Life Embitters

by Josep Pla

  A few hours later I met two compatriots at supper in the dining room: one was a Tàpies and the other a Niubó. I’ve had a fair amount of contact with them ever since. I thought they were two excellent lads, two perfect friends. They had been living in London for several years. They had adapted perfectly, but had occasional bouts of nostalgia. Every now and then, for some reason or other, they had severe attacks of nostalgia. It was Catalan-style nostalgia: emotional, visible, and weepy. That was when they were unbearable.

  Tàpies sported a trim mustache and his ideal was to save. I never knew and still don’t know what paths had led him to such a conclusion or what mechanism had brought him to profess such an ideal. He was a good saver, in the sense that he saved prompted by his own unconscious, I mean he never had to think about it. When giving him a kick in the butt – at the moment when his physical combustion started, as the materialists would say – the Eternal Father probably wagged a stern finger at him and said: “Save, Tàpies!” The excellent friend began to roam the streets and squares of this world as naturally as could be. He still roams and saves abiding by the agreement imposed by the mysterious law that regulates the inner lives of human beings.

  At the time, he was a tall, thin lad, who sported, as I said, a trim, blandly colored mustache, and wispy hair that didn’t quite make for a baldpate, whose features would have been completely normal and easily forgotten, if he hadn’t possessed a small, perfectly delineated mouth, one of those mouths that the previous generation, the ladies of a previous generation, believed was really lovely. He spoke Catalan with a Barcelona accent and thus said “aixinss …” rather that “així.” The word seemed to flow through his mouth like a wave.

  Niubó was quite a different character. It was he who, on the day we met, introduced me to Mr Morton, a retired colonel with a stoop and an impressive military record, a thin, pinkish man with a huge head of white hair. The most important thing fellow boarders knew about Mr Morton was that he drank a dozen bottles of Scotch – White Horse to be precise – every week without ever creating a fuss or doing anything out of the ordinary. He seemed to have only a passing interest in anything else. If someone he acknowledged said, “You drink a lot, Mr Morton …”

  He would reply, “Yes, sir, absolutely …”

  If, on the other hand, someone said, “Mr Morton, you don’t seem to drink that much …”

  He would answer, “Yes, sir, quite right.”

  Mr Morton was an honorable English gentleman who had spent almost all his life in distant lands and seemed to be weary as a result. He appeared altogether resigned and indifferent in his reactions. At any rate, he had the rare merit of knowing how to express his opinions as if they were completely unimportant. His only wish – apparently – was to adapt, as best he could, to the needs of the person asking him questions. In that sense, his interests seemed to coincide admirably with those of humanity in general. He was a remarkably altruistic individual.

  What was my friend Niubó’s ideal in life? I find it a hard question to answer. He probably had no thought through ideal and simply voiced routine ones. What he most certainly did like was to live with his friend Tàpies. Both were bachelors, but were very different in character, apart from this common denominator. One always had a pile of money stashed away, which gave him security. The other never had a cent and that meant he tended to drift. However, they in fact complimented each other. It was as difficult to work out why Tàpies had emerged as such a saver as it was to discover why Niubó was almost continually flat-broke. They led the same lives, lived in the same boarding house, both worked in the City, for the same bank, one was really – to the point that they almost always went everywhere together – the shadow of the other. They earned the same money: four pounds a week. Nonetheless, there was nothing anyone could do: the outcomes were totally opposed.

  As I thought about those two lads I came to the conclusion that they were perhaps brought together by a mutual feeling for the other’s wretchedness. Niubó could clearly see that Tàpies, with his reasonable pile, was a man worthy of imitation, and wanted to keep that positive image by his side as an example, as a moral incentive. Tàpies could see how Niubó embodied all the drawbacks of having a hole in one’s pockets, which meant he saw him as a stimulus, as a negative image whose presence it was in his interest to preserve. Niubó was also tall and thin, but his eyes were brighter than Tàpies’s and his hair in particular was thicker and hardier. But what most distinguished them was Niubó’s mouth, which was, shall we say, much more commonplace.

  A few days after I’d come to the boarding house we decided to eat supper at the same table. They ate lunch near their office and never put in an appearance. It was in the course of one of those suppers we ate together that I felt compelled to raise a little matter I’d just noticed. I did so in a rather roundabout manner. Why do we become so roundabout when we are with two people? As soon as the moment seems opportune our shyness brings our vanity into play almost unconsciously.

  “My dear Niubó and Tàpies,” I told them, “I heard a very strange conversation this evening. Just imagine, I was reading the paper, lying on the chaise-longue in my room, when I thought a conversation started up in the neighboring room … it was, might I say, poor me, an interesting conversation. You know that my room is at the end of the passage. I don’t know who is next door. I’m not, thanks be to God – either indiscreet or nosey. But it can hardly be news to you that brick walls in London are very thin …”

  “Are you saying that walls in London are thin?” Tàpies objected, with a cold, reticent smile, pleasantly intrigued.

  “That’s my impression at least …” I said slightly bewildered. “Am I wrong?”

  “Explain yourself, please!” said Niubó, in a more reasonable tone.

  “I do really think that the walls are thin and that, though they may be English people speaking, one can hear every word. They are so thin that one would not only hear an Englishman talking, but also a lord eating. I think a man and a woman were in conversation …”

  “If you heard them speaking, the fact is you were listening!” said Tàpies with a chuckle that was his attempt to curtail the conversation.

  “I don’t know. It’s probable. The fact is I heard them talking.”

  “Surely, but if you heard them talking, it was because you were making an effort to listen in. That’s beyond doubt!”

  “I don’t see why it’s so beyond doubt. My feeling, based, I agree, on scant experience, is that with this kind of building discretion is almost out of the question … and this must be why forgetfulness is so common.”

  “You are wrong, quite wrong!” said Niubó, returning to his stiff and serious mode. “Do you know why the London police are considered the best in the world?”

  “I have no evidence at hand to answer that.”

  “I’ll answer for you … The London police is judged to be so good because crimes here are hugely complex.”

  “As complex as they are anywhere …”

  “No! The complexity here is labyrinthine, for a very simple reason: because nobody bothers about anyone else or even wants to, they’re not interested and don’t even think they’re worth worrying about!”

  “Do you mean to say that this huge city is an enormous concentration of loners?”

  “We’d have to define what we mean by the word ‘loner’. If you understood it in the literal sense of failed, would-be nosey-parker, we’ll never see eye-to-eye. An Englishman is a genuine, real loner, completely uninterested in the lives led by the people around him – provided they’re not irritating him. An Englishman is a hand-hewn loner. That’s why crimes are so inexplicable: because people have seen nothing, heard nothing, and haven’t the slightest idea of what’s happening around them … The police have to be good precisely for this reason: because people in this country always have their minds elsewhere.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “It’s of no matter …” said Niubó ratcheting up his p
leasant tone. “You’ll tell me what you think when you’ve been here for a time. It’s hopeless trying to understand this country on the spur of the moment. One requires rather a long experience …”

  “That’s true of any country. It’s a truism.”

  “I won’t deny that …”

  “So what are you attempting to do, dear Niubó, with such comments? Do you want to defend crime novels as such?”

  “Not at all! In any case, crime novels, that are so abundant in this country, demonstrate that the English aren’t in fact nosey. The crime novel fills the void left by people’s habit of always having their minds elsewhere. The lack of individual curiosity leads people to be interested in a pre-fabricated nosiness. The crime novel is the most innocent, inoffensive form of nosey-parkery imaginable. But … let’s cut to the quick. What did you overhear from your bedroom last night? Have you uncovered a crime, some evildoing?”

  “No, it was completely banal. My grasp of English is extremely shaky. The phonetics of the language is barmy. They talk like birds … If they’d spoken English, it’s very likely they’d not have distracted me from my newspaper. But they spoke French and that’s what really thinned out the partition between the two bedrooms.”

  “ ‘I’ve come,’ I heard a man’s voice say, ‘to beg your forgiveness …’ ”

  “Good God!” said Tàpies, suddenly riveted.

  “Perhaps we should let him finish!” rasped Niubó unpleasantly.

  “ ‘What’s the matter? What’s wrong?’ ” asked a woman’s voice quite concerned.

  “ ‘I drank too much yesterday,’ answered the man’s voice. ‘It’s miserable to confess, but please allow me to release tension by way of a confession. I really don’t know why I got drunk: there are times when one goes off the rails and everything turns dark. It’s very odd. It’s absurd. It’s lethal. Then one cops out using the first excuse at hand …’

  “ ‘You’ve said all this so often!’ said the woman’s voice with a weariness that didn’t seem, in my view, totally unsympathetic.

  “ ‘It’s true. I’ve said that so often! But there’s very little that’s new in life! You’ll call me an animal, a hopeless wretch, tell me it lasts a minute and the outcome is always negative … Perhaps you’ll even add that what seems like a release for a few seconds can become a deplorable, oppressive vice … But what can we about that? A man is such a paltry thing; loneliness is so vast in these huge cities …’

  “A longish pause followed. I’d like to be able to give you some idea about how long, but when I glanced at my watch, I saw it had stopped. In these enormous cities you have to do so much, time is always at a premium, that you always commit an oversight: it turned out that your watch had stopped. In any case, the pause came to an end. I heard the unmistakable noise of a loud, invasive, eager kiss. The woman’s voice said. ‘I completely forgive you, but make sure it’s the last time!’

  “ ‘Really?’ asked the man’s voice, restraining his emotion.

  “ ‘Really. Take off your shoes!’

  “I didn’t hear another word. Two shoes fell on to the floor that seemed fairly weighty. And nothing else happened. It seemed as if nightfall descended once again in the distant, muffled rumble of the large city. The vague rumble made by large cities is very different to what night brings in the countryside. It is like nervous panting in the city. Outside, in the countryside, it is a thinner, calmer, less agitated sound. Now, my dear Niubó and Tàpies, I’d like to ask a favor of you: as you’re familiar with this household, I’d like you to tell me something about the protagonists of this vulgar, banal exchange, because I really believe that when one lives in a boarding house it’s always a good idea to know who is round and about.”

  My two compatriots, who initially listened to my tale most attentively, gradually lost interest as I proceeded. In the end, they seemed almost disappointed. I felt that it was nothing new as far as they were concerned, that it was quite normal.

  “When you’ve finished eating your roast beef and carrots,” said Niubó, “take a sly look towards the back corner, by the window.”

  I looked briefly in that direction. I saw a young woman sitting on the table at the back. She was blonde, with pinkish skin, ample dimensions, and was eating ravenously. She was wearing a very English, mallow-colored nighttime dress that did her no favors – I imagine she had some social engagement that night. It showed off her opulent, perfect, bronzed, rather languid arms. At that very moment she looked up and stared at my friends. Her features were chubby and cheerful, as well as being immaculate in the manner of a kermesse flamande Venus – a broad, gleaming forehead and eyes of blue and green water. She smiled for a second, and revealed moist, dazzling teeth.

  She shortly got up from her table, smiled at my friends for a second time and left the dining room. She seemed very tall.

  “That’s Srta Claudette,” said Tàpies folding his napkin. “Quite the Belgian wench …”

  “Dear Tàpies, what exactly do you mean by ‘quite the Belgian wench’?”

  “I wouldn’t know how to put it. A young lady …” and he stammered.

  “Let’s say, to give you an idea, that she’s a young lady who acts in good faith …” rasped Niubó.

  “I understand. A young lady who acts in good faith … That’s clear enough.”

  To further clarify Niubó’s definition, Tàpies tried to wink, giving it the usual sly touch. But when Tàpies attempted this gesture, he nearly always botched it, failed entirely. He was a man who couldn’t wink, like so many. When he was thinking of doing it, he’d shut both eyes, and everything was quite a mess, improbable and totally unconvincing. Even so, I cottoned on without having to make too much of an effort.

  After his optical intervention, Tàpies felt compelled to say things I felt were quite enigmatic: “Srta Claudette,” he said, “is a very generous, extremely kindhearted person … It’s his turn today,” he continued pointing at Niubó.

  “My dear Tàpies, I really don’t understand,” I countered. “Please be so good as to explain yourself …”

  In the meantime, annoyed by his friend’s allusion, Niubó had turned as red as a rose. Tàpies fell silent. I didn’t feel strong enough to rescue the conversation from the cul-de-sac it had entered. We changed the subject.

  That night, while I was reading the newspaper comfortably reclining on the chaise-longue in my bedroom, I heard a conversation strike up in the neighboring room. I started to hallucinate when I heard the first words. A man and woman were talking and the male voice was Niubó’s. My friend’s French seemed rather unsure and dodgy – sometimes difficult to understand.

  “Claudette, you’re so lovely … I’d like to ask you a favor,” said Niubó’s voice.

  “Have you lost another button?” responded the female voice.

  “Yes, another button. I’m very sorry to ask you, but it’s beyond me. You know how sad it is to live alone, in a foreign country, among complete strangers who are often hostile. This way of life just shows how when you lack the warmth of the family hearth, you have nothing …”

  “I find your bouts of nostalgia rather boring …”

  “Yes, I know, but what do you expect me to do? Who else can I tell? Only you understand me … Claudette, you understand me! And don’t you deny it … If you only knew how I sometimes feel like catching the train, going back, escaping …”

  “I’ll sew your button on, but it’s the last time. I have other things to do in life.”

  “You really mean that?”

  “Take off your shoes!”

  There was a similar lull to the previous day, a lull that ended in exactly the same fashion. I didn’t hear another word, and the night seemed to melt into the dull hum, the opaque buzz from the urban sprawl.

  The next day I made no reference to this around the table. Nor did Tàpies. After some visibly awkward circumlocutions, with a doubtful, confused logic to them, Niubó finally began to speak about the mysteries within the lodging house �
�� the last episode of which had starred him as its hero. Then, lo and behold, at the end of his monologue Niubó came out with a statement that shocked me it was so flippant, not to say so moronic. Pointing at me in a most relaxed, natural gesture, he said, while consulting a small pocket diary: “Your turn will come too. It’ll be around the twenty-ninth of this month.”

  I burst into a series of noisy guffaws though I quickly had to put the brake on that spontaneous outburst because of its deplorable impact on the people who were in the dining room at the time. Almost every head present turned surreptitiously my way to let me know that I had overstepped the mark. However, it was Tàpies and Niubó whose expressions were quite desolate. First they looked at me as if I were a rare beast. Then, with infinite sorrow. I’m sure that if I’d let myself be carried away and continued guffawing, they’d have got up and left me there and then. In London – and this must be true for the whole of England – you never make an excessive show of your feelings. Do what you must, but do so discreetly. When you want to laugh, smile; when you want to cry, don’t go overboard, and don’t overwhelm people with your exaggerated emotions. My laughter had been spontaneous and, though I’d had good reason to act that way, it was completely the wrong thing to do.

  I had a further surprise that night. The male voice I heard behind the partition wall wasn’t the one from the first day or Niubó’s. It was the voice of an Englishman who spoke terrible French. I first thought it was a voice I didn’t recognize and then I decided it was very similar to Colonel Morton’s. In the end, I couldn’t really pinpoint whose voice it was. I thought it was a highly entertaining exchange.

  “Mademoiselle Claudette,” I heard the voice say, “might I ask you a question?”

  “Only one? Why are men so pathetic?”

  “Could you please tell me how many kilometers it is from Brussels to Anvers?” said the voice in a tender, slightly passionate tone. “I don’t want to defer for a single day more my visit to your country that is so admirable on so many fronts. The expectations I have cherished for so long are on the brink of becoming a most wondrous reality …”