Gaudi Afternoon

by Barbara Wilson

  Inside the main entrance I had a chat with the portero, who told me that La Pedrera had recently been bought by a bank that was working on restoring it and eventually opening up at least one of the apartments for viewing. At the moment the tour only went to the roof. Who lives in the building now? I asked. One of the original owners, an old lady who bought in when Gaudí was still alive, he told me proudly. And other tenants who’ve been here a long time, decades. And there are the businesses of course. Any Americans living here? I asked. Oh no. He sounded shocked.

  I said I’d come back for the tour a little later and went out again and sat down at an aluminum table outside a bar called La Pedrera. From here I had a clear view of the doorway. I ordered a mineral water and a bocadillo de tortilla, and took out my copy of La Grande y su hija and my notebook. The camera was on a strap inside my Japanese shirt and every time I saw a likely suspect I snapped his picture.

  There weren’t too many likely suspects and I didn’t know if that was good or bad. The tourists were obvious of course, their cameras a dead giveaway. They walked slowly, with their necks craned up at the enormous glass doors, leaded into amoeba-like shapes that seemed to bubble up from small to large. There was what appeared to be a private school on the first floor, and teenagers came and left at regular intervals. There were workmen in blue, the inevitable cigarettes dangling, and a stone-faced woman who was vigorously sweeping the sidewalk in front of the door.

  I had another mineral water and some Sevillana olives and translated from Chapter Twelve:

  As the years progressed Cristobel took on the name La Grande because of her enormous size. In her youth my mother had been considered almost too frail and small to survive and it was only by eating far past her capacities that Cristobel had managed to hang on to survival so that, in the years to come, whenever Cristobel felt the least panic about death, her own or those near to her like Raoul first and then Eduardo, she would begin to eat as if possessed: ordering enormous meals of corn and potatoes dripping with butter, whole pigs wrapped in leaves, thick fruit drinks and entire bakeries of bread and pies. I, who was never to outgrow my childhood appellation, the Miniature, was revolted and strangely moved by stories of my mother’s gross appetite.

  I began to get hungry myself and rather bored. I found myself wondering if the man on the phone had said the first address that came into his head. If so, I was in for a tedious afternoon.

  Still, it was Frankie’s money, and if she wanted to waste my hundred-dollar-a-day fee stationing me outside La Pedrera, it was up to her. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t had many slow afternoons in my life: waiting for a ride in Afghanistan with two teaspoons of water in my canteen; waiting at the Romanian border while the police went through every single article I owned; waiting in a dusty jail in Tucson when I was sixteen for my mother to show up and claim me as a runaway.

  I took photos for two hours and then I ran out of film. I saw mothers with children, well-dressed Spanish secretaries and bosses, workmen in blue and lots of students. I saw couples and families but mostly individuals just going about their business. Almost everyone who went in came out again, until around two when the businesses closed for the siesta and some of the residents of La Pedrera came home for lunch.

  I didn’t see a “regular” American-looking man in jeans, though I saw plenty of teenagers in pre-washed Levis and more than a few tee-shirts and sweatshirts with words in English.

  Finally, about three, when traffic in and out of the building seemed to slow to almost nothing, I decided I could risk a short break. I paid my bill and put away María the Miniature and her mother and then I dashed up Gràcia a few blocks, across the Avinguda Diagonal, to a quiet street off the Carrer Major. Carmen tended to work through the closing hours of the siesta because that was the only time many women could come to her hairdressing salon. If I were lucky she would not only cut my hair but offer me some refreshments and some gossip.

  She was shampooing an older woman when I came in, but rushed over nevertheless and, with wet, sudsy hands, embraced me.

  “Cassandra, you’re so inconvenient,” she said happily. “And that turban tells me you’re long overdue for my scissors. Sit down, right away. My hands itch when I look at you.”

  She’d said that the first time we’d met a year or so before, and I’d taken her at her word. We’d had two weeks together that neither of us would ever forget, but that neither was tempted to think was any more than a fling. Carmen’s main mission in life was, after all, to cut hair. She had her mother to think about. And the pope.

  She handed over her shampooed customer to an assistant and ran her long manicured fingers through my gray-brown frizz which, liberated from its turban, flowed out like a cloud of fog over my shoulders. “I think I’m changing my mind about gray,” she announced. “When it’s under control [she emphasized control with a vicious snip of her scissors], it can be very elegant.”

  “You know best, querida,’ I said. “But I don’t have much time. I’m staking out a building.”

  She sent an apprentice out for coffee and attacked my head with relish, talking non-stop. Under her hands my hair took on different fantastic shapes, like Gaudí buildings under construction. I watched her in the mirror: big-hipped and big-breasted, in high heels and stretch pants with a leopardskin print top, Carmen wore more make-up than Frankie or than any of my London friends would believe could look good on a face. Brown and gold eyeshadow matched her frosted bronze hair; her lips were a luscious peachy gold and her fingernails, long perfect ovals, were the same shade. She had a gold tooth she was proud of and a vaultsworth of gold jewelry. Her perfume was Opium and it was heavy.

  Carmen was from Granada and never let anyone forget it. She would never want to go back there to live, she confided once, it was too backward, too Catholic, too anti-woman. But that didn’t mean it hadn’t far more history and culture than Barcelona. “Los moros, La Alhambra, todo eso,” Carmen would say, dismissing the Catalan heritage. “Our history in Granada is very old.”

  She refused to learn more than a few words of Catalan, and considered women like Ana, from old Catalan families, snobbish and too Europeanized. Carmen was suspicious of Europe. She made an exception for expatriate Americans like me and a few English people. She had once travelled to London and remained very impressed by the red buses and the men in the City who still wore bowler hats.

  “There!” she finally said, spinning me around on the chair. I wasn’t sure I liked it: long on top and closely cut on the sides and back. My neck felt cold.

  But I smiled and got up to go, and only then did Carmen remember what I’d said earlier.

  “What do you mean, staking out a building?”

  “La Pedrera,” I said. “I’ve taken up architecture.”

  “This is some crazy thing you’re involved in, I feel it. How long are you going to be in Barcelona? Are you in trouble? Tell me.”

  I gave her a kiss on the cheek as I got up. “I’ll be in Barcelona long enough to see you again. What about meeting me tonight, later?”

  I winked and she drew herself up on her heels.

  “I’ll think about it,” she said loftily.

  I knew she would too, all afternoon.

  Back at La Pedrera I joined the four o’clock tour, just for something different. With all the other tourists I milled about in the dim stone foyer, reading about Antoni Gaudí on the display boards.

  Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926) is considered the most outstanding Catalan architect of Modernism, the art movement that flourished in Europe during the first years of this century and whose typical traits are a variety of forms and a wealth of ornamentation.

  Gaudí was born Reus, in a family of artisans where he learned the traditional crafts that he was later to use in his works. In 1878 he received his degree in architecture and from 1880 to 1926 he worked, above all in Barcelona.

  His most important works in this city are the Parc Güell, the garden-city built between 1900 and 1914 in the north of the city
; Casa Batlló (1904–1906) on Passeig de Gràcia; the cathedral Sagrada Família (begun in 1883 and still uncompleted) and La Pedrera or Casa Milà (1906–1912), one of the most innovative creations in international architecture.

  And of course the display mentioned the manner of Gaudí’s death. He had been run down by a streetcar and, unrecognized, taken to the poor hospital where he died.

  The display had this to say about La Pedrera:

  The conception of the inner areas and patios, the two entrances, the underground carriage park, the majestic facade, the undulating mansard and the original terrace dotted with ceramic-coated chimneys and ventilating flues endow La Pedrera with a striking personality which some have linked with European expressionism and others have defined as an anticipation of surrealism.

  After a brief introduction our guide directed us to the back of the foyer and up many flights of stairs. Huffing and puffing we arrived in the attic just below the roof, which had been remodeled to provide small studios and apartments. Then we emerged onto the roof, to the sky and to a wonderful view of Barcelona from the mountains to the sea. In the near distance you could see the many spires of the unfinished cathedral Sagrada Família.

  The rooftop’s extraordinary aspect lay in the chimneys and ventilators, which looked like enormous chess pieces. Stairs led all over the roof, up and down, up and down, and then there were those incredible tiled shapes, some with crowns, others with crosses, others like knights with visors lowered over their faces.

  It was a soft spring afternoon, even if my neck felt too exposed now to the breezes, and I leaned out over the roof thinking that this must be one of the most beautiful cities on earth.

  And then I saw something very odd. Strolling down the Passeig de Gràcia, as comfortably as if it were Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, was a woman whom I was positive had once given me a foot massage after a big march in San Francisco. It had been a couple of years ago when I’d been passing through on my way to a conference on Latin American women writers in Mexico City. I’d stopped to check my mail at Lucy’s, renew my driver’s license and get a pap smear, and Lucy had dragged me along with her to the march, where we strolled under the banner of her women’s health clinic. At the end of the march we came to a park full of stands with political and fun things for sale, and there, sitting on a large quilt, with a velvet pillow and various creams and unguents around her, was a woman doing foot massage.

  I couldn’t resist; something about her drew me. Maybe it was her name and title—April Schauer, Foot Therapist—lettered in gold and indigo on a card, maybe it was the soulful expression in her midnight eyes. At any rate I sat myself down in front of her and put my foot on her well-upholstered lap, and let her look intensely into my eyes as she established instant intimacy with first my right foot and then my left. She was all velvet and fire, with kinky black hair, a large nose and a gorgeous full mouth, and she taught me what delicious feelings accrue in the soles once they are unshod.

  “You have experienced feet,” she told me and then I paid her seven dollars and we parted. Just one of life’s many brief fascinating encounters. But here she was, I was sure it was her, walking down the Passeig de Gràcia, wearing a red velvet smock, a black shawl and Birkenstock sandals, and eating an ice cream cone. With amazement I watched her cross the street and disappear somewhere below me into the Provença entrance of La Pedrera.

  It couldn’t be anything but an odd coincidence, but still, the fact of the matter was that April had made an impression on me then and she still did. I suspected she was one of those holistic, earthy, goddess-types who probably liked to spend a lot of time in bed.

  She couldn’t—couldn’t?—have any connection with Ben.

  Frankie was in a much better mood when I met her at the Café de l’Opera on the Ramblas at seven-thirty. She noticed my haircut at once and demanded the name of my hairdresser. “Very chic,” she said approvingly. “Much better than that awful turban.”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “I feel a little bit like a potted plant, with vines snaking over the sides of the pot.”

  She was looking pretty chic herself, in a neon green sheath dress with a tight black jacket. The dress was short enough to show her well-shaped, strong-looking legs in their black high heels. Her reddish curls were all over the place and her hazel eyes cheerfully outlined in green, black and a little silver. She was finishing a glass of red wine and munching on olives and looking quite at home in the old-fashioned café with its dark walnut tables and art nouveau wall panels.

  I ordered a fino and gave her my report. I’d dropped the film off to be developed overnight, but described all the people I’d seen coming and going from La Pedrera. Nobody who looked anything like Ben.

  “He couldn’t be in disguise, could he?” I asked.

  “I’ll only know that when I see the photographs,” she said noncommittally. “Do you think anyone noticed you?”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “I sat at the café outside for hours and worked on my translation.” I didn’t mention that I’d taken an hour off to see Carmen. “And then I went inside on the tour, up on the roof, just to get a feel for the layout of the building.” That made me remember April.

  “When I was on the roof I looked down and I thought I saw this woman who once gave me a foot massage in San Francisco.”

  Frankie gave a small start. Or was she just motioning to the waiter? “Another one,” she said, pointing at her drink.

  “What a coincidence,” she smiled at me. “Are you sure?”

  “She made an impression on me at the time,” I admitted. “She thought I had experienced feet. She was pulling my big toe as she said it.”

  “It sounds more like she was pulling your leg,” Frankie wrinkled her nose. I thought of warning her that a gamine habit acquired in your teens or twenties has a way of turning into irritating furrows in your forties, but what the hell, she’d find out for herself. “Now, back to business. I’ve changed hotels and I want you to meet me tomorrow morning after you’ve picked up the photos. We can go over them and then decide what to do next.”

  “Even for a hundred dollars a day I’m not willing to spend all my time staring at the door of La Pedrera,” I complained. “And are you absolutely sure Ben is in Barcelona? The porter told me that no Americans are living in the building.”

  “I’m quite sure,” she said. “And don’t worry about your money.” She took out an envelope and passed it to me. “It’s in pesetas.”

  “Not here,” I said. “Haven’t I told you that Barcelona is a city of pickpockets? Especially down here on the lower part of the Ramblas and the streets off it. You shouldn’t carry a lot of money around. I should have told you.”

  “I don’t have a lot of money now,” she giggled. “You do.”

  “I’m not kidding,” I said. “Barcelona can be a dangerous place.”

  “Well, you’d better be careful then, hadn’t you?” Frankie suddenly yawned and said, “I’ve got to get some sleep. See you tomorrow at the same place as this morning.”

  She gave me another bill and got up, making her way through the crowded, smoky café with a sway of her narrow hips and a confident toss of her auburn curls. A lot of people looked at her. A lot of men.

  I noticed that one of them had a flight bag at his feet that read EUROPEAN SOCIETY FOR ORGAN TRANSPLANTATION. There must be a convention here this week.

  4

  I WASN’T SUPPOSED TO MEET Ana at the restaurant until nine thirty, so after I finished my sherry at the Café de l’Opera I wandered out to the Ramblas again and into the Barri Gòtic. It was packed with people shopping and walking arm in arm through the narrow, brightly lit streets.

  Then, in the bookstore window, I saw it.

  A black-haired, lushly naked woman with a snake wrapped around her body and behind her a jungle straight from Henri Rousseau, though heavier on the parrots, monkeys and gardenias.

  In the foreground was a young girl in a filmy white dress reclining on a sofa w
ith a notebook in her hand and a rapt look upon her face. It was María the writer-daughter. It was Cristobel, La Grande. It was Gloria de los Angeles, winner of Venezuela’s highest literary honors. It was, in short, the Spanish edition of La Grande y su hija.

  I peeked in the door and saw readers eagerly poring over the first pages and taking it up to the cash register. A sign in the window said it was a publishing phenomenon, Garcia Márquez in female form, the Venezuelan Allende, the biggest South American novel of the year!

  And to think, I had the honor of being the English translator. I was even now walking through the streets of Barcelona with a notebook full of sentences like: “Night after night Cristobel snuck out into the velvet jungle to meet Eduardo, the only man who had ever, because she refused to count the forced marriage of rapine caresses with Raoul, inflamed those soft loins….” Or perhaps I should use “crept” instead of “snuck.”

  The South American edition of the book had been published in Buenos Aires and featured a woman and a man in a romantic but chaste embrace. Once that might have done for Spain as well, back in the old days when the censors used to carefully cut out women in bikinis from the European editions of Time and Newsweek. I felt in my cloth bag for La Grande y su hija in order to compare the two editions, and encountered a strange gaping hole and an absence of certain familiar objects—like the camera Frankie had bought for me and the cassette of Transylvanian Gregorian Chants.

  Hell! I had gone into the ladies’ toilet in the Café de l’Opera and carefully put Frankie’s hundred dollars’ worth of pesetas in my bra, but someone must have followed me out of the café and slit my bag in the crowd. The only thing left was my notebook, whose metal coils had caught on the fabric. They’d taken the novel, presumably thinking I’d put the envelope inside its pages.

  I went into the bookstore and bought the last copy of the Spanish edition.

  “You won’t be able to put it down,” the clerk assured me. “It will take over your imagination completely.”