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  That illuminated twinkling of the stars brought back in a rush all my hopes regarding Barcelona until the moment I’d entered this atmosphere of perverse people and furniture. I was afraid to get into the bed that resembled a coffin. I think I was trembling with undefinable terrors when I put out the candle.

  II

  AT DAWN, THE bedclothes were on the floor in a jumble. I was cold and pulled them up over my body.

  The first trams were beginning to cross the city, and on one of them I could hear the clanging bell, muffled by the closed house, the way I could that summer when I was seven and had made my last visit to my grandparents. I immediately had a hazy perception, but one as vivid and fresh as if it had come to me with the scent of a recently cut fruit, of the Barcelona in my memory: this sound of the first trams, when Aunt Angustias would cross in front of my improvised little bed to close the blinds that were letting in too much light. Or at night, when the heat didn’t let me sleep and the clatter came up the slope of Calle de Aribau, while the breeze carried in the scent of the branches of green, dusty plane trees under the open balcony. And Barcelona was broad pavements, damp after being washed down, and a great number of people drinking at a café … All the rest, the large, brightly lit shops, the cars, the bustle, even the ride the day before from the station, which I’d added to my idea of the city, was something pale and false, constructed artificially, just as things that have been worked and handled too much lose their original freshness.

  Without opening my eyes I once again felt a warm wave of good fortune. I was in Barcelona. I had heaped too many dreams onto this concrete fact for that first sound of the city not to seem a miracle, telling me so clearly it was a reality as true as my body or the rough touch of the blanket against my cheek. I thought I’d had bad dreams, but now I was resting in this joy.

  When I opened my eyes I saw my grandmother looking at me. Not the little old woman of the previous night, small and wasted, but a woman with an oval face behind the little tulle veil of a hat in the style of the previous century. She smiled very gently, and the blue silk of her dress had a tender palpitation. Next to her, in the shadows, my grandfather, very handsome with his heavy chestnut-brown beard and blue eyes under straight eyebrows.

  I’d never seen them together during that period in their life, and I was curious to know the name of the artist who had signed the paintings. That’s how the two of them looked when they came to Barcelona fifty years ago. There was the long, difficult history of their love – I couldn’t remember exactly what it was … perhaps something connected to the loss of a fortune. But in those days the world was optimistic and they loved each other very much. They were the first tenants in this flat on Calle de Aribau, which was just beginning to take shape then. There were still a good many empty plots, and perhaps the smell of earth brought memories to my grandmother of a garden somewhere else. I imagined her in the same blue dress, the same charming hat, walking for the first time into the empty apartment that still smelled of paint. ‘I’d like to live here,’ she must have thought when she saw empty spaces through the windows, ‘it’s almost in the outskirts, and it’s so quiet! And the house is so clean, so new …’ Because they came to Barcelona with a hope contrary to the one that had brought me: they wanted rest, and secure, methodical work. The city I thought of as the great change in my life was their safe haven.

  The apartment with its eight balconies filled with curtains – lace, velvet, bows; the trunks spilled out their trinkets, some of them valuable. Ornate clocks gave the house its vital pulse, and a piano – how could there not be one? – its languid Cuban airs at twilight.

  Though not very young they had many children, like in stories … In the meantime, Calle de Aribau was growing. Buildings as tall as this one and even taller formed its dense, broad blocks. The trees stretched their branches and the first electric tram added its peculiar characteristics. The building was ageing, renovations were made, there were several changes in owners and porters, and they continued like an immutable institution in their first flat.

  When I was the only grandchild I spent the most exciting times of my childhood there. The house was no longer quiet. It had been enclosed in the heart of the city. Lights, noises, the entire tide of life broke against those balconies with their velvet curtains. Inside it was overflowing too; there were too many people. For me the uproar was wonderful. All my aunts and uncles bought me sweets and rewarded me for mischief I did to other people. By then my grandparents had white hair, but they were still strong and they laughed at all my tricks. Could all this be so distant? …

  I had a feeling of uncertainty about everything that had changed there, and this feeling intensified a good deal when I had to think about confronting the people I’d glimpsed the night before. ‘What are they like?’ I was thinking. And I stayed in bed, hesitating, not daring to face them.

  In the light of day the room had lost its horror, but not its awful disorder, its absolute abandonment. The portraits of my grandparents hung crooked and frameless on a dark-papered wall with damp stains, and a sunbeam was climbing up toward them.

  It made me happy to think that the two of them had been dead for years. It made me happy to think that the young woman in the tulle veil had nothing to do with the little unrecognisable mummy who had opened the door for me. But the truth was that she was living, however lamentably, among the piles of useless furniture that had accumulated over time in her house.

  Three years ago, when my grandfather died, the family had decided to keep only half the flat. The old trinkets and excess furniture formed a real avalanche, which the workmen responsible for plastering over the communicating door had piled up at random. And the house remained in the provisional disorder they left behind.

  On the chair I had climbed the night before I saw a cat with matted fur licking its paws in the sun. The creature looked ruinous, like everything surrounding it. The cat stared at me with large eyes, apparently endowed with their own individuality, something like brilliant green glasses placed above its snout and greying whiskers. I rubbed my eyes and looked again. The animal arched its back and its spine was prominent in its skinny body. I couldn’t help thinking that it bore a singular family resemblance to the rest of the people in the house; like them, it had an eccentric appearance and seemed spiritualised, as if it had been consumed by long fasts, a lack of light, and perhaps periods of meditation. I smiled and began to dress.

  When I opened the door of my room I found myself in the gloomy, crowded foyer into which almost all the rooms in the house converged. Across from me I saw the dining room, its balcony open to the sun. On my way I stumbled over a bone, stripped clean, surely by the dog. No one was in the room except for a parrot, ruminating over private matters, almost laughing. I always believed that animal was crazy. At the most inopportune moments it would screech in a hair-raising way. There was a large table, an empty sugar bowl abandoned on top of it. On a chair, a faded rubber doll.

  I was hungry, but there was nothing edible except for what was painted in the many still-lifes that covered the walls, and I was looking at them when Aunt Angustias called to me.

  My aunt’s room communicated with the dining room and had a balcony facing the street. She was sitting, her back to me, at a small desk. I stopped in astonishment when I saw the room, because it looked clean and orderly, as if it were a world apart in that house. A mirrored wardrobe and a large crucifix blocked another door that led to the foyer; beside the bed there was a telephone.

  My aunt turned her head to observe my astonishment with a certain satisfaction.

  We were silent for a while and from the door I initiated a friendly smile.

  ‘Come, Andrea,’ she said. ‘Sit down.’

  I noticed that in the light of day Angustias seemed to have swelled, acquiring masses and forms under her green housecoat, and I smiled to myself, thinking that in first impressions my imagination had played bad tricks on me.

  ‘My child, I don’t know how you’ve been br
ought up …’

  (From the beginning, Angustias had started to talk as if preparing to make a speech).

  I opened my mouth to respond, but she interrupted with a movement of her finger.

  ‘I know you did part of your bachillerato in a secondary school run by nuns and stayed there during most of the war. That, for me, is a guarantee. But … those two years you spent with your cousin – your father’s family has always been very strange – in a small town, what must that have been like? I won’t deny, Andrea, that I’ve spent the night worried about you, and thinking … The task that has fallen into my hands is very difficult. The task of looking after you, of moulding you in obedience … Will I succeed? I think so. It’s up to you to make that easier for me.’

  She didn’t allow me to say anything and I swallowed her words in surprise, not understanding very well.

  ‘Cities, my child, are hell. And in all of Spain no city resembles hell more than Barcelona. I’m concerned about your coming from the station alone last night. Something could have happened to you. People live on top of each other here, they ambush each other. Total prudence in one’s conduct is not enough, for the devil disguises himself in tempting ways … A young girl in Barcelona must be like a fortress. Do you understand?’

  ‘No, Aunt.’

  Angustias looked at me.

  ‘You’re not very intelligent, my girl.’

  Again we were silent.

  ‘I’ll say it another way: you’re my niece; therefore, you’re a girl of good family, well-behaved, Christian, and innocent. If I don’t concern myself with everything that has to do with you, you’ll encounter a multitude of dangers in Barcelona. And so I want to tell you that I won’t allow you to take a step without my permission. Do you understand now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good, now let’s move on to another issue. Why have you come?’

  I answered quickly:

  ‘To study.’

  (On the inside, my entire being was shaken by the question.)

  ‘To study literature, is that it? … Yes, I’ve already received a letter from your cousin Isabel. All right, I won’t oppose that, but only as long as you know that you owe everything to us, your mother’s family. And that thanks to our charity, you’ll achieve your goals.’

  ‘I don’t know if you know …’

  ‘Yes; you have an allowance of two hundred pesetas a month, which these days isn’t enough to take care of even half your expenses … Haven’t you won a scholarship to the university?’

  ‘No, but I have free matriculation.’

  ‘That isn’t because you deserve it, it’s because you’re an orphan.’

  Once again I was confused, then Angustias resumed the conversation in a surprising way.

  ‘I have to let you know a few things. If it didn’t hurt me to speak ill of my brothers, I’d tell you that since the war they’ve been troubled by their nerves … Both of them suffered a great deal, my child, and my heart suffered with them … They repay me with ingratitude, but I forgive them and pray for them. Still, I have to put you on your guard …’

  She lowered her voice until she had reached a murmur that was almost tender:

  ‘Your Uncle Juan has married an absolutely inappropriate woman. A woman who is ruining his life. Andrea, if I find out one day that you were her friend, you can be certain I’ll be very displeased, and very sorry …’

  I sat facing Angustias on a hard chair that dug into my thighs under my skirt. I was desperate, too, because she’d said I couldn’t make a move without her permission. And without any compassion I judged her to be not very bright, and authoritarian. I’ve made so many bad judgments in my life that I still don’t know if that one was correct. What’s certain is that when she became tender to speak ill of Gloria, my aunt seemed very hateful to me. I believe I thought that perhaps it wouldn’t be unpleasant to displease her a little, and I began to observe her out of the corner of my eye. I saw that her features, taken together, weren’t ugly and her hands even had a very beautiful shape. I looked for some repugnant detail in her as she continued her monologue of commands and advice, and at last, when she was about to let me go, I saw the dirty colour of her teeth …

  ‘Give me a kiss, Andrea,’she said at that moment.

  I brushed her hair with my lips and rushed to the dining room before she could trap me and kiss me in turn.

  By now people were in the dining room. I immediately saw Gloria who, wrapped in an old kimono, was feeding spoonfuls of thick pap to a baby. When she saw me, she smiled and said hello.

  I felt oppressed as if I were under a sky heavy with storms, but apparently I wasn’t the only one who had the dusty taste of nervous tension in her throat.

  A man on the other side of the table, with curly hair and an amiable, intelligent face, was busy oiling a pistol. I knew he was another of my uncles: Román. He came over right away to embrace me with a great deal of affection. The black dog I’d seen behind the maid the night before followed his every step. He said the dog’s name was Trueno and that he belonged to him; animals seemed to have an instinctive affection for him. Even I felt touched by a wave of pleasure at his affectionate exuberance. In my honour, he took the parrot from the cage and had him do a few tricks. The bird was still murmuring something as if talking to himself; then I realised they were curses. Román laughed with a happy expression.

  ‘The poor creature is very used to hearing them.’ In the meantime, Gloria looked at us enthralled, forgetting about her son’s pap. Román changed so brusquely that I was disconcerted.

  ‘But have you seen how stupid that woman is?’ he said, almost shouting, and not looking at her at all. ‘Have you seen how “that one” looks at me?’

  I was astonished. A nervous Gloria shouted:

  ‘I don’t look at you at all, kid.’

  ‘Do you see?’ Román kept talking to me. ‘Now that piece of trash has the gall to talk to me.’

  I thought my uncle had gone mad and I looked in terror towards the door. Juan had come in when he heard their voices.

  ‘You’re provoking me, Román!’ he shouted.

  ‘You, keep your shirt on and shut up!’ said Román, turning towards him.

  Juan approached, his face contorted, and the two of them assumed the posture, at once ridiculous and sinister, of fighting cocks.

  ‘Go on, man, hit me if you dare!’ said Román. ‘I’d like to see you try!’

  ‘Hit you? I’ll kill you! … I should have killed you a long time ago …’

  Juan was beside himself, the veins in his forehead bulging, but he didn’t move forward. His fists were clenched.

  Román looked at him calmly and began to smile.

  ‘Here’s my pistol,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t provoke me. Swine! … Don’t provoke me or …’

  ‘Juan!’ Gloria shrieked. ‘Come here!’

  The parrot began to scream, and I saw that Gloria was excited under the dishevelled red hair. No one paid attention to her. Juan looked at her for a few seconds.

  ‘Here’s my pistol!’ Román was saying, and Juan clenched his fists even tighter.

  Gloria shrieked again:

  ‘Juan! Juan!’

  ‘Shut up, you bitch!’

  ‘Come here, kid! Come on!’

  ‘Shut up!’

  Juan’s rage swerved for an instant towards his wife and he began to insult her. She shouted too, and finally burst into tears.

  Román watched them in amusement; then he turned towards me and said, to reassure me:

  ‘Don’t be frightened, little one. This happens here every day.’

  I looked at the gun shining in his hands, black, carefully oiled. He put it in his pocket. Román smiled at me and caressed my cheeks; then he left calmly, while the argument between Gloria and Juan became more and more violent. In the doorway Román bumped into my grandmother, who was coming back from her daily Mass, and he caressed her as he passed. She came into the dining room at the very moment tha
t Aunt Angustias, who was angry too, came in to demand silence.

  Juan picked up the little boy’s dish of pap and threw it at her head. He had bad aim and the dish shattered against the door that Aunt Angustias had quickly closed. The baby was crying and drooling.

  Then Juan began to calm down. Granny took off the black shawl that covered her head and sighed.

  And the maid came in to set the table for breakfast. As she had done the night before, this woman drew all my attention. Her ugly face wore a defiant, almost triumphant expression, and she hummed provocatively as she spread the tattered tablecloth and began to set down cups as if, in this way, she were bringing the argument to a close.

  III

  ‘DID YOU HAVE a good time, dear?’ Angustias asked me when, still dazzled by the light, we walked into the flat after being out.

  As she asked the question, her right hand grasped my shoulder and pulled me towards her. When Angustias embraced me or called me by affectionate names, I had the feeling deep inside that there was something crooked and wrong in the way things were going. That it wasn’t natural. Still, I should have been used to it because Angustias embraced me and used endearments with great frequency.

  Sometimes I thought she was obsessed by me. She circled round me. She’d look for me if I took refuge in some corner. When she saw me laughing, or interested in the conversation of anybody else in the house, her words became humble. She’d sit beside me and force me to rest my head on her breast. My neck would hurt, but held down by her hand, I’d have to stay that way while she admonished me gently. When she thought I was sad or frightened, however, she’d become very happy and be authoritarian again.