Unhappy Christmas

  It all changed when he met Rachida; a Moroccan woman who was out on the street because of drug problems and was dragging a little girl along with her. The girl had been born blind because of the toxins flowing through her mother's veins, but she had saved Rachida’s life. Since she’d had to look after her little one, Rachida had managed to stay clean and got by with the help of volunteers, charities and begging. She gave her all to her little girl.

  Jacob was impressed by Rachida’s strength. Theirs wasn’t exactly a love story; the street wasn’t the best environment for that. But it was a friendship full of affection and anyway, labels didn't matter in the world of the homeless. In the end, Rachida’s destructive past came to claim its debts and took her away forever just a few months after he'd met her.

  At that very moment, Jacob knew what he had to do. He had to care for Fatima as if she were his own daughter, the daughter that he maybe wouldn’t recognise if he saw her in the street, the daughter that lived in a different world from his and that he would probably never see again. Fatima was his daughter now and Jacob, committed to his new responsibility, stopped drinking and started to use all his astuteness to bring the girl up.

  Driven by this new feeling, responsibility for another person and, in a word, love, something which he had just discovered in the lowest, filthiest, most unexpected place, Jacob started to transform the values that he’d lived by until then and had been totally wrong about.

  He started to help all of the tramps he knew and by helping them he discovered that the chain of favours was an immense capital and much more stable than an investment portfolio. He met Antonia and became responsible for her: she’d been an actress in her youth but was left with nothing, out on the street. Antonia grew very fond of Fatima and helped him look after her. As Antonia started to show signs that her mind was going and as Fatima got older, it was more the girl looking after her grandmother than the other way round. But whatever it was the family worked.

  Jacob found a way of living on very little, obtained through charity and donations from people who were concerned about the homeless, as well as the favours that he exchanged with other street dwellers in the centre of Madrid. He also discovered that he could live in squats, houses that were supposedly in ruins, and provide his new family with a better home environment than the street. And so one day, without knowing how, he realised that he was much happier then than when he supposedly had it all. That’s why he liked to call that past period of his life “when I was unhappy”.

  ‘And isn’t there anything you miss from when you were unhappy?’ asked Natalia.

  Jacob laughed.

  ‘Not as such, but well, there are some small things... especially one.’

  ‘What is it?’

  Jacob, like a naughty child, cupped the palm of his hand and whispered something in Natalia’s ear. Natalia smiled. Now she knew how she could thank Jacob for everything he'd done for her that Christmas Eve.

  ‘I’m going to give you a Christmas present.’

  Chapter 7

  Silent night, holy night

  Natalia took Jacob’s begging hand in her delicate princess hand and led him, step by step, two tramps wandering the majestic streets lit up with Christmas lights, Paseo del Prado, Calle de Alcala, to her apartment close to Calle Goya. Holding Jacob's hand she went up the stairs that she’d run down that very morning, feeling ridiculous and hurt, with a pair of expensive shoes in her hand. She didn’t think Miguel would be there and she wasn’t wrong.

  They went into the apartment. On the floor by the door were Natalia’s suitcases and presents, bags full of designer labels, a heap of money squandered, wasted and forgotten in a corner of a sad, empty house. The hallway reeked of alcohol. The broken glass of the select whisky bottle was still scattered all over the floor. Natalia made Jacob stop so he wouldn’t step on the glass.

  They saw themselves in the hall mirror, spotless and grand, and smiled at their reflections. Natalia hung Jacob’s patched-up coats on the ebony coat rack. Next to them, she hung her own ragged coat. She took off his woolly hat and left it on the modern sideboard, then took his hand once more and led him along the endless corridor, the walls covered in delicate burgundy paper, plastered in ugly, expensive contemporary art.

  She showed him the living room, large but cosy and empty, ending in a big oak table with matching chairs, next to the kitchen which was new and unused; the first bathroom, the one with blue tiles that their guests used; the guest bedroom, simple and elegant, also empty; the office with its expensive wooden furniture and antiques, presents from Miguel’s parents; the master bedroom with a bed like a throne, stripped bare and empty; the en suite bathroom, immense and covered in shiny mirrors.

  Natalia saw that the door to the bathroom cabinet was open. After the bed, the living image of Miguel's betrayal, which it seems he had stripped to cover up his crime, that door was the only sign of life they had found in the prestigious doctor’s enormous, empty apartment. Inside the cupboard, Natalia found Miguel's shaving foam, his razor, his subtle after-shave lotion, the fragrance of which she liked so much. She turned and caught Jacob looking at her, expectantly.

  Jacob was wearing a moth-eaten jumper, ripped in several places. It was greenish black, although nobody would be able to say for sure that it came off the production line that colour. Natalia took it off him.

  Underneath he had on a pin-striped shirt, which some charitable executive probably donated to a local charity, quite ironic after hearing Jacob's story. The stripes appeared to have been pink. The white, quite simply, was now grey. The top two buttons, which were missing, had been deftly replaced by two safety pins, one too big and the other too small. Natalia undid the first and then the second safety pin. She unfastened the button below and the next and the one under that until there were no buttons left to undo.

  She took off Jacob’s shirt, stroking his brown skin with her dexterous fingers. The tramp was left in only his jeans, two sizes too big for him and held up with a peeling fake leather belt. His chest was broad and hairy, although you could tell that he was thinner than he should be. His look, framed by his hair and dark beard, reflected a sincere innocence.

  Natalia made him go up to the washbasin. She got him to bend down then turned on the tap and wet his beard, a tangle of short wiry hairs, with warm water. Picking up the tin of shaving foam for delicate skin that Miguel used, she squirted a little foam in her hand. She spread it over Jacob’s manly, angular face with the soft touch of a loving wife. She smiled with childish delight when she saw Jacob’s reflection in the mirror. His beard of white foam made him look like a strange Father Christmas, topless and tanned.

  She picked up one of Miguel's razors. When Jacob saw Natalia approaching his neck determined and armed, he stepped back instinctively, like a frightened child. Natalia smiled. She didn’t say anything, just stroked the nape of Jacob’s neck tenderly and, with a tight hold, put the razor to the skin on his neck, shaving off a strip of beard with a steady hand. Then she rinsed the razor under the tap and after banging it on the sink a few times to get rid of the remaining hair and foam, carefully shaved the next patch of Jacob’s skin. So, row by row, furrow after furrow, biding her time, she ploughed through the brown landscapes of his face.

  Jacob let her do it, still and silent, like an injured dog at the vet’s. He seemed to trust Natalia, although he couldn’t stop his eyelids from twitching when she made a deep cut in his rugged chin. This and the other small wounds she inflicted were soon soothed with Miguel’s expensive lotion.

  The balsam calmed the stinging. Natalia applied it carefully and lovingly to the skin of a tramp with her ladylike fingertips, no longer the fingers of a lady, simply those of woman on the skin of a man. She paused at Jacob’s Adam’s apple, feeling it throb and he looked her in the eyes.

  Suddenly startled, she averted her eyes from Jacob’s gaze. She didn’t dare return his stare. She looked back towards the mirror to look at him out of the corner of her eye. It was as if,
in the steamed up mirror, a tiny hand had cleared a small cloud of clarity over Jacob’s face. His newly shaved face shone as if he were a prince in a beggar's skin, dirty and taut, right up to his forehead, ears and collarbones.

  Natalia took him by the hand and made him take a couple of steps towards the bathtub, big and shiny like a throne. While it filled up with lukewarm bubbles, Natalia and Jacob, sitting on the edge, looked at each other calmly, blurry in the steam that started to fill the air like a silent, magic blanket. When the bath was half-full, Natalia leaned over the shining lagoon to turn off the taps. Silence and a warm fog enveloped the two lovers.

  She reached out to his waist and unfastened the button on his blackened jeans, unzipped the broken teeth of his flies and gently started to pull them down. She didn’t stop to look at his underpants. She simply took them off and pushed Jacob into the water playfully. The warm water splashed her blouse, which clung to her chest right in front of Jacob’s shining eyes. Natalia giggled. She grabbed a bottle of shower gel and sponge and squeezed out a generous white splodge. She started to soap up Jacob's back and although she had a hard job cleaning off the layer of black dirt that covered his skin, little by little, with gentle strokes and bubbles as shiny as armour, she discovered the true colour of Jacob's skin.

  At first it seemed as if his skin were made of gold, almost giving out light in the midst of the dense steam in the bathroom. But then she realised that it was an illusion. His skin wasn’t golden, although it shone like gold. His skin was translucent, impossibly shiny like the skin of an angel. Natalia stroked his protruding shoulder blades, like wings under his skin and then she knew. She knew that that man had come down from heaven that night to save her from her desperation. Of course, she didn’t truly believe that herself, but she wanted to believe it. She wanted to believe it and so it must be true.

  Jacob felt her trembling hands on his wings and her cool lips in his ear. Enveloped in the dense mist, the two lovers gave in to a dream of caresses, kisses, tender pushes, laughter and fake groans in the warm water and steam. Their bodies, all soul, became one in the silence of the night.

  Chapter 8

  The awakening

  A deep, anguished sob woke her. She opened her eyes and saw him, stupefied, anguished and immobile in the open bedroom doorway looking at her.

  Miguel had discovered her sleeping next to Jacob, had seen her tender chest rising and falling under the protective arm of the man who slept, breathing silently like a baby by her side. Miguel had seen and couldn’t help shouting out.

  His fat, burning tears, the tears of a drunk, streamed down his face. His muscular legs had turned to jelly, unable to hold up the crumbling tower above them.

  Miguel turned and ran down the corridor. Natalia, without thinking, jumped out of bed, naked and ran after her husband who, in a drunken stupor, could neither run fast nor in a straight line. Miguel bumped into the furniture and Natalia managed to catch him up before he got to the front door.

  Miguel stopped and saw himself reflected in the guilty shine of his wife’s eyes. They were both breathing heavily, not speaking, looking at each other close-up for the first time in ages.

  ‘Miguel...’ Natalia was confused and didn’t know what to think or say.

  ‘Not now, I can’t,’ said Miguel, his voice choked with emotion and, before Natalia could move, opened the door of the flat and ran downstairs.

  Natalia didn’t go after him. She didn’t move. She didn’t even call his name. She just stood there, in front of the open door, alone.

  The smell of the spilt whisky invaded her nostrils. The first time she had kissed Miguel came into her head, that first passionate kiss after spending all night drinking whisky. For a second, she forgot about everything else - everything.

  But a distant noise brought her back down to earth. In the bedroom, Jacob had got out of bed. Then Natalia suddenly remembered everything that had happened since she arrived in Madrid, all her sorrow, her adventure, her hope and her passion. Her night of passion with a tramp called Jacob, who right now was coming out of the bedroom and going into the bathroom.

  Natalia went in after him and found him picking his dirty rags up off the floor.

  ‘What are you doing, Jacob?’ Her eyes darted back and forth over the beggar’s face.

  ‘I’m leaving.’

  ‘Why...?’ Natalia couldn’t understand what was going on.

  ‘I’ve done my bit.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Isn’t that what you wanted? Didn’t you want to get your own back on Miguel, give him a taste of his own medicine? Well, you’ve done it,’ Jacob spoke naturally, no cynicism. Those weren’t the words of a resentful lover, but those of someone totally serene and indifferent.

  ‘I didn’t do it for revenge. I... have feelings for you,’ Natalia couldn’t think straight, but had to say something. ‘I can’t let you go now. You can’t go.’

  ‘Of course I can,’ he replied calmly, with a wry smile. ‘And thanks, but there’s no need for you to sweeten the pill. You don’t love me. This was nice, but it’s not going to go anywhere and you know it.’

  ‘Wow. Rich or poor, you men always turn out to be bastards.’

  ‘Okay, so we slept together. It was lovely Natalia, really great, but it was only a moment. How many moments like this have you had with your husband?’

  Natalia felt like a fish out of water. Not only did it seem that Jacob was rejecting her after their night of passion, but he also seemed to be pushing her back into her husband’s arms. What did it all mean?

  While she watched Jacob get dressed, Natalia tried to reason. It was true that she loved Miguel, but what she felt for the man in front of her was real too. What she had learned with him over the last few hours had changed everything inside of Natalia. She felt like she couldn’t leave his side, couldn’t let him go.

  ‘Jacob, last night I felt things that I haven’t felt for a long time.’

  ‘Me too, Natalia, but let’s get real: I belong to a world that you don’t want to belong to. And vice versa,’ he added lifting his index finger.

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘I’m sure that this thing between us is just a fantasy that will end up clashing with reality. We’re both grown up enough to realise that. Don’t think that I’m insensitive; you’re one of a kind. I knew that when I first clapped my eyes on you. If we’d met under other circumstances... but I don’t want to change and you’re not going to change for me either.’

  ‘Why not? You’re not even giving me the chance...’

  ‘Honestly, Natalia, are you going to come and live with me in the bloody street? Are you going to become a down-and-outer for me?’

  Natalia had no reply for that. A couple of painfully awkward seconds passed. Jacob looked at her shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders with an irresistible half-smile on his lips. Natalia wanted to take it all back, promise him that she’d drop everything for him, but she wasn’t capable of lying so blatantly. So she kept quiet.

  ‘I know that this was it, and that there can’t be anything else. I’ve made my life and I’m happy as I am. You’re the one who needs to sort her life out before it’s too late and it all goes to the wall.’

  ‘I don’t know if I want to get back together with Miguel.’

  ‘You’ve both made the same mistake. You’ve both cheated on each other, but more than anything, you’ve cheated yourselves. Neither of you knew how to give up the trivialities to focus on what’s truly important.’

  ‘He can’t give up his job,’ Natalia felt a lump forming in her throat.

  ‘And you?’ Jacob’s look went right through her. ‘Would you be willing to give up your job for him?’

  Natalia didn’t answer.

  ‘You’re selfish Natalia, like everyone. But even so, deep down, you’ve got something that contradicts that selfishness. You love Miguel, Natalia. Don’t thank me for making you see that before it’s too late.’

  Jaco
b was now fully clothed and opening the front door. Natalia was still speechless. She looked at him like a helpless child. Even dressed in his woolly hat and layers and layers of coats, Jacob was the most handsome man she’d ever seen. Jacob smiled at her and took her hand gently.

  ‘It was great knowing you. Take care.’

  Jacob gave her a brotherly kiss, soft, like a caress. Natalia looked him in the eye, pulling on his hand, trying to hold him back. Jacob let go of her hand, looked her in the eye with that caressing look that she’d seen for the first time less than twenty-four hours ago in a street full of indifferent people. But before Natalia could hold his gaze, Jacob went out through the half-open door of the flat and disappeared like a shooting star.

  Natalia stood still, her back to the door. She heard the door close softly behind Jacob as he left and she realised that she was alone. The hand that she had tried to keep hold of Jacob with and make him stay was tightly closed. She opened it and heard something fall from her hand onto the floor.

  She looked down and saw a coin by her feet, a twenty-five peseta coin with a hole in the middle. It was the last gift that Jacob had given her that night. She carefully picked it up off the floor.

  With the coin in her hand, Natalia listened to the silence of the night, that strange night that still enveloped her life with a dark shine of unreality. There were still a few hours left before the longest night ended and the sun rose again. She was alone in her flat and everything seemed foreign to her. She was alone in the night, confused and was feeling a certain hint of pleasure in the depth of her silent pain.

  Natalia put the coin on the hall sideboard and went straight to the living room, opened the drinks cabinet and sat down on a hard chair, as good as new, a chair that probably had never been sat on. She opened a bottle of Scotch whisky and was about to serve herself a large glass. But she stopped before pouring it. Now wasn’t the time to evade reality, she thought, but to face it.