The Color of a Dog Running Away

by Richard Gwyn

  I discovered from his daughter (his wife would not speak to me) that Manu was serving a three-month sentence for the massacre at Plaça Sant Jaume. She gave me the visiting times, and when I went along to the prison, I found him less dejected than he had been during his long struggle with the city council. He appeared to have accepted defeat gracefully, and was, he told me, enjoying a bit of peace and quiet. His wife had filed for a legal separation (divorce still being out of the question for a practising Catholic), which did not upset him in the least. He was considering a return to Córdoba, where he might find work on his cousin’s farm. Yes, he informed me with a sigh, in answer to my question: his cousin farmed rabbits.

  The days were cold and sunny, and I made a couple of day trips out of town, setting out early to walk in the Collsacabra hills near Vic one day, and along the sea-front at Sitges another. It was on my return from Sitges that I saw the postcard lying on the floor just inside my doorway. This time I knew who’d brought it. Only the roof people would have gained access through the large roof patio, now bereft of Manu’s hutches.

  The postcard showed a picture of La Pedrera, Gaudí’s famous building on the Passeig de Gràcia. Like all of Gaudí’s work, it indicates an absolute rejection of the straight line. The photo was taken at night, from the roof terrace, which was itself a twisting labyrinth of pathways and ornate chimney stacks. I turned the card over in my hand. The message was in uniform upper-case letters. In green ink, as before, was written a date and a time: December 24–23.00. Eleven o’clock on Christmas Eve.

  Christmas Eve was the next day.

  The use of the same green ink, the minimal content, and the meeting place suggested by the photo on the other side, all led me to believe that Nuria was the agent of this message, if not its author. No doubt, I was supposed to believe this. If the message was truly from her, and by following these instructions I would meet her again, I considered any risk worthwhile. I’d had enough of waiting: resolution was now due. I slept well that night, a sleep persistent with the memory of Nuria, and the delicious sense of waking with her body in a state of warm arousal next to mine.

  It was another fine day. The sun hovered above the rooftops in the direction of the sea, and it was a joy to take my coffee onto the veranda, and to hear the bustle of the market below me. I showered and dressed, and immediately settled into my work, knowing that if I were to delay, I could easily spend the day in an agitated state of expectation for what the night might bring.

  As it was, the hours passed easily enough. Before lunch I took a chance on her being in and phoned Eugenia. I wanted one person to know about my appointment in case I met with some misfortune. We arranged to meet at the restaurant in Gràcia, and I caught a taxi there from Laietana.

  I brought Eugenia up to date on my life since my hospitalization, and showed her the postcard of La Pedrera.

  “Are you certain you want to do this?” Eugenia asked, once we were settled at a table, eating a hot vegetable soup.

  “Yes,” I replied. “I have to.”

  She nodded.

  “Would you like me to come? Just to keep an eye on things? I could remain at twenty paces, lurk in the shadows.”

  “Er, no thanks. I’ll phone you tomorrow to confirm that I’m alive.”

  “You don’t have to go, you know. You could still let go of it all.”

  I didn’t answer. I had been waiting for some kind of a message, a sign, since arriving back in the city in August. I had first received the mysterious package, and now that I had this invitation (as I had convinced myself to think of it), there was no question of me not turning up.

  “And another thing,” continued Eugenia, changing tack when she realised I was not going to respond to her challenge, “why did you spend over two weeks in hospital without once phoning me, or letting me know what had happened? I tried to get in touch several times. I thought you might have disappeared again, or even died, the way you were heading. You should have called me. It’s what friends are about.”

  “I’m truly sorry. But I just needed time, completely unprejudiced by anyone else’s opinions or views. Alone with the sick and the dying on that ward. It was an education for me. A special privilege almost, catching a glimpse of the dark corners of the soul. That first night, I was going to die, you know. I was convinced of it. I needed time out to reflect on everything.”

  Eugenia shifted in her seat, smiled.

  “I understand, Lucas. I think I do. You’re forgiven.”

  After our meal, and lingering over coffee, we went outside. It was getting dark now, and had turned cold. The streets, packed with Christmas shoppers, were in festive swing, but I felt apart from the whole performance of festivity; apart even from Eugenia. The sensations of warmth and intimacy with which I had woken that morning, on the heels of a benign dream whose details I could not recall, had stayed with me all day: I was convinced that, whatever else happened, I had to pursue this meeting or else spend the rest of my life regretting it.

  I went home and had a rest. I lay on the bed for a long time, listening to music and trying to capture an indistinct memory that I could not quite dredge up into consciousness.

  Something stirred out on the veranda. A cat, maybe. At the same instant, I was gripped by a corresponding interior movement: a certainty of purpose about what I had to do, so long dormant that I had almost failed to recognise it. I had thought it was a poem. I hadn’t written a poem for a year. I sat at my desk, in front of the old Olivetti, tapping on the desk with my fingers. Perhaps it wasn’t a poem after all. Or if it was, perhaps the poem had fled screaming back to the unconscious broth from which it had emerged.

  Slowly, I picked out the keys one by one, using index and middle fingers only. I sat for a long time staring at the piece of paper, the two lines of words at the top of the page, a snail-track of story.

  One evening in May as I was walking home, I witnessed a mugging, and did nothing to prevent it. I could see what was going to happen.

  Shortly after ten I opened the silver-grey box, took out the myrtle candy, unwrapped it, and popped it into my mouth. I then set out towards the Plaça Catalunya, and from there crossed to the Passeig de Gràcia. La Pedrera was only ten minutes’ walk away, and I still had plenty of time, so I stopped off at the Café Torino for a coffee. The place was packed, and I stood at the bar in the smoke-filled room among customers wrapped in overcoats and scarves. When I left it was ten to eleven.

  As I approached La Pedrera, I began to feel nervous. I stood at the corner of the building, where I had a view of both adjoining streets.

  Somebody tapped me on the shoulder. I turned, and was confronted by the angel of Santa María del Mar. She smiled sweetly, and gestured for me to follow. I began to ask her where we were going, but remembered that she could not speak. We walked in silence.

  We turned off Provença and entered a building. I knew from the address on his business card that this was where the Baron lived. From the hallway we followed a dark corridor that led beyond the stairwell. The angel took a huge key from the rucksack she was carrying, and unlocked a heavy wooden door that opened onto a small courtyard and a spiral stone stairway. We climbed until we reached what must have been the third storey of a town-house, and stepped out onto another patio, overlooking an open expanse between taller apartment buildings. Where we stood was a private terrace, set with tubs of plants, railings and an overhead lattice for vines. Lounger chairs were stacked against the wall for winter and the house lay in darkness, shutters closed. On two sides the buildings rose above us for another three storeys. Opposite, through a gap in the juxtaposed houses, I could see the neon of a hotel sign and the lights on Montjuïc. Adjacent to our terrace, the west face of La Pedrera towered like a sandstone cliff.

  My companion slid out of her rucksack, unzipped the top, and produced a grappling iron and a generous length of black nylon rope. I was sweating, and felt a sudden shortness of breath. But, whatever I had to do now, there was no turning back. I had implici
tly accepted this assignation by arriving here.

  The figure at my side was watching me inquisitively, her large dark eyes like some night-creature’s. She was in her element here on the rooftops. The element of flight. Then, after a calculated swing, she cast the iron high into the air, aiming for the upper parapets of La Pedrera. After a second or two she pulled hard on the rope. I was staring upward, alongside her, and saw the thing fall, plummeting through the air and crashing loudly onto the terrace a few paces in front of us. We waited there in the dark for some reaction, a response from one of the well-lit overlooking windows, but nothing happened. She picked up the instrument, which had unfolded on the ground like a giant insect, and shrugged.

  Standing back a little more this time, she swung the iron again, two, three times, and cast it high. Once more I heard a thud, and then a loud scratching sound from above us as the claws made purchase on stone. After a brief pause, the angel took my right hand and placed it firmly around the rope. She gestured, with a nod of her head, towards the roof. I followed her gaze upward again. When I next looked down, she was gone. Disappeared silently into the shadows.

  So I was to do this alone.

  I stood for a long time next to where the rope uncoiled on the terrace floor and stared up at the night sky stretched wide above me. Other than knowing that I had to ascend this rope, I had no idea what would happen next. But the absence of certainty, or even of understanding, no longer held any terror.

  Gathering my strength, I placed one hand above the other, and pulled myself slowly upward. My feet clenched the rope below me as I moved into a rhythm: hoisting with the arms, then gripping with the feet. I made slow progress, trying to conserve my breath. I felt a pain shooting across my chest, and paused by the first set of windows. There were no lights on inside. I knew the building would not be occupied at night, since it served as the administrative offices of a bank. I was more concerned that someone might spot me from one of the windows in an apartment opposite and call the police. But I went slowly about my job and gradually reached the upper floor. Here there was a change in the architecture of the building: small attic windows now protruded from the bulging stonework. Looking down, a huge drop had opened up between me and the terrace below, amplified by the darkness in which I moved. I had only three or four metres to climb. If the grappling iron was going to dislodge itself, this would be the moment, while I was nearest to my goal, and furthest from the distant terrace. The angle of my ascent had been constant until now, but was more hazardous as I reached the top, the rope stretching at an obtuse angle. My body was soaked in sweat, the palms of my hands were sore, and my arms ached. I couldn’t breathe. But I edged upwards, until I could make out the top of the parapet wall and security fence which marked out the perimeter of the building’s undulating roof. Only a few more heaves on the rope were needed. As I reached the summit, I stretched one hand onto the parapet, then the other, and pulled myself onto the low wall, clambering over the fence and falling in a heap onto the walkway. With impeccable timing, the cathedral bells in the old city began to chime for midnight.

  I stood up and looked for the grappling iron. It had been removed from the parapet and was tied firmly to a nearby chimney-stack. There had been no danger of the rope slipping.

  Nuria stood alone in the shadow by the stone chimney, dressed in a scuffed leather jacket, black leggings, and trainers. Her hair had been cut short.

  Then she spoke, eyes dark, voice lucid.

  “Bienvenido a la Salida.”

  Welcome to the Exit. I looked around. I had never been on the roof of La Pedrera before. It was a labyrinth of marvels. The walkway of red tiles circled the roof, rising and falling in stages, and dividing in places to circumnavigate the large, sculptured chimney-stacks, some of them like tall human figures, or the statues of Easter Island. We were overlooking a deep inner courtyard far below, and all around us the lights of the city burned and flickered in an indigo mist. I had never seen Barcelona look so beautiful. I felt an intense and impenetrable happiness at being exactly there, precisely then.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  While this is by no means an “historical novel,” it does contain certain correspondences with historical events. For those interested in reading further, Montaillou by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie has never been improved upon in its portrayal of everyday life among the Cathars. Stephen O’Shea’s The Perfect Heresy and René Weis’s The Yellow Cross are highly readable accounts. Zoé Oldenbourg’s Massacre at Montségur is a masterly study of the period. The Cathars and Reincarnation by Arthur Guirdham helped to spark the fuse, and Càtars i Catarisme a Catalunya by Anna Adroer i Tasis and Pere Català i Roca provided interesting local detail. Annabelle Mooney’s Rhetoric of Religious Cults was a timely resource. I’m grateful to those friends and colleagues who read earlier drafts. Particular thanks are due to Gwen Davies, whose patient and skilful editorship spared the reader a much fatter book. Barcelona, city of marvels, is the real heroine of the story. Sadly, the old Santa Caterina market no longer exists, a recent victim of urban redevelopment.

  RICHARD GWYN was born in Wales. A poet, editor, and translator, this is his first novel. His Web site can be found at www.richardgwyn.com.

  PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY

  Copyright © 2005 by Richard Gwyn

  All Rights Reserved

  Originally published in Wales and Great Britain as The Colour of a Dog Running Away by Parthian Books, Cardigan, in 2005. This edition published by arrangement with Il Caduceo Literary Agency.

  Published in the United States by Doubleday, an imprint of The Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  www.doubleday.com

  DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Map designed by Jackie Aher

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Gwyn, Richard, 1956–

  The color of a dog running away / Richard Gwyn.—1st US ed.

  p. cm.

  1. Albigenses—Spain—Fiction. 2. Subculture—Spain—Barcelona—Fiction. 3. Barcelona (Spain)—Fiction.

  I. Title.

  PR6057.W85C66 2006

  302.23'450973—dc22

  2006011900

  eISBN: 978-0-385-52147-5

  v3.0