Stars in His Eyes

by Martí Gironell

  Ceferino was thirteen years old the night his parents woke the children to rush them out of bed. The historic center of Santander was burning, and they had to be ready for whatever might come. The Carrión family lived just a few yards from the Calle Cádiz, where everything had started. Hell on earth, the headlines called it in the following days, keeping a running tab of the destruction. The worst damage included the melting of the bells at the cathedral and the destruction of two rows of houses, not to mention the entire Hotel Victoria being reduced to ashes.

  That whole day, a powerful wind had blown, making even walking difficult. Cefe’s father hadn’t gone to work; the fishing fleet had stayed moored in the port, dodging roof tiles, tree branches, electric cables, and lampposts that dropped down around them from the seaside promenade. They and their neighbors had long feared such a thing might happen: one spark from a stove shooting up a chimney and landing on one of the wood houses in that humble quarter was all it would take to reduce it to ashes. And that was exactly what happened, right there in the heart of the city.

  The family shut themselves up at home, glued to the father’s radio, listening to reports from a ship, the Canarias, that had anchored with supplies in the bay, responding to the news: Santander is burning, Santander is burning, repeated over and over. The family sat there in the dark paralyzed, hearts pounding, until their mother made the providential decision that they would flee the inferno. Ceferino remembered how they had to cover their faces because the fountain of flames was showering embers onto the wooden roofs of the Old Town. The narrow streets channeled the gusts of wind, intensifying them so the flames spread even faster.

  They passed by the Café Boulevard, now a makeshift operations center where officials tried to control the flames. All the powers that be had gathered there. One jet of fire could have burned them to a crisp and sent each and every one of them to hell, Ceferino thought with rancor. Those assembled included the civil governor, the provincial party leader, the military governor, the infantry colonel, the president of the congress, the delegate for public order, and the mayor. They decreed a state of emergency, as if they were at war. In the morning, an enormous boom surprised Ceferino and his family—it sounded like an earthquake, so powerful it knocked them off balance. Later they learned the town had used dynamite to make a firebreak elsewhere in the city. Detachments of firemen came from all over Spain, and miraculously, only one person died in the tragedy: a man from their ranks, a firefighter from Madrid.

  It wasn’t until Monday morning that the wind died down and the fire could finally be put out. It left a scar that would mark the city, as well as the life of the Carrión family, forever.

  That was when their father decided they would go to Barcelona. They could recover there, and he would be able to find work in the port. Unfortunately, soon after they moved, the war called him and José, Ceferino’s older brother, up for service.

  Now, exiting the Estación de Francia amid the shadows, Cefe couldn’t help but retrace in his mind the path his family had taken after their arrival at the Catalan capital. He could taste the smoke in his throat, and fear pulsed through his body once again. It took more than a year for them to set down roots in their new city. And now Cefe felt like he was coming home, flooded with impressions, memories, long-dormant experiences brought back to startling life.

  He took his usual route toward the district of Clot. As he got closer to the Carrión household, near the parish of Sant Martí, the urge to see his mother and siblings grew overwhelming. How frustrated he felt during that phone call when his sister told him it wasn’t safe for him to come home! All he could do was stare at their building from the street. The walls have eyes and ears, his sister had told him.

  Once he had settled in, he called her again and asked how they could meet. To his surprise, his family had taken care of everything.

  “The priest, Father Ramon Torné, agreed to change the location of the wedding when Mama explained your situation to him,” she had said. “It will be at the Church of Belén, on the Carrer del Carme, next to the Rambla. You can hide upstairs in the church, where the choir usually sits. There won’t be anyone else there, just you.”

  “How do I get in?” Cefe asked.

  “Take the street perpendicular to Carme, Carrer d’en Xuclá. Go to Granja Viader—remember it?” Cefe murmured an almost inaudible yes. “Ask for Mercè, the owner.”

  “The owner?” he asked, a bit unsettled.

  “She’s a friend, don’t worry. She’ll let you go through her courtyard, which leads to the Church of Belén. Once you’re there, go to the sacristy and up to the choir loft before we arrive. Understood?”

  “Of course. I’ll be there!”

  The night was hot, but Ceferino was still trembling from the sight of their building. He spent the night at a pension on Carrer dels Tallers. The next morning, he got up early and went out, looking for the finest clothes he could find to wear to his sister’s wedding. Manners are manners. He didn’t care that no one would see him. He ventured out and bought a navy-blue suit, a paisley tie, and a white kerchief that poked out of the pocket of his jacket and matched his shirt and the tips of his shoes.

  He took Carrer de les Ramelleres toward Granja Viader. He strolled slowly, enjoying the feeling of being in his old city again. He walked into one of the florists’ shops that had been the former homes of the ramelleres, the women who sold bouquets on the Rambla, and bought a bundle of roses for the bride. He put one bloom in the buttonhole of his jacket.

  He had decided to have breakfast at Granja Viader, and he already knew what he would order: a cup of hot chocolate and some ladyfingers. When he stepped through the front door onto the cracked ceramic tiles, the intense scent of chocolate welcomed him. That sweet aroma called forth another memory, leading him back in time to an afternoon on Saint Joseph’s Day when his parents had taken him and his brothers and sisters there for a snack. They were celebrating the name day of his older brother, grieving for him in his absence. Cefe loved the dessert that bore the boy’s name—crema catalana, also known as crema de San José—and gulped it down while the other children slurped the melted chocolate in their cups.

  Ceferino grazed the marble tabletops with his fingertips, and settled into one of the wooden chairs he’d found so uncomfortable as a boy. He glanced around, trying to call up more memories of that afternoon, the happy ones as well as the bitter, in a melancholy daydream that no amount of pastry, cream cheese with honey, crema catalana, or the countless shapes and flavors of the cakes and tarts behind the glass could sweeten. He missed his family—his mother, his siblings—and seated there, bouquet in hand, his longing grew even stronger. His eyes misted over, and little by little, so did the images of that long-ago afternoon.

  Cefe didn’t ask for the owner until he had finished his order and licked the sugar and chocolate from his fingertips and mustache. Señora Mercè came out from the back of the shop and greeted and chatted with a half dozen customers before stopping at Ceferino’s table. Her face was stern until she saw the flowers on the table and the rose in his lapel, and then she broke into a generous smile.

  “You’re Cefe, Conchi’s brother, right?” she asked in a soft, delicate voice that clashed with her staid appearance. “They tell me you’ve been overseas for a year, right?”

  Cefe, trembling inside, nodded in response to the two questions. But the owner put him at ease, responding with her kindest smile.

  “Follow me!” she said with a wink.

  That roguish, knowing gesture made Ceferino’s stiff nerves melt like the chocolate still smeared inside his cup.

  They walked swiftly to the back of the shop, and Señora Mercè guided him outside, toward the courtyard of the church. They passed through the dairy where the employees made the whipped cream every day—wrapping it in cabbage leaves for customers to take it home—as well as butter, cottage cheese, flan, crema catalana, arroz con leche, and the star of the show, the chocolate.

  “See that?�
�� The owner of Granja Viader pointed out some stainless-steel tanks. “This is where all the chocolate for your sister’s wedding will come from. I wanted to do something nice for your family, since I can’t be at the ceremony.”

  The woman crossed the courtyard with him toward the church. She stopped in front of a metal gate with a rudimentary knocker and pointed at the run-down, decaying building—the sacristy of the Church of Belén. Now Señora Mercè took leave of a grateful Ceferino.

  “I wish your sister all the happiness in the world. I’m glad I could do this for her.”

  Now he had to continue on his own. Cefe took a stone walkway to a nondescript door—two flaps of metal that gave no resistance when he opened them. He was surprised that entering the church was so easy.

  Tenuous rays of light filtered in through the windows, and the scent of burnt wax drew him inside, where a warm silence reigned. Cefe crossed himself respectfully in front of a statue of the Virgin and left the bouquet of flowers at the foot of the altar where his sister would say yes to her future husband. He turned, looked up, and saw the benches in the choir loft. He walked up the nave toward it, passing the chapels of the Adoration, the Sacred Heart, the Virgin of Carmen, and the Virgin of the Abandoned and climbing the spiral staircase to his hideout. Once there, he waited patiently in the shadows for the entourage to arrive.

  In that withdrawn, silent space, thoughts and memories of his father and his brother—who would, along with him, be the notable absences from the festivities—rose up inevitably before him. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and went back through the years, to just after the events that had turned their lives upside down.

  A noise outside brought him back to reality. He heard the doors open and the murmur of guests entering and settling down on the benches. He crept over to the parapet and peeked down, trying to make out the members of his family. He didn’t want to lose a single detail of the ceremony, the bride and groom, his family, the treading of the new shoes on the old, cracked floor creaking beneath their feet. So close, and at the same time so far away. He longed to go down and embrace them all, but he stayed put. His mother, his brother, his sisters, even the beautiful, beaming bride glanced furtively toward the shadows in the choir in turn, hoping to glimpse some slight movement that would reassure them Cefe was there.

  “Finally. My prayers have been answered.”

  A familiar voice made him turn around, startled. It was Pedro, one of the friends he had fled to France with, sneaking into the choir stealthy as a fox sticking its muzzle into the henhouse.

  “Pedro!” he whispered.

  “Cefe! I knew it! What brings you here?”

  “What do you think? I’m here for Conchi’s wedding. You?”

  “Fernando, the groom, invited me. He’s my cousin, remember?” Pedro smiled, approaching him with a bizarre calm.

  But Ceferino could sense the tension in his body and declined to embrace him.

  “Look at you! Dressed to the nines,” Pedro hissed sardonically. “Now I see why your mother and sisters were staring up here all nervous.”

  “I don’t understand . . .”

  “You won’t get away this time. You’ll pay for what you did to us.”

  “Me? What did I do?”

  “You left us high and dry, Cefe!” Pedro reproached him. “Back there in Le Havre!”

  “You listen to me, Pedro,” he replied, irritated but not raising his voice. “We all decided to strike out on our own. Every man for himself. Then I hear you and Jaime teamed up again. That’s got nothing to do with me. Remember? We agreed to meet in America, and then we bolted! Without looking back.”

  Pedro looked at him with fire in his eyes, but he didn’t respond.

  “You can blame fate for whatever happened to you,” Cefe went on. “Is it my fault if you took the wrong boat and wound up in Guatemala instead of the USA?”

  “You knew something, and you didn’t tell us. Otherwise, how did you get to New York and we didn’t?”

  “Don’t talk like an idiot! I got lucky, that’s all.”

  “Look, Cefe, don’t get smart with me. I’ve got you over a barrel,” Pedro threatened him, raising a fist.

  “What? You’re gonna turn me in?”

  Just as he uttered these words, Ceferino realized that was precisely what his old friend had already done. He could tell by the smug and hateful expression on Pedro’s face. There was no doubt: he was the one who had ratted Cefe out to the Spanish authorities.

  “Pedro . . . How could you do this?”

  “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t run and tell them where you are this very second. It would get me in good with the governor. I’ve got nothing, absolutely nothing to lose. The opposite, come to think of it.”

  “Now I see . . .” Cefe suddenly understood everything. “You never got over the fact that I made it to New York, right? That’s what it is, no? Envy, it’s eating you up inside, Pedro. And you can’t even live with it, let alone be happy for me. You think making my life and my family’s life impossible will make you feel better? You’ll get what you want that way? What do you think will come of it? Ask yourself that.”

  Pedro flopped down on one of the benches, squeezed his temples in his hands, took a deep breath, and started crying. His tears were muffled by the cheering and shouts of “Long live the bride and groom!” that rose upward into the choir of the church.

  Ceferino walked out of the shadows and over to the parapet to watch the entourage file out toward the Rambla. He suppressed the urge to shout in despair. When he looked at his miserable former friend, Cefe’s heart filled with sorrow, rage, and disgust, and he left him there, taking the stairs and exiting through the main door. He mingled with the invitees and passersby, stopping to see the newlyweds. He wanted to join his family, if only to exchange a glance, but they were several yards away. All he could see were their outlines. They were a pleasing sight in their elegant clothes.

  He didn’t even get the chance to say goodbye.

  He walked with his head down to the Teatro de la Comedia, on the corner of Gran Via and Passeig de Gràcia. The trip seemed to be nothing but a heap of shattered illusions. He tried to concentrate on how he might arrange a meeting with Antonio and Rosario, since they were the reason he had come to Spain. But his heart was heavy.

  In Madrid, he’d learned that the dancers had gone to Barcelona as part of the repertory for Buero Vallejo’s Story of a Stairway. That night’s performance wouldn’t start for several hours, so after arriving at the theater, he waited by the side door leading to the actors’ dressing rooms. He hadn’t prepared any remarks—he didn’t think he needed to. The mere prospect of making a movie in Hollywood would be enough to entice anyone, he assumed.

  Leaning against the wall, Ceferino lit a cigarette. He had just taken a drag when a taxi pulled up in front of him. Out stepped a man, very handsome and elegant in fine clothes, a beautiful silk tie knotted loosely around his neck. His skin was dark and luminous; his hair was black, meticulously combed back, and gleaming; his eyes were dark and seductive. It was Antonio. There was no doubt about it. Ceferino could confirm what he’d already heard: this fellow could win over men and women alike.

  “Good afternoon!” Cefe stretched out his hand, putting on his best smile. “Antonio, the dancer?”

  “That’s right,” the artist responded, his curiosity aroused.

  Ceferino introduced himself as Justo León, a representative of the Durán Agency, which offered artist representation at the international level.

  “I’m from Hollywood,” he added, trying to entice the dancer. “Do you have time for a word with me?”

  “Of course! But since you’ve come this far, you won’t mind if we talk after the show, no? I’ll wait for you in the dressing room, all right?” The man was pleasant but couldn’t hide the vanity in his tone.

  Cefe agreed and walked around to the box office to buy a ticket. He’d be able to make his arguments more persuasively if he knew the spectacl
e firsthand. It would look more professional.

  But when the show started and Elena Salvador stepped onto the stage—playing Urbano’s wife, Carmen, who is forced to meet in secret with her lover, Fernando—Ceferino lost his breath. His pupils dilated, his heart started pounding, and he could feel his body temperature rising. Every time she came onstage, Ceferino was mesmerized: by her voice, her eyes, her body. He didn’t know if it was love at first sight, but he was struck.

  Ceferino had heard it said that when you fall in love like that, it’s because that person was your lover in another life. Maybe it was true, maybe not, but regardless, this woman aroused a nearly uncontrollable feeling in him, an intense emotional and sexual attraction, an impulse that drove him toward her. He had just enough time to rush back to the florist on Carrer de les Ramelleres and send flowers to her dressing room with a note that read, I feel like Fernando. I just hope you don’t have an Urbano in your life. Yours truly, Justo León.

  A few weeks later, there was a call at the Carrión household.

  “Hello. Is this the residence of Ceferino Carrión?” a woman’s soft voice asked.

  “Yes, who’s calling?” Chelo replied.

  “I’m a friend of his. Who am I speaking with?”

  “I’m his sister,” Chelo said stiffly. “Who do I have the pleasure of—” Before she could finish the sentence, she had her answer.

  Chelo was shocked when she heard the famous actress’s name. What could that leading lady of the stage have to do with Cefe?

  “I’m calling to tell you that your brother . . . Well, if you could come by to get the things Cefe left behind, he had to go back to the US. The army called him up for the war—the war in Korea.”

  The call didn’t stretch on much longer, just enough for Elena to give an address where they could pick up the suitcases containing Cefe’s knickknacks and clothing, a few keepsakes that his family would hold on to that were all they had left of him. Cefe, son and brother, after that unforgettable wedding day of September 2, 1950, disappeared from their lives again, this time forever and ever. Or so they thought.