by Becky Blake
If I couldn’t find Fanta, I could at least leave her a message, paint her something optimistic like the decals she always had on her fingernails. The doorway seemed to require something bigger than the stencil of the kissing lips I’d made. I thought for a moment, then selected a can of paint with a red lid. Free-form, I drew a life-sized outline of a person on the door – the same shape I’d once dreamt about finding in the palm of my hand. Beside it I wrote the word love in English, then Spanish, then Catalan: LOVE, EL AMOR, L’AMOR. When I tagged Niki at the bottom, the words looked like a goodbye, the end of an international love letter.
I stepped back to assess my work. Now any man who went with Fanta into that dark piss-smelling doorway would have to stand against the cut-out image, would have to think about the word LOVE while he received its facsimile. And as for any pedestrians passing by – for some, the empty shape might look like a love that’d gone missing, for others, a love that was still to be found.
Something on the ground caught my eye. It was a little white square – an upside-down photograph. For a second I froze. Then I turned it over like a playing card, but it wasn’t the photo I’d feared. Instead of Fanta’s little boy, it was a picture of a whole family. Not Fanta’s loss, but someone else’s.
A pair of Mossos were walking toward me. I scooped up the photograph and without thinking I started to run: back past the construction site, up the alley, along the street with the old hospital courtyard to La Rambla, then across into the Gothic Quarter and up Portal de l’Àngel. Not once did I look back – not until I’d made it through the sliding doors of the giant department store on Plaça Catalunya and stepped onto the escalator. When I finally turned, there was no one behind me.
I rode the zigzagging escalators up through women’s fashions, then men’s fashions, bridal wear, home furnishings, travel needs and baby goods: everything a person required to have a perfect department store life. At the top, on the ninth floor, was a cafeteria. I sat at one of the tables to catch my breath, staring over at the wall of windows. Through them, I could see all the way to the horizon, the hazy line of undulating mountains cradling the city. The view was so wide that both Peter and Xavi’s neighbourhoods were included, and all the distance in between. I put the picture I’d found in El Raval into one of the photo slots of my wallet. Then I walked over to the window.
I stayed very still for a long time looking out. I knew that as soon as I started to move, time would go quickly. In one hour, I’d be back at Xavi’s. In one day, I’d be on a plane. In four days, in a courtroom. After that, I didn’t know. Maybe I would go to Brigid’s wedding. I might even return to the apartment building where I’d grown up – at least to see Rosa. There would be tears probably. Then a blank white room somewhere that needed to be filled.
Far away, on the top of Tibidabo mountain, I could just make out the shape of a Ferris wheel against the sky. Maybe when I returned I would go to that amusement park, buy a ticket and ride to the very top, then look back at the spot where I was standing now. I placed my hands on the glass and leaned in with my full weight. I could see everything.
Acknowledgements
This book has been raised with the help of a village so large it’s really a country – or two countries, to be exact. For support in Spain, I would like to say mil gracias to chosen sisters Aaron Crisp, Lourdes Adela Enamorado Alvarenga, Yesenia Patricia Garcia McKinnon, Virginie Lörtscher, Annie Pujkiewicz and Elke Van Ael for accompanying me on research adventures into the darker corners of Barcelona. Thanks also to Juan Ansó for cooking for me, and to Luis Castel and Cesc Martínez for being my go-to guys on all things Catalan. (To Cesc also for a careful reading of the book.) My stay at the Jiwar Creation Residence provided an inspiring place to reconnect with this story.
In Canada, as part of the Creative Writing MFA program at the University of Guelph, I benefitted from early feedback from my classmates, as well as from Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, Pasha Malla and Russell Smith. Crucial writing and research grants came from the Toronto Arts Council, Access Copyright, the Ontario Arts Council, the Porcupine’s Quill (through the OAC Writers’ Reserve Program) and the Canada Council. I am grateful for my time at the Banff Centre, and for the opportunity to workshop the manuscript with Shyam Selvadurai during the Diaspora Dialogues Long Form Mentorship program. Amanda Lewis and Barbara Berson offered excellent advice at critical moments. Alissa York provided insightful late-game guidance during the writing program at Sage Hill.
I have greatly appreciated the input of my wonderful agent, Stephanie Sinclair, and astute reader Deanna Roney from Transatlantic. My editor, Paul Vermeersch, has kindly cared for this novel over the last two years. Ashley Hisson’s thoughtful copy edits helped so much to polish this work, as did Elisabet Ràfols’ final review of the Catalan in the book.
A big thank you to Officer Dave G., John Lefebvre, Sean Marks and Carlos Suárez for conversing with me about crime and punishment. And to Jeffrey Fair for introducing me to freeganism.
The following chosen sisters need to be thanked as early readers and/or literary cheerleaders: Sylvia Arthur, Rachel Deutsch, Rebecca Fisseha, Severn Thompson, Christine Lynett, Nancy Jo Cullen, Eufemia Fantetti, Erina Harris, Leesa Dean, my Cinnamon Karma ladies and the Shark-tailed Grouse Gang. Ayelet Tsabari, Kathy Friedman and Kilby Smith-McGregor each gave essential feedback on this novel at different stages. Kilby also created the beautiful design for this book.
Warmest thanks to: my parents, Pat and Bill, and my sisters, Kara and Julie, for their unwavering support; my old colleagues at ESM for always believing I would eventually have another job; and Sarah Curley for being a truly amazing friend.
About the Author
Becky Blake is a two-time winner of the CBC Literary Prize (for Nonfiction in 2017 and Short Story in 2013). Her fiction and essays have appeared in publications across Canada. She holds an MFA from the University of Guelph, and teaches creative writing at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Education. Becky currently lives in Toronto where she’s working on a second novel and a memoir-in-essays.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, places and events portrayed are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
© Becky Blake, 2019
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a license from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright license, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.
Buckrider Books is an imprint of Wolsak and Wynn Publishers.
Cover and interior design: Kilby Smith-McGregor
Cover and interior images: iStockphoto
Author photograph: Kara Blake
Typeset in Baskerville, Tibetan Beefgarden AOE, HVD Poster
Printed by Ball Media, Brantford, Canada
The publisher and author gratefully acknowledge the support of the Toronto Arts Council, the Ontario Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Government of Canada.
Buckrider Books
280 James Street North
Hamilton, ON
Canada L8R 2L3
Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada.
ISBN 978-1-928088-77-6 (print)
ISBN 978-1-989496-16-9 (ebook)
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