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  ‘Where were you going, Gloria?’

  ‘Oh, kid, it was nothing bad. To see my sister, you know … I know you don’t believe me, but that’s where I was going, I swear. It’s just that Juan doesn’t let me go, and he watches me during the day. But don’t look at me like that, don’t look at me like that, Andrea, that face you put on really makes me want to laugh.’

  ‘Bah!’ said Román. ‘I’m glad Angustias is leaving, because right now she’s a living piece of the past that interferes with the progress of things … My things. She bothers all of us, she reminds all of us that we aren’t mature, rounded, settled people like her, but blindly rushing waters pounding at the earth the best we can in order to erupt where least expected … For all of that I’m glad. When she leaves I’ll love her, Andrea, you know? And I’ll be touched by the memory of her hideous felt hat with the feather sticking up, to the very end, like a banner … indicating that the heart of the home that once was and that the rest of us have lost, is still beating.’ He turned to me, smiling, as if the two of us shared a secret. ‘At the same time I’m sorry she’s leaving, because I won’t be able to read the love letters she receives any more, or her diary … What sentimental letters and what a masochistic diary! Reading it satisfied all my instincts for cruelty …’

  And Román licked his red lips with his tongue.

  Juan and I seemed to be the only ones with no opinion about how events were developing. I was too astounded, because the only desire in my life had been for people to leave me alone to do what I wanted, and at that moment it seemed the time had come for me to achieve it without any effort on my part. I thought of the muffled battle I’d had for two years with my cousin Isabel until she finally let me leave her and attend the university. When I arrived in Barcelona I was fresh from my first victory, but I immediately found other vigilant eyes watching me and I became accustomed to the game of hiding, resisting … Now, suddenly, I would find myself without an enemy.

  During this time I became humble with Angustias. I’d have kissed her hands if she had wanted that. A terrible joy seemed to hollow out my chest at times. I didn’t think about the others, I didn’t think about Angustias: only about me.

  I was surprised, however, at the absence of Don Jerónimo in that interminable parade of friends. They were all women except for some big-bellied husband who’d occasionally put in an appearance.

  ‘It’s like a wake, don’t you think?’ shouted Antonia from her kitchen.

  At those times macabre thoughts came to all our imaginations.

  Gloria told me that Don Jerónimo and Angustias saw each other every morning in church, and she knew it for a fact … All of Angustias’ story was like a novel from the last century.

  On the day Aunt Angustias left, I remember that the various members of the family were up almost at dawn. We ran into each other in the house, possessed by nervousness. Juan began to roar curses at the slightest thing. At the last minute we all decided to go to the station, except Román. Román was the only one who didn’t appear all day. Then, long afterwards, he told me he’d been at church very early in the morning, following Angustias and watching how she confessed. I imagined Román with his ears straining towards that long confession, envying the poor priest, old and tired, who dispassionately poured absolution on my aunt’s head.

  The taxi was full. Three of Angustias’ friends came with us, her three closest friends.

  The baby was frightened and clutched at Juan’s neck. They almost never took him out, and though he was fat, his skin had a sad-looking colour in the sun.

  On the platform we stood in groups around Angustias, who kissed and embraced us. Granny appeared tearful after the last embrace.

  We formed so grotesque a gathering that some people turned around to look at us.

  A few minutes before it was time for the train to leave, Angustias climbed into the coach and looked at us from the window, hieratic, weeping, sad, almost blessing us, like a saint.

  Juan was nervous, making ironic faces in all directions, frightening Angustias’ friends – who grouped together as far from him as possible – with his rolling eyes. His legs began to tremble inside his trousers. He couldn’t control himself.

  ‘Don’t play the martyr, Angustias, you’re not fooling anybody! You’re feeling more pleasure than a thief with his pockets full … You don’t fool me with this farce of sanctity!’

  The train began to move and Angustias crossed herself and covered her ears because Juan’s voice could be heard all over the platform.

  Gloria seized her husband by his jacket, terrified. And he turned with his madman’s eyes, in a fury, trembling as if he were about to suffer an epileptic attack. Then he began to run after the train, shouting things that Angustias could no longer hear.

  ‘You’re a wretch! Do you hear me? You didn’t marry him because your father decided to tell you that a shopkeeper’s son wasn’t good enough for you … That’s whyyyy! And when he came back from America, married and rich, you amused yourself with him, you’ve been stealing him from his wife for twenty years … and now you don’t have the courage to go away with him because you think all of Calle de Aribau and all of Barcelona care what you do … And you have contempt for my wife! You evil woman! You and your saint’s halo!’

  People began to laugh and follow him to the end of the platform, where he was still shouting after the train had left. Tears ran down his cheeks and he was laughing, satisfied. The trip back to the house was a calamity.

  PART TWO

  X

  I LEFT ENA’S house in a daze and had the impression that it must be very late. All the street doors were locked, and the sky was pouring a dense shower of stars over the roofs.

  For the first time I felt at large and free in the city, not fearing the phantom of time. I’d had a few drinks that evening. So much heat and excitement rose from my body that I didn’t feel the cold or even – at moments – the force of gravity under my feet.

  I stopped in the middle of Vía Layetana and looked at the tall building where my friend lived on the top floor. No light could be seen through the closed blinds, though when I had left people were still gathered there, and the comfortable rooms inside must have been illuminated. Perhaps Ena’s mother had sat at the piano again to sing. A chill ran down my spine when I remembered the ardent voice that seemed to burn as it flowed out, enveloping the owner’s wasted body in radiance.

  That voice had stirred up all the sediment of sentimentality and run-away romanticism of my eighteen years. After she stopped singing I became restless, longing to escape everything else around me. It seemed impossible that the others could keep smoking and eating snacks. Ena herself, though she had listened to her mother with sombre, absorbed attention, opened up again, laughing and sparkling among her friends, as if the gathering, spontaneously begun late in the afternoon, would never end. Suddenly I had found myself on the street. I’d almost fled, impelled by a restlessness as strong and unspecified as all the others tormenting me at that age.

  I didn’t know if I needed to walk past silent houses in some sleeping neighbourhood, breathing in the black wind from the sea, or to feel the lights surging from the signs whose coloured bulbs tinted the atmosphere in the centre of the city. I still wasn’t sure what would do more to calm the almost agonising thirst for beauty that listening to Ena’s mother had left in me. Vía Layetana itself increased my perplexity as it sloped gently down from the Plaza de Urquinaona, where the sky was stained by the red of artificial lights, to the large post office building and the port, bathed in shadows and silvery with starlight above the white flames in the street-lamps.

  Gravely, in the wintry air, I heard the eleven o’clock bells joining in a concert that came from the towers of old churches.

  Vía Layetana, so broad, large, and new, crossed the heart of the old neighbourhood. Then I knew what I longed for: I wanted to see the Cathedral enveloped in the charm and mystery of the night. Without thinking any more I hurried towards the darkne
ss of the narrow streets that surrounded it. Nothing could calm and astound my imagination like that Gothic city sinking among damp houses built without style in the midst of those venerable stones, but which the years had also covered with a patina of unique charm, as if they had been infected by beauty.

  The cold seemed more intense channelled in the twisting streets. And the sky turned into glittering strips between roofs that almost touched. The solitude was overwhelming, as if all the residents of the city had died. An occasional lament of air throbbed in the doorways. Nothing else.

  When I reached the apse of the Cathedral, I stared at the dance of lights cast by the street-lamps against its thousands of nooks and corners, making them romantic and shadowy. I heard a harsh rasping, as if someone were attempting to clear his throat in the tangle of alleys. A sinister sound that was approaching, accompanied by echoes. I had a few frightened moments. I saw a tall old man with a poverty-stricken appearance emerge from the blackness. I pressed against the wall. He looked at me suspiciously and kept walking. He had a long white beard that the wind divided in two. My heart began to pound with unusual force and, carried along by the same emotional impulse that was driving me, I ran after him and touched his arm. Then I began to look nervously through my bag, while the old man watched me. I gave him two pesetas. I saw a spark of irony shine in his eyes. He put the coins in his pocket without saying a word and walked away, dragging behind him the hoarse cough that had terrified me. This human contact in the silent concert of the stones calmed my excitement a little. I thought I was behaving like a fool that night, acting without will, like a sheet of paper in the wind. Still, I hurried until I reached the principal façade of the Cathedral, and when I looked up at it I found at last the fulfilment of everything I had longed for.

  A power greater than the one the wine and music had exerted over me filled me when I looked at the great expanse of shadows of fervent stone. The Cathedral rose in severe harmony, stylised in almost vegetal forms, up to the height of the clean Mediterranean sky. A peace, an imposing clarity, overflowed the marvellous architecture. Around its dark shapes the brilliant night stood out, turning slowly to the rhythm of the hours. I let that profound spell of forms penetrate me for a few minutes. Then I turned to leave.

  When I did, I realised I wasn’t alone. A silhouette that seemed rather satanic to me lengthened in the darkest part of the plaza. I confess in all candour that I felt possessed by all the terrors of my childhood, and I crossed myself. The shape was moving towards me and I saw it was a man wearing a good overcoat and a hat pulled down over his eyes. He reached me as I was rushing towards the stone steps.

  ‘Andrea! Isn’t your name Andrea?’

  I was bothered by something insulting in that way of calling to me, but I stopped in surprise. He stood in front of me and laughed with solid teeth and large gums.

  ‘This is the kind of scare girls get when they wander around alone late at night … Don’t you remember seeing me at Ena’s house?’

  ‘Ah! … Yes, yes,’ I said, sullen.

  (‘Damn you!’ I thought, ‘you’ve robbed me of all the happiness I was going to take away from here …’)

  ‘Well, yes,’ he continued, satisfied, ‘I’m Gerardo.’

  He was motionless, his hands in his pockets, looking at me. I moved towards the steps to go down, but he held my arm.

  ‘Look!’ he commanded.

  I saw, at the foot of the steps, and pressing up against them, a cluster of old houses that the war had turned into rubble, lit by street-lamps.

  ‘All this will disappear. A great avenue will go through here, and there’ll be enough space and extension to see the Cathedral.’

  He didn’t say anything else and we began to walk down the stone steps together. We’d already gone a fair distance when he repeated:

  ‘Doesn’t it scare you to walk the streets alone? Suppose the wolf comes along and eats you up …?’

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘Are you mute?’

  ‘I prefer to go by myself,’ I confessed harshly.

  ‘No, absolutely not, my girl … Today I’ll walk you home … Seriously, Andrea, if I were your father I wouldn’t let you wander around like this.’

  I gave vent to my feelings by insulting him to myself. I’d seen the boy at Ena’s house and had thought he was a fool, and ugly.

  We crossed the Ramblas, bustling with animation and lights, and went up the Calle de Pelayo to the plaza of the university. There I said goodbye.

  ‘No, no; all the way to your house.’

  ‘You’re an idiot,’ I said outright. ‘Go away right now.’

  ‘I’d like to be your friend. You’re a very original kid. If you promise that one day you’ll phone me to go out with me, I’ll leave you here. I like old streets too, and I know all the picturesque corners in the city. So, is it a promise?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, nervous.

  He handed me his card and left.

  Entering Calle de Aribau was like entering my house. The same night watchman as the day I arrived in the city opened the door for me. And Granny, just as she did then, came out to welcome me, freezing with cold. Everyone else had gone to bed.

  I went into Angustias’ room, which I’d inherited a few days earlier, and when I turned on the light I discovered that a pile of the extra chairs from all over the house had been placed on top of the wardrobe and were sombrely threatening to fall. The piece of furniture that held the baby’s clothing had also been installed in the room, as well as a large sewing table with legs that had previously been in the corner of my grandmother’s bedroom. The rumpled bed still bore the imprint of Gloria’s siesta. I understood immediately that my dreams of independence, isolated from the house in that inherited refuge, had collapsed. I sighed and began to undress. On the night table was a paper with a note from Juan: ‘Niece, please don’t lock the door. There should always be free access to your room so we can answer the phone.’ Obediently I crossed the cold floor again to unlock the door, then I lay down on the bed, wrapping myself voluptuously in the blanket.

  On the street I heard someone clapping to call the night watchman. A long while after that the whistle of a train as it passed, distant and nostalgic, along Calle de Aragón. The day had brought me the beginning of a new life; I understood that Juan had wanted to spoil things for me as much as he could by letting me know that even though I’d been granted a bed in the house, that was the only thing I’d been given …

  On the same night Angustias left, I’d said I didn’t want to eat at home and therefore would only pay a monthly rent for my room. I’d seized the opportunity when Juan, still intoxicated and excited by the emotions of that day, had confronted me.

  ‘Well, let’s see, niece, with what you contribute to the house … because, I’ll tell you the truth, I don’t feel like supporting anybody …’

  ‘No, what I can pay is so little it’s hardly worth it,’ I said, being diplomatic. ‘I’ll arrange to eat on my own. I’ll just pay for my ration of bread and my room.’

  Juan shrugged.

  ‘Do what you want,’ he said, in a bad humour.

  Granny listened, shaking her head with an air of disapproval, watching Juan’s lips. Then she began to cry.

  ‘No, no, she can’t pay for her room … my granddaughter can’t pay for a room in her grandmother’s house.’

  But that’s what was decided. I wouldn’t have to pay for more than my daily bread.

  That day I’d received my allowance for February, and possessed by the charms of being able to spend it, I hurried out and acquired without delay those trifles I’d wanted so much … good soap, perfume, and a new blouse to wear to Ena’s house: she had invited me to lunch. And some roses for her mother. Buying the roses was particularly gratifying. They were magnificent flowers, expensive in those days. One might say they were out of my reach. And yet I held them in my arms and gave them as a gift. This pleasure, in which I found the taste for rebellion that was the vice – vulgar from
one point of view – of my youth, subsequently became an obsession.

  I thought – lying in my bed – of the warm welcome I’d received from Ena’s family at her house and how, since I was accustomed to the dark faces with well-defined features of the people in my house, the number of blond heads around me at the table began to make me dizzy.

  Ena’s parents and her five brothers were blonds. These five brothers, all younger than my friend, had affable, smiling, ordinary faces that became confused in my imagination. Not even the youngest, who was seven and whose missing baby teeth gave him a comical expression when he laughed, and whose name was Ramón Berenguer as if he were an ancient count of Barcelona, could be distinguished from his brothers except in these two details.

  The father seemed to share the same attractive character traits as his offspring and was also a really handsome man, whom Ena resembled. Like her, he had green eyes, though his lacked the strange, magnificent light that animated his daughter’s. In him everything seemed simple and open, without malice of any kind. During the meal I remember him laughing as he recounted anecdotes of his travels, because for many years they had lived in different places in Europe. It was as if he’d known me my whole life, and simply because I was at his table he had added me to his patriarchal family.

  Ena’s mother, on the other hand, gave the impression of being reserved, though she smiled and contributed to the pleasant atmosphere that had been created. Among her husband and her children – all of them tall and sturdy – she seemed a strange, rachitic bird. She was very small, and I found it astonishing that her narrow body had supported the weight of a child six times. My first impression of her was of a strange ugliness. Then two or three touches of an almost prodigious beauty in her became evident: silky, very abundant hair that was lighter than Ena’s, long golden eyes, and her magnificent voice.