Proof I was Here

by Becky Blake

  I walked to the courtyard to check for him there. Inside, the old toothless man was circling a broken bench mumbling to himself. The three-legged dog was lying on a dirt path nearby. It was the first time I’d seen them together. They seemed like a good match.

  I went behind one of the pillars and pried open the grate to see if our knapsack was inside. It wasn’t.

  “Oye,” the old man called over. “Why did you come to this fucking country?”

  He’d asked me the same question several times, and nothing I came up with ever seemed like a good enough reason for him. For a second, I considered telling him the truth: that I’d moved to Barcelona with a man who didn’t love me anymore. Someday I might say those words out loud and maybe a spell would be broken.

  “I guess I just wanted to see what Spain was like,” I said. I walked over and bent down to pet the dog. His fur was twisted and waxy, sour-smelling. The dog made a sneezing sound, then laid his head in the dirt. When I stood up the old man was beside me.

  “You should go home,” he said.

  He was standing so close that for a second his certainty felt like my own. But no, I didn’t want to leave. “I’m not going home.”

  The old man shook his head. “If I had a country like yours . . .”

  I shrugged. “It’s not so great. Not nearly as beautiful as here. And besides, if I go back, I’ll have to go to court. I got into some trouble before I left.”

  The old man didn’t ask what kind of trouble I meant. “You should still go home,” he said. “Believe me. It will only get worse if you wait.”

  I knew the old man wasn’t from Barcelona – that he’d come to Catalonia from some province in the South. Maybe he’d done something illegal there too, made a mistake that had compounded over the years. Possibly over many, many years.

  “How old do you think I am?” he asked. It was like he’d read my mind.

  He had deep creases in his forehead and drooping pouches beneath his eyes. Apparently he’d been some kind of athlete in his day, had even done the Tour de France on an empty stomach once just after the Spanish Civil War. Manu had told me that.

  I started to do the math, then gave up. “Mmm … seventy?” It was better to start low, just in case.

  “More!”

  “Seventy-five?”

  “Ha! I’m eighty-nine years old.” He was talking loudly now, and the dog’s ears stood up. “And every year of my life this fucking country has gotten worse.”

  I made a sympathetic noise and looked back over my shoulder. I wanted to leave before he launched into his usual tirade about the government and corruption, about the immigrants who spoiled everything. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I have to go look for Manu.”

  The old man pointed a bent finger at the cut on my cheek. “Everything is shit these days.”

  I nodded and took a step back.

  “Too many immigrants.” He was talking to the dog now. “Eating out of the garbage. Getting sick. What do they expect?”

  I turned and moved toward the archway. The dog was in for an earful.

  Outside the courtyard, the sun was high overhead. I went to the fountain at the top of La Rambla and looked around at the sea of people. Someone touched my shoulder, and I turned, relieved, but it wasn’t Manu. Instead, it was a woman with a guidebook.

  Anyone who touches you on La Rambla, I thought. I looked at her more closely, but she didn’t seem to be a thief.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “Do you know if this is the special fountain?”

  “The special fountain?”

  “Yes.” Her eyes darted to the cut on my face and she hesitated. Then she decided to trust me: I was blond like her; I spoke English. She showed me a picture in the book, pointing her finger at the caption she wanted me to read:

  A meeting place for thousands of Barça fans each time the team wins a match, the Canaletes fountain on La Rambla is also special for another reason. Tradition says that if you drink from this fountain, you are guaranteed to return to the city again and again.

  “Huh. I’ve never heard that,” I said. “But this is definitely the fountain in the picture.”

  “Great! Thanks!”

  She shoved the guidebook into her open purse, then pulled back her hair and took a tentative drink. She stood up. “It tastes a bit funny.”

  “It’s probably dirty.” When I’d first arrived in Barcelona, drinking unfiltered water had made me feel sick. Now I was used to it.

  A tiny frown flashed across her face, then disappeared. “Oh well. I totally love it here. I definitely want to come back!” She retrieved the guidebook from her purse and flipped to the next page. I watched as she began to meander into the crowd. If she kept walking down La Rambla with her bag open like that, she wasn’t going to love it here for long.

  I followed her for a block, wondering if maybe I should warn her, but I didn’t see the point. If a hand was going to slip into her bag, lock onto the beating heart of her vacation and steal it away, there was nothing I could do to prevent it. It would either happen or it wouldn’t. It could happen to anybody. Even someone who was holding her purse with the utmost care. Maybe especially to her.

  Further down La Rambla Atlas was sitting on the edge of a crate, talking on his cell phone, the world at his feet. His hand was resting on Australia like he was homesick. He held up a gold finger. I walked a few steps away to give him some privacy. There was a blind woman selling lottery tickets from a kiosk. Above her head a sign read: Is Today Your Lucky Day? Five or six people were waiting in line to buy tickets, and the beer seller with the mustache from down at the beach was one of them. He gave me a thumbs-up. Maybe today was his lucky day.

  When I looked back at Atlas, he motioned for me to come over.

  “What happened to your cheek?” he asked.

  “Nothing. Just some bad luck.”

  He squinted at me, trying to see behind my words. “You should be more careful.”

  “I know. I will.”

  He handed me a can of gold spray paint and pointed to a faded spot on the back of his costume. “Do you mind? A big cruise ship just came in.”

  “Sure.” I shook the can. “Hey, have you seen Manu?”

  “Nah. Not for a while.”

  To Atlas, “a while” probably meant only a day, or a couple of days at most. We usually passed by him several times each afternoon. I turned my head away and sprayed, then handed back the can.

  “Thanks.” Atlas lifted a corner of his crate and tucked the can underneath. “How did you end up hanging out with that guy anyway?”

  I shrugged.

  “You must have better things to do.”

  “Not really.”

  Atlas got up on his crate. He pointed to the world and I handed it to him.

  “Well, if you can’t find him, come to the Black Sheep later and we can get something to eat. I’ll be there after nine.” He bent over and froze in place. Just like that our conversation was over, and I felt like I’d been talking to myself.

  I crossed La Rambla, then skirted around the edge of the Gothic Quarter. All the shops were closed, except for the bakeries, which meant it had to be Sunday. I was starting to get hungry, but I folded the feeling in half and kneaded it down. At 3:00 p.m. the bakeries would close, and the staff would throw out bags of day-old bread. Until then, I’d go to the park. Even if Manu wasn’t there, it was a good place to rest for a while. If I hadn’t found him by nightfall, I’d go to Peter’s on my own. There was no way I was looking for Manu at the construction site; I didn’t want to ever go back there.

  The park was Sunday-busy, every path and patch of grass occupied by people having picnics, playing guitar, blowing bubbles, eating ice cream. The fake lake was full to the brim with paddleboaters bumping into each other and making clumsy turns. I walked to the end of one of the paths and found Yaya’s cre
w sleeping on the grass.

  Yaya himself was sitting on a bench with a newspaper. He looked up at me as I approached. I waited for him to ask what had happened to my cheek but he didn’t, which meant he must already know. The idea made my heart speed up. “Have you seen Manu?” I asked.

  Yaya closed his newspaper. “His maman is sick,” he said. “He had to go home.”

  “Home?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Yesterday.”

  I nodded, kept nodding. So that’s why he hadn’t come looking for me. I remembered the long slow string of yeses coming from his phone booth on the last day I’d seen him, and how quiet he’d been afterwards. Maybe he’d already known he was leaving on the night I was attacked. If so, he would have wanted to pull together as much money as possible to take home with him. Probably he’d gone out to pawn the ring, or sell some drugs, or both. I wondered when he’d been planning to tell me. Maybe he’d bought me the rose as a goodbye gift.

  Yaya bent over and began rooting around in his bag. After a moment, he pulled out something long and thin, wrapped up in an orange piece of paper. “Manu asked me to give this to you.”

  The paper was a locksmith flyer, an advertisement that Manu had probably ripped down from one of the bulletin boards at the locutorio. When I unfolded the page, Manu’s wristwatch slid out – the one he’d thought made him look professional, like someone who had a job and appointments to keep. On the back of the flyer, he’d written a short note: I’m sorry. I had to go. Please! Don’t forget to eat! There was a drawing at the bottom of the page: a smiling woman with a clock for a belly. Her arms were pointing to the two and the nine – Spanish lunchtime and dinnertime.

  I folded the note back up and put it in my pocket, then lay the watch across my wrist. One hole on the band was bigger than the others, and I used that hole to fasten the clasp. When I dropped my arm to the side, the Manu-sized watch slid down halfway over my hand.

  Yaya was observing me. “He won’t be allowed to come back.”

  “I know.” Manu’s work visa had expired when he lost his job so now he was gone for good. I thought about the drawing he’d made in the sand at the beach; how he’d wiped it away, smoothing it back to nothing as if it hadn’t ever been there. I tried to wipe away my disappointment the same way, but it kept reappearing. I was so stupid: getting attached to people, trying to hold things in place. I opened my hands and lay them flat against my thighs.

  “Do you need some money?” Yaya asked.

  His generosity made my throat tighten. “No, that’s okay. I can get some.”

  Two children ran by us squealing, their dad squirting them with water from a plastic bottle. On the other side of the bushes, a dog was barking, protective and alert.

  “Malik can help with les points de suture.” Yaya pointed at my stitches. “He was a nurse before he came here.” Malik was sleeping in the grass, his head propped up against a sack of knock-off purses. He was holding the ties of the sack in his hand. It made me think of the way I’d held onto the call-button cord in my hospital room, ready to pull it at the first sign of danger.

  Yaya turned my face so he could look at the cut more closely. “Two days more maybe. I think it will be a small scar for you, non?”

  “Probably.” If so, then I’d have a permanent reminder of the damage a ring could do. “I think I’m going to lie down for a minute.”

  Yaya nodded, shook out his newspaper.

  In the grass nearby, I lay down on my back. It was the only position that didn’t hurt my ribs.

  “Jane,” Yaya said.

  “Yes?” Above me the sky was empty. No birds. No clouds.

  “That ring – is it true you gave it to Manu as a gift?”

  “Yes.” I closed my eyes. There was no need to worry about thieves. I had absolutely nothing left to steal.

  11

  When I woke the park was still busy, but Yaya’s crew had disappeared. For a while I couldn’t get up – just lay there listening to the sounds: a bicycle bell, a crying child, faint guitar music mixed with laughter. I lifted my wrist in the air and looked at Manu’s watch. Four thirty-four. Each tick was another second we were further apart. My belly felt like an empty bowl.

  Slowly, I pushed myself to standing and walked toward the park exit. The garbage cans along the path were overflowing with picnic remnants. I stopped at one of them and picked through the topmost refuse: sticky pop cans, ice cream wrappers, bags of sweating cheese rinds, apple cores. I’d have to go to Peter’s on my own now, and I didn’t want to be hungry when I saw him. I pulled out a paper bag that was see-through with grease stains. Empanadas maybe, or fried chicken. A family was sitting on the grass nearby and their little kid was staring at me. I wished he would mind his own business.

  There was no food in the bag, just some balled-up dirty napkins. Don’t forget to eat! I couldn’t believe that’s all Manu’s note had said – that he hadn’t left any way for me to contact him. Probably he wouldn’t even miss me. The cut on my cheek was throbbing like there was something behind it trying to escape. I brought my hand to my face and pressed it against the wiry stitches until the pain made my vision sharpen.

  Up ahead, a couple was kissing on a blanket. The woman’s purse lay unattended behind her. The sun felt hotter on the left side of my face as I started toward it. Her purse would fit perfectly over my shoulder – would immediately be mine. In just a few minutes, I’d be out of the park, using her wallet to buy myself something to eat. And then I’d be her for a while. Peter wouldn’t be able to feel sorry for me when I saw him; I’d be a woman with a purse again. A switch would be flipped.

  I was two steps away when the couple stopped kissing and lay back on their blanket. The woman looked over at me, and the distance between her life and mine expanded again. There was no switch to flip – just a long ladder I’d have to climb if I ever wanted my life to be like hers again.

  I exited the park, then walked along the top edge of the Gothic Quarter in search of a bakery. I just had to stick to my plan: Eat something and then go back to Peter’s for my wallet. Try to forget that once again everything had changed, that instead of finding a place to stay with Manu, I was going to be staying in a hostel alone. For some reason, it had been easier to care about protecting the two of us than it was to care about protecting only me.

  Beside one of the bakeries, I saw a bicycle with a front basket covered in plastic flowers. Annika’s bicycle. That was a good sign. Annika was the tall Dutch squatter who’d given us the tip about the supermarket renovation. We’d run into her a couple of times since, and she always seemed to know where there was food.

  Annika was bent down over a pile of clear plastic garbage bags. She was wearing a sundress with army boots and knee socks of two different colours. Her red hair was tied in a thick braid that hung down her back.

  “The bread’s good today,” she said when she saw me. She picked up a baguette and broke it in half, pressing into the soft centre with her finger. There was already a crushed box with some kind of tarts inside her basket. She saw me looking at them. “Do you want one?”

  “No, that’s okay.” I was hoping to find something that wasn’t sweet.

  Annika used her toe to turn over a bag full of paper plates. “Where’s your friend?”

  “Manu?” His name felt like sand in my mouth. “He’s gone.”

  I bent down and untied a bag that was full of crusty rolls and coffee grounds. I picked out one of the rolls and brushed it off. Annika tied the bag back up for me.

  “Thanks.” I could feel her looking at the cut on my face.

  “Where are you sleeping these days?” she asked.

  “We were staying at a construction site, but now …” If Peter wasn’t home when I rang his buzzer, I’d go to meet Atlas at the Black Sheep, and maybe afterwards we’d end up at his apartment. If he di
dn’t invite me, and Peter still wasn’t home, I didn’t know where I’d spend the night. “I might stay down at the beach.”

  “It’s cold down there,” Annika said. “Also, it can be dangerous.”

  Dangerous. The rough hand with the gold ring swooped again toward my face. “Maybe I’ll just walk around,” I said. I could always sleep tomorrow during the day. Worst-case scenario, if my plans with both Peter and Atlas failed, that was probably the safest.

  I took a bite of the roll and discovered a pocket of sugary almond paste hidden inside. If Manu had been there, I would have given the roll to him. I couldn’t believe I was never going to touch his scar.

  Annika was arranging the baguettes in her basket. They looked like arms without hands reaching up for help. She glanced over. “If you want, you could come back to the squat with me. Maybe for dinner? Maybe to stay for one night?”

  “Are you serious?” Her offer seemed too good to be true – staying at the squat would mean I could rest for another night before I had to go back to Peter’s.

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “Where is it?” I asked.

  “In Gracia.” The way she pronounced Gràcia with a th sound over the c meant she’d learned her Spanish in Spain. I still spoke Spanish with a Colombian accent, the way I’d learned from Rosa growing up. Manu had always found that amusing.

  I tried out Annika’s pronunciation: “In Gracia?” Using the lisping sound felt pretentious.

  “Yes. I’ll have to double-check with the others, of course, but I’m sure it will be fine.”

  Her kindness was making me nervous. I scanned her face. If she wanted something from me, I couldn’t tell what it was.

  Annika smiled. Her teeth looked strong and even like in a milk commercial. “Come on,” she said. “It’s no problem. I can double you.” She pointed at the rack on the back of her bike. “We just need to make a few more stops. Sylvain’s making dinner tonight and he wants some vegetables. Sundays are hard, but I think I know a place.”