by Andrés Vidal
After the day was over and the evening sun had begun to set, the wind slid down over the eaves of the apartment blocks and reached the foothills of the Sierra de Collserola. Dimas got out of the car when he parked and walked calmly toward the hotel of the Gran Casino. He had told Ferran he could get hold of him there in the isolation of the Rabassada. Jufresa had insisted Dimas take his car; it was impossible to convince Ferran he was doing something other than chasing skirts. Dimas gave up, faced with his boss’s umpteenth impish smile, and stoically accepted his claps on the back.
“May I speak with Carmela Beltran, please?” he now asked without looking closely at any of the four figures pretending to be busy behind the counter. One of them was a porter who looked at him with an absentminded smile.
When he heard the name of an employee at the establishment, the receptionist arched his eyebrows, trimmed as finely as those of a woman. He was wearing a kind of tuxedo and there was something unwholesome in his meticulous movements. After a moment’s hesitation, he decided to stick to protocol. He seemed confounded by the seriousness and elegance of this young man who was there to see a cleaning lady.
“Who should I say is looking for her?’
Dimas hesitated a moment, less than a second, before speaking.
“Her son.”
The receptionist looked at his older colleague, a bald man with severe eyes. After seeing his gesture of acquiescence, he walked to a telephone mounted behind the office door, slightly away from the guests. He murmured something and hung up.
“They’ll let her know now. On the rare occasion that the service staff receives visits, it is generally next to the luggage room,” he said. “I do apologize, but I’m not allowed to offer you a private space. If you would be so kind as to follow me.”
After Dimas had waited a few minutes, Carmela appeared, her head lowered, taking the stairs down from the second floor. She was dressed in the same uniform he had seen her in weeks before. Her face looked tired, but her chestnut eyes were filled with a vivacity he hadn’t noticed previously; she looked very different from that day when they had argued in the gardens and she had sat there, humble and unsettled, in her street clothes.
“I’m happy to see you, Dimas.”
He smoothed out the brim of his hat one last time before speaking.
“Hello.”
Seeing his hesitation, Carmela decided to break the ice, speaking of something they shared in common.
“Inés told me you had met. I hope it was worth it, that time you shared …”
“Yes. It was.”
“She’s a good girl. A fighter, like you.”
“And convincing. The truth is, the visit left a great impression on me.”
Carmela still hadn’t dared to call him son. She looked nervous. She needed to get back to work soon if she wished to avoid a reprimand.
Suddenly Dimas felt bewildered. Everything he thought he would say to her fell apart as he faced a mother who hadn’t been one for twenty years. He wasn’t used to being a good son, he thought, or at least not used to looking like one. His father never needed effusiveness of grand gestures of affection: a look was enough, a smile, a few pats on the shoulder. She must have felt something similar, so he overcame his weakness and carried on. “I think I was … a bit harsh.”
“I understand. It can’t be easy for you to understand what happened.”
“Talking with my father, I’ve realized I’m foolish and hardheaded.”
“Sometimes your father’s silences are very eloquent.”
Dimas smiled. He could see his parents knew each other perfectly. They had grown up together, and they each knew what the other was capable of. Adults don’t change, no matter if twenty years have passed, he thought.
“We have our differences, you know. But I admire his way of facing up to life and taking at as it comes.” Dimas shook his head, as if trying to clear away that thought and center on something else. “He’s suffered a lot, and there are times when I have blamed him for his resignation and even let him know it, as if I were really capable of putting myself in his place and saying what I would have done differently. But maybe, if I was him, I wouldn’t have held out, maybe I would have stopped fighting a long time ago.”
She seemed not to understand.
“No, Dimas. That’s not true,” she replied. “I remember when you were little, you would never give up when something didn’t turn out right. Once, Juan showed you how to make a boat out of newspaper. For weeks you were making different ones and then, in the afternoon, you’d ask me to take you to the pond at Can Pere Soler to try them. None of them worked the way you wanted but you kept trying and trying and they piled up while I tried to convince you to do something else. Even at five years old, you didn’t give up easily.”
Dimas’s eyes got lost in the distance, piercing the painted wallpaper, arriving at Laura, and then going past his memory of her, to his friends in the streetcar depot. He thought about when he was barely an apprentice and he pushed forward through the various stages with patience until his time finally came, and he had grabbed on tight so he wouldn’t miss the opportunity going past him. He saw all those who had stayed behind with Ribes i Pla, with Esteller, with Ferran. All of them had helped him to get where he was now. He looked at his shoes and saw a layer of dust over the polished leather. He smiled again, imagining what his father would do, that movement he had seen him make a thousand times. And he rubbed them on his calves.
Carmela smiled. She raised her hand as though to stroke Dimas on the cheek. Halfway, she stopped and lowered her arms, closing her hand to hide her tremors of emotion.
“Really, I was the one who was left without any strength. Maybe I should have stayed with you all and struggled, until the end, but … in the heat of the moment, some decisions seem … I don’t know how to explain myself. Look”—she sighed before going on—“I suppose you could say this reprobate decided to show me who was in charge of things in this society. If you try to raise your head, there’s always somebody ready to shove you down in the mud. From evil or just from the simple pleasure of doing it, I don’t know; I’ve never even figured out how he justified what he did, that vile man, Celestí García Pérez. His name is branded on my insides.” She pressed down on her stomach with rage. Then she clenched her jaws and narrowed her eyes for a moment. “It took me years to be able to repress that rage. Every night I would wake up dreaming that I had driven a knife into that pig’s chest. I swear to you, I almost didn’t care that his people would come after me if I did it. I suppose the image of little Inés having to be taken away to an orphanage was the only thing that held me back.”
Dimas felt a shiver, hearing his mother’s harsh words.
“You shouldn’t have blamed yourself,” he replied. “Maybe you and father could have worked something else out.”
She shook her head firmly.
“At that moment, no solution looked good. I chose what seemed to me like the least evil in the midst of misfortune, the thing that would neither humiliate Juan nor drive him to revenge. Can you imagine what an outrage like that means?”
Dimas nodded in silence.
“I can’t judge you, and I shouldn’t. I spoke too fast the other day. I was thinking about Father and me and I didn’t even listen to what you said. It’s lucky that Inés … I’ve been thinking about all this for days. If Father has forgiven you, I have no right to … I’m sorry, Mother.”
“You don’t have any reason to berate yourself. You don’t know how much it means to me that you’ve come to see me.”
Timidly, she brought her hand close to her son’s and when she grazed it, she felt confident enough to grab onto it firmly. Without looking at each other, mother and son stayed there while the silence did its work, and something like relief settled on the two of them. Moments later, Dimas wanted to know something else, something that had been flying through
his mind since he spoke with Inés.
“Why now? What I mean is, why didn’t you come back five or ten years ago?”
Carmela lowered her head, and a bitter smile spread across her face. Then she said something that left her son in awe.
“Until around six months ago, I didn’t know that someone had finally taken care of the bastard. People were talking about it in the Boquería: They found Celestí in an alley with his tongue cut into little pieces. They had shoved them down his throat, and he had choked to death. No one had a kind word for him. I’m ashamed to say this because it’s far from saintly, but I was happy he met his end that way. When I saw you months later, my heart skipped a beat, and I realized there was nothing in the way of my coming to find you.”
Now that he knew the circumstances, Dimas saw that his own rage and his mother’s were the same.
“You don’t have anything to be ashamed of.”
He took her hand and kissed it. He kissed it two, three, five times, and Carmela didn’t know what to do. Finally they fell into a long embrace. An embrace that asked for forgiveness, that said I didn’t understand at first, Mother, because in the moment when I saw you all the frustration from those years of not having you sprang forth, for not seeing you at home every day, when I woke up cold and had to go to school or work … It was an embrace in which Carmela asked for forgiveness, too, for not having been able to face up to the disgrace and the shame of being raped, for not punishing the criminal, for not being persistent and headstrong enough to plead her case until he fell into the hands of the law. Their embrace encompassed all that—and left it all behind.
And before him, there opened a new horizon to be discovered. Dimas thought that he would never judge them again, neither his father nor his mother. He opened his eyes and saw that the bald receptionist had come over to interrupt them. Without speaking, he returned to his spot behind the counter. But Carmela had understood. She took out a lace kerchief from the sleeve of her uniform and dried her eyes.
“Now I have to go back to work. I hope to see you soon,” she said as she got up.
“How about at the Café Montseny, Mother?” Dimas asked.
“It sounds superb, son.”
V
CHARITY (AVARICE)
Charity that is not based in sacrifice is not true charity.
—Antoni Gaudí
CHAPTER 29
Until well into the nineteenth century, Barcelona was not a city with good restaurants. The businesslike character of the Barcelonans and the harsh conditions of life there led them to concern themselves with other things. Since it was inaugurated in 1891 El Suizo had become one of the most emblematic establishments in the city. It may not have been as distinguished as the first prestigious restaurant that had opened in the city, the Grand Restaurant de France, whose owner, Monsieur Justin, was also responsible for introducing French cuisine to the Catalan bourgeoisie, but El Suizo, at number 31 Rambla del Centro, managed to bring together a diversity of personalities. Captivated by the delicious menu, politicians, businessmen, actors, bullfighters, singers, and stockbrokers crowded into the dining room situated near the Plaza Real, ready to fill their stomachs. And that cold Tuesday in December, so had Laura Jufresa and Jordi Antich.
“I don’t know why you like coming to this place so much …” Laura complained as she took her seat at one of the tables. Jordi was waiting for her with his usual solicitous expression. She had gone to the restroom to wash her face and neck, because she’d felt tense ever since their arrival.
Laura liked to be surrounded by friends, chattering about the ideas that interested her, about art or some exhibit that was about to open; she cared nothing about which of the charlatans filling up El Suizo had been the brains behind the latest real estate coup or who would be in the next municipal elections. She looked disdainfully at all the people seated around her, listening to themselves talk, hoping to be admired by their tablemates. That night, as almost always, the place was packed and the sound of others’ words was like the rumbling of a giant machine, so deafening that Laura strained to speak so Jordi could understand her and so she could hear what she was being told. Despite the cold on the street, the restaurant was stuffy and far too warm. When the tuxedoed waiter appeared with their plates, Jordi gave Laura a big smile.
“You know perfectly well that what brings me here is this.” He pointed with his long pale hands.
When the two plates were set down, Jordi sank into his arroz a la parellada, devouring the rice, the succulent slices of meat, and the shelled shrimp. He closed his eyes, savoring the tastes, and gave a soft moan before speaking to Laura again.
“It was a marvelous idea Juli Parellada had, inventing a rice dish like this. … No peeling and picking out shells, no eating with your hands—”
Laura interrupted him, narrowing her eyes.
“I don’t know how many times you’ve told the story of that dandy who wasted his entire fortune chasing after women in his ridiculous piqué floppy tie and a carnation in his lapel,” she said.
Seeing Laura’s bad mood, Jordi put his joviality aside and devoted himself to swallowing his rice.
She made an effort to take a bite of her sea bass, but she could tell her friend was annoyed and her stomach tensed even more than before. It wasn’t uncommon for her to rebel when someone tried to force her into this kind of atmosphere. Even so, she knew she had been more fickle than usual recently, especially when Jordi was showering her with attention.
Laura had spent the past few weeks since the jewelry store opening trying to find the right way to resolve the issue of their engagement once and for all, to reject her friend without wounding him or casting aspersion on her family, but every time she tried to raise the question with her family or her brothers, everyone avoided the problem. Her father only asked her to think hard about her response, so she wouldn’t regret it; after all, Jordi had always been a good friend. Her mother simply called her naïve and wouldn’t talk any further about Laura’s outbursts: she didn’t think it possible her daughter could say no to something that was as good as done; her daughter was a bit untamed, but it would be madness to say no to a prospect of the sort, which offered to open so many doors in the future. “Jordi adores you,” everyone repeated to her. Jordi Antich, the perfect suitor.
And thus the days had passed, and the weeks as well. Jordi himself had given her no opportunity to talk of the matter, confining himself to his work and the trips that had kept him so busy, probably aware of his error in sharing his intentions with her family before Laura herself. But that night would be the end of it. She had allowed him to choose the restaurant so he would feel as comfortable as possible when he heard the bad news, which she imagined, after all this time, wouldn’t surprise him so much, though it would be a blow to the two families who had taken it for granted that their date that night signified the yes they had all been waiting for and the joining of their good names and their businesses.
She was still angry at how they’d penned her in on the day of the store opening, and how everyone, including Jordi himself, had just assumed the existence of an engagement that had never been talked about openly. And now she had to reject something that had never been agreed upon, and feel guilty for what had happened with Dimas, when all she could do was think about him. Every time Jordi showed her a tender face or some gentleness, she felt nervous and wanted to push him away from her with all her might. She felt a cold sweat on her forehead and ran her hand across it to relieve herself a bit.
“Are you all right?” he asked her, worried.
“Yes, I’m fine, relax …”
“I know you’re not mad about this place. I shouldn’t have brought you.” Jordi pursed his lips while he continued eating. It was as if he wanted to avoid the theme that she shouldn’t have been so hesitant over, and that aggravated her mood even further.
She had hardly taken a bite, but she pushed
her plate away to one side of the table and placed her silverware in one corner of it, putting an end to her dinner.
“You’re not hungry?”
“Not very,” she answered. She couldn’t stand it anymore. “Jordi, we have to talk.”
He swallowed his bite and left his fork on his plate. He rested his blue eyes on hers and ignored the waiter, who had come over to the table to refill their glasses of wine.
Laura wanted to take responsibility for her own decisions and stick to her principles; she didn’t want to hide behind niceties and draw the thing out unnecessarily, especially when so many people were involved. She believed in transparency, in sincerity, and she wanted to be honest with Jordi. The young woman felt she owed it to him after the support he had always shown her. And now, the time had come.
When the waiter had left, Laura continued speaking; she wanted her feelings to be as clear as possible.
“Forgive me for abusing your trust, Jordi. I always thought the attention you paid me was due to our friendship. We are friends, and I hope that doesn’t change. But the day of the opening of the new store, you were wrong to talk to everyone else before you talked to me, and I am sorry to tell you that I can’t …”
His face still tense, Jordi looked down at his hands, which were smoothing out the cloth napkin in his lap over and over. He knew very well what was happening. Laura put her hand on the tabletop in invitation and waited for him to put his atop it, but he didn’t. The murmurs echoing through the room seemed to augment their intensity.
“I’m sorry, Jordi, but a good friend is all I see you as. I suppose it’s all my fault, but we never talked about any engagement or any wedding, never. I even told you what had happened with Carlo in Roma and how that had made me decide to spend some time alone before even thinking about looking for a man …”