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  ‘“Now, Joanet, have a little drink with me and in no time your wife will settle up her winnings with these friends and go home to take care of your nen.”

  ‘Then my head began working overtime. When my sister took Juan into the shop, I began to think that if Juan came it was because you or your grandmother had phoned him, and at that time of night the most likely thing was that the baby was dead … Because I think a lot, kid. You wouldn’t think so, would you? Well, I think a lot.

  ‘I felt so sad and sorry I couldn’t count my money that was on the table where we were playing … Because I love the nen a lot; he’s really cute, isn’t he? Poor thing! …

  ‘Carmeta’s so good, she settled up for me. And there was no more talk about my having cheated … Then I saw you with Juan and my sister. Imagine the daze I was in, I almost wasn’t surprised. I could only think one thing: ‘The nen’s dead, the nen’s dead’ … And then you could see that Juan really loved me when I said that to him … Because men really fall in love with me, kid. They can’t forget me so easily, don’t kid yourself … Juan and I had loved each other so much …’

  We were silent. I began to dress. Gloria was calming down, and she stretched her arms lazily. Suddenly she stared at me.

  ‘What strange feet you have! So skinny! They look like Christ’s feet!’

  ‘Yes, that’s true,’ – in the end, Gloria always made me smile – ‘while yours are like the feet of the muses …’

  ‘Very pretty, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yes.’

  (They were small, white feet, shapely and childlike.)

  We heard the street door. Juan was going out. My grandmother appeared, wearing a smile.

  ‘He took the baby out for a walk … This son of mine is so good! … Naughty girl,’ – she was talking to Gloria – ‘why do you answer back and get him involved in arguments? Ay, ay! Don’t you know that with men you always have to give in?’

  Gloria smiled and caressed my grandmother. She began to apply mascara. Another ragman went by and she called to him from the window. My grandmother shook her head in agitation.

  ‘Quick, quick, girl, before Juan or Román come back … Imagine if Román comes back! I don’t want to think about it!’

  ‘These things are yours, Mamá, not your son’s. Isn’t that right, Andrea? Am I going to let the baby go hungry just to save this junk? Besides, Román owes Juan money. I know …’

  My grandmother left, avoiding – as she said – complications. She looked very thin. Beneath the tangle of white hair her transparent ears protruded.

  While I showered and then, in the kitchen, while I ironed my dress – under the bitter eyes of Antonia, who never tolerated intrusions into her kingdom very well – I heard Gloria’s shrill voice and the hoarse one of the drapaire arguing in Catalan. I thought of something that Gloria had told me a long time ago, referring to the story of her and Juan: ‘… It was like the end of a film. It was like the end of all sadness. We were going to be happy …’ That happened a very long time ago, when, overcoming all the madness of the war, Juan came back to the woman who’d given him a child to make her his wife. They hardly remembered that … But not long ago, on that desperate night, which Gloria’s talk had recalled for me, I’d seen them again fused into one until they could feel the pounding of each other’s blood, loving each other, leaning on each other in the same sorrow. And it was like the end of all hatred, all incomprehension.

  ‘If on that night’ – I thought – ‘the world had ended or one of them had died, their story would have been completely closed and beautiful, like a circle.’ That’s how it happens in novels, in films, but not in life … I was realising, for the first time, that everything goes on, turns grey, is ruined in the living. That there is no end to our story until death comes and the body decays …

  ‘What are you looking at, Andrea? … What are you looking at in the mirror with those wide-open eyes?’

  Gloria, in a good mood now, appeared at my back as I finished dressing. Behind her I saw my grandmother, her face radiant. The old lady feared those sales that Gloria made. She firmly believed that the ragmen were doing us a huge favour by accepting old furniture, and her heart pounded in alarm as Gloria argued with the buyer. Trembling, she would pray before her dusty altar that the Mother of God would soon free her daughter-in-law of this humiliation. When the terrible man left, she breathed more easily, like a child leaving the doctor’s office.

  I looked at her with affection. Where she was concerned, I always felt a vague remorse. Some nights, when I came back to the house during times of great penury when I couldn’t afford to eat lunch or supper, I’d find on my night table a plate with some unappetising vegetables, boiled for many hours, or a crust of bread left there by ‘accident’. Driven by a need stronger than I was, I’d eat those mouthfuls that the poor creature had deprived herself of, and I’d be disgusted with myself when I did. The next day I’d hover clumsily near my grandmother. I detected so sweet a smile in her light eyes when she looked at me that I was moved as if the roots of my spirit were clutching at me until I wanted to cry. If, impelled by my feelings, I’d put my arms around her, I’d encounter a little body, hard and cold as if made of wire, inside which beat a surprisingly strong heart.

  Gloria leaned toward me, touching my back through my blouse with a certain satisfaction.

  ‘You’re thin too, Andrea …’

  Then quickly, so that my grandmother wouldn’t hear her:

  ‘Your friend Ena is coming to Román’s room this afternoon.’

  (A turbulence rose inside me.)

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because he just asked the maid to go up and clean it and buy liquor … I’m not a fool, kid,’ – and then, narrowing her eyes – ‘your friend is Román’s mistress.’

  I turned so red that she became frightened and moved away from me. My grandmother observed us with uneasy eyes.

  ‘You’re like an animal,’ I said, furious. ‘You and Juan are like beasts. Can’t there be anything else between a man and a woman? Can’t you conceive of anything else in love? Oh! You’re filthy!’

  The violence of my feelings pressed inside my head, making me shed tears. At that moment I was terrified for Ena. I loved her and couldn’t bear those corrosive words about her life.

  Gloria twisted her mouth into a rictus that was an ironic smile, but it calmed me because I realised that she was about to cry too. My grandmother, frightened and aggrieved, said:

  ‘Andrea! My grandchild talking like that!’

  I said to Gloria:

  ‘Why do you think something so vile about a girl who’s my friend?’

  ‘Because I know Román very well … Want me to tell you something? Román tried to be my lover after I married Juan … You see, what can you expect from a man like that?’

  ‘All right. But I know Ena … She belongs to a class of human beings that you can’t imagine, Gloria … She might be interested in Román as a friend, but …’

  (I found relief in saying these things aloud and at the same time began to find the conversation with Gloria about my friend repugnant. I stopped speaking.)

  I turned and left the apartment. My grandmother touched my dress as I passed her.

  ‘Child! Child! So this is my little granddaughter who never gets angry! Jesus, Jesus!’

  I don’t know what bitter, salty taste I had in my mouth. I slammed the door as if I were just like them. Just like all of them …

  I was so nervous I kept feeling tears in my eyes, even on the street. The sky looked heavy with hot, oppressive clouds. Other people’s words, old words, began to pursue me and dance in my ears. Ena’s voice: ‘You eat too little, Andrea, and you’re a hysteric …’ ‘You’re a hysteric, you’re a hysteric …’ ‘Why are you crying if you’re not a hysteric? …’ ‘What reasons do you have to cry? …’ I saw that people were looking at me with a certain surprise and I bit my lips with rage when I realised it … ‘I’m making nervous faces like Ju
an’ … ‘Now I’m going crazy too’ … ‘People have been driven crazy by hunger’ …

  I went down the Ramblas to the port. The thought of Ena had a softening effect, she inspired so much affection in me. Her own mother had assured me of her esteem. She, so loved, so radiant, admired and valued me. I felt exalted at the thought that a providential mission had been asked of me. But I didn’t know if my intervention in her life would really do any good. Gloria telling me of her visit this afternoon filled me with uneasiness.

  I was at the port. The enclosed ocean presented its brilliant oil stains to my eyes; the smell of pitch, of ropes, penetrated me deeply. The ships were enormous, their sides extremely high. At times the water seemed to tremble as if struck by a fish’s tail, a small boat, an oar. I was there at midday in summer. From some deck, perhaps, Nordic blue eyes would see me as a tiny brush stroke on a foreign print … I, a Spanish girl with dark hair, standing for a moment on a dock in the port of Barcelona. In a few seconds life would move on, displacing me to some other point. I’d find myself with my body framed by another print … ‘Perhaps,’ I thought at last, overcome as always by my martyrised instincts – ‘eating somewhere.’ I had very little money, but I did have some. Slowly, I went towards the carefree bars and restaurants of Barceloneta. On sunny days, blue or white, they sound their joyful marine note. Some have terraces where people with good appetites eat rice and shellfish, stimulated by the warm, red odours of summer rising from the beaches or the inner harbours of the port.

  That day a grey, burning wind blew from the sea. I heard someone say it was storm weather. I ordered beer and some cheese and almonds … The bar where I was sitting was in a two-storey house, stained indigo and adorned with nautical implements. I was at one of the little tables on the street and it almost seemed that the ground beneath me would begin to vibrate, driven by some hidden motor, and take me far away … and open horizons for me once again. This longing, always repeated in my life, that would blossom under any pretext.

  I sat there for a long time … My head hurt. At last, very slowly, the sacks of wool of the clouds weighing on my shoulders, I returned to my house. I made some detours. I stopped … But, as the hours unwound, it seemed that an invisible thread was pulling at me from Calle de Aribau, from the front door, from Román’s room at the top of the house … Half the afternoon had gone by when that force became irresistible and I walked through our building door.

  As I climbed the stairs the familiar, anodyne silence with which it was impregnated seized me in its claws. Through a broken window I could hear – on one of the landings – a maid singing in the courtyard.

  Román and Ena were up there and I had to go there too. I didn’t understand why I was so sure about my friend’s presence. Gloria’s suppositions were not enough to make me so certain. Like a dog searching for someone, I sensed her presence in my nostrils. I, who was used to allowing the course of events pull me along with it, was moved by this behaviour that apparently was going to force matters.

  As I climbed each step I had the impression that my shoes were growing heavier. All the blood in my body went down to my legs, and my face paled. When I reached Román’s door my hands were icy and perspiring at the same time. I stopped there. To my right, the open door to the roof gave me the idea of walking through it. I couldn’t stand indefinitely in front of Román’s room and I couldn’t decide to knock, either, though I heard something like a murmur of conversation. I needed a small interlude to calm down. I went out to the flat roof. Beneath an increasingly menacing sky there appeared – like a flock of enormous white birds – the panorama of roofs almost falling down on me. I heard Ena’s laugh. A laugh in which the forced notes made me shiver. The little window of Román’s room was open. On an impulse, I got down on all fours, like a cat, and crawled, in order not to be seen, to the opening and sat down under it. Ena’s voice was loud and clear:

  ‘For you, Román it all turned out to be too simple a deal. What did you think? That I’d marry you? That I’d go around in a panic my whole life, like my mother, fearing your demands for money?’

  ‘Now you’ll listen to me …’ Román spoke in a tone I’d never heard him use before.

  ‘No. There’s nothing else to say. I have all the proofs. You know you’re in my hands. Finally this nightmare will end …’

  ‘But you’re going to listen to me, aren’t you? Even if you don’t want to … I’ve never asked your mother for money. I don’t believe you have any proof of blackmail …’

  Román’s voice slithered like a serpent as it reached me.

  Rapidly, without thinking about it, I slid along the wall, left the roof, and hurled myself at my uncle’s door, banging on it. They didn’t answer and I knocked again. Then Román opened the door.

  At first I didn’t realise he was so pale. My eyes drank in the image of Ena, who seemed very much at ease, sitting and smoking. She gave me a sullen look. The fingers holding the cigarette trembled a little.

  ‘Opportunity’s your name, Andrea,’ she said coldly.

  ‘Ena, darling … I thought you were here. I came up to say hello …’

  (That’s what I wanted to say, or something like that. Still, I don’t know if I managed to finish the sentence.)

  Román seemed to react. His intense eyes took in Ena and me.

  ‘Go on, little one, be a good girl … go away.’

  He was very agitated.

  Unexpectedly, Ena got to her feet with her elastic and very rapid movements, and I found that she was beside me, grabbing my arm before Román and I had time to think about it. In confusion I felt her heart pounding as she came close to my body. I couldn’t say if it was her heart or mine that was frightened.

  Román began to smile, with the beautiful, strained smile I knew so well.

  ‘Do what you like, little ones.’ He was looking at Ena, not at me, only at Ena. ‘But I’m surprised by this sudden departure when we were in the middle of our conversation, Ena. You know it can’t end this way … You know that.’

  I don’t know why Román’s amiable, tense tone frightened me so much. His eyes glittered as he looked at my friend, just as Juan’s eyes glittered when his brain was about to explode.

  Ena pushed me towards the door. She made a slight, mocking bow.

  ‘We’ll talk another day, Román. Until then don’t forget what I’ve told you. Goodbye! …’

  She was smiling too. Her eyes were brilliant as well, and she was extremely pale.

  It was then, at that moment, that I realised that Román had kept his right hand in his pocket the whole time. That he was holding something. I don’t know what swerve of my imagination made me think about his black pistol when my uncle intensified his smile. It was a matter of seconds. I threw my arms around him like a madwoman and yelled at Ena to run.

  I felt Román’s shove and saw his face, finally free of that anguished tension. Swept clean by a tremendous anger.

  ‘Idiot! Did you really think I was going to shoot you both?’

  He looked at me, his serenity recovered. I’d been hit in the back when I bumped into the staircase railing. Román passed his hand across his forehead to push away his curly hair. To my eyes, in rapid descent – it had happened on other occasions – his features aged prematurely. Then he turned his back on me and went back into his room.

  My body hurt. A gust of dusty air banged the door to the roof. In the distance I heard the hoarse warning of trueno.

  I found Ena waiting for me on a landing. Her glance was the mocking glance of her worst moments.

  ‘Andrea, why are you so tragic, darling?’

  Her eyes wounded me. She raised her head and her lips curved in unbearable scorn.

  I felt like hitting her. Then my fury struck me as a despair that made me turn my head and race down the stairs, almost killing myself, blinded by tears … The familiar physiognomies of the doors, their mats, their shining or opaque knockers, the nameplates announcing the occupation of each tenant … ‘Practition
er,’ ‘Tailor’ … danced, threw themselves at me, disappeared, devoured by my tears.

  And so I reached the street, scourged by the uncontainable explosion of suffering that made me run, removing myself from everything. And so, bumping into passers-by, I raced down Calle de Aribau toward the plaza of the university.

  XXI

  THAT STORMY SKY entered my lungs and blinded me with sorrow. The odours of Calle de Aribau filed quickly through the grief-stricken mist that enveloped me. Odour of perfume shop, chemist, food shop. Odour of street that a dust cloud bears down on, in the belly of a suffocatingly dark sky.

  The plaza of the university appeared as still and enormous as in a nightmare. As if the few pedestrians crossing it, and the automobiles and trams, had been attacked by paralysis. Someone remains in my memory with one foot raised: that’s how strange my vision of everything was and how quickly I forgot what I’d seen.

  I found I was no longer crying, but my throat ached and my temples were throbbing. I leaned against the university garden railing, as I had on that day that Ena remembered. The day on which, apparently, I didn’t realise that rain was pouring down on me …

  An old sheet of paper blew against my knees. I looked at the thick air, crushed against the earth, which was beginning to make the dust and leaves fly around in a macabre dance of dead things. I felt the pain of solitude, more unbearable, because repeated, than the one that had assailed me when I left Pons’ house a few days earlier. Now it was like a punishment that my weeping had ended. It scraped inside me, wounding my eyelids and my throat.

  I didn’t think or expect anything when I sensed a human presence next to me. It was Ena, agitated, as if she had been running. I turned slowly – it seemed as if the springs in my body weren’t working, as if I were ill and any movement was difficult for me. I saw that her eyes were filled with tears. It was the first time I’d seen her cry.