by Dancer, Jack
“No kidding.”
"Okay," she says taking my hand, "it's only a few blocks to the Els Quatre Gats."
Jesus, I really love this woman. She's smart and has a big heart too.
Back up Carrer d'Elisabets we head toward Carrer del Notariat and continue onto Carrer del Bonsuccés until that turns into Carrer de Santa Anna. Boy, this is one confusing city the way a single street will change names, and you never even know it. Obviously, this woman knows her way around, thankfully.
At Avenue Portal de l'Àngel we hang a right then continue on until we come to Carrer de Montsió where we take a left and the El Quatre Gats is only a few steps away housed in a beautifully ornate building decorated with wrought-iron balconies and window coverings, mosaic tile work and reliefs over the doors and the building's exterior. Damn, this place is fabulous.
Monica explained, El Quatre Gats or the four cats is a colloquial Catalan expression for "only a few people.” As the story goes, the restaurant's four founders chose the name as a tribute to Le Chat Noir, "The Black Cat,” a celebrated Parisian café. It opened in 1897 and quickly became one of the main centers of Modernisme in Barcelona frequented by artists like Picasso during his early career. Then again, we found nearly every bar in Barcelona claimed a piece of Picasso and Hemingway and Miro and all the rest. Nothing sells like a good story. It's all about content.
But, what's really important, at least important to us, is what's inside the Four-Cats - though we can't admit it for fear of appearing callous and heartless - we're both anxious as hell it's not going to be the two disappearing acts.
We look at each other, shrug our shoulders to the inevitable, and walk through the door, and up to the maître d.
Monica asks him about Juan Salazar.
“Never heard of him.”
“It's our understanding his brother-in-law is the owner?” she asks.
“Not unless his name is Grup Ferré de Restauración,” the smartass maître d responds.
“Okay, thank you for your time.”
"Juan's a liar. Should have figured," Monica says.
"What made you and Terry trust this guy in the first place?"
"Great buns."
"Buns?"
"A great ass."
"I see. And I can fully appreciate that perfectly rational line of thinking. Come to think of it that's exactly what caught my attention when I first met you."
"What?" she says chagrined.
"Okay, maybe not the first thing. Your smile was first. But, later, I particularly remember walking out of the bar at JFK for the American counter with your derriere as my guiding light. A beacon in the dark guiding me into safe waters."
"You think you're safe?" she says.
"It was an expression."
"But, do you think you're safe?"
"Right now, at this moment . . . uh . . . maybe not."
***
"Seems there's not much more we can do to find Terry and Ebba so why don't we just go back down Las Ramblas and see the sights and enjoy the rest of this beautiful day," Monica says.
“Finally. Vacation! I'm sure we'll be hearing from them soon enough."
"No doubt."
“What gets me is Terry being gone like this. I mean, is this like her? Does she even like Ebba enough to take off with her like this?"
“I don’t think she dislikes her so much as she tolerates her. So, the answer is no, this is pretty uncharacteristic of Terry. She's got a big crush on this Juan guy, so it wouldn't surprise me she'd disappear with him, but with Ebba, I wouldn't have thought so."
A short distance down Las Ramblas we come upon the Hotel Rivoli, and I stop.
"Hey, this is the hotel George Orwell mentioned in his book, Homage to Barcelona, the Hotel Rivoli. I only know that because before this trip, I was reading that book, you know, just to bone-up on a little history of Barcelona. In fact, I have it here on my iPhone. Well, not the iPhone per se. It's all in the cloud now."
I take the phone out and pull up the book and do a quick search for Hotel Rivoli. "Yep, that's it. And right there next to it is the Moka Restaurant. This is great. Man, do I love this Cloud thing. Buffalo or Barcelona, the Cloud's always there. Spooky, don't you think? Very Orwellian, kinda like Rover, the big balloon thing in the British television show, The Prisoner that hovered over the village spying on everyone. You remember the show?” I say.
“That was before my time Tucker. But you're talking about the George Orwell of Animal Farm and 1984, right? He was British, wasn’t he?”
"He was, and he came to Barcelona to join up with a faction during the Spanish Civil war to fight against Franco's fascists. Barcelona's one crazy place, turmoil and rise of the working classes and all that. The El Raval district was even known as the nursery for revolutionaries. Course we already said that, right? What am I telling you? You know all this stuff. Heck, you’re the princess of Barcelona, right?”
“Watch it, Tucker. You’re treading, remember?”
“Oops.”
“Wouldn't have guessed you're into that sort of thing anyhow, Tucker. Thought you were just a straight-laced businessman.”
“Course you wouldn't. That's the genius of my carefully crafted persona. You see I am the Clark Kent of anarchists. Mr. Straight-As-An-Arrow business guy on the outside, yes, but beneath it all, I'm really Che Guevara."
"I would've never suspected."
“Course you wouldn't. Look at me. I'm a businessman. But I’m really a sniper in a suit.
"Hey, back in the day I was an anarchist. Fuck the pigs! Kill everyone over thirty! Of course that was back when I was well under thirty. Actually, so well under thirty this was stuff I read about.”
“And now you're a capitalist.”
“Hey, so was Jerry Rubin. We evolve my dear."
"You mean you get older and wiser and more conservative."
"Arrows to my heart," I say throwing my hands to my chest and staggering backward into the wall of a building and slide down.
"Que està bé, que està fingint," Monica says, laughing, to the pedestrians who've topped in mid-stride watching, wondering if this is an act.
I straighten up and with a smile say to her, "Maybe ... but in our hearts, we're still young and radical."
“My Che Guevara fool-face,” she says taking my arm. "And what's significant about this hotel?"
"Well, Orwell was ordered to defend the 'POUM Executive Building,' which today is the Hotel Rivoli Rambla. The name changed.”
“Got it. Beautiful building.”
“And the Moka restaurant next door,” I point to the Moka, "is still the Moka. That's where 20 or 30 Assault Guards were poised to attack, so Orwell positioned himself on the roof of the building over there, across the Ramblas, see,” I say, pointing to the rooftop observatory and the twin domes. "Back then that building was a cinematograph called the Poliorama. You can see the building's still a theater. It has Teatre above the door and on the building's facade, carved in the stonework is, Reial Academia De Ciencies I Arts. Anyhow, for three days and nights Orwell stayed up there amid, what he called, 'a tropical rainstorm' of shooting, while reading a succession of Penguin Library books to pass the time.”
“Really? That's funny. The Penguin part, I mean," she says.
"Yeah, I guess he wasn't all that scared."
"It's just like we said at the Casa de la Misericòrdia with the hole in the wall. How you can be walking around in these old cities and never know some historically significant incident occurred right under your nose.”
"For sure. There should be plaques everywhere. You know how it is with people, especially tourists. I mean, who can pass up a good plaque? You've gotta read it just to know what it says. Right?"
“Right," she says but something else has grabbed her attention, "Hey, what's going on over there?" She's pointing to a fairly sizable gathering up ahead where a few banners are strung up over a large television monitor. We walk that way.
"Looks like some sort of organ
izing committee or group preparing for the march next week," she says, "getting everybody all psyched up for Independence."
While Monica gets pulled aside by someone with a petition, I'm momentarily watching what appears to be a dated video from years back - some historical event, I suppose. It's footage from a rally, maybe some previous march for independence where a speaker stands at a podium addressing a huge crowd. Something catches my eye when it falls upon the petite woman seated behind the speaker in the first row, second from left. I step forward to take a closer look and when recognition hits me, it's like a cold-water wake-up call.
Holy shit! It's the little doctor, Drusilla Libica. An earlier version but it's definitely her. Just as I'm about to turn and show Monica the hand of better sense grabs me by the throat in a choke hold and says, wait just a minute and think about this. Do you really want to ruin her day? Look at how happy she is right now; signing a petition and talking up a Catalan storm with a couple of youngsters over there. She's happy. The IndyCat boys are safely put away, at least, for the moment, and we've been able to enjoy this beautiful Barcelona day together, just the two of us. Why ruin all that just to show her we're probably in deeper doo doo than we have any idea about? Isn't it enough that I know we're in deep shit here as long as I'm sitting on this lottery ticket?
She walks over with a killer smile and takes my arm. "Don't you love it? All these people coming together for such a grand cause as independence? It's really very exciting but today's our day, so let's keep going and enjoy it. Tomorrow everything could change," she says.
"Yeah, Ebba and Terry might decide to show up."
"Exactly, and I'm in no mind to share."
"Me neither," I say and looking at this woman I can't help but be caught up in her allure.
Before you know it, we're standing in front of the Liceu Opera house, one of the most famous landmarks in Barcelona Monica points out. She's pulled out her iPhone and is already Googling the Liceu.
She reads, “The Liceu's social function as the glittering showcase of Barcelona’s industrial and financial bourgeoisie made it a symbol of the oligarchy and a target for revolutionary movements of the day, notably the anarchists. On 7 November 1893, in the midst of the opening performance of the season - Rossini’s Guillaume Tell - the anarchist Santiago Salvador threw two Orsini bombs into the stalls. Only one exploded, causing some twenty deaths.”
"What's an Orsini bomb?"
“I don’t know,” she says, then Googles that too, “It's a bomb that, instead of a fuse or timing device, has a bunch of protruding horns filled with mercury fulminate that detonate the main charge upon impact. The original bomb was designed for Felice Orsini, who threw three of them at Napolean III. None of them killed him, but they did kill eight others and wounded 142 around him.”
“Lucky guy.”
“This place is crazy with the revolutionary fervor, isn’t it? And the Independence march is just another extension of that.”
“And the Liceu is too, huh?”
“I think it’s a monument to opera, not revolution. It just happened to be a place where the local aristocrats gathered and Santiago Salvador figured a good place to set off a bomb and make a statement.”
“Does this stuff make you a little nervous?” I ask.
“What do you mean? Why would it make me nervous?”
"You know, the whole revolting against the monarchy thing, and you being a bono-fide princesa and all . . ." I say digging at her with a smile.
"You still on that?”
“What do I know? I'm just an ordinary commoner," I say and pause to think about that. "Hmm, is there any other kind?"
“Tucker, do me the favor and drop the princesa stuff, alright?”
“But this could be my chance to be a prince!”
She gives me the eye.
“Okay, fine.” Weird if you ask me though. Touchy subject. Too touchy for there not to be something. She couldn’t possibly be a real princess. Could she?
***
"What do you think about all this independence stuff? Seriously. You think it'll really happen and Catalonia will break away and become an independent nation?" I ask.
"I don't know. Could. There're a lot of people behind the independence movement," she says.
"I guess if it’d happen anywhere it'd be here. Wonder if there are any other places around here where Orwell might have hung out?"
“Your questionable wish is my Google command, sir,” she says punching her iPhone. “Yep, there’s the Placa de George Orwell.”
“No kidding. An Orwell Plaza, huh?”
“Yep. Looks like it’s not too far. It’s in the same direction back to the hotel. Wanna walk?”
“Sure,” I say, “Unless you’d rather go somewhere else.”
“No, that’s fine with me,” she says taking my hand, “But, I would like to go the Park Güell today too, if that’s okay.”
“Absolutely, I want to see that too. Is it on the way?”
“No, but we can catch a cab from La Placa Tripi.”
“La Placa Tripi?”
“Yeah, that's the other name for the Placa de George Orwell. It's also known as Acid Square.”
“Acid Square? Placa Tripi? Let me guess. Because kids go there to do drugs?”
“Yep.”
"But, how do you know all this?”
She stumbles, then, “I read it on Google.”
“So, why didn’t you… Never mind,” I say. There’s more to this woman than has been revealed so far, I’m start’n to think. But what? A princess? No way.
Continuing down Las Ramblas another three or so blocks we cross onto Carrer Dels Escudellers, where halfway down, we're plunged into darkness, the sunlight is almost completely blocked, and the street (an alleyway really) is nasty wet.
"Criminies, Tucker, this doesn't look good."
"Hold your purse close."
"Look at the guy over there in the doorway. He's peeing isn't he?"
"Looks like it. Just keep walking.” And we continue through this tunnel of shit and piss until it opens onto the sun-lighted, triangular Plaça de George Orwell.
“What's with the sculpture?” I ask, “Doesn't look like anything to do with George Orwell unless it’s some sort of surveillance camera camouflaged as a sculpture.”
“Maybe it is. There's supposed to be one somewhere around here.”
“You kidding? Now wouldn't that be the Big Brother irony?” I say when a figure scurries from the shadows and appears in front of us, wielding a knife, a kid, a very nervous looking kid.
“Dóna'm la teva cartera,” the kid says to me showing his blade.
“What's he saying?” I ask Monica.
“He wants your wallet.”
I hold up my hands, palms out. "Okay, little buddy you can have it, just be cool," I say, while slowly reaching into my jacket pocket and pulling out a wallet. I show it to him and toss it into the middle of the square near the statue.
“Estúpid americà,” he says, then turns to Monica, "Dóna'm el teu gossa moneder.” (Give me your purse bitch.)
“Executar petita merda!” (Run little shit!) Monica screams and charges the kid taking the purse off her shoulder and with a single, motion slams it against the kid's head knocking him to the pavement, his knife skidding off. When the kid looks up and sees Monica still coming after him with her purse in full swing he screams and covers his head against the expectant blow, but she hesitates, giving him a chance to make an escape. He does but not without picking up my wallet on the run and yelling back, "Anar a l'infern!”
I turn to Monica and say, "I don't think that was a thank you. Something bitch, right?”
“Go to hell,” she says.
“Es too doo-doo,” I yell at him and shoot him a bird.
Monica starts laughing. "That's telling him, Tucker." Then I start in and we're both laughing at our first mugging.
"Wow, you sure popped him a good one with that purse. What've you got in there, bricks?” I
say taking a step back, hands up, and palms out.
"Just don't fuck with my purse.”
"Don't worry."
"But now he's got your wallet?"
I turn a little and point to my bulging back pocket, "Safe and sound."
"What was it you threw?"
"That was my decoy wallet."
"Decoy?"
"Yeah, I keep a fake one filled with fake credit cards - you know those 'you're approved' offers that come in the mail with a worthless card that looks like a credit card."
"Yeah."
"And Monopoly money."
"You're kidding?"
"Nope. Been carrying this thing around forever too just waiting for the chance to try it out."
"Looks like it worked."
"Sure did. Only one problem now though."
"What's that?"
“It was my only decoy wallet.”
She laughs. We both laugh.
"Don't worry, Tucker. I've got your back," she says.
"Heck, had I known you were that good with your purse, I'd've kept the thing."
***
The Rider.
Damn! The rider practically yelled as he watched the woman's purse knock Javier hard to the pavement. Anger burned through him this boisterous little braggart he'd hired couldn't pull off a simple mugging of two tourists. What has happened to this generation they cannot exercise even the most basic street skills? Pathetic! And to be defeated by a woman no less! At least, he had the presence of mind to pick up the man's wallet before scampering away like a scared rabbit. I need their identifications. I need to know exactly who they are.
When the Americans left Tripi Square the boy timidly approaches the rider, handing over the man's wallet; no longer the boisterousness panhandler the rider had hired.
"Vas deixar una derrota dona que, poc idiota?" (You let a woman defeat you, little idiot?), he says throwing the boy a five-euro. "Només es guanya la meitat. Ara surt d'aquí!" (You only earn half. Now get out of here!) The boy runs off then turns and flipping the rider a bird yells, "Ves a la merda gilipolles!" (Fuck you asshole!).
The rider eagerly opens the wallet and with each item he removes to inspect, his eagerness gives way to confusion, then anger as he throws each fake credit card and gift card to the ground, followed by the two hundred dollars in Monopoly money and finally the cheap plastic wallet itself. "Fill de puta!" he screams.