by Sergio Pitol
Yes, my neighborhood is bustling, which is fine, although it seems like they go overboard just a bit. Something tells me this isn’t my city. I find it excessively noisy, deafening, and insane in its hyperactivity. The guardia civil stopped two hippies this afternoon beside my hotel and beat them mercilessly. A group of them walk along La Rambla frequently; a mix of intelligent and delicate faces with others that are excessively barbarian: young people of both sexes decked out in Afghani, Indian, or Nepalese blouses and jackets, alongside others who barely cover their flesh in rags; Germans, English, French, Scandinavians; they barely speak to Spaniards. They hang out in the Dingo, a bar located beside the Plaza Real, which is also beside my hostel. My room, because of its modesty, takes me back to Vittoria, Rome, 1961. Apparently, I’m neither maturing nor making progress.
23 JUNE
No, I do not get this city. Yesterday afternoon I went to the movies. I did the same today. Double feature: one of the movies was the really ancient Ahí está el detalle, with Cantinflas. A way of escaping reality, it seems, of blotting out the racket where I live. I’m starting to feel a bit like a coward. I walk a lot, but I never leave La Rambla or Escudillers. My biggest entertainment: watching the expressions and habits of the exotic hippies, who also never leave the Plaza Real and its surroundings, and who usually hole up in the Dingo. Racket, scandal at all hours, enough to drive anyone crazy! I should have changed hotels the day after I arrived; instead I sent everyone this address, and now I have to grin and bear it until my correspondence gets here. You can get by here on a few pesetas a day.
7 JULY
Terrible insomnia. I fall asleep around seven or eight in the morning, which causes me to stay in bed until evening, and I wake up furious that I’ve wasted the day, which makes it impossible to have any kind of normal work schedule. I visited Pepe and María del Pilar Donoso. We talked at length about friends from Mexico, about Pepe’s illnesses, the novel he’s writing. The plot, which he explained in broad terms, is fascinating. I ask them about their life in Barcelona, and they respond vaguely, as if they wanted to avoid the subject. New friendships: a young married couple, both writers; he works at Seix Barral; she’s finishing university. The extreme seriousness they’ve established between themselves surprises me. Last night I finished my revisions of Cosmos, by Gombrowicz. I’m in a panic, at wit’s end. My money situation is getting dire. The trip to Warsaw appears uncertain. Not many letters from Mexico. Today I’m going back to Jean Franco’s book. The hippies are an enigma to me, an amazing phenomenon. The only thing I knew about them came from the press. I saw them in London a few months ago, but there the city absorbed them, despite openly shooting heroin in the metro and public toilets. In Barcelona they stand out from the rest of the city, its customs, Spain, even in this neighborhood that is the height of obscenity, but an obscenity of another kind, that has taken centuries to create. This mix of multiple nationalities, unlike anything else I’ve ever seen, is a novelty I still haven’t been able to digest. I exchanged a few words in the Dingo with a hippie with hellishly dirty, iodine-colored hair. They walk around in groups; in general they’re boring and sullen. This one seems more independent, more upbeat, and bordering on a sense of humor. I’m starting to get used to Barcelona; but to be completely comfortable I’d need a more obvious element of foreignness, like other European cities I’ve lived in. A greater distance from the language and customs could help me adjust to the paralysis I’m experiencing.
WEDNESDAY, 9 JULY
I woke up today at three in the afternoon, yesterday at four thirty, which is definitely not normal. I work until two in the morning and then I’m completely tense for five or six hours, unable to sleep, not even able to read. In this way, time seems to dissolve in my hands. A waste that reminds me of the worst times of my life, the most squalid I’ve ever lived, and even worse. I haven’t seen any of Barcelona, I don’t know it. Actually, what has made me this way, paralyzed, frozen, is my lack of resources, perhaps even the expectation of an impending departure. I feel sick. I’ll inquire about a doctor that’s not too expensive. On Monday I’ll receive a partial payment for translation of Cosmos. I have to finish the Jean Franco translation in twenty days. Is it crazy to stay in Barcelona, in this hovel, in this disgusting neighborhood, drowning in debt?
11 JULY
Today, at noon, I witnessed a murder, just two meters from me, on the corner of Los Caracoles. Both the murderer and the victim were probably a little over twenty. I mean, I think he killed him. He plunged a knife into his stomach. Afterward, the hotel owner’s nieces, the girls who do the cleaning, asked me: “Did a lot of people gather around? Did they catch the thug? He didn’t get away, did he?” I didn’t know what to tell them, I still don’t know for sure what happened. The only thing I remember is that the guy who was stabbed fell against the wall, then, looking more surprised than anyone, tried to throw his body forward, but wasn’t able to. Instead, he doubled over like an accordion that was closing. Did I really witness them pull the bloody knife from his body, or am I making it up? My memory is blurry. I kept walking. I went inside a secondhand bookshop, where the smell of mold made me queasy. I’m sure I bought Jacob’s Room, by Virginia Woolf, in an edition by Janes that I wasn’t familiar with. But the truth is when I got back to my room I didn’t have it.
SUNDAY, 20 JULY
I saw a live broadcast of the first men on the moon. They looked like giant pandas. It was as if I were not seeing them. There was no element of surprise because I had already read about it in my childhood, but in a more attractive form, in Verne and in Wells. I had also seen it happen with more glamour in the movies. Today makes a month since I arrived, and I still don’t know Barcelona. Brutalizing work. Activities this month: translations of Gombrowicz and Jean Franco. Permanent lack of money. Friendship with the De Azúas. Little news from Mexico. Too many movies and weekly visits to the Donosos’ home. Urgent needs: a few days at the beach, clothes, books, money, friends, a doctor.
22 JULY
I talk to Ralph, the hippie with the iodine-colored hair. He reminds me of someone, but I can’t think of whom. In spite of the fact that his features are very manly, there’s something beneath them that reminds me of a woman I know, but I’m not able to put my finger on it. There’s an excessive concentration in his expressions; he wrinkles his face even when he laughs, which hints at a fit of hysteria. Our conversation is extremely chaotic: “What do you study?” “Oh, that was four years ago. Since then I’ve lived on the road: Nepal, India, Turkey”; he remains silent, lost in a daydream. He suddenly adds: “I did a lot of business in Tétouan. There’s no one here who can help me.” “Is that a good business, hash?” “Quiet, man, I don’t do it here. It’s six years in prison. I may go to London soon.” “It’s an expensive city,” I tell him. “Nothing’s expensive for me. I don’t have any money, it’s all the same. If I’m hungry, I beg for pesetas. I’ll show you a place where you can get soup for six pesetas. But you have to take a bowl or a cup.” A long silence, I drink three cognacs, one after another. “I live in the cheapest neighborhood in the city,” he adds. “Twenty-five pesetas a day, that’s nothing.” I’m still waiting for money from Mexico. I owe the hostel two weeks’ rent. Whose expression is that? Where have I seen those gestures? Perhaps at the movies, Jean Harlow, in China Seas, but imprinted on a man’s face. No one could imagine the chill that ran through me when he mentioned the six-peseta soup, honestly, taking your own bowl. As he said it to me, he seemed sure I’d be taking advantage of it soon. The invitation from Warsaw hasn’t come. Tonight we’ll go see a film by Richard Lester with John Lennon and Michael Crawford.
THURSDAY, 24TH
Wonderful movie! An excellent film by Lester, very Brechtian, a plea against war in the vein of Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux. Talking to Ralph always turns out to be predictable and at the same time overwhelming. At times his face is monstrous. “Have you been to Madrid?” I ask him. “What’s it like?” He answers: “Really bad. The people ar
e mean. They won’t give you money. They tell you, go get a job! They threw me in jail for a month, you know? Here in Barcelona the people are nice, kind of silly.” He says he pays his room and board by selling blood at a clinic. I thought the pricks on his arms were from heroin. I’m not convinced that they’re not. Sometimes a wild look comes over his face. I’ve become destitute. The money from Mexico hasn’t arrived. I owe the hostel again. I’ll start the prologue to Conrad’s Nostromo tomorrow. And my novel? I’ll start it tomorrow too.
SATURDAY, 26 JULY
I didn’t sleep last night trying to organize my schedule. I was still awake at four in the morning. If I got into bed, I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep until well into the morning, and then I’d stay in bed most of the day. I decided not to sleep at all. I started work on my novel; what I read seemed utterly stupid. Does it make any sense to continue it? Perhaps the death of the old woman with elephantiasis is ruining the whole thing. What if I changed the ending? The scenes in Venice will hold up better, although they still require a lot of work. Later I began to read Mann, the Mountain, for the third time in six months. The first book by Mann I read was Doctor Faustus, about fifteen years ago. A task that at times seemed impossible. Nonetheless I continued. When I finished, I felt drunk. I had cleared the highest hurdle and crossed the finish line without suffering a single scratch. Then I set out to read the rest of his works, with the exception of his Joseph tetralogy. None impressed me as much as Faustus. I tried several times since adolescence to read The Magic Mountain. It was a book that we had at home and was widely recommended. I was never able to make it beyond page fifty. But during a long trip I took on a Yugoslavian freighter a few months ago, I was finally able to read it from start to finish. When I got to the last word I closed the book, and the next day I started to reread it, this time closely, which was the happiest reading I can remember. I’ve less than fifty pesetas in my pocket, and the money still hasn’t arrived. I have to pay rent again. No one writes me from Mexico. I haven’t heard from Zofia; I’m afraid she’s going through hard times in Warsaw, where a wave of officially sanctioned anti-Semitism has erupted. Maybe that’s why the invitation hasn’t arrived. Not being able to spend the rest of the summer there, which would cost me nothing, would spoil my plans and put me in a financially difficult situation. What a life! Horrible! Things being as they are, within a year I’ll have finished my first novel. I’m constantly changing the title.
SUNDAY, 27 JULY
The novel is turning out to be very hard for me. A lot more than I expected. I write chapters then undo them. It’s turning out to be a structural novel, if you can call this kind of novel that. I’ve gained something by not killing the protagonist. I redid the first two chapters, and now I’m revising the third, where Paz Naranjo and Gabino Rodríguez appear furtively, as does Carlos Ibarra; this way, all three stories will begin to intersect. There’s a line from Hamlet that would make a good title. I do not have it handy. Something like The Music of a Flute. So just like that I’m back to being poor? And miserably so! In a way I would never have guessed in my wildest imagination!
SUNDAY, 2 AUGUST
I worked on the chapter dealing with the meeting between Carlos Ibarra and Ángel Rodríguez, and Paz Naranjo’s reaction. A truly difficult chapter. I half-heartedly outlined a few pages. I’m no longer anxious about my poverty, but it doesn’t allow me to work like I should. I would need an apartment, and I only have ten pesetas in my pocket. I’ve not received confirmation of my trip, nor payment for the Jean Franco translation. In the event I do not go to Warsaw, I’d still have to stay two months in Barcelona to reorganize my finances. That’s good. When I saw this moment approaching, I was unable to sleep. The mere thought of the day when I’d be peseta-less kept me awake all night. I asked Ralph if poverty scared him. “No,” he answered instantly. “When you don’t have money, you learn to do without things.” And that’s what’s happening to me now. Last week the thought of running out of toothpaste left me petrified; when it finally ran out I brushed my teeth with soap. The only thing I know for sure is you won’t see me standing in a soup line. There are things that I can’t do: wash my own clothes, for example. I prefer to sell something, the few books I have left, and keep paying for laundry service, or walk around dirty, plain and simple.
17 AUGUST
Last week went from bad to worse. I’m still waiting for payment for the translation of Franco’s book. On the other hand, Era sent me a check, but for some reason I never fully understood, the bank refused to cash it. I had to return it and ask for it to be reissued. What’s more, the telegram from Poland still hasn’t arrived. All this time I’ve had to work in unbearable conditions. I just finished translating Behind the Door, a novel by Giorgio Bassani. The book interested me very little, and I imagine the results are very poor, but I get paid tomorrow and will be able to catch up on the back rent. The horrible light, the noisy neighborhood, the sleepless nights, the chaotic schedule, and the agonizing wait for the mailman, have all become routine these last two months. It’s not surprising I suffered a breakdown all of a sudden. One day, I was unable to work. Everything hurt. I went to bed with a very high fever and the feeling that I had a rock in the pit of my stomach. The next day I received a telegram from Díez-Canedo. He had wired me five hundred dollars. My fever went away immediately. I went to the bank. Apparently the transfer process is very complicated: first the money arrives to Madrid, then goes to a currency exchange office, which transfers a payment request to Barcelona. In all, it means waiting a few days. I left the bank, bought the laxative recommended to me by the hostel owner’s nieces; I took it and have spent three days with horrible stomach pains. If I’m not able to collect the money, and if the invitation from Zofia doesn’t arrive, I’ll never be able to leave this hellhole. What a bloody nuisance! Sometimes I feel like postponing the trip to Poland and renting a furnished apartment. On Craywinckel, at the foot of Tibidabo, for example, in the building where the De Azúas and Myriam Acevedo live. That wouldn’t be bad at all. First, I’d have to spend a week at the beach. I desperately need a change of atmosphere, a bit of rest, and the sea air. What a wonderful, incredibly generous person, Félix! Thanks to his help at Seix Barral I’ve managed to survive.
23 AUGUST
In Los Caracoles. I’m writing these lines beneath an autographed photo of Mistinguett. I’d like to have more friends, become better organized. How many times have I written, thought, and said the same thing? The trip to Poland still seems possible. But it’s not that important anymore. I just want to write. Suddenly everything that lay hidden and managed to survive being crushed beneath the awareness of poverty has come to life again. A desire for everything! An appetite for everything! All I need is to learn how to sleep decently again. I continue to work on the Conrad introduction. Translating in such a compulsive way has become mind-numbing. Will I be able to incorporate Ralph and his four years “on the road” into my novel? Make him perhaps a character in a chapter that’s a reflection on radical exile? I survived! Yes, I’m alive. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
SATURDAY, 30 AUGUST
Dreadful days. Reading Mandiargues’s La Marge strengthened my resentment for the vast and sickening bordello that is my neighborhood. Last night I witnessed an especially grotesque spectacle in a dive where I drink coffee. A black lad, who looked like a doll, was having a drink at the bar and looking out onto the street. He was dressed impeccably, his face touched up with makeup, possibly under the effect of some drug, his pupils dilated beyond description. He must have been rich; he was dressed like a king. It seemed as if his only possibility in life was suffering. He exuded it. The display of such suffering was able to thrive in numerous literary sources; there was a great deal of the hysterical exhibitionism from Tennessee Williams, but more of the languid affectation of M. Delly. A little black princess of the moor. He was surrounded by an escort of battle-hardened Arab bodyguards; one raised the cup to his mouth, another wiped his lips with a napkin, he seemed to not even no
tice them, his eyes were fixed on the door, as if he were waiting for someone, a lover or a drug supplier. The five or six bodyguards surrounding him stared menacingly at the clientele, like thugs. Now, as I write this, it occurs to me that he might have been kidnapped, and they were waiting for the ransom that would set him free. How gruesome! His servants displayed too much servile respect for that to be true. In any event, it’s rare to find such a flamboyant character and entourage in an out-of-the-way place like this. Perhaps I’m writing this just so I do not have to deal with what happened in the Dingo…A week ago when I was there a guy walked up and sat at my table: his face wasn’t completely unfamiliar; maybe because it was a look that had been practiced carefully so everyone would recognize it. He said hello matter-of-factly, and commented that we had not seen each other since our rendezvous in Lausanne, a city I’ve never even set foot in. He was drunk, or at least pretended to be. I asked where he was from. “Ecuador,” he replied. “You look like you’re Catalan.” “Well, I’m not.” I was beginning to dislike his presence at the table, his tone. I asked for my bill. Then he said: “Okay, let’s go somewhere else.” “I’m not going anywhere; I’m out of money.” “Come have another drink.” “Thanks, but I can’t with this headache.” His tone changed abruptly. He whistled between his teeth menacingly: “Go and tell them at your company right now that I need money. I want twenty thousand dollars and an Argentine passport.” At that moment several sinister-looking guys came into the bar; one of them seemed to be motioning to the man who was talking to me, who got up and walked, randomly and after making a complicated detour, to the table where the others had just sat down. A minute later, a huge brawl broke out, but in a made-up, theatrical sort of way, which my “acquaintance from Lausanne” took part in. So I took advantage of the opportunity to slip out of the place, frightened to death. It seemed obvious to me that I had been mistaken for someone else. And in police novels those kinds of mistakes usually end you up in the morgue. Tomorrow will be my last day in this neighborhood. I’m moving in the opposite direction. It’s wonderful being able to escape! Every cell in my body rebels against the existence of this disgusting labyrinth: against the limping, midget, haggard-looking, hunchbacked whores who fill its streets when night falls. Against the charade that rules the sex trade. It will be marvelous to escape tomorrow to my apartment in Craywinckel! It feels like pus that’s impossible to wash off has splattered all over me. I wouldn’t care in the least if someone decided to dynamite all of this. “I shall latch onto my God who destroys me!” This statement might not even be five percent true, but today I’m in complete agreement with that five percent. I’m an absolute prude.