Nada Page 14

  ‘Juan! Where are you going, child? The baby’s going to cry …’

  ‘I’m going to bring Gloria back, Mamá, drag her back by her hair if I have to, back to her son …’

  His entire body trembled. He slammed the door. My grandmother began to cry, at last.

  ‘Go with him, Andrea! Go with him, child, he’ll kill her! Go!’

  Without thinking about it, I put on my coat and ran down the stairs after Juan.

  I ran in pursuit as if my life depended on it. Terrified. Seeing street-lamps and people coming toward my eyes like blurred images. The night was warm but heavy with dampness. A white light magically illuminated the branches covered with tender green of the last tree on Calle de Aribau.

  Juan walked quickly, almost running. At first I didn’t so much see him as guess at him in the distance. I thought in despair that if he decided to take a tram I wouldn’t have money to follow him.

  We reached the plaza of the university when the clock on the building struck twelve-thirty. Juan crossed the plaza and stopped at the corner where the Ronda de San Antonio ends and a dark Calle de Tallers begins. A river of lights ran down Calle Pelayo. The signs winked their eyes in a tiresome game. Trams passed in front of Juan. He looked all around as if orienting himself. He was too thin and his coat hung on him, it swelled in the wind and played around his legs. I was there, almost beside him, not daring to call to him. What good would it have done if I had called to him?

  My heart pounded with the exertion of running. I saw him take a few steps towards the Ronda de San Antonio and followed him. Suddenly he turned around so quickly that we were face to face. Still, he seemed not to notice but passed by me, going in the opposite direction, not seeing me. Again he reached the plaza of the university and now he went down Calle de Tallers. We didn’t run into anyone there. The street-lamps seemed dimmer and the pavement was broken. Juan stopped again where the street forks. I remember a public fountain there, its spigot not closed all the way, and puddles forming on the stone paving. Juan looked for a moment towards the sound of the frame of light that marked where the street ended in the Ramblas. Then he turned his back and moved down Calle de Ramalleras, which was just as narrow and twisting. I ran in order to follow him. From a closed warehouse came the smell of straw and fruit. The moon rose over an adobe wall. My blood ran with me, pounding through my body.

  Each time we saw the Ramblas at an intersection, Juan gave a start. He moved his deep-set eyes in all directions. He bit the inside of his cheeks. On the corner of Calle del Carmen – better lit than the others – I saw him stop, his right elbow resting in the palm of his left hand, pensively stroking his cheekbones, as if caught up in a huge mental effort.

  Our journey seemed to have no end. I had no idea where he wanted to go and almost didn’t care. An obsession with following him had taken root in my mind, an idea that so captivated me I no longer even knew why I was doing it. Then I realised we could have taken a route that was twice as short. We crossed and went through part of the San José market. Our steps echoed under the high roof. In this enormous place, a multitude of closed stalls presented a dead appearance, and there was great sorrow in the occasional dim, yellowish lights. Large rats, their eyes gleaming as if they were cats, fled noisily at our approach. Some stopped in their tracks, very fat and thinking perhaps of confronting us. There was an indefinable smell of rotting fruit, scraps of meat and fish … A watchman eyed us suspiciously as we passed, heading for the alleys in the back, running one behind the other.

  When we reached Calle del Hospital, Juan hurried toward the lights of the Ramblas, which he’d seemed to be avoiding until then. We found ourselves on the Rambla del Centro. I was almost beside Juan. He seemed to pick up my scent unconsciously because he was constantly looking behind him. But although his eyes often passed over me, he didn’t see me. He looked suspicious, like a thief avoiding people. I think a man said something obscene to me. I’m not even certain, though it’s likely that more than one tried to interfere with me and laughed at me a good number of times. I didn’t think for a moment about where this adventure might lead me, or what I would do to calm someone whose fits of rage I knew so well. I know it reassured me to think he wasn’t carrying a weapon. Otherwise my thoughts trembled with the same excitation that squeezed my throat until I almost felt pain. Juan went on Calle del Conde del Asalto, swarming with people and lights at that hour. I realised this was the beginning of the Barrio Chino. ‘The devil’s glitter’ that Angustias had told me about looked impoverished and gaudy and had a great abundance of posters with portraits of male and female dancers. The doors of the cabarets with featured attractions seemed like shacks at a fair. The music was bewildering as it came from every side in discordant waves that combined in disharmony. Passing quickly through a human wave that made me desperate at times because it kept me from seeing Juan, I had a vivid memory of a carnival I’d seen when I was little. The people were truly grotesque: a man walked by me, his eyes heavy with make-up under a broad-brimmed hat. His cheeks were rouged. Everyone seemed disguised with bad taste, and the noise and the smell of wine brushed past me. I wasn’t even frightened, just like that day when I shrank against my mother’s skirt and listened to the laughter and watched the ridiculous contortions of the people in masks. All of that was merely the frame to a nightmare, unreal like everything external to my pursuit.

  I lost sight of Juan and was terrified. Someone pushed me. I looked up and saw at the end of the street the mountain of Montjuich enveloped, with its gardens, in the purity of the night …

  At last I found Juan. Poor man, he was standing still. Looking into the lit shop window of a dairy where there was a row of delicious flans. He was moving his lips and with his hand he pensively held his chin. ‘This is the moment,’ I thought, ‘to put my hand on his arm. To make him see reason. To tell him that Gloria surely is home …’ I didn’t do anything.

  Juan resumed walking, going – after looking around to orient himself – down one of those dark foetid alleys that open their mouths there. Again the pilgrimage turned into a hunt in shadows that grew darker and darker. I lost track of the streets we went down. The houses were close together, tall, oozing dampness. Behind some doors you could hear music. We passed a couple in a coarse embrace, and I stepped into a mud-filled puddle. It seemed that some streets had a reddish breath, diluted in the darkness. Others, a bluish light … Some men passed and their voices sounded gruff in the silence. My head cleared for a few moments and I approached Juan so they could see I was with him. When Juan and I were alone again I relaxed, paying attention only to the sound of his footsteps.

  I remember we were going down a black, utterly silent alley, when a door opened and a drunk was thrown out with such bad luck that he fell against Juan, making him stumble. An electrical charge seemed to run down Juan’s back. In the blink of an eye he punched the man in the jaw and then stood and waited for the other man to come to. After a few minutes they were entangled in a savage fight. I could barely see them. I heard their panting and their curses. From an invisible window a rasping voice broke through the air above us: ‘What’s going on there?’

  Then I found myself surprised by the animation that suddenly filled the street. Two or three men and a few boys, who seemed to spring from the earth, surrounded the men who were fighting. A half-opened door threw a stream of light onto the street, and it blinded me.

  I was filled with terror and tried to remain invisible. I had no idea what might happen in the next few minutes. Above that inferno – as if witches were riding through the sky over the street – we heard hard, piercing voices. Women’s voices egging on the fighters with their quips and laughter. In a kind of delusion it seemed to me that fat faces floated in the air, like the balloons children let go of sometimes.

  I heard a roar and saw that Juan and his opponent had fallen and were rolling in the mud on the street. No one intended to separate them. A man shone a torch on them and then I saw that Juan was pulling on the other man
’s neck to bite him. One of the onlookers aimed a bottle at Juan, making him spin around and fall in the mud. A few seconds later he sat up.

  At that moment somebody shrieked an alarm similar to the firemen’s bell or the special horn on a police car that has so much impact in the movies. In an instant Juan and I were alone. Even his drunken opponent had disappeared. Juan stood up, staggering. We heard stifled giggles above us. I, who had been frozen in a strange inaction, reacted suddenly, leaping with feverish speed, a kind of madness, towards Juan. I helped him to stand upright, and I straightened his clothes, wet with blood and wine. He was gasping.

  In my head I heard the reverberation of my heartbeats. The noise deafened me.

  ‘Let’s go!’ I tried to say. ‘Let’s go!’

  My voice didn’t come out and I began to shove Juan. I would have liked to fly. I knew or believed that police would be arriving soon, and I got Juan onto another street. Before we turned the second corner we heard footsteps. Juan had a strong reaction but let himself be led by me. I leaned against his shoulder and he put his arms around me. A group passed by. They were individuals who stamped their feet when they walked and made jokes. They didn’t say anything to us. A little while later we had separated. My uncle leaned against a wall, his hands in his pockets, and a street-lamp shone its light on the two of us.

  He looked at me, realising who I was. But he didn’t say anything because he no doubt found it natural for me to be in the heart of the Barrio Chino that night. I pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket so he could wipe away the blood dripping down over one eye. I tied it around his head and then he leaned on my shoulder, turning his head and trying to orient himself. I began to feel very tired, which happened to me frequently in those days. My knees were trembling so much that it became difficult for me to walk. My eyes were full of tears.

  ‘Let’s go home, Juan! … Let’s go!’

  ‘Do you think the punches have made me crazy, Andrea? I know very well why I’ve come here …’

  He became enraged again, and his jaw trembled.

  ‘Gloria must be home by now. She only went to see her sister to ask her to lend her money for medicine.’

  ‘Lies! She’s shameless! Who told you to get mixed up in what doesn’t concern you?’ He calmed down a little. ‘Gloria doesn’t have to ask that witch for money. Today they promised her on the phone that tomorrow at eight we’d have a hundred pesetas that they still owe me for a painting … So why is she asking for money? As if I didn’t know that her dear sister doesn’t even give her the time of day! … But she doesn’t know that today I’ll break her head! She can behave badly with me, but for her to be worse than animals are with their pups, I won’t have that. I’d rather see the bitch die once and for all! … What she likes is to drink and carry on in her sister’s house. I know her. But if she has the brains of a rabbit … like you! Like all women! … But at least let her be a mother, the miserable …!’

  All of this was peppered with curses that I remember very well, but why should I repeat them?

  He was talking as we walked. Leaning on my shoulder and pushing me at the same time. In those fingers that clutched at me I felt pierced by all the energy of his nerves. And at each step, each word, his strength grew sharper.

  I know we walked again along the same street where the fight had taken place, enveloped now in silence. Juan sniffed like a dog looking for a trail. Like one of the mangy dogs we sometimes saw rooting around in filth … The light of the moon rose above that weariness and decay. You only had to look up at the sky to see it. Down below, in the alleys, you forgot about it.

  Juan began banging at a door. The echoes of his blow answered him. Juan kept kicking and banging for a long time, until the door opened. Then he pushed me to one side and went in, leaving me in the street. I heard something like a muffled scream inside. Then nothing. The door slammed in my face.

  Suddenly I was so tired that I sat in the doorway, my head in my hands, not thinking of anything. Then I began to laugh. I covered my mouth with my hands that were trembling because my laughter was stronger than I was. The running, the exhausting pursuit was all for this! … What would happen if they didn’t come out all night? How would I find the way back home by myself? I think I began to cry then. A long time passed, perhaps an hour. Dampness rose from the softened ground. The moon illuminated the top of a house in a bath of silver. The rest was in darkness. I began to feel cold in spite of the spring night. Cold and vague fear. I began to tremble. The door opened behind me and a woman’s head looked out, cautiously, calling to me:

  ‘Pobreta! … Entra, entra.’

  I found myself in a closed shop that sold food and drinks and was lit solely by a low-watt bulb. Juan was next to the counter, turning a filled glass round and round in his fingers. From another room came an animated sound and a stream of light filtered beneath a curtain. Undoubtedly they were playing cards. ‘Where’s Gloria?’ I thought. The woman who opened the door for me was very fat and had dyed hair. She wet the tip of a pencil on her tongue and wrote something down in a book.

  ‘So it’s time now for you to find out about your affairs, Juan. It’s time you know that Gloria’s supporting you … Coming here ready to commit murder is all very nice … and my idiot sister puts up with everything instead of telling you that the only people who want your pictures are ragpickers … And you with all your gentleman’s airs on Calle de Aribau …’

  She turned to me:

  ‘Vols una mica d’aiguardent, nena?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Que delicadeta ets, noia!’

  And she began to laugh.

  Juan listened sombrely to her tongue-lashing. I couldn’t even imagine what had happened while I was in the street. Juan no longer had the handkerchief around his head. I noticed that his shirt was ripped. The woman continued:

  ‘And you can thank God, Joanet, that your wife loves you. With the body she has she could put some good horns on you without all the scares the pobreta goes through just to come here and play cards. So the great gentleman can think he’s a famous painter …’

  She began to laugh, shaking her head. Juan said:

  ‘If you don’t shut up I’ll strangle you! Pig!’

  She stood erect, threatening … But at that moment her expression changed and she smiled at Gloria who was coming through a side door. Juan heard her come in too but appeared not to see her as he looked at his glass. Gloria seemed tired. She said:

  ‘Let’s go, kid!’

  And she took Juan’s arm. No doubt he’d seen her earlier. God only knows what happened between them.

  We went out to the street. When the door closed behind us, Juan put an arm across Gloria’s back, leaning on her shoulders. We walked for a while in silence.

  ‘Did the boy die?’ asked Gloria.

  Juan shook his head and began to cry. Gloria was frightened. He embraced her, pressed her to his chest, and went on crying, shaken by spasms, until he made her cry too.

  XVI

  ROMÁN CAME IN the house impetuously, as if he’d been rejuvenated.

  ‘Have they brought my new suit?’ he asked the maid.

  ‘Yes, Señorito Román. I took it upstairs …’

  Trueno, lazy and fat, began to get up to greet Román.

  ‘This Trueno,’ said my uncle, frowning, ‘is becoming too decadent … My friend, if you keep on this way, I’ll slit your throat as if you were a pig …’

  The smile froze on the maid’s face. Her eyes began to shine.

  ‘Don’t make jokes, Señorito Román! Poor Trueno. He gets better looking every day! … Isn’t that right, Trueno? Isn’t that right, my darling?’

  The woman sat on her heels and the dog put its paws on her shoulders and licked her dark face. Román watched the scene with curiosity, his lips curved into an indefinable expression.

  ‘In any event, if the dog keeps on this way I’ll kill him … I don’t like so much happiness and so much swelling up.’

  Rom
án turned and went out. As he passed he caressed my cheeks. His black eyes were shining. The skin on his face was dark and hard, with a multitude of wrinkles, small and deep as if made with a penknife. In his brilliant, curly black hair, a few white strands. For the first time I thought about Román’s age. I thought about it precisely on that day, when he seemed younger.

  ‘Do you need money, little one? I want to give you a present. I made a good business deal.’

  I don’t know what impelled me to respond:

  ‘I don’t need anything. Thanks, Román …’

  He wore a half smile, confused.

  ‘All right. I’ll give you cigarettes. I have some terrific ones …’

  He seemed to want to say something else. He stopped as he was leaving.

  ‘I know “those two” are going through a good period now,’ and he pointed ironically at Juan’s room. ‘I can’t be away from home for so long …’

  I didn’t say anything. Finally he left.

  ‘Did you hear?’ Gloria said. ‘Román bought himself a new suit … and some silk shirts, kid … What do you think of that?’

  ‘I think it’s fine.’ I shrugged.

  ‘Román’s never thought about his clothes. Tell me the truth, Andrea. Do you think he’s in love? Román falls in love very easily, kid!’

  Gloria was getting uglier. During the month of May her face had become very thin and her narrow eyes looked sunken.

  ‘Román liked you too in the beginning, didn’t he? Now he doesn’t like you. Now he likes your friend Ena.’

  The idea that my uncle could have been interested in me as a woman was so idiotic I was stunned. ‘How are our actions and words interpreted by minds like hers?’ I thought in astonishment, looking at Gloria’s white forehead.

  I went outside, still thinking about these things. I walked quickly, distracted, but I realised that an old man with a red nose was crossing the street and coming towards me. And possessed by my usual discomfort, I crossed to the other side but couldn’t avoid our meeting in the middle. He was out of breath as he passed close to me, lifted his old cap, and greeted me.