09.45 After a detailed study of a map of the city (the double elliptical-axis cartographic version), decide to continue my search for Gurb in a zone on the periphery inhabited by a species of human being known as poor people. As the Catalogue assigns them a level of docility somewhat lower than that of the variety known as rich people, and considerably lower than the variety known as the middle classes, opt for the appearance of the individual designated Gary Cooper.
10.00 Beam down in an apparently deserted street in the San Cosine district. Doubt if Gurb would come to live here of his own accord, though he is not what you would call the sharpest arrow in the quiver.
10.01 A group of youths with knives take my wallet.
10.02 A group of youths with knives take my gun and my sheriffs badge.
10.03 A group of youths with knives take my waistcoat, shirt and trousers.
10.04 A group of youths with knives take my boots, spurs and the harmonica.
10.10 A patrol car draws up beside me. A policeman gets out, informs me of my rights under the Constitution, handcuffs me and shoves me in the car. Temperature, 21 degrees centigrade; humidity, 75 per cent; winds gusting from the south; heavy seas.
10.30 Put into a cell at the police station. In the same cell there is an individual of shabby appearance, to whom I introduce myself and give an account of the vicissitudes that have brought me to this unhappy pass.
10.45 Once he has overcome the initial distrust that human beings invariably feel towards other members of their species, the individual whom fate has placed in my path decides to initiate a conversation with me. He gives me his card which reads as follows:
JETULIO PENCAS
Consultant Beggar
I read tarot, I play the violin, I inspire pity
Service in your own home if required
10.50 My new friend explains that he has been banged up in error, because he never broke into a car to steal nothing, he earns an honest living begging, and the substance they found on him wasn't what they said it was, but the ashes of his late father, God rest his soul, which he was taking that very day to scatter them over the city from a well-known beauty spot. He then adds that everything he's just told me is a lie, but, in any case, it won't do him any good, because there's no such thing as justice in this country, and even though they've got no proof and no witnesses, they'll probably take us and lock us up in the slammer just because of the way we look and when we get out we'll have fleas and AIDS. I tell him I don't understand, and he replies that there's nothing to understand, calls me mate, adds that such is life and remarks that the crux of the matter is the unequal distribution of wealth in this country. By way of an example, he cites the case of an individual whose name I forget, who has built himself a house with twenty-two toilets, adding that he hopes he gets diarrhoea sometime when they're all occupied. He then climbs onto his bed and announces that when the glorious day dawns (what glorious day does he have in mind?) he'll force the individual in question to do his business out in the yard with the chickens and will distribute the twenty-two toilets to a similar number of families on income support. That way, he says, they'll have something to occupy their time with till they're given a job, as promised. At this point he falls off the bed and bangs his head.
11.30 A different policeman from the one previously mentioned opens the cell door and orders us to follow him, apparently with the aim of charging us. Fearful after my new friend's warnings, decide to adopt a more respectable appearance, so turn into Don Jose Ortega y Gasset and as a gesture of solidarity turn my friend into Don Miguel de Unamuno.
11.35 Taken to the sergeant, who looks us over, scratches his head, says why go looking for problems and tells us we're free to go.
11.40 Say goodbye to my new friend outside the police station. Before we go our separate ways, friend asks me to restore him to his old appearance, because the way he looks now, nobody's going to give him a penny, even if he sticks on some artificial ulcers that make him look absolutely stomachchurning. Do as he asks and he leaves.
11.45 Renew my search.
14.30 Still no news from Gurb. Following the example of everyone around me, decide to eat. As all the shops are closed, except ones called restaurants, deduce that food served in these. Sniff the rubbish outside several restaurants till I find one that appeals.
14.45 Go into the restaurant and a gentleman dressed in black asks me in a disdainful tone whether I have a reservation. Tell him I haven't, but add that I am having a house built with twenty-two toilets. Ushered immediately to a table decorated with a bunch of flowers, which I promptly eat, in order not to appear impolite. They give me the menu (uncoded), I read it and order melon, melon with ham, and ham. They ask me what I want to drink. To avoid attracting attention, I order the liquid most commonly found among humans: urine.
16.15 Have coffee. Am offered a glass of pear liqueur on the house. They then bring me the bill, which comes to six thousand eight hundred and thirty-four pesetas. I have no money of any kind.
16.35 Smoke a Montecristo Number Two (2) while trying to think how to get out of embarrassing situation. I could disintegrate, but reject this idea because a) it might attract the attention of waiters and other customers and b) it would be unfair if the consequences of my lack of forethought were to fall on these amiable people, who have offered me a glass of pear liqueur on the house.
16.40 On pretext of having left something in my car, leave restaurant, go to news kiosk and buy tickets and cards for the various lotteries on offer.
16.45 Manipulating the numbers by means of elementary formulae, win 122 million pesetas. Go back to restaurant, pay bill and leave one hundred thousand peseta tip.
16.55 Resume search for Gurb by only means known to me: walking the streets.
20.00 Have walked so much there is smoke rising from the soles of my shoes. The heel has fallen off one shoe, forcing me to hobble along in a ridiculous and tiring fashion. Throw the shoes away, go into a shop and with the money left over from the restaurant buy a new pair of shoes, less comfortable than the other ones, but made of very strong material. Wearing these new shoes, known as skis, begin to search the Pedralbes district of the city.
21.00 Complete the search of Pedralbes without finding Gurb, but very pleasantly impressed by the elegant houses, the secluded streets, the smooth lawns, the deep swimming pools. Cannot understand why some people prefer to live in deplorable districts like San Cosine, when they could live in places like Pedralbes. Possibly not a question of preference so much as money.
It would appear that human beings are divided into various categories, one of which is rich and poor. This is a division which they consider very important, for reasons that are unclear. The fundamental difference between the two seems to be this: wherever they go, the rich don't pay, however much they acquire or consume. The poor, on the other hand, practically have to pay for the privilege of breathing. This exemption enjoyed by the rich may be something that goes back a long way, or it may be a recent thing, it may be temporary, it may even be a pretence; it doesn't matter. From a statistical viewpoint, it seems clear that the rich live longer and better than the poor, they are taller, healthier and better-looking, they have a more exciting time, they get to travel to more exotic places, receive a better education, work shorter hours, live in greater comfort, have more clothes, in particular more spring outfits, are offered better health care and more elaborate funerals and are remembered for longer. They are also more likely to have their photograph appear in newspapers and magazines and on calendars.
21.30 Decide to go back to the spaceship. Disintegrate in front of the entrance to the Monastery of Pedralbes, to the astonishment of the nun who at that precise moment is putting out the rubbish.
22.00 Energy recharge. Get ready to spend another evening alone. Read a comic strip about Lolita Galaxia, but usually do this with Gurb, to whom I have to explain the more risque jokes, because he's not what you'd call quick on the uptake, so instead of cheering me up, it just makes
me feel sad.
22.30 Tired of walking up and down inside the spaceship, decide to turn in for the night. It's been a long day. Put on pyjamas, say prayers and get into bed.
© Eduardo Mendoza
Translated by Annella McDermott
Eduardo Mendoza (Barcelona, 1943) is a key writer in the genre of new detective fiction which has emerged in Spain since the 1970s, author of La verdad sobre el caso Savolta (1975; The Truth about the Savolta Case, tr. Alfred Macadam, Harvill, 1993), El misterio de la cripta embrujada (1979), El laberinto de las aceitunas (1982) and Una comedia ligera (1996). La ciudad de los prodigios (1986; City of Marvels, tr. Bernard Molloy, Harvill, 1988) is a period novel, set in Barcelona in the 1920s. La isla inaudita (1989), unusually for Mendoza, is set in Venice. El ano del deluvio (1992; The Year of the Flood, tr. N. Caistor, Harvill, 1995) tells the story of a relationship between a nun and a rich landowner in rural Catalonia. Mendoza is also the author of a play, Restauracio (1990) and of an engaging tale of aliens landing in Barcelona, Sin noticias de Gurb (1991), from which this extract is taken.
I saw him by chance. Pacing around the room, killing time while I waited for Juanjo to finish signing the minutes, I had gone over to the window, and I saw the tall, thin figure of a man dressed in a dark suit, and Paquita approaching with a certain air of timidity. He took her by the arm and they walked off. I followed their vague outline in the fading evening light, till they disappeared into the bustle of the street, beyond the railings of the playground.
`Who's that?' I asked.
Juanjo looked at me, with his pen still poised.
`A man who was waiting for Paquita,' I added.
Juanjo took advantage of the pause to stretch his legs. He put his pen down on the table, lit a cigarette and joined me by the window. We both stared at the playground, so strange at that time of day, silent and full of shadows, devoid of the presence and voices of children.
`Oh, I know who it is,' said Juanjo. `A tall thin chap she goes out with.'
He smiled. Paquita was getting on a bit now, she was rather plain, and she was shy to the point of unsociability, though totally dedicated to the school and her pupils.
`We may hear wedding bells yet.'
I wasn't laughing, however. I had recognised the man immediately. His pale, angular face had not changed, nor the wiry black hair against which his big ears stood out. I knew what was going to happen and I was surprised at my own casual reaction, my lack of alarm.
`If she does decide to get married, you'll have to start doing a full timetable,' Juanjo added slyly.
No, he hadn't changed one bit. I could remember the first time I saw him with Marisa, inclining his head with its big ears to look at her. It was then, remembering Marisa - with an instantaneous clarity that I would never have thought I could recover - that I felt the alarm I had not experienced earlier. I must have let my unexpected emotion show, because Juanjo put an arm round my shoulder.
`What's wrong?' he asked.
I muttered some excuse and sat down. It was perfectly true, though, that I did not feel well. Juanjo went back to the table, stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray and went on with the minutes. A little later we left. I asked him again about the man who was with Paquita.
`Don't you remember him?'
`Never seen him before in my life,' he replied.
We were wandering around in the maze of old streets that twisted and turned past almost deserted buildings, with patches of crumbling plaster and paint peeling off like scabs. From some flats there came a smell of vegetables cooking and, at street level, a few humble, rundown bars still clung to existence. Yet above our hesitant steps and the dingy surroundings, the June twilight was full of the balmy scent of trees, wafting down from above.
I had already met Marisa, but I really only got to know her properly after she began work as an assistant in a store that had opened to a fanfare of publicity on Calle Ordono, where they sold all the latest items, like record players, radios, electric irons, washing machines, the kind of goods that have since become so commonplace. She was tall and willowy, with dark brown hair and eyes the colour of ruby-red honey.
Walking along the avenue in the evenings, I used to watch her through the shop window, warmed, for it was winter, by some red bars that provided modern, electric heating for the passers-by who stopped to look at the display of goods.
I spoke to her at the town's annual fiesta, taking advantage of some friendly jostling over a dodgem car. A couple of days later, we were going out together. She liked me too. I used to wait for her when she came out of work and walk her to the entrance of her block of flats. Sometimes her sister would come along; she was shorter than Marisa and rather thick-set, but she made up for her lack of beauty by her affectionate and open personality.
Marisa and I scarcely spoke. Whenever she had a day off work, we used to search out the shadows of the park and hold hands. Around that time I read some essays on love. I think that my distrust of those who are considered experts on the matter dates from then. A teacher lent me some books on the subject, but I read them with as little enthusiasm as if they were texts I had to study for an exam. None of those austere thinkers seemed to express the way I saw Marisa as the sole radiant source of light, the way my insides melted when I looked at her face, the strange feeling of nostalgia that came over me when we were apart and even, perhaps more acutely, when we were together.
The summer passed in a flash. We wrote to each other, and I would send long missives telling her about the village where my grandparents lived, with its simple pleasures and its rural values. She wrote much less assiduously. Her replies to my frequent letters were often short and awkward and their recounting of trivial events displayed, both in the spelling and the style of narration, a notable departure from the standard of written communication I was accustomed to in my family and at school.
That year's fiesta, the letters we wrote over the summer, and the following autumn, were, I think, the happiest days of our relationship. Once the following term had got under way, a series of circumstances combined to make things more difficult.
I was so wrapped up in my passion that I began rather to neglect my studies and instead of staying in the pension, as I had always done before, poring over my books next to the stove which Dona Valeriana fussed over constantly, I began to wander around the streets almost compulsively, sometimes in Marisa's company, but at other times alone, watching my shadow as it slipped over walls, shop windows and the corners of streets.
One day, when I arrived back for lunch, I found my mother waiting. She had come by bus from Martiniano and she told me, with a very solemn expression on her face, that she needed to have a serious chat with me. After the meal we went to my room. She sat on my roommate's bed - guessing what was happening he had lingered in the dining room - and I sat on mine.
She immediately started to cry, as though she had been holding back floods of tears all this time. As she cried and blew her nose, she launched into a long tirade, so incoherent that it took me some time to understand her words, though I soon guessed the reason for her distress. She and my father worked as schoolteachers in a remote part of the province and were having to struggle to earn enough money so that I could look forward to a better life than they had; meanwhile, I was demonstrating my lack of gratitude for those efforts by neglecting my studies, taking up with girls in a way that was inappropriate at my age, roaming the streets, and behaving in a completely selfish and irresponsible fashion.
That visit from my mother is imprinted on my memory like a scar. I too burst into tears, and promised I'd do anything she asked.
When I calmed down, I began to speculate as to the possible identity of her secret informants. I quickly ruled out my teachers, obscure, weary individuals, with absolutely no interest in the lives of their pupils, and I was inclined to blame Dona Valeriana and her daughter, who were from the village where my parents taught, that being, in fact, the reason for my choice of lodgings.
That conjecture, associated with one of the first bitter experiences of my adolescence, forced me to learn the rudi- rnents of hypocrisy. I believe now that this suspicion, with its inevitable accompaniment of deceit and the search for safer meeting places, subtly altered the natural spontaneity of my relationship with Marisa. I was filled with anxiety at the thought of a possible repeat visit from my mother, but I could sense that my secretiveness made Marisa uneasy, and that she resented it. Nevertheless, our relationship grew and I was quite convinced that my destiny, after my University career and the consequent attainment of a professional situation - for that was what my parents had always planned for me, and I had accepted it since childhood - would be intimately linked to hers. Marisa would be my wife. I used to swear this to her, and she would smile. Once, a gypsy who was reading palms confirmed it.
But in the next summer holidays things changed. I wrote with the same fervour as the year before. I told her about the fiestas, fishing for crabs, the long games of skittles. She, on the other hand, wrote me only one letter, at the beginning of the summer.
Her silence condemned me to a permanent state of anxious anticipation, darkened by a cloud of gloomy premonitions. So when I returned to the city, I was afraid to meet Marisa. All the same, I went to see her the very day I arrived.
The weather was still warm and the glass doors were wide open. I saw her at the back of the shop, leaning over the counter next to the girl on the till. It was not long until closing time. Suddenly she raised her eyes and looked at me through the window I smiled timidly, and raised my hand in a conciliatory gesture, rather than a greeting. She then ran through the shop, out into the street, and came over to me. She looked beautiful. The sun had not darkened that white, lunar visage. Her hair was shiny and combed tightly back, held at the nape of her neck by a small bow
The Dedalus Book of Spanish Fantasy Page 16