by Maria Duenas
“Six bucks apiece,” the one called Mary-Lou quickly corrected him. “And after the movies, dinner.”
“Sirs, these lovely ladies are anxious to continue to show you around the premises of our great company. And afterwards they’ve offered to take you dancing. You won’t find better company in the entire city, I can assure you. Although I’m afraid I’d be a nuisance, so if you’ll allow me, now I’ll leave you for the night.”
The Hispanists were dumbfounded to see him dash out of there immediately. But before long those three young women, with all their charm and self-confidence—not to mention cocktails and cha-cha steps—made sure the Hispanists soon forgot him. Those three professors would forever remember that visit to Pittsburgh as an academic get-together like no other.
• • •
It was a significantly altered Daniel Carter who, nearly two years later and with an impressive number of classes and lectures under his belt, visited Professor Fontana one afternoon. He was now a seasoned young man, both physically and morally. He poked his head through the open door of the professor’s office on one of the top floors of the imposing Cathedral of Learning.
“Come on, Carter, come on in,” Fontana’s robust voice greeted him in Spanish. “I was waiting for you. I see you are short of breath as usual. Sit down quietly for a while, please.”
Daniel was more than used to the reigning chaos of crammed shelves, piles of essays and exams, and that office desk always littered with papers. With the passage of time, Andres Fontana had gone from being his academic supervisor to his respected mentor and even his friend who unfolded for the American some of the mysteries and idiosyncrasies of a country that had not yet healed from the wounds and horrors of its long civil war.
The professor maintained his austere Spanish formality in dealings with both colleagues and students. He was quick, resolute, solid in body and spirit, with a broad torso and large hands that seemed to have been created for some purpose less sophisticated than teaching. Although approaching fifty, apart from a few white hairs at his temples and in his beard, he still had a dense head of dark hair, always combed back, and a raspy voice that never spouted gratuitous praise. Despite his years of living in the United States and speaking flawless English, he had not rid himself of his native accent. Nor, after teaching for half a lifetime, did he hide his disapproval of a certain relaxed behavior among the students: untimely laughter, the occasional dash down the hallways, and that involuntary fondness of some for dozing off in his afternoon classes. He had little patience for frivolity and was stubbornly intolerant of laziness and procrastination. Nonetheless, he was generous and open to dialogue: always ready to talk to students, always capable of listening and debating without prejudice. Always ready to lend a hand.
Using his pen like a rapier, he made a few more energetic cross-outs without raising his eyes from the page, handwritten by some mediocre student whom he was tearing to pieces.
“I take it we’re still interested in spending a good period of time in Spain,” he said, holding his cigarette between his lips while his gaze remained fixed on his merciless corrections.
“Yes, sir, that’s certainly the case.”
Despite the trust they’d established with the passing of time, in academic settings they maintained an exquisite conventionality.
“Well, there’s something I need to tell you. Start by taking a look at this.”
A packet of several pages attached by a paper clip came gliding over the table and Daniel caught it on the fly. “Fulbright Program,” he read aloud.
“It’s finally going to make it to Spain, praise be to God.”
As if to underscore his ironic comment, Fontana forcefully made one last horizontal line on the massacred text. Then he screwed the top of his fountain pen back on and concentrated on the issue at hand.
“It’s an international academic exchange program financed by the United States Congress. Spain, however, had been kept on the margin until now, as in so many other things. But since our countries seem to be enjoying a sweet understanding at the moment, they’ve finally decided to open the door and a joint commission will soon be created.”
“What exactly does the program consist of?” Daniel inquired, avidly glancing over the papers.
“Scholarships for graduate studies or research at a university in the chosen country.”
“I just hope you don’t ask me to entertain a few professors like last time in order to get it.”
Fontana laughed heartily.
“Don’t worry, I guarantee that this time around everything will be done by the book,” he said, putting out his cigarette in an ashtray full of butts.
He still had a hard time recognizing in that young man the impetuous kid who not too long ago had arrived in his classroom with faltering Spanish and an overwhelming desire to learn. He’d toned down, smoothed out his rough edges, increased his command of the language tenfold, and, in spite of this, had not lost an iota of enthusiasm or the intellectual curiosity he’d arrived with on the first day. He’d obtained the scholarship that had finally freed him from his night work at the factory and allowed him to concentrate on his studies with even greater determination. But he still had a long way to go in order to achieve what he had been headed toward from the very start, Fontana thought. He still needed to be guided.
“Do you think I have a chance?”
“You tell me,” the professor answered with a touch of sarcasm.
“Maybe I’ll be lucky.”
He folded the papers, stuck them in the back pocket of his pants, and began picking up his books, folders, and jacket from the floor with the haste of someone who is constantly short on time and overwhelmed with things to do.
“Just a minute, Carter, wait. I wonder when you’ll be able to see me without having to dash off after five minutes.”
“You know that I’m taking six classes this semester, Professor, and—”
“Don’t burden me with your troubles, kid. Concentrate on what I’ve just finished telling you. These people need to be presented with a serious, well-thought-out project. Please sit down again.”
Daniel obeyed, intrigued.
“I’ve thought of someone. Ramon J. Sender.”
“Who is he?”
“A very good writer to start considering as a possible subject for a doctoral dissertation. And, moreover, a friend.”
He flung a book across the large working table.
“Alive?” Daniel asked, skillfully catching the book with his left hand.
“Alive and well. He teaches modern literature in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and continues to write. I’ve just spent some time with him at an Amherst conference on narrative.”
“Didn’t he come to the Hispanist get-together?”
“He was unable to. And you can’t imagine how I missed him.”
“Visiting professor?”
“Full-time. Exiled.”
“Requiem for a Spanish Peasant,” Daniel read on the cover, then flipped through the pages of the slender book. “Quite short,” he added as his only opinion.
“And very good. Definitive. It was published in Mexico four or five years ago. He’s got a long list of titles to his name.”
“Has there been anything previously written on him?”
“Hardly anything at all. He is persona non grata in Spain and also abroad in many places. This is why, if you finally agree, you’ll have to tread with care.”
He left the office with Requiem for a Spanish Peasant added to his already heavy load and with the conviction that he’d fight tooth and nail for that scholarship, which would also mean one more step in the reconciliation between his country and the Spain he was so eager to discover. He needed, first, to calmly ponder the idea of Sender. He had already spoken with Fontana about his intention of focusing a future PhD dissertation on some contemporary author. But h
e did not know the proposed author and preferred to have a clear idea of who he was before blindly rushing into an arduous two-year period poring over his work. Still, Daniel found the idea of his being condemned both inside and outside of Spain morbidly seductive.
Once in the hallway, ready to run off so as not to be late for his next class, he heard Fontana’s voice in the distance like thunder, delivering one last sentence that he was not too sure he understood.
“Let’s see if we can stick it to them all without their realizing it!”
Chapter 13
* * *
A TWA Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation carrying Daniel Carter touched down on the Barajas runway one morning at the end of the scorching hot summer of 1958. The young man brought with him two suitcases, a portable typewriter, and a freight of boundless optimism. His subsistence would be governed by the Fulbright scholarship that had been awarded to him, and at an exchange rate of forty-two pesetas to the dollar, he was hoping to be able to stretch it to live comfortably for the entire school year.
At that time Spain was still one of the poorest countries in Europe. Only four out of every hundred homes had a refrigerator, and women were not allowed to open a bank account or travel abroad without their parents’ or husbands’ consent. Although Spain had slowly begun to modernize after the 1953 Pact of Madrid between Franco and the United States, under which Spain received economic and military assistance in return for allowing the U.S. to build military bases, the country remained in many ways relatively primitive at the time of Daniel’s arrival.
At the airport, a skinny young man approached him swiftly. Without removing the partially chewed-at cigarette dangling from his mouth, he offered to carry Daniel’s luggage in a half-rusted wheelbarrow. Once outside the terminal and after a little tug-of-war with a colleague, the driver of a black taxi opened the rear door obligingly. “Where would the gentleman like me to take him?” the taxi driver said with a toothpick between his teeth.
“Calle Luisa Fernanda, number 26,” Daniel replied. It was his first effort at communicating on Spanish soil.
He soaked up Madrid through the windows. Everything seemed fascinating, from the desolate arid area along the road from the airport into the suburbs to the increasing density of buildings and people as they entered the capital. The taxi driver, meanwhile, ready to extract a generous tip, offered to be his guide. Speaking at the top of his voice, to make sure Daniel understood correctly, he said, “If you wish to ask me anything, mister, I’m at your disposal.”
“Thank you very much, señor,” Daniel replied courteously, though preferring to continue absorbing everything silently.
Without being completely sure, he began to suspect that they were taking more turns than necessary. At times he even thought they were passing through the same place twice. He took in everything: workers in overalls and berets standing in front of a ditch, maids rushing by, and a pair of policemen dressed in gray uniforms. Blind lottery mongers yelling, “Twenty lucky same-number coupons for today’s drawing!” Mothers with baskets on their way to the market; three priests dressed in cassocks crossing the street simultaneously. All extras, basically, on that great stage he’d been imagining for months.
“And this is the Puerta de Alcala: what a beauty,” the taxi driver explained after zigzagging awhile. “And there is the Cibeles Fountain—look: like a queen. And now we’re heading toward the Gran Via. Look, look, what a diva: Sarita Montiel in The Last Torch Song. The poster has been there for almost a year and each time I go by the Teatro Rialto my heart begins to race. You better not return to your country without seeing her sing ‘Smoking While I Wait.’ ”
Daniel’s eyes darted from advertisements for liquor and detergent to the names of subway entrances to municipal police blowing their whistles energetically as they directed traffic; from billboards announcing local and foreign films, to young ladies in dresses with tight-fitting waists and high heels that clicked gracefully along the sidewalks, to skinny, well-groomed men, smoking compulsively while hurling flirtatious remarks and obscenities without the least trace of decorum. Everything seemed captivating under the relentless September sun.
“And now we come to the Plaza de España. Take a look: the Torre de Madrid, just completed, is said to be almost five hundred feet high. What do you think?”
“Magnificent,” Daniel lied. He didn’t bother to explain that he had just stopped over in New York for a couple of days on his way to Spain.
“Thirty-seven floors and a fleet of fancy elevators,” he added proudly. “The tallest skyscraper in Europe. And still people go around saying we don’t do things properly here.”
“Magnificent,” Daniel repeated while his gaze rested on a woman in mourning who, seated on the ground with a child in tatters at her bosom, extended her hand, begging a few feet away from its main entrance.
“And now we’re reaching your destination, coming into the neighborhood of Argüelles. This is Calle Princesa, and that over there, which is hardly visible, is the Liria Palace, the Duke of Alba’s cottage; you should see how the fellow lives. And now we turn down Calle Luisa Fernanda, like the title of the zarzuela. At the end of the street we reach number 26, just as you requested. So here we are, my friend. Thirty-three fifty for the ride, plus ten pesetas for the luggage and for volunteering the information. You’re not going to claim the tour was no good, eh, mister?”
Daniel knew full well that he could have done that same journey for half the price with a less sly and more honest taxi driver, but he paid the amount without complaining. An affordable extra, he thought, for the course that he’d just received—Spanish Picaresque of the Twentieth Century. Live.
The tip was another matter.
“What’s this you’ve given me, my friend?” the taxi driver asked on seeing the strange coins the American had just handed him. His half-chewed-up toothpick, propelled perhaps by his shock, ended up on the ground.
“Fifteen cents, sir. So that you start learning a little about my country too.”
He left his guide behind grumbling something unintelligible about his ancestors and carried his luggage into the building. The lobby was wide, that of a respectable bourgeois apartment building, with two polished lamps hanging from the ceiling, an ample stairway, and an elevator. To his right was a glass cubicle, presently empty, and next to it the open door of an apartment with a sign labeled CONCIERGE.
He rapped on the door but no one answered. He then found a bell, but got no response either. Finally he poked his head in and saw a plain room containing a round table covered with a crocheted tablecloth and with four chairs around it. “Hello,” he said out loud. “Hello . . . hello . . .” he repeated still louder. No one appeared. Convinced that there was no one there, he decided to drag his luggage into the room and take off to explore the city, unwilling to waste a single minute of that first morning.
He wandered about aimlessly, once again absorbing everything with all five senses. He tried to decipher ads and conversations while savoring the unfamiliar aromas that emanated from various shops. Salted meats and fish, pickled products, dry goods, fritter stalls. Then he came upon a kiosk and his attention turned to the headlines that blared out the day’s events. He read the front pages and chose several publications almost at random, hoping to get a deeper picture of the country he’d just landed in: Ya, Pueblo and ABC, because the sales-person declared they were the most widely sold. He then added El Caso, which promised juicy details regarding the murders perpetrated that summer by a criminal with the surname of Jarabo. And a color magazine whose name was paradoxically Blanco y Negro (Black and White), which bore a photo of a puny dark kid on its cover whom they introduced as Joselito, “the little nightingale.” At the last moment he noticed two young brats, practically glued to his legs, who were eyeing the children’s publications rapturously while one eagerly scratched his head and the other dug intently at his nose. Daniel asked for three copie
s and was asked in turn, “Does Tiovivo suit the gentleman?” He gave two to the kids and added the other to his pile of publications.
After paying with a one-hundred-peseta bill and receiving a few coins for change, he realized that life in Madrid was going to be surprisingly cheap. So much the better, he thought as he pushed open the door to a nearby café. He could do more things, visit more places, buy more books. But for the time being, his priority was to figure out how he was going to fill his hungry stomach at eleven thirty in the morning. He found a place that announced in red letters its specialty was sandwiches and appetizers.
He spread out the newspapers he’d just bought on the table and tasted what the waiter had chosen for him, since he was unable to decipher the blackboard listing the house specialties: half a loaf of bread, stuffed fried calamari, and a glass of white, somewhat muddy wine served directly from a barrel. He devoured the newspapers as well as his order, and discovered between bites that Franco’s boat was named Azor and learned the location of the port of Vigo. He also found out that a bullfighter by the name of El Litri would return to the rings the following season and that, as the paper went to press, a railway worker had been run over by a locomotive in the Estacion del Norte.
It was almost two o’clock in the afternoon when he returned to his initial destination. Through the still-ajar door of the concierge’s apartment, noise and movement could be heard. A humming, an open faucet, the scream of “I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming” on hearing the bell ring. Small hurried steps coming closer and closer.
“Our Lady, Mother of Fairest Love, what a handsome lad you are, Mr. Daniel!” was the greeting from the plump lady, Señora Antonia, who appeared at the door drying her hands with a cloth.
He was unable to hold back a peal of laughter before such a compliment. Immediately afterwards, at her behest, he leaned down almost at a straight angle so that the concierge could place two wet, noisy kisses on his cheeks. She had been reserving them for two and a half months, ever since she’d received the letter from Andres Fontana informing her of the young American’s arrival.