Proof I was Here

by Becky Blake

  Xavi pointed to the centre of the roundabout. “Over there would be good. You just have to watch for police cars, police on foot or anyone else who seems to be angry, or making a call. I’ll go around to the other side.” He grabbed my hand. “Hey, I know you wanted to paint tonight but it’s going to take some time for them to trust you.” He gave me a quick kiss. “If anything happens I’ll meet you back at home.”

  Home. The word sat like oil on water. I’d never felt more like a tourist. This was just another group I didn’t belong to.

  When Xavi headed off, I crossed the lanes of traffic to the monument and stood on the far side where I had a view of the billboard and three of the wide streets that were feeding the roundabout. I perched on the edge of the monument, pretending to be texting on the Doctor’s phone. When I glanced up, the three members of MGIC were already climbing the construction scaffolding. In their dark clothes they looked like ninjas. There was a trickle of people going into the metro, but they were busy and far away. The drivers of the cars, cabs and motorcycles were all zipping by too fast to notice.

  The guys vanished through a window, then a minute later they appeared on the catwalk in front of the billboard. A police car drove by, and I snapped to attention, but the car whipped past on the roundabout and headed off in another direction. I pulled up the number the Doctor had shown me on his phone and readied my finger on the call button.

  The MGIC crew was painting the billboard now, one of them working to cover the construction logo under messy swathes of white paint, while another added a flag: alternating stripes of red and yellow with a star on one end. The third guy traced out large capital letters that slowly formed the words CATALONIA IS NOT SPAIN. I was surprised he was writing in English, but maybe it was for the benefit of the tourists who would be watching the game. Or maybe English was just the universal language of complaint.

  When they were finished, the three men disappeared behind the billboard, and I made my way back to the motorcycles. In the alley, I discovered the others’ bikes were already gone and Xavi was waiting for me with a tense look on his face. I hurried to get on his motorcycle, passing him the Doctor’s phone.

  “I guess we’re not going to be coming here to watch the game,” I joked.

  “Definitely not.” Xavi handed me a helmet and started his bike. “I don’t care if Spain wins or loses. And besides, there are a bunch of other things I’d rather do with you.”

  I held on tight as we roared out of the alleyway and onto the roundabout.

  21

  MACBA, the contemporary art gallery where Xavi took me the next afternoon, was on the outskirts of El Raval. As we approached the building, we passed a mural that showed the word raval conjugated as if it was a verb. When I asked Xavi for a translation, he said it was a made-up word that could mean whatever I wanted. To me, El Raval would always mean walking around with Manu.

  Xavi bought us gallery tickets, and we spent a couple hours visiting a photo exhibit he wanted to show me, then wandering through the permanent collection. The gallery was spacious and modern with lots of natural light. The front of the building was glass, and as we moved between the floors via ramps, I looked down at the square below. A bunch of skateboarders were practising their jumps on the front steps.

  After we were finished in the gallery, Xavi and I headed back to Gràcia to collect the things we would need to celebrate Festa de Sant Joan that night. There was specially ordered coca bread to pick up, cava to chill and a picnic to pack. We waited in a long line to buy fireworks. Sant Joan was a celebration of the summer solstice, and Xavi said the entire city stayed up until dawn.

  We spent the evening down at the beach, drinking and dancing amidst the noisy chaos. Sant Joan seemed like a dangerous festival: children throwing fireworks at people who were swimming in the sea, men in flammable-looking devil costumes juggling fire. I was ready to leave around 4:00 a.m., but Xavi said there was no point in going home; the fireworks would be too loud for us to sleep until after the sun came up.

  Everyone in the city had the next day off work, so we slept late, then watched movies on Xavi’s computer all afternoon, nursing our hangovers. I guessed he might need some space after spending so much time together, but when I suggested I could move to a hostel, he said I could stay as long as I wanted – until I figured out what I was going to do next. I told him I was looking for a design job, and he offered to talk to a friend who might need some help; it would be freelance only, but it would be a start. That night we went out with the crew again – this time to spray-paint the word català over any Spanish text we saw on local posters or signs. The crew was also putting up posters for an upcoming protest. The Doctor said it was going to be the biggest one yet.

  On Friday morning Xavi had to go to work at the university where he taught photography. Before leaving, he pulled a bunch of books from his shelf. “Just in case you get bored.” He smiled. They were books about the Spanish Civil War, about Catalan nationalism, about photography and art.

  “Cool. Thanks.”

  “Here’s an extra set of keys,” he said, dropping them on the kitchen counter. “And if you need something else to wear –” he pointed at the closet “– I think you’re more or less the same size as Laia.”

  Laia. The discovery of his wife’s name added a burst of colour to her photograph, which was still on the bedside table.

  “I know I probably should have gotten rid of her clothes by now.” His words were slowing down. “I just … I haven’t had the opportunity.”

  I joined him at the kitchen counter where he was packing a lunch. “I’m sure you’ll find a good place to take them when you’re ready.”

  “Yes.”

  I tried to think of something to distract him. “Hey. I have a question. How do you say ‘You have to eat’ in Catalan?”

  “Has de menjar. Why?”

  “I have an idea for a stencil.”

  “Here. I’ll write it down for you.” Xavi printed the phrase on a fresh page of the little notebook he’d given me to keep track of the Catalan I was learning. To get me started he’d written translations for some basic phrases, and also some romantic words, including kiss and love. Since then, I’d copied down a few words from signs in the neighbourhood: xocolata (chocolate), caixa (bank), rebaixa (sale). Catalan was full of Xs. They seemed to cross out the CHs and Js from their Spanish equivalents, replacing the missing letters with a shushing sound.

  Xavi handed me back the notebook, then gave me a kiss. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  “Yes. I’ll see you.” There was a slight pause before he moved to the door. Each day we had several of these awkward moments, little gaps that could have been filled with sweeter words, but so far had remained empty. We were doing our best to take care of each other, but the harder we tried, the more obvious it was that neither of us was ready for anything serious. The previous afternoon, I’d found Xavi sitting outside on his rooftop terrace, and when he turned to look at me, it was like he hadn’t recognized me, or worse, that he’d been expecting someone else.

  When the door closed behind him, I lay back on his bed, enjoying the quiet. After dozing a bit, I picked up Manu’s watch from the bedside table to check the time, but the hands were frozen in place. I shook the watch and held it to my ear, wondering why it had stopped today – if something bad might have happened to Manu. Some of his superstition had obviously rubbed off on me. The only reason the watch had stopped was because its cheap dollar-store battery had run out. It didn’t mean anything else.

  I took a long shower, the warm water and citrus-scented shampoo still feeling a bit miraculous after so many weeks of cold, trickling taps at the beach and the squat. I dried off with a large towel, then wrapped it around me and walked over to the closet. Coming from the back corner was a faint smell of perfume, which was likely why Xavi had kept her clothes. Or maybe there just never seemed to be a good day for
throwing them away – no day yet that he’d woken up and really believed she was gone. Xavi would probably miss his wife forever.

  I pulled a bunch of hangers from the closet and fanned the clothes out on the bed. She’d had good taste, a bright playful style. I tried on a sleeveless peach dress with a clingy skirt. The neckline was too low, but otherwise it fit. I swapped it for a navy-blue sundress with off-the-shoulder sleeves. The dress made me feel like I might be able to pass for a local – or at least someone who’d been in Barcelona for a while and knew how things worked.

  My arm felt bare without Manu’s watch. I slipped it over my wrist and let it slide into its regular position. Even though it had stopped, it was still doing something important: reminding me of Manu and all that had happened since we’d met. Manu was someone who I might miss forever.

  I washed the clothes I’d been wearing for the last few days, then hung them out on the terrace to dry so I could change again before Xavi came home. I didn’t think it would be good for him to see me in Laia’s dress. Maybe I’d suggest that he donate her things to the Free Store; I could take him to the squat and show him my mural, if the squatters hadn’t been evicted yet, and if they didn’t hate me too much. The first thing I wanted to do today was go talk to Pau and find out where things stood.

  Outside, it felt like the hottest day yet. I held the door open with my foot until I’d double-checked the inside pocket of my courier bag, making sure that my money and Xavi’s keys were safely stowed away. It was strange to have things to protect again. I decided to walk by the squat before going to the tattoo shop, just to see if anything looked different. I tried to keep within the stripes of shade closest to the buildings, but crossing Plaça de la Revolució, there was no shade at all.

  When I turned onto the squatters’ street, their building looked more abandoned than usual, like it had been drained of all life. The windows were boarded up and the front door was padlocked. The banner was gone from the balcony.

  I sat on the curb across the street for a long time, looking at the building. I’d known there was a good chance the squatters would be gone, but even so, I couldn’t quite believe it. Or maybe what I couldn’t believe was that they’d ever been there. It was almost eerie how quickly the Mossos had been able to erase all signs of the building’s last inhabitants. I stood up and began searching the ground for some trace – a piece of splintered furniture, a broken dish – but there was nothing.

  When the tears came, I didn’t know exactly why I was crying. Maybe because I’d never be able to show Xavi my mural, or because the squatters had lost their home. Or maybe just because a thing could be destroyed with so little effort, and there was no real way to resist.

  I imagined the Mossos breaking down the door, streaming into the apartment in riot gear, dragging Annika down the stairs in her bare feet while John punched anyone in sight, and the others yelled until their voices went hoarse. I should have been yelling with them. Even if that’s all I’d been able to do, it would have been better than being silent.

  I walked to the tattoo shop to see if Pau was working. I wanted to apologize, at least to him, and find out where the squatters had moved.

  Inside the shop, a woman with bright pink hair was sitting at the front desk.

  “Is Pau here?” I asked.

  She glanced up from the fetish magazine she was reading. She had a silver barbell through the bridge of her nose, connecting the dark dots of her heavily made-up eyes. “Pau doesn’t work here anymore.”

  “What? I just saw him a few days ago.”

  The woman shrugged.

  “Do you know where he went?” I shifted to one side, peeking around her into the backroom to see if anyone I recognized was working.

  “No.” She rolled backward in her chair and pulled a curtain shut between the rooms.

  We looked at each other. For some reason, she was being purposely unhelpful.

  “Okay,” I said. “I guess I’ll go then.”

  A French bulldog emerged from under her desk and waddled toward me, its toenails clicking against the wooden floor. It followed me as I walked to the door.

  “Don’t let him out,” the woman said.

  I raised an eyebrow in her direction, my hand on the doorknob.

  She sighed. “Pau said he was moving home for a while – to some little village where his parents live.” She flipped a page of her magazine.

  “Thank you.” I held the dog back with my foot, then stepped out onto the narrow sidewalk – a sidewalk that would no longer lead me to Pau.

  I started to walk down Gran de Gràcia. It was just before siesta time and all the shopkeepers were rolling down metal doors over their storefronts. It made me feel dizzy, like my life was being erased behind me as I went. I stopped and turned, then stood for a moment, looking back at where I’d come from. Everything was still there – the long uphill street lined on both sides with parked motorcycles, the art nouveau buildings with their iron balconies and hanging birdcages. Even so, I couldn’t shake the sensation that I was on the edge of something; everyone I met in Barcelona seemed to disappear. I thought about Pau’s kind eyes, and the cigarette burns in the blanket he’d loaned me. I shouldn’t have waited so long to go back.

  I wrapped my fingers around Manu’s watch. “Don’t look back” – that’s what he’d always said. And it was good advice if you were running away. But I didn’t want to keep running, always moving forward through a world I didn’t quite belong in, everything slipping away behind me.

  I decided to go to La Rambla and look for Atlas. With his unusual job of standing perfectly still, there was a good chance he’d be where I was expecting. When I found him in his regular spot, I joined the small group of tourists who were watching and taking his picture. After they walked off, Atlas jumped down from his crate.

  “How are you doing?” he asked.

  “I’m okay. How it’s going with the Romanians?”

  “Bah. Bunch of bludgers. I think they’ve moved on.”

  We sat down on his crate. His gold paint smell was familiar to me now. It was the same smell I tried to scrub off my hands at night.

  “How’s it going with your new Catalan friends?” Atlas asked.

  “Pretty good.”

  “Huh.” He seemed doubtful. “It’s not easy to make friends with Catalan people. Usually, they’re very closed.” He brought his hands together like a pair of sliding doors.

  I thought about something Xavi had told me – that there was a fortress on Montjuïc where a lot of Catalans had been imprisoned while Franco was in power. “Maybe they’re closed for a reason.”

  Atlas looked at me strangely.

  “You know, oppression, torture. That sort of thing.”

  “Jay-sus!” Atlas laughed. “What have they done to you?”

  I tried not to smile. Testing out new knowledge was embarrassing, sort of like showing up to a party with a new haircut – people needed time to adjust.

  “It’s not really funny,” I said.

  “Right.” Atlas pulled an exaggeratedly solemn face. Some passing tourists stopped in front of us as if we were performing. Atlas shooed them away. “Fuck. It’s not easy being gold.”

  I picked up his globe. “Do you ever think about going home?” First Manu had gone home and now Pau.

  “You mean to Australia?”

  I nodded.

  “Nah. Sometimes I think about going someplace else.”

  Someplace else. I hadn’t considered that. Maybe after my tourist visa ran out, or if Xavi and I got sick of each other, I could do that too – travel around from place to place drawing portraits of people and staying for as long as I could, then moving on. Travelling forever would be exhausting – something like Atlas holding up his globe and never being able to set it down – but at least I’d get to see the world up close.

  “Do you think you’
ll leave soon?” I asked.

  “No way. Do you know how many tourists pass by me every day?”

  I certainly did; he told me every time I saw him. “A hundred thousand?”

  Atlas shook his head. “It’s way more than that. At least a hundred and fifty. Probably more.”

  After we said goodbye, I walked back up La Rambla. On one side was El Raval, on the other side the Gothic Quarter. I considered turning in one of those directions – either going to look for Fanta on the street behind the hotel, or stopping by Peter’s to see if I could get my wallet. Those were two places I needed to go back to, but I’d waited so long that the required actions seemed almost impossible: to walk around the perimeter of the construction site after all this time, or to finally go and ring Peter’s buzzer. I decided that for today, I would just keep to the centre of La Rambla: pick up some art supplies, then head back to Xavi’s to sit in front of the fan and make my stencils.

  I continued north, weaving through the groups of tourists clustered around their open maps. As I was crossing Plaça Catalunya a pair of hands landed on my shoulders and made me jump. It was Yaya.

  “Jane.”

  “Hey! You scared me.” Yaya looked tired, and he smelled like he’d been working hard for a long time in the sun. “How are you doing?” I asked.

  He sighed. “These days have been bad.”

  I looked around for his crew, but I couldn’t see them. “What’s going on?”

  “Malik was arrêté …” He searched for the word in English. “Stopped.”

  “Oh my god. When?”

  “Yesterday. Probably he’s in the CIE now.” The CIE was the detention centre for people who were caught without papers. Yaya always said the prisoners there were treated like dogs.

  “I’m so sorry. Do you have time to go sit down for a few minutes? Maybe have a coffee or some lunch? It’s my treat – I’ve got some money.”

  Yaya’s expression softened. “You do owe me lunch.”