sing, he admitted it wasn’t “terrible.” He let out a timid little chuckle as she invented a well-supported defense of the musical virtues of the former French first lady. Running his gaze over the room, Robin let it land on the bookshelf. He could recognize translations of Amélie Nothomb, Paul Auster, Doris Lessing, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. He also identified a couple of novels by Eduardo Mendoza and Juan Marsé; El millor dels mons, by Quim Monzó; and one of those story collections by Sergi Pàmies that was so short, you could read it in less than an hour’s time. There were some painting exhibition catalogs. His eye was drawn to the names Lucian Freud, Georges Rouault, and Paul Klee.
Bruni’s voice waned in a long fade-out and gave way to “The Wrestler,” by Bruce Springsteen. Robin couldn’t identify it, not even when Míriam told him that the Boss wrote it for a film of the same name.
“Starring Mickey Rourke, looking like shit, his face disfigured and his hair dyed blond. He was sort of in love with a stripper who was getting too old for stripping, even though she still had a spectacular body. He had to retire from wrestling, too; after one match, he had a heart attack and the doctor said he could never fight again.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
Robin took a long sip of beer. Was it time for his confession? Míriam, who’d been sitting in a chair next to the sofa, got up to get a cigarette from her bag. Her cell phone was vibrating, but she ignored it. She went back to the chair.
“Mind if I smoke?”
He shook his head. So Míriam lit up and took a long, calming drag.
“Do you want a little something to eat? I have nachos and guacamole. You like that?”
She went to the kitchen to get them once he’d said yes. After Bruce Springsteen, “Santa Fe,” by Beirut, came on. When it ended, Robin and Míriam were already nibbling on their modest supper. Inexplicably, the song “Wannabe,” by the Spice Girls, came on next.
“Wasn’t expecting that,” said Robin, smiling, with one hand in front of his mouth to hide any traces of food in his teeth.
“Where did that come from? I never listen to the Spice Girls.”
“You don’t have to pretend. If they’re your favorite band, I can accept that, albeit … extremely reluctantly.”
As they both laughed, the Spice Girls sang “Wannabe.” Robin’s next words, which insisted on the joke, were interrupted by the strident buzz of the doorbell—five agonizing seconds, an interval that was impossible to ignore.
“I’m not expecting anyone,” said Míriam. “I’m gonna go see who it is.”
She walked anxiously to the entryway and picked up the red handset, an homage to the 1960s Batphone that stretched the boundaries of kitsch.
“Yes?” she asked.
She only had to hear his nervous, disaffected breathing to know that it was Ramon standing outside the apartment building.
“I
brought you your Christmas present,” he said, struggling mightily to sound relaxed.
“Ramon?” Míriam feigned surprise. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“Why not? I tried to call to let you know I was coming over, but you never picked up.”
“I just got off work a little while ago.”
“I was afraid something’d happened to you, so I thought I should come over and make sure you’re okay.”
Míriam pushed the button that opened the door to the street and quickly returned to the living room.
“Toni, my ex-boyfriend is here.”
The Spice Girls let out a final lusty burst of “If you wanna be my lover,” which faded into a steamy echo. The Johnny Cash cover of “Hurt” started to play.
“He says he’s just coming up for a minute, to give me my present.”
Robin Hood looked put out.
“Don’t leave,” said Míriam. “It’ll just be five minutes. Or less. We broke up three months ago. Ramon is water under the bridge.”
He rushed to grab his jacket. The fox was in danger: He must either flee in time or face a belligerent farmer.
“I’ll see you around.”
If they were in the countryside, he would have camouflaged himself amid the brush and licked his paws as he waited for the danger to pass. The sour breath of disappointment would torture him for a while. Instead of walking him out, Míriam opened her bedroom door and invited him to close himself inside. Robin obeyed because he heard the elevator arriving in the hall. Come on up. Before Míriam opened the door, she remembered to put his beer bottle in the kitchen and turn off the music.
“Hi, Ramon.”
“Hi.”
She waved him into the living room and quickly took the spot on the sofa where Robin had been sitting. Ramon curled up beside his ex-girlfriend, no questions asked. He put down the bag with the present on the coffee table.
“On New Year’s—”
Míriam interrupted him. “If you came here to talk about that, you can leave.”
“Fuck,” said Ramon, picking up the bag from the table and nestling it onto her lap. “Open your present and I’ll leave.”
Míriam pulled out a package shaped like a shoe box. She unwrapped it with little ceremony. Inside were winter boots. She looked at them, puzzled, until Ramon told her to try them on. She did, and inside one of them, along with the several paper balls that held their shape, was a small box with a pair of silver earrings.
“Wow, Ramon. These are really pretty,” she murmured.
She put the gifts down on the table to give him a thank-you kiss on each cheek. After that, everything started speeding up. Music sounded from a cell phone; Míriam felt pressure inside her head—as if an open hand had emerged from her brain and was trying to get out through her forehead; she tripped on the wrapping and shoe box while Ramon irritably told her to answer the phone, but before she could get into the bedroom, Robin Hood beat her to it, saying in a trembling voice, “Mom? Is it … over?”
Before Míriam could justify herself, Ramon leaped up from the sofa and ran to unmask that strange voice. The bedroom door opened just as he was approaching it. Robin Hood was still speaking into the phone; two tears slipped down his cheeks, which Míriam’s ex interpreted as the confirmation of his suspicions. He punched him in the eye, then the nose, and then in the stomach, doubling him over. When he was on the floor, Ramon was tempted to deliver the final blow, but Míriam shoved him from behind, screaming, and his victim took that opportunity to crawl through the living room, leaving a trail of blood from his nose.
He had to stand up in order to open the apartment door. He seemed to doubt he had the strength but somehow managed it, turned the knob, and disappeared down the stairs as she called after him not to leave. Once he was out on the street, he realized he’d left his cell phone upstairs. Had he finished his conversation with his mother before that lunatic had busted up his face? He hesitated between hailing a cab on Urgell or walking to the Hospital Clínic.
###
Toni was no longer Robin. He was once again the grandson visiting his convalescent grandfather in room 220. Every afternoon he found him slightly more subdued and tired.
“Don’t you want me to turn on the TV, Grandpa?”
The older man shook his head. He preferred to hear about what Toni had done that day. His grandfather had given him the same mechanical response so many times that he’d ended up believing it himself, even though at home the old man watched whatever happened to be on. The day after Toni had brought Míriam the first hot chocolate, he’d told his grandpa that he’d met a girl who was “pretty and nice” but that he didn’t know how to ask her out. During the few moments his back pain let up long enough for him to speak, his grandfather dared to give him some advice, which Toni listened to as if he could possibly put it to use in the world of today. “You could spend a little money on flowers. Get your hair cut: ladies like good grooming,” his grandfather said.
The next day, he’d arrived at the hospital in a good mood. He felt like he’d already won Míriam over, even though that wasn’t exactly the case. Maybe he could fudge it a little, say they’d already gone out to dinner together and that after dessert, while they were waiting for the bill, he had shared a “first kiss” with Míriam. His parents and aunt and uncle were in the hospital room. His grandfather slept facing up, the only possible position in his condition. His chin trembled every time he discharged air from inside his body. Toni’s father pulled him into the hall to give him the bad news.
“They’re going to have to operate on his spine again. Probably tonight. The scar got infected and they have to clean it out as soon as possible.”
“Is it serious?”
His father’s silence spoke volumes.
The surgery rooms were so full, they had to wait until the next day to operate—New Year’s Day. His grandfather survived the operation, but his condition rapidly deteriorated. He slept most of the day. He didn’t eat. They had to give him oxygen. The nurses, who a week earlier had still been making jokes, now cared for him in silence. One of them even cried. When she’d started helping him in late November, she’d been convinced he would pull through, but since the last operation, it was clear he had only a few days left.
The patient could no longer have anyone in his room except for family. Now that there was nothing to be done, Toni wanted to tell him that he’d finally gone to dinner with the girl and make up some story about their “first kiss,” but there was always someone else in the room. When it wasn’t his parents, it was his aunt and uncle, his grandmother’s brother, or some cousin who’d heard the news and wanted to say good-bye—a cruel word—to Toni’s grandfather. Toni had to put up with brief interrogations that barely masked deep-seated judgments. “You’re thirty already? What was it you studied? And you don’t have a girlfriend?” In moments like that, he liked to imagine himself escaping through the window, transformed into a helium-filled Mylar balloon. It didn’t have to be anything too fancy: Mickey Mouse, Buzz Lightyear, whatever.
His grandfather accepted the increasing flow of visitors with no comment. One evening when Toni had just come from seeing Míriam at the Bulevard Rosa, they were alone for a couple of minutes while Toni’s father was in the bathroom. His grandfather asked him to remove his oxygen mask. Toni put it on his grandfather’s forehead—crown of thorns—and waited for him to say something, but he was all out of advice, swearwords, and stories. His grandfather simply stared at him serenely. His eyes said good-bye with no fear in them. Toni extended his hand to hold his grandfather’s. When Toni’s father came out of the bathroom, Toni put the oxygen mask back on as his grandfather timidly shook his head no. Was there still hope? During all those days in the hospital, Toni had maintained optimism.
A few minutes earlier, his mother had called to tell him that his grandfather was dead, and now he was walking toward the Hospital Clínic with a black eye and his face stained with blood. He had to ask a woman at a s
toplight for a tissue, and he stuffed it into his nostril to staunch the bleeding. Instead of going up to the hospital room, he turned on the street before it and found the tiki bar he’d passed so many times. Tonight, instead of watching the parakeets hopping up and down behind the glass of the entrance, he walked through the door and ordered a coffee. Even though the bar was dimly lit, the waiter asked him, with exaggerated concern, if he’d been mugged. Toni said yes.
“They stole my phone but not my money,” he added, patting his pants pockets so the waiter could hear that he had enough coins to pay for his coffee.
Near the bar, there were three couples sitting around low tables. At first, they seemed surprised to see their intimate space shattered by the appearance of someone with a bloodied face. Now that they knew he wasn’t an executioner but just a shitty victim, they ignored him completely. Every once in a while, one of the men glanced at him to make sure he still hadn’t collapsed. He remained seated on one of the bar stools. It was as if he were a silent, invisible ghost. The visitor’s presence didn’t affect them in the slightest. They didn’t even seem to think he had a soul.
ENGAGEMENT RING
“It used to be that wars would thin the herd. Now that there’s peace, disasters help a little by killing some people off. Don’t look at me like that—it’s just the way it is.”
The old woman pointed to the tiny TV screen with a finger twisted by osteoarthritis. Ever since she’d agreed to move into the nursing home, three months ago, she’d been torturing her son: She had to have a television in her room; it was urgent and of vital importance, because if she died without knowing how the trial against the philandering bullfighter turned out, she’d never forgive him for it. There were days when she swore that if he didn’t come through on that very nearly last wish, when he died, she’d go down to hell to find him and sink her dentures into his forearm. “I’ll leave a scar,” she threatened, tapping him with one of the three canes she always kept within reach, hanging from an armchair where, in theory, visitors were supposed to be able to sit comfortably.