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‘And that’s where the catastrophe of my life begins, dear friends … Now when I was planning to save up to publish the book on my own …’

  I was very amused, and happy.

  ‘Ah!’ said Iturdiaga, looking at a small painting that was turned towards the wall. ‘Why does the painting of the Truth have its back to us?’

  ‘Romances, the critic, was here earlier, and since he’s fifty years old, it didn’t seem delicate …’

  Pujol stood up quickly and turned the canvas around. On a black background was painted, in large white letters:

  ‘Let us give thanks to heaven that we are worth infinitely more than our ancestors. – Homer’. The signature was imposing. I had to laugh. I was very comfortable there; the absolute irresponsibility and careless happiness in that atmosphere caressed my spirit.

  XIV

  THE EXAMINATIONS FOR that year were easy, but I was afraid and studied as much as I could.

  ‘You’ll make yourself sick,’ Pons said. ‘I’m not worried. Next year will be different, when we have to take the final for the degree.’

  The truth is I was beginning to lose my memory. I had frequent headaches.

  Gloria told me that Ena had come to see Román in his room and Román played his violin compositions for her. About these things, Gloria was always well informed.

  ‘Do you think he’ll marry her?’ she asked suddenly, with a kind of ardour that spring communicated to her.

  ‘Ena marry Román! What a stupid idea!’

  ‘I’m saying it, kid, because she’s well dressed, like she comes from a good family … Maybe Román wants to get married.’

  ‘Don’t talk foolishness. There’s nothing like that between them … Come on! Don’t be ridiculous, Gloria! If Ena came here, you can be sure it was only to hear music.’

  ‘And why didn’t she come in to say hello to you?’

  I was so interested in all of it that my heart felt as if it would leap out of my chest.

  I saw Ena at the university every day. Sometimes we exchanged a few words. But how could we talk about anything intimate? She had distanced me completely from her life. One day I asked politely about Jaime.

  ‘He’s fine,’ she said. ‘We don’t go out on Sundays any more.’ (She avoided looking at me, perhaps so I wouldn’t see the sadness in her eyes. Who could understand her?)

  ‘Román’s travelling,’ I said abruptly.

  ‘I know,’ she replied.

  We were silent.

  ‘And your family?’ I ventured (it was as if we hadn’t seen each other in many years).

  ‘Mamá’s been ill.’

  ‘I’ll send her flowers when I can …’

  Ena looked at me in a special way.

  ‘You look ill too, Andrea … Do you want to go out with me this afternoon? The air will do you good. We can go to Tibidabo. I’d like you to have lunch there with me …’

  ‘Have you finished the important matter that was keeping you so busy?’

  ‘No, not yet; don’t be ironic … But this afternoon I’m going to take a holiday, if you want to spend it with me.’

  I wasn’t happy or sad. It seemed that my friendship with Ena had lost a great deal of its charm after our break. At the same time I sincerely loved my friend.

  ‘Yes, let’s go … if you don’t have anything more important to do.’

  She took my hand and opened my fingers in order to see the confused net of lines on my palm.

  ‘What slender hands! … Andrea, I want you to forgive me if I’ve behaved badly with you recently … It isn’t only with you that I’ve behaved badly … But this afternoon will be the way it was before. You’ll see. We’ll run through the pines. We’ll have a good time.’

  In fact, we did have a good time and laughed a lot. With Ena any subject became interesting and animated. I told her stories about Iturdiaga and my new friends. From Tibidabo, behind Barcelona, you could see the ocean. The pines ran in dense, fragrant groves down the mountain, spreading into large forests up to the outskirts of the city. Green surrounded and embraced it.

  ‘The other day I went to your house,’ said Ena. ‘I wanted to see you. I waited four hours for you.’

  ‘Nobody told me.’

  ‘I went up to Román’s room to pass the time. He was very nice to me. He played music. From time to time he’d call the maid on the phone to see if you’d come back.’

  I became sad so suddenly that Ena noticed and became sad too.

  ‘There are things about you I don’t like, Andrea. You’re ashamed of your family … And yet, Román is a man more original and artistic than most … If I introduced you to my aunts and uncles, you could search with a lantern and not find a spark of spirit. Even my father is an ordinary man, without any sensitivity … Which doesn’t mean he isn’t good, and besides, he’s handsome, you know him, but I would have understood it better if my mother had married Román or someone like him … This is merely an example like any other … Your uncle is a personality. Just with the way he looks at things he knows how to say what he wants. Understand … sometimes he seems a little mad. But so do you, Andrea. That’s precisely why I wanted to be your friend at the university. You had brilliant eyes and you walked around, so dull, abstracted, not noticing anything … We laughed at you, but secretly I wanted to know you. One morning I saw you leave the university in torrential rain … It was early in the year (you won’t remember this). Most of the kids were huddling in the doorway, and even though I was wearing a raincoat and had an umbrella, I didn’t dare go out in that furious downpour. Suddenly I saw you leave, walking the way you always did, without a scarf, your head uncovered … I remember that the wind and rain beat against you and then plastered locks of your hair against your cheeks. I went out after you and the rain was coming down in buckets. You blinked for a moment, as if you were surprised, and then, as if it were a refuge, you leaned against the garden railing. You stood there for at least two minutes until you realised you were still getting wet. It was wonderful. You moved me and made me laugh at the same time. I think that was when I began to be fond of you … Then you got sick …’

  ‘Yes, I remember.’

  ‘I know it bothers you that I’m Román’s friend. I’d already asked you to introduce me to him a long time ago … I understood that if I wanted to be your friend I couldn’t even think about anything like that … And the day I went to see you at your house, when you found us together, you couldn’t hide your irritation and anger. The next day I saw that you were ready to talk about it … To ask me to explain myself, maybe. I don’t know … I didn’t want to see you. You have to understand that I can choose my own friends, and I’m very interested in Román (I don’t deny it), for reasons of my own and because of his genius and …’

  ‘He’s a meanspirited, evil person.’

  ‘I’m not looking for goodness or even good manners in people … though I think manners are absolutely necessary in order to live with them. I like people who see life with eyes different from everyone else’s, who think about things in a way that’s different from most people … Maybe it’s because I’ve always lived with people who are too normal and satisfied with themselves … I’m sure my mother and brothers are certain of their indisputable usefulness in this world, and know at every moment what they want, what they think is bad, and what they think is good … And have suffered very little anguish over anything.’

  ‘Don’t you love your father?’

  ‘Of course I do. This is different … And I’m grateful to Providence that he’s so handsome, since I look like him … But I’ve never understood why he married my mother. My mother was the passion of my entire childhood. I noticed from the time I was very small that she was different from everybody else … I spied on her. I thought she had to be wretched. When I realised she loved my father and was happy I felt a kind of disappointment …’

  Ena was serious.

  ‘And I can’t help it. All my life I’ve been running away from my simple, respectable relati
ves … Simple but intelligent at the same time, in their own way, which is what makes them so unbearable … I like people with that touch of madness that keeps life from being monotonous, even though they’re miserable and are always in the clouds, like you … People who, according to my family, are undesirable calamities …’

  I looked at her.

  ‘Except for my mother … with her you never know what’s going to happen and this is one of her charms … what do you think my father or grandfather would say about you if they knew what you really were like? If they knew, the way I do, that you go without eating and don’t buy the clothes you need so you can have the pleasure of enjoying a millionaire’s delicacies with your friends for three days … If they knew that you liked wandering around alone at night. That you’ve never known what you want and that you’re always wanting something … Bah! Andrea, I think they’d cross themselves when they saw you, as if you were the devil.’

  She approached and stood in front of me. She placed her hands on my shoulders, looking at me.

  ‘And, darling, this afternoon or whenever your uncle or your house come up, you’re just like my relatives … You’re horrified at the mere thought of my being there. You think I don’t know what that world of yours is like, when in fact it’s fascinated me right from the beginning, and I want to find out all about it.’

  ‘You’re wrong. Román and the rest of them have no merit except being worse than the people you know and living in the midst of ugly, dirty things.’

  I spoke harshly, knowing I couldn’t convince her.

  ‘When I came to your house the other day, what a strange world appeared before my eyes! I was bewitched. I never could have dreamed, in the middle of Calle de Aribau, of a scene like the one Román presented when he played for me, in the candlelight, in that den of antiquities … You don’t know how much I thought about you. How interesting I thought you were because you lived in that unbelievable place. I understood you better … I loved you. Until you came in … Without realising it you looked at me in a way that ruined my enthusiasm. So don’t be angry with me because I want to go to your house alone and find out about everything. Because there’s nothing that doesn’t interest me … from that witch you have as a maid to Román’s parrot …

  ‘As for Román, don’t tell me his only merit is being in that environment. He’s an extraordinary person. If you’ve heard him play his compositions, you have to recognise that.’

  We rode down to the city in the tram. The mild afternoon air lifted Ena’s hair. She was very good-looking. She said:

  ‘Come to the house whenever you want … Forgive me for having told you not to come. That was another matter. You know you’re my only friend. My mother asks about you, and she seems alarmed … She was happy I finally found a girl I liked; since I’ve had the use of my reason I’ve been surrounded only by boys …’

  XV

  I CAME HOME with a headache and was surprised by the deep silence when it was time for supper. The maid moved around with an unusually light step. In the kitchen I saw her stroking the dog as it rested its large head in her lap. From time to time nervous spasms ran through her like electrical charges and she would laugh, showing her green teeth.

  ‘There’s going to be a funeral,’ she said to me.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The baby’s going to die …’

  I noticed that the light was on in the married couple’s bedroom.

  ‘The doctor’s here. I went to the chemist’s for medicines but they didn’t want to give me credit because people in the neighbourhood know how things are in this house since the poor señor died … Right, Trueno?’

  I went into the bedroom. Juan had made a screen for the light so it wouldn’t bother the child, who seemed unconscious, flushed with fever. Juan held him in his arms because the boy couldn’t lie in the cradle without crying continually … My grandmother seemed stunned. I could see that she was caressing the baby’s feet, putting her hands under the blanket wrapped around him. At the same time she said the rosary, and I was surprised that she wasn’t crying. My grandmother and Juan were sitting on the edge of the big double bed, and in the background, on the bed as well but leaning against the corner of the wall, I saw Gloria, very preoccupied with playing cards. She was sitting Moorish style, dishevelled and dirty as usual. I thought she must be playing solitaire. She did that sometimes.

  ‘What’s wrong with the baby?’ I asked.

  ‘They don’t know,’ my grandmother answered quickly.

  Juan looked at her and said:

  ‘The doctor thinks it’s the beginning of pneumonia, but I think it’s his stomach.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. The boy’s strong and he’ll tolerate the fever,’ Juan went on, while he held the baby’s head with great delicacy, leaning it against his chest.

  ‘Juan!’ Gloria shrieked. ‘It’s time for you to go!’

  He looked at the boy with a concern I would have thought strange if I had paid attention to his previous words.

  He sweetened his voice a little.

  ‘I don’t know if I ought to go, Gloria … What do you think? This baby only wants to be with me.’

  ‘I think, kid, that we’re in no condition to think about it. A chance to quietly earn a few pesetas has fallen from the sky. Mamá and I will be here. And there’s a phone in the warehouse, isn’t there? We can let you know if he gets worse … And since you’re not the only guard there, you could come home. It would just mean you don’t get paid the next day …’

  Juan stood up. The baby began to moan. Juan hesitated, smiling with a strange expression.

  ‘Go on, kid, go on! Give him to Mamá.’

  Juan put him in my grandmother’s arms and the baby began to cry.

  ‘All right! Give him to me.’

  The baby seemed better in his mother’s arms.

  ‘How naughty!’ my grandmother said sadly. ‘When he feels good he only wants me to hold him, and now …’

  Juan put on his overcoat, pensive, looking at the baby.

  ‘Eat something before you go. There’s soup in the kitchen and a loaf in the sideboard.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll have some hot soup. I’ll put it in a cup …’

  Before he left he came back to the bedroom.

  ‘I’ll leave this coat and wear the old one,’ he said carefully, taking down a very ragged and stained coat that hung on the rack. ‘It’s not cold now and it can get ruined on a night when you’re standing guard …’

  You could see he hadn’t made up his mind to go. Gloria shouted again:

  ‘It’s getting late, kid!’

  Finally he left.

  Gloria cradled the baby impatiently. When she heard the door closing, she sat a while longer, listening, her neck tense. Then she shouted:

  ‘Mamá!’

  My grandmother had gone to have her supper too and was eating soup and bread, but she left it half-eaten and came in right away.

  ‘Let’s go, Mamá, let’s go! Quick!’

  She placed the child in my grandmother’s lap, paying no attention to his crying. Then she began to dress in the best clothes she had: a print dress, the unfinished collar still hanging from it, lying wrinkled on the chair, and a necklace of blue beads. To go with the necklace a pair of chunky earrings that were also blue. As usual, she powdered her face heavily to hide her freckles, and she put on lipstick and made up her eyes with trembling hands.

  ‘It was very lucky that Juan had that job tonight, Mamá,’ she said when she saw my grandmother shaking her head in disapproval as she walked the baby, who had grown very big for her aged arms. ‘I’m going to my sister’s house, Mamá; pray for me. I’m going to see if she’ll give me some money for the baby’s medicine … Pray for me, Mamá, poor thing, and don’t be angry … Andrea will stay with you.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll be here studying.’

  ‘Aren’t you eating before you leave, child?’

  Gloria thought about it for half a minute and then decided to swall
ow her supper as fast as she could. My grandmother’s soup was in the bowl, getting cold and thick. Nobody paid attention to it.

  When Gloria left, the maid went to her room with Trueno to sleep. I turned on the light in the dining room – it was the best light in the house – and opened my books. That night I couldn’t cope with them, they didn’t interest me and I didn’t understand them. But two or three hours passed this way. It was the end of May and I had to make an effort in my work. I remember that I began to be obsessed by the half-empty plate of soup abandoned in front of me. The piece of bitten bread.

  I heard something like the buzz of a fly. It was my grandmother walking towards me, crooning to the baby in her arms. Without interrupting the tune she said to me:

  ‘Andrea, my child … Andrea, my child … Come and say the rosary with me.’

  It was hard for me to understand her. Then I followed her into the bedroom.

  ‘Do you want me to hold the baby for a little while?’

  My grandmother shook her head energetically. She sat down again on the bed. The baby seemed to be sleeping.

  ‘Take the rosary out of my pocket.’

  ‘Don’t your arms hurt?’

  ‘No … no. Go on, go on!’

  I began to recite the beautiful words of the Ave Maria. The words of the Ave Maria, which always seemed blue to me. We heard the key in the lock. I thought it was Gloria and turned quickly. It gave me an enormous fright to see Juan. Apparently he couldn’t control his uneasiness and had come back before morning. Granny’s face expressed so much terror that Juan knew right away. He leaned quickly over the baby who was sleeping, flushed, his mouth half-opened. But then he straightened up.

  ‘What’s Gloria done? Where is she?’

  ‘Gloria’s resting a little … or maybe not … No! Isn’t that right, Andrea? She went out to get something at the chemist … I don’t remember. You tell him, Andrea my child …’

  ‘Don’t lie to me, Mamá. Don’t make me curse!’

  Once again he was exasperated. The boy woke and began to whimper. He picked him up for a moment, crooning without taking off his coat, still wet from the street. From time to time he muttered a curse. Growing more and more agitated. Finally he left the baby in my grandmother’s lap.