Off Side

by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán

  ‘Do you reckon she keeps her savings in the house?’

  He didn’t reply. She turned round to find him searching for a vein, with his tongue between his teeth, and breathing slowly, totally absorbed, as if he was threading a needle. When he finally found a suitable vein, he released the strap and gave a sigh of relief as the liquid passed from the syringe into his body. She couldn’t resist a smile, like a mother smiling over her child’s regained appetite.

  ‘Is it good?’

  ‘Brilliant! Jesus, you’ve no idea how much I needed that.’

  ‘I was asking whether you think she keeps her savings at home …’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The woman who invites me up for coffee.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Before we leave this place, we should give her a going over.’

  She returned to her vantage point. Señora Concha was no longer on the balcony, but her lodger, the man she’d said was a footballer, was coming out of the street door.

  ‘Look, it’s the footballer. Footballers earn good money, don’t they.’

  But he didn’t hear her. He was lying back on the mattress and smiling contentedly at the paint peeling off the rafters.

  ‘Do you remember what we read in that book? How did it go …? “Drugs are not just stimulants. Drugs are a way of life.” ’

  As he lay there, at peace with himself, she seemed to see again the friend from her student days with whom she had embarked on this adventure of living life to the limit. Driving the wrong way down the Castelldefels motorway. Forging his father’s signature on the cheques that had enabled them to set off on trips that otherwise she could only have dreamt about. Their travels took them to the Bosphorus, and they didn’t stop there. Nepal … Goa … Burma … She was intelligent but poor, whereas he was mediocre but sufficiently well heeled to enable them to pursue their craziness. Until the point when, fairly soon, they had to admit that they were in trouble and they had to be repatriated from Melbourne, his fare paid by his father, and hers by Caritas. From then on he had followed her, holding her hand, down the path to self-destruction, while he went through the motions of being her protector.

  ‘I’ve had to go out and prostitute myself for you,’ she used to tell him, as her way of poisoning his few moments of lucidity.

  But that wasn’t the truth of it. The truth was that this happened to be the way they lived. It was a way of living, like any other. ‘Excuse me, sir, would you fancy a literary screw with me?’ When he became unbearable she would call his father, and the ‘king of the scrapyards’ would come to fetch the boy and pass him into the care of his young wife, the boy’s stepmother, for her to look after. Until the point when the boy was on a drying-out session and stole his father’s wallet and cleared out one of his bank accounts. The father gave him a beating that broke one of his eardrums. She at least didn’t have the option of running to her family for help. Her mother had returned to her village so as not to run the risk of meeting her in the street, and her sister and brother-in-law had even gone ex-directory so as to prevent her treating them to periodic insulting telephonic soliloquies.

  ‘Hello, Montse, love, it’s Marta. Are you still living with that drivelling imbecile? Does he still poke your cunt with his hook to see if you’ve got crabs?’

  Montse would give a terrified yelp and hang up, but sometimes she didn’t, and her husband would come on, with all the baritone moral indignation that he could muster.

  ‘Marta? Marta? This is intolerable. I don’t know why you carry on behaving in this despicable way, but you’re destroying your sister’s life.’

  ‘Hey, it’s Captain Hook! How goes?’

  As soon as the brother-in-law heard the words ‘Captain Hook’ he would hang up. He had overcome the loss of one of his hands, and had managed to carve himself a niche as one of the most respected lawyers in the Catalan Association for the Disabled, and he didn’t appreciate people making fun of his handicap.

  ‘At least we’ve got our freedom,’ Marta declaimed, in the general direction of her naked bed-mate, as he lay there prostrate, drugged and contented.

  ‘The ships sail to the four horizons, Marta, and bread doesn’t float. It’s a rose.’

  A nondescript pile of clothing turned itself into a tight-fitting low-cut dress as Marta slipped it over her head, and as she put on her shoes she remembered to check that her other dose was in one of them. She preferred to take hers in the morning, when she returned from walking the streets, almost always fruitlessly. She took the bucket off the chair, and as she removed the chair from behind the door the door almost came away from its hinges on top of her. She turned as she went out, to see her companion at peace with the world.

  ‘Shut the door behind me, as and when you manage to get up.’

  As she went down the stairs she wondered why exactly it was that they always went through this routine of jamming the door shut. What could anyone possibly hope to steal from them? Their microscopic stash? The milk pan and the frying pan which were the sum total of their kitchen equipment? How could anyone be so much worse off than themselves? Or maybe it was just that she needed the ritual of the chair and the bucket of water because it gave her a sense of keeping danger at bay.

  ‘The important thing is to have style. People should always live with style.’

  As she emerged onto the street, her mind was working on producing an update of her come-on routine. ‘You look like the sort who’s got an Olympic torch between your legs. How would you like to come up and give me a light?’

  When his instincts told him that he ought to find out more about a particular person, it was usually because his instincts didn’t trust the person in question. And his instincts that afternoon told him: ‘Go to Basté de Linyola’s lecture, because you might learn something about the Barcelona you live in, and you might find out what makes the man tick.’ And, as generally happened when mutually conflicting obsessions were struggling inside him, his legs made the final decision and took him off to the College of Lawyers, where Basté de Linyola, in his capacity as an ex-member of the College’s board, was about to hold forth on ‘Urban Growth and Olympic Hopes’, after an introduction by Germán Dosrius, the board’s cultural attaché. The word ‘growth’ reminded Carvalho inescapably of his childhood. He was forever being told to take things to help him grow, in an era when nothing could help you to grow, and ‘Olympic Hopes’ sounded to him as exotic as the techniques that are used by head-shrinkers, or the mysterious business of the caviar harvest in the Caspian Sea. He was evidently present at a select gathering, although he caught the occasional glimpse of anthropological remnants of the progressives of the mid-sixties and seventies, who now sported white hairs in their beards and moustaches and who had that look of poor souls who have been betrayed by history—the look that progressives began to cultivate at the start of the 1980s. As for the conference room, it inspired the kind of respect that the Law is supposed to inspire, and both the speaker and his introducer looked as if they had just emerged from the premises of one of Barcelona’s most expensive tailor’s. They were so well dressed that even Carvalho noticed it, and were so respectful of the customary rituals of ‘I feel honoured’ and ‘If I might be so bold’, that it looked as if there was going to be more preamble than lecture, until, finally, Basté was introduced to the audience as ‘one of the last gentlemen in Barcelona’ and as a man who was part of the history of democracy in the city, in Catalonia, and in Spain as a whole. He took over from Dosrius and began to speak for himself.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I am greatly honoured to have been given this opportunity by the College of Lawyers, to speak on the subject of this city, of my city. At the present time I find myself occupying a position which is highly symbolic of the spirit of our society, not only in Barcelona, but also in Catalonia as a whole. It has been said that our team is more than just a club. Some people say that it represents the symbolic and unarmed army of Catalonia, a nation without a state, and therefore wi
thout an army of its own. This may indeed be true. However, I am not here to speak of my present responsibilities, or of our team, or of hypothetical future armies of Catalonia. I am here to speak of the great adventure that lies before us—of building and rebuilding Barcelona. Rebuilding what was not built so well in the first place and recreating it in line with the challenge that has been placed before us by the Olympic games. The challenge is to stage the games in such a way as to perpetuate the spirit, the tradition, of the Olympics, and at the same time to give expression to the democratic times in which we live …

  Carvalho was out of training for public meetings. As soon as Basté de Linyola paused for breath, he negotiated with his skeleton a change of position. However, he neglected to negotiate similarly with the lady sitting behind him, and out of the corner of his eye he observed her look of disgust as he blocked her view of the speaker.

  ‘Democracy obliges us to think about the way things are, and to adopt a set of criteria within a framework of what is actually possible. People in the past have said that the poor quality of our present heritage means that it needs to be destroyed, and that we should then build on that destruction. But cities cannot destroy even their worst parts without doing themselves more harm than good. One has to accept both the good and the bad parts of what the past has passed to us, and practise an urbanism and an architecture which improves the parts which can be improved, and demolishes only that which absolutely has to be demolished. In line with the philosophy expressed by the slogans which you see all over the city nowadays, “Barcelona, More than Ever”, and “Barcelona, Look Your Best”. “More than ever”, because now more than ever we are in a position to take a leap towards the future, with the stimulus of the challenge of the Olympics; and “Barcelona, Look Your Best”, because this city is going to be acting as the showcase for Catalonia and for Spain as a whole in 1992, and what is at stake is our image in the great world market of public images. All this has to be done with a sense of democratic seriousness and responsibility. We must not let ourselves be carried away by speculative adventures, but at the same time we must not let ourselves be paralysed by the kind of unimaginative conservatism which on occasion dominates public policy-making in the guise of progressive, left-wing thinking. Obviously, without progressive thinking the world would never have advanced to where it is today. But at the same time, when progressivism becomes tired and self-seeking, living on its own rhetoric, it can do more harm than the worst kind of conservatism. This city is either going to grow, or it is going to be paralysed, and this will depend on whether, on the pretext of defending the city from speculators, we end up letting ourselves be ruled by mistrust, in the sense that every attempt at creating growth becomes suspect and we end up falling between two stools: doing nothing ourselves, and not allowing others to do anything either. There is a time and a place for critical thinking, but when it becomes an end in itself, it becomes pettifogging and nit-picking and ends up denying its own purpose, because it simply ends up blocking innovation. This city must certainly maintain control over its growth, but not to the point of paralysing it. Here I would address myself to our socialist council, even though I know that they are sensitive to the spirit of what I am about to say: you should spend more time watching your friends and your fellow travellers than your enemies. At times one’s friends can be one’s worst enemies …’

  A passing fair impression of a philosopher. And something of a town-planner too, because he began to map a vision of the city that expanded outwards towards Maresme and Valles, via the absolutely necessary, ‘I repeat, absolutely necessary’, tunnels that were going to have to be constructed.

  ‘Is there some law that says that a city, a living organism in a state of continual expansion, should limit itself to existing within the natural frontiers that imprison it? Has that ever been the spirit of the people of Barcelona? Of course not. Ever since the twelfth century, they have pulled down successive city walls and expanded the city until they came up against the boundaries imposed by nature herself.’

  Forty-five minutes into this exposition, Carvalho’s bones were developing a low opinion of their master’s lack of imagination in finding ways of rearranging his vertebrae in relation to the pain in his arse. At the point when its annoyance finally developed to the point of forcing him to get up and leave, Basté de Linyola smiled. He looked at his watch, and then held it up for his audience to see.

  ‘This watch indicates present time, a time in which all things are possible. It’s also telling me that I should sit down, so that you can begin the questions. To paraphrase one of our best poets, there is nothing so wretched as a mass where only the priest does the praying. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention.’

  Charming applause for a charming man; whispers and a rustle of papers as people looked at each other, wondering who was going to be the first to break the ice. The chairman gathered up the elements of the banquet which the speaker had laid out for them, and worked at creating an auspicious climate for discussion.

  ‘I think we shall find it hard to be as inspired and informative as our friend Basté de Linyola. But perhaps, as a hors d’oeuvres, I might be so bold as to pose a question.’

  ‘Be so bold!’

  ‘I shall.’

  They laughed.

  ‘You said that there is a filum, a thread, or rather, you didn’t actually use the word, but that was what I understood you to mean, between the search for a democratic set of ethics, and its content. In other words, the non-validity of democracy when, in the name of itself, it paralyses progress. Now of course, we would have to agree a definition of what progress actually means … In fact we would have to agree on definitions of several things …’

  He laughed. They all laughed.

  ‘Unfortunately we won’t have time to agree on definitions of all the things we would need to agree on. But this filum, which is, in itself, conjunctive and almost linear, in the sense that Pearson gives, for example …’

  ‘Indeed …’

  ‘ … Pearson, in as much as he works within a linear framework, uses filum in both a conjunctive and a linear sense … In fact possibly more conjunctive than linear …’

  ‘It depends, actually.’

  ‘Of course. Everything depends on the context and one’s frame of reference. The point of reference seen as a privileged viewer — the observer observed, to use Morin’s image — and the context as an otherness, which, of course, is never static. Otherness is never static …’ Here he fell silent, blinked for a moment and tried to recover the thread of his argument. ‘So, where do we go from here …?’

  He wasn’t going anywhere.

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to ask a few questions?’

  ‘Absolutely … There was something I was wanting to ask you …’

  ‘About morality being the negation of itself, perhaps?’

  ‘Something along those lines. I see that our friend Basté is a philosopher, among other things, and that he is familiar with Hegel.’

  ‘Not as well-read as you, though, Germán.’

  All public speakers are basically the same, thought Carvalho. Mainly interested in projecting their own egos and screwing everyone in sight, male and female alike.

  ‘In other words, if I might sum up the complexity of the proposition, because our audience deserves the courtesy of clarity: you are perhaps saying that when we confront the problems of Barcelona’s growth, we have to be democratic but daring at the same time?’

  ‘Yes, yes, exactly. Very well put. Faced with an opportunity like this, a democratic approach that was over-cautious would simply not be up to the job in hand. People say that this city originally grew in the interests of its upper classes, but that what it has become is now of benefit to all. In a similar spirit, Barcelona is going to have to put its trust in those who have the ability, the will and the knowledge to engineer the changes that the city needs.’

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I hand the speake
r over to you. Might I suggest that his last statement provides us with a good vantage point from which to begin.’

  ‘Do you think that we ought to complete the Sagrada Familia?’ ‘I’m all in favour of Barcelona hosting the Olympics, but what about the traffic problem?’ ‘Do you agree with the way they’ve cleaned up Gaudi’s Pedrera?’ Basté was good-humoured and relaxed as he answered the questions one by one. But he tensed visibly when a progressive who was either before or past his prime stood up and asked aggressively: ‘What role do you think should be played by our tenants’ committees and neighbourhood associations in overseeing this growth? Who is going to undertake the task of identifying and naming the crooks and speculators who are planning to make a killing out of all this development?’

  There were murmurs of disapproval at the word ‘crook’. A few years previously it would have been accepted as an amusing sub-cultural diversion, but now it appeared as radically destabilizing — precisely as Basté went on to observe: ‘When democracies become stabilized, people’s language should moderate too.’

  They applauded.

  ‘But don’t think that I’m trying to duck the question. The role of our neighbourhood associations must be ethical, in the sense that we have been trying to give the word. They must be capable of taking action, but also of allowing other people to take action, putting their trust in those who are capable and willing to take initiatives.’

  ‘Capable and willing of getting rich quick, you mean.’

  ‘So far as I know, there’s nothing in the Spanish constitution that says that people aren’t allowed to get rich. On the contrary. And in fact, if there had been, I would have voted against it, and so would a lot of other people. If being rich had been against the law, then probably you and I would not have been able to hold this civilized dialogue today.’