I look up. His face tragic.
‘Natalia would have gone on to be one of the greatest actresses this country ever knew.’
Flecks of green, a dark outer rim to the pupil, and light. Endless light. I reach out to him, feel . . . nothing. He is empty. Clean.
‘I got my first professional job at the theatre just after my grandfather had died.’ Oriol rolls up the sleeve on his arm. He notices my eyes drop down to the tattoo. He stretches out his arm. The pale inside flesh is engraved with a small black dog holding a flame in its mouth.
‘I got this when I was a kid. An early act of rebellion.’ He smiles. ‘They have to cover it with make-up every night. Villafranca always asks: Why don’t you get rid of it? But I like it. Sometimes we do stupid things. It’s good to be reminded of them.’
He gazes out into a private storm. I pull my knees closer to my chin. Crouch down. Listen.
‘I’ve never understood why she didn’t come to me. Why she never told me what she was experiencing. It was like she was frightened of involving me – I don’t know. I became convinced it was someone she knew. I saw suspicion everywhere. They flocked to her. They wanted pieces of her. Admirers. Lovers. Fans. I hated them. All of them.’ He laughs. ‘I was an idiot about it.’
Listen harder. Are you the man I have seen? The man I am looking for? That is all I want. A reflex. An echo. But there is no confirmation. No response. Nothing.
* * *
On Friday, 20 June 2003, the Institute of Theatre lights up before him, a six-floor glass exemplar of design. Time passes. The sun has just begun to dip towards the horizon. Long shadows cut across the square like pinstripes. The Plaça de Margarida Xirgu is magnificently desolate, the travelling circus that had occupied it for the last week has left, thank God, taking their Russian dancing bears, dwarves and desultory Bearded Lady with them. For ages the yellow tent of the circus had obscured Oriol’s view of the trees that lined the square. Now he is free of it. The actor likes to have the space to himself, to inhale slowly and breathe the warm smoke out of his lungs into the calm of the Plaça, interrupted only by the lone skateboarder or stray dog. Behind him the Theatre of National Liberation glows with the self-assurance of power, a powerful building that curves around an oblong plaça. The theatre is painted orange and has a bright terracotta tiled roof. On the first floor there is a bistro and bar, with a balcony overlooking the square. The building has a small tower, and three stages, each bigger than the last.
Oriol stands beside the stage door, leaning against the wall of the theatre. Surveying the extent of his kingdom. Oriol has arrived a good thirty minutes before his call. His is a ritual of sorts. First a cleansing of the hands in the men’s toilet on the ground floor. Flicking water through his hair, pushing the sweat from his brow. Scraping the dirt from underneath his fingernails. A warm damp towel. A moment of silence, intense and alone, sitting cross-legged on the wooden stage, safe behind closed curtains. Not a meditation – a contemplation (he will tell imagined future biographers) – an assumption of space, claiming every smell of the dusky theatre, every creak in the floorboards, every dead space in the corners, each mysterious darkness turned over and examined. Then a coffee from the battered machine in the green room. Paper cup swirled into light brown espresso, thin crema, congealed milk. Next a cigarette, first of many, smoked alone in the Plaça de Margarida Xirgu, where we find him now, listening to the call of early summer swallows. He will wait here for the producer, Tito, watching each of his fellow actors stroll into the square, crossing the vast expanse, morphing, transforming internally, as they enter the auspicious realm of the theatre. From his vantage point, Oriol can see Ferran approaching. The two men wave to one another, across the vacant swathe of concrete – actor and academic emerging from their respective homes. Oriol studies Ferran as the professor changes his course, moving directly across the square to the bench where Oriol stands languidly, second cigarette stubbed out, gathering his soul into place, finding his centre. The tech run will start soon, those arduous rehearsals when lighting directors map out each painstaking shift in mood. Natalia has yet to appear, but she will come, Oriol is sure, and then the dressing would begin, the hair and make-up, the officious march of the stage manager. The quiet will be gone, he thinks sadly. Oriol lingers for a moment in the evening warmth of Plaça de Margarida Xirgu. The trees are green again in the plaça. They cast lovely long streaks of shade as the sun begins to press itself low into the horizon of the city. Observing Ferran’s arrival, the actor weighs the advantages of a swift departure. A polite retreat behind the thick glass doors of the Theatre of National Liberation to the men’s dressing rooms. But something keeps him there. Perhaps it is the general stillness of the moment? An unspoken law that forbids sudden movements? Or a deeper tenderness for Ferran. He does not know. The two men embrace.
Ferran gives Oriol a gentle kiss on each cheek, and claps his hand on his shoulder. They speak in the same accented Catalan.
‘How were they today?’ Oriol asks.
‘Dreadful.’
‘Not one with potential? Not one bright spark?’
‘They are an absolute void of creative material.’
Oriol laughs. ‘You would have said the same of me in my day.’
‘No. You were different. Are different. From the start.’ Oriol blushes and pushes the gold curls of his fringe away from his forehead. One of his more charming characteristics. For the leading role in Milton’s Paradise Lost, Oriol has grown a blond moustache that he tends ruefully. Oriol believes it makes him look like a pederast. Long ago, Ferran decided that Oriol carried a genus of false innocence, fascinating in a younger man – an uncomfortable emptiness that registered as a yearning for other worlds. (‘His energy stretches at the seams of his body,’ Ferran once noted, at an early performance in Gràcia, years ago now. ‘Oriol Duran’s physical work expresses a buoyancy that is uncontainable.’) Before fame and fortune found him and removed him evermore from the land of the lowly and mundane, the man had been a sportsman. He remains lithe, sinewy, muscular.
Trained in stage combat, Oriol had been a nationally competitive fencer when he joined the Institute, as a dancer. He later made the transition to the stage at the bequest of Ferran and an old colleague recently passed away – joining the Tragafuegos, Ferran’s touring troupe that gave folk performances in the villages. The director Àngel Villafranca discovered him then – at a Petum in Sant Cugat, dancing the part of the dragon. Oriol Duran, much inspired by the American school of Method Acting, insisted on becoming the character, which ran against the grain of the more traditional approach adopted by his Catalan colleagues. This impressed Villafranca, who looked for something more vivacious, more raw, more daring – he had explained to Ferran – in an actor. Risk. Àngel Villafranca said in a hushed undertone, I want them to risk themselves on stage, body and soul, push the limits – you know – and he does. He has it, Ferran. He has success written into his bones.
‘I need your help, Oriol. They’re trying to push me out,’ Ferran continues, stumbling through his own reveries.
‘Who? Silvia?’
‘All of them. I don’t know. Silvia delivered the message. I should have a public affair with a student and get it over with nobly.’
‘Molt bé!’ This impresses Oriol. ‘You wouldn’t dare. You’re too square a man for that.’
‘Oriol, I’m desperate. They won’t be able to make me leave if they see how connected I am. I’ve taught all of you. I gave Catalonia a new community of actors.’
‘Let me think about it.’ Oriol frowns. ‘I’ll have a word with Tito.’
‘Tito’s back?’ Ferran had met the Argentine once before, at a recent benefit for the university. He’d seemed very close friends with Oriol. Powerful fellow. Nice, too. Ferran’s pulse quickens.
‘He arrived this morning. He’s coming to the press gala tonight. You’ll be there?’
‘No invitation.’
Oriol nods.
‘Shame about that.
House is full, otherwise I’d grab you a seat.’
Ferran brushes this aside.
‘I’m not in a good place, Oriol. All used up. Nothing to say.’
A young woman enters the square, pushing an old perambulator from Carrer de Lleida. A little girl in a pink dress runs circles around her mother. The infant inside the perambulator wails.
‘Don’t worry about these things. You’re an institution, Ferran.’ Oriol smiles.
‘Maybe. Once. Not any more.’
Ferran’s eyes hover over the poster of Natalia Hernández.
‘Is she good?’
‘You know she’s good.’
‘No, I mean, does she transform?’
‘Did you see her in Casas’s Tennyson?’
‘Yes.’
‘She surpasses that.’
Ferran lets out a slow, exhaling whistle. ‘Mare meva,’ he says.
‘This play will change everything,’ Oriol says. ‘She’ll eclipse all of us.’
The two men stare at the poster.
‘You never taught her, did you?’
‘No. No. She didn’t train at the Institute.’ Wistfulness in the corners of Ferran’s eyes.
Oriol’s attention goes to his watch.
‘Nearly seven,’ he muses.
Like clockwork, the assistant stage manager emerges from the stage door. A plain girl with a fierce haircut. ‘Oriol, your call is up.’ She glares at Ferran.
Oriol says goodbye fondly, pressing Ferran’s hand. ‘I’ll do my best,’ Oriol reassures him. Ferran offers eloquent thanks and kisses his former pupil on both cheeks. He walks slowly back towards the Institute, heading to the ramp leading to the car park. From the other side of the square, Ferran waves once to Oriol. The actor stubs out his last cigarette. Like mist on a lake, the professor’s parting shout wafts across the plaça: ‘She has a gift, Oriol! She’s our future.’
* * *
‘I got him backstage, that night.’ Oriol frowns. ‘Out of pity – out of respect. I don’t know. I will always regret that choice. He made her uncomfortable; I could feel his eyes on her as we moved, and I hated him for it. I couldn’t control the rage. Later that evening, Natalia and I had an argument . . .’ His attention drifting away from something distant. ‘Once upon a time I had a sense of faith.’ He sighs. ‘I met Natalia, and I began to believe in something bigger than myself. That’s gone now.’
His attention darts again, to the stage behind me.
‘You were with her that night, weren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
I wait. He doesn’t want to talk about it.
‘I think she knew she was going to die.’ Oriol sighs deeply. ‘But I didn’t understand it . . . I didn’t understand what she was saying.’
I watch him as his eyes wander over the seats in the theatre.
Oriol has gone very quiet. His legs limp, the energy tightening in his stomach. He looks at his hands, stretching his fingers out in front of him before turning to me.
‘I can’t really tell you who she was because I don’t really know. I don’t think I’ll ever know.’
* * *
‘It was a pleasure meeting you today.’ Each vowel a tart gem.
I sit up on the telephone, surprised.
‘Fons gave me your number.’
‘Oh.’
‘What are you doing tomorrow?’
I make a vague gesture to my work – a day in the archives.
‘Come to our rehearsal. Come and see what we’re up to.’
I feel my cheeks flush pink.
‘Are you sure that will be alright?’
‘Yes. You’ll fit right in. I’ll meet you at the theatre after lunch tomorrow. Join us for the afternoon.’ Oriol Duran perplexes me. Fragile, I think. For all that physical strength, he feels fragile.
Later I flick through YouTube videos, hunting for a crackling version of the recording. One I have seen before. On the evening following Natalia’s death, Oriol Duran was asked to speak at the end of the newscast. The police had agreed and so Oriol was permitted to send his message out to the world. He had not practised the speech; he wanted the emotion to hit home, the words to be unhindered by overfamiliarity. He wanted this to be raw, real, he wanted to help, he decides to do something ‘Historical’ – or, in the actor’s tried and tested drawl, ‘Epic’, according to the press interview.
‘Increïble.’
‘Enorme.’
They would break the news about Natalia Hernández to the public as the bonfires were being cleaned off the beaches and San Juan’s day came to a close. Oriol Duran would initiate a national search for the killer. Oriol Duran would give a live speech at the end of the show. After all the remainder of the day’s crap they would return to Natalia. The story runs big. Oriol gives his piece as a man suffering the loss of a woman he had loved. He calls on the people of Barcelona, the people of Spain, the people of the world, to come forward with information on the whereabouts of this Adrià Sorra, while he rests at the centre of it all, like an oracle of hope. Oriol’s voice echoes out from my computer screen, skittering into my kitchen, Oriol soothing his masses with the ultimate opiate of murder, better than pornography, better than sex, better than anything in the world, the apotheosis of mystery and death and wrongdoing – and I listen, my beating heart open and veins throbbing with the crackling lines of cable. In 2003 the radio waves hummed with the story, and Oriol Duran knows then that this is Big – the camera will swing around, they’ll bring him on, and the show – for it was a show – and now! Now! Now! Now! Oriol Duran stands in front of the green screen, and looks directly into the floating camera. He has the stance of a politician. He breathes slowly. He loosens the collar of his cream shirt – he does not wear a tie – which adds to an aura of dishevelled melancholy, honeyed eyes rimmed with stress, golden curls flattened on his forehead. His hands do not rise to his face, but hang at his side. He loosens his spine, and drops his tension to the floor, feels his breath, opens his mouth and speaks. On the beaches wine is uncorked and poured into clear plastic glasses. On the airwaves they replay his message. I watch the face of Oriol Duran tighten and crumple in turn as he begs, prays, demands information!
Information from the age of consumption!
While in the streets they congregate and mourn the revelries of yesterday.
And the sand is warm and dry underneath bare feet.
The rites of la Revetlla de Sant Joan were simple. They smelt of gunpowder and ash. Of burnt skin and cheap red wine.
But tonight, police lights have replaced bonfires on beaches that burn, burn, burn. They turn on the lights of their cars, and station themselves in forensic units facing the place where he entered the ocean.
The sea blacker than crude oil. Slicker and darker and more impossible than the wind, with nothing to say.
‘First there was the theatre, and only the theatre.’ Tito Sánchez announces boldly. He immediately strikes me as feline. Sanguine. Smiling. Arms wide, breath cigar-fused, broad back plastered to the leather cushions of the restaurant. I have landed in the upscale part of town, north of the tourists, of Las Ramblas, where the well-to-do moved on the Avinguda Diagonal, direct to Madrid. ‘This was decided by the men who brought their heads together to organize the 1929 International Exposition. It would be built with a proscenium arch in the style of the Ancients and would boast an architectural feat in which the stage could be submerged with water or rise into the audience on mechanical platforms. A masterwork emulating the great outdoor theatres of the Roman Empire, like the ruins of the coliseum left at Tarragona, overlooking the sea. It would seat 3,500 visitors but – unlike the Greek – they were building higher on the hill, cut simply out of stone – this theatre would represent the excesses of modern engineering. The roof would be inlaid with plate gold in the shape of shells, and crystal chandeliers would hang over the heads of the audience that would dim or lighten (depending on the mood, of course) through the latest and most marvellous infrastructure of thin met
al cables that carried currents of electricity. Intent on having the finest performance spaces to accommodate the fleets of dancers and acrobats and singers and orators required for the Russian schools of theatre they built the stage with vast wings behind the proscenium, equipped with pulleys and ropes that supported the shell and the red velvet of the safety curtains. This fly system was designed to be the fastest in the world, allowing for the installation of sixteen drops – such that set changes were possible in seven seconds! To this they added a revolving platform built in the centre, which would allow for the construction of a spinning set – on which you could interlace three individual universes and have them turn swiftly, thus showing events of multiple characters near simultaneously. A hush fell in the meeting room of the organizers of the 1929 International Exposition. The engineers and the directors and producers and architects smiled, for truly they were building the most extraordinary theatre in the history of the world.’
The Serpent Papers Page 27