Gaudi Afternoon

by Barbara Wilson

  “You are planning to go back, then?”

  “Of course. It’s just a couple of weeks. If Frankie would just go home and relax we could sort it all out then.”

  There was no denying that I had helped Frankie locate them, and that I probably did bear some responsibility. However, it wasn’t guilt that made me agree to look for Frankie now and talk to her; it was indignation at having been used. And, I admit, some curiosity.

  But finding Frankie might not be the easiest task in the world.

  Leaving Ben and April in the Parc Güell, I gave in to the midday heat and took a taxi back to the Ramblas, to the posh hotel where Frankie had told me she was staying.

  They said they didn’t have a guest by that name.

  I described her first as a curly redhead and then as a brunette with a pageboy. I even tried describing her as a man. The desk clerk gave me a strange look and grew more adamant. No one like that had been a guest in this hotel.

  I wondered if Frankie had given me the wrong hotel by mistake. There were several three-star hotels along the Ramblas and I asked at each one, each time with the same results. No redheads, no brunettes and no men by the name of Frankie Stevens had ever checked in or out.

  It was about five when I sat down in the xoclateria, the chocolate café off the Plaça del Pi, to consider what to do. I’m too trusting, perhaps, but it irked me to have been so thoroughly misled. Maybe Frankie did want Delilah back, but was that any reason to spin a story about a gay ex-husband and lead me to Barcelona to do her leg work for her? She’d clearly never meant to confront Ben and April directly, but to use me to get to them. And what about Hamilton? Who was he and why were April and Ben staying with him? Why had Frankie gone through Hamilton? She’d met with him yesterday and arranged to meet with him today at lunch. But all she’d wanted was to make sure he wasn’t with April and Ben when she kidnapped Delilah.

  And now Frankie had vanished. Maybe I should just let her go; none of this was any of my business, after all. But it pissed me off that she had used me and absconded with my two thousand dollars, the money that was rightfully mine and that was to finance my trip to Bucharest in June.

  The more I thought about it, the more steamed I became. I had another cup of thick hot chocolate and felt my veins buzz. How on earth could I ever track Frankie down? Barcelona had literally hundreds of hotels and hostales and pensiones. Even if I had the leisure to check out each one, it would take me weeks. I was far more likely to run into Frankie in a restaurant or a bar. She struck me as a night owl. Here she was in Barcelona, after all. Was she the type to sit in some hotel room and watch Spanish television or play solitaire? I doubted it. Barcelona’s night life was famous all over the world. Frankie must know that. I needed to do some serious bar-hopping tonight, and I needed some help.

  Carmen ignored me when I came into the beauty salon. The receptionist said my favorite hairdresser was occupied and asked me to take a seat. But I sidled up to Carmen’s workstand where she was grimly fastening rollers into the dyed black hair of a heavily made-up señora, and whispered:

  “I know why you were so upset yesterday.”

  “Sí?” Said with brutal dismissiveness.

  “At first I thought it was because Frankie was an American….”

  “Sí?”

  “But now I know it was because she was a he.”

  The señora under Carmen’s fingers jumped.

  “Sí?” It could be such a curt word sometimes.

  “I know your nephew is…” I paused and then skipped the word, transvestite. “And I know you have… feelings about that. But he might be able to give us the names of bars and clubs where we could find Frankie. You see, I’ve lost her. And it’s very important that I find her.”

  “Aiee!” screamed the señora. “You’re pulling my hair.”

  “Think about it, Carmen,” I said. “I’ll meet you at eight at that bar by the Paral.lel metro stop.”

  It was a lovely evening, dark and warm. I arrived at the bar on Avinguda del Paral.lel a little early, found a seat outside and ordered a Campari and soda. Across the street was the Teatro Apollo where impersonator Julio Sabala was playing. A huge sign announced all the entertainers he would mimic: Frank Sinatra, Prince, Julio Iglesias, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson. No women though. I drank my Campari and watched the parade of people walking by. I wasn’t positive that Carmen would actually show up, so I’d also asked Ana if she wanted to come along.

  I didn’t know why Carmen always had to be so proper and outraged. You’d think, in a family where one sister had sex for a living and the other had sex for fun, that nobody would mind if the prostitute’s son was a transvestite. But I suppose they had to draw the line somewhere. The last time I’d visited Barcelona Carmen had been in a complete tizzy about it. Pablo was only nineteen and his mother had caught him dressed up in her underwear and high heels. He’d had on one of her wigs and was putting on make-up. And he’d been so brazen. He said that he’d been doing it for five years, that he often went out at night dressed as a woman.

  “What have I done wrong?” Conchita, Carmen’s sister, had wailed. “How could I have raised such a son?” When Carmen had told me about it I had expressed more interest than horror, and wondered aloud why it was that women could wear clothing formerly reserved to men, while it was an incredible, and therefore incredibly exciting, taboo for men to wear women’s clothing. Carmen hadn’t appreciated the subtlety of my argument. “Men should be men,” she’d shouted. “Women should be women.”

  “What about you?” I said. “Are you a woman if one of the definitions of woman is only being attracted to men?”

  But Carmen didn’t like such bold references, just as her sister had never admitted to anyone she was a prostitute. She only had “amigos,” just as Carmen only had “amigas.”

  I assumed from the way Carmen had reacted about Frankie that her feelings about Pablo hadn’t changed, and that Pablo, perhaps, had been ejected from the family fold for not playing fair, that is, not sleeping at home at night.

  Then I saw Carmen crossing the street towards me. She was smoking a cigarette, which she almost never did in public, and looking a bit daring with her frosted hair and zebra-printed shirt underneath a blazing red jacket. She was wearing her high high heels and a tight short red skirt.

  “I’m only going with you because I’m afraid that something will happen to you by yourself,” she said, sitting down at the table. “Barcelona is a dangerous city. You think it’s not, Cassandra, but I tell you it’s changing.”

  “I believe you,” I said. “Is Pablo coming with us?”

  “He can’t tonight,” she said. “He works very late at his job. He’s in computers now. We’re very proud of him.”

  “But he had some suggestions?”

  “Some places. Some streets. Some bars.”

  Ana, in a white shirt, jeans and suit jacket with the cuffs turned up, slipped into a seat next to us. She had her long hair bundled under a fedora and was chewing gum. She looked a little like Warren Beatty in Bonnie and Clyde.

  “Hola, mujeres,” she kissed us both. “I’m here to keep an eye on you, Carmen.” Her tone was light but Carmen took offense.

  “You’d better keep an eye on Cassandra. She is a wild woman but she doesn’t know it.”

  I got up from the table with a James Dean swagger and put my hands in my bomber jacket. “Shall we hit the streets, girls? Don’t worry, you’re safe with me.”

  Both of them snorted and grabbed my arms, bearing me off to the red-light district.

  8

  THE FIRST TIME I THOUGHT I saw Frankie in the Barri Xines was early on, when we’d barely had anything to drink and I was still trying nervously to find ways for Carmen and Ana to get beyond their language differences.

  It was the hour when the barrio began to turn itself inside out, like an ordinary shabby cloth raincoat with a garishly dyed rabbit-fur lining. It was the hour when there was still some overlap, when a conscientious gi
rl of twelve, dressed in a simple cotton skirt and blouse and carrying a mesh bag filled with a long loaf, a bottle of mineral water and several carefully wrapped eggs bought from the tiny corner shop, could pass on a narrow sidewalk a dumpy, beaming Filipino sailor in his best whites with his arm protectively around a lanky hooker, probably a transvestite, in shimmering red sequins and gold lamé.

  The three of us were in a simple, open-to-the-street bar on Carrer la Unió, between a skimpy lingerie shop and a bridal salon. The bar was packed with olive-skinned men in dark suits, all smoking furiously and watching a soccer game on the television overhead. We stood at the long linoleum bar, which was covered with unappetizing plates of oily gray octopus and greasy yellow “salads” of peas, carrots and mayonnaise.

  “It’s very simple,” said Carmen, flashing her gold tooth wickedly. “A Catalan word is a Castilian word cut in half.”

  “Catalan is an older language than Castilian, with far more of a history,” Ana countered. “It comes from medieval Provençal. It’s the language of courtship and poetry.”

  “It has a very harsh sound,” said Carmen. “Not a pure sound at all. Not poetic or romantic.”

  “It has power and beauty,” said Ana. “I know. Because I speak both languages and I have a chance to compare.”

  “I think we’d better switch to English,” I suggested. “After all, it’s fast becoming the universal language.”

  “Coca-Cola,” said Ana in disgust. “That’s a real contribution to world culture.”

  “Hello, I am very happy to meet you,” Carmen said in English. “What is your name? My name is Carmen.”

  “My name is Ana. I am so glad to make your acquaintance. How do you like London?”

  “It is very rainy here.”

  They were mocking me. But I guessed it was better than them mocking each other.

  “Would you like a drink of something?” Ana asked Carmen.

  “Thank you. I would like a Coca-Cola.”

  “The drink of Yankee imperialism. What a good choice.”

  “Thank you. I like it.”

  They nudged each other and laughed. I glanced out the open bar door and across the street I saw her.

  She didn’t have auburn curls and she didn’t have a faded brown pageboy. She was platinum blond and her wig cascaded down her back.

  “It’s her,” I said. “I recognize the shoes, the way she walks.”

  I grabbed their arms and Ana tossed down a thousand-peseta note. We dashed out of the bar. But the sidewalks were jostlingly full, and cars travelling slowly made it impossible to run in the street. She was a block ahead of us and I saw her turn into a side street. By the time we got there she was gone.

  “She was probably just a whore,” said Carmen, teetering on her high heels.

  “She probably saw us,” I said.

  “Of course she ran,” said Ana, leaning against a wall. “Wouldn’t you if you saw three women tearing after you?”

  We went into a nearby bar. The customers were workers in worn blue cloth jackets and we were the only women.

  “Sí, señores?” the man behind the counter said to me and Ana. Maybe Carmen was the only woman.

  Ana and I each had a beer and Carmen another Coke, and Carmen described Frankie to the bartender.

  “A man wearing women’s clothes?” he said. “There are lots of them here in the barrio.”

  “She’s not a man anymore,” I put in. “She’s a woman now.”

  The bartender, hearing my voice, took me in. “Like you?” he said. “You were a woman and became a man?”

  Up to now it had been a joke. “I’m a woman and I’ve always been a woman,” I said sharply. “The only thing I’ve ever been besides a woman is little Catholic girl with pigtails.”

  The bartender eyed me curiously. “Oh, you’re American,” he said, as if that explained something.

  Ana and Carmen dragged me to a table.

  “You let yourself in for this, Cassandra,” said Carmen. “Before you cut your hair you looked fine.”

  Ana settled her fedora more firmly on her head. “I’m enjoying looking like a man tonight. I feel much safer somehow in the streets. And I like the idea of playing with my male side.”

  “I have no desire to be a man,” sniffed Carmen. “Smelly big creatures.” She lit a cigarette and crossed her silky legs so her skirt rode up.

  “When I was young I used to want to be a boy,” I said. “Not now. Of course the perks are nice. Statues in all the public squares, legislation with your name on it, 42 seconds in the toilet instead of 76. But the guilt. The shame. And don’t forget baldness.”

  “I don’t understand it,” Carmen brooded. “My nephew Pablo says he doesn’t want to be a woman, he just likes to wear women’s clothing. He says he finds it erotic. And so does his girlfriend.”

  “His girlfriend!” said Ana. “What’s she like?”

  “She’s Catalan,” said Carmen gloomily.

  “I don’t think people change their sex for erotic reasons,” I said. “It must be something deeper, more existential. Otherwise why would you go through surgery and everything?”

  “There’s sexual play, and then there’s necessity,” said Ana. “How can we understand another’s necessity?”

  I looked at her. She didn’t appear at all like a man to me. A woman in a fedora and a suit jacket, that was all.

  “My name is Carmen,” Carmen said in English. “I am woman. Please, what are you? Woman or man?”

  “Neither,” I said, in English, then in Spanish, “I’m a translator.”

  The next time I thought I saw Frankie was two or three hours later. We had been rigorously patrolling the streets and alleyways of the barrio with frequent stops for refreshment. We had come, at the time when the night began to grow eerier, to a sinister neighborhood of blasted streets with barricaded buildings and empty lots. A few tenements had been half demolished; high above, their rooms had a shocked, broken-in look. A few people scavenged in the lots and along Carrer de les Tàpies some older prostitutes sat on chairs outside a derelict bar and a nameless hotel.

  “Look,” I hissed. I grabbed Carmen’s and Ana’s arms, and pulled them close to a wall. Crossing in front of us was a woman with curly red hair.

  “I thought you said she was blond,” Ana complained.

  “I must have made a mistake earlier. This has got to be her. The wig’s the same, and that walk. Unmistakable.”

  “All prostitutes walk like that,” Carmen complained.

  “The wide shoulders, the narrow hips,” I said. “I’m sure it’s Frankie. The mini-skirt, those big feet.”

  We were creeping along the side of the wall. The red-haired figure had turned down a street where hookers and customers stood in the middle of the sidewalk and discussed activities and prices. She walked casually, holding her big purse at her side, and glancing around with evident interest.

  “Come on,” I said.

  Ana giggled. “I’m drunk,” she said.

  “Get a grip,” I told her. “You’ve only had a couple of beers.”

  Carmen took Ana’s arm. “Pretend you’re my man,” she said. She wiggled her behind.

  “I thought I was your man,” I protested.

  “No, you walk more quickly. Catch up with her. See if you’re right.”

  “All right.” I shot forward while trying to look inconspicuous. I hunched my shoulders together and pulled my neck down into my bomber jacket. The crowd increased. At the next corner were a police wagon and an ambulance; medics were bringing a man out from a doorway on a stretcher. His face was covered with a white cloth and he had lost a shoe. Neon lights rained down on us like blood. The gutters were choked with garbage, there was a rank sweaty smell in the air. The police told us to move along, but the crowd heaved intractably. I got pushed up against a building. A hooker said, “How about it?,” then saw my eyes and backed away. At the edge of the crowd I saw Ana and Carmen looking worried. The red-haired woman was nowhere in sight
.

  The last time I thought I saw Frankie was much much later, at a barnlike gay bar in a residential district that was the last place we visited that night. It was so thick with smoke that it was hard to breathe, and there were two big bouncers outside the door and two inside who only let Carmen in because she was with two men.

  We had heard that there was a “show” of female impersonators there, but it wasn’t on that night. Instead platoons of men, working men, not the trendies of the upscale bars, danced disco and smoked and stood around.

  “Most of them live with their mothers,” Carmen said tenderly. “They come here to relax once or twice a week.”

  We had given up on finding Frankie and were in the dulled but open state of mind that comes with a late evening and too much to drink. We had another beer each and discussed all manner of things in a corner of the big smoky room. Carmen, filled with Andalucían duende, recited lines from Lorca poems and sang snatches of cante jondo, while Ana, with a somber depth of feeling, told us stories of her late mother’s life in exile in France after the fall of Barcelona.

  I was holding forth on the subject of translation.

  “Every author has a vocabulary and once you understand that half your job is done. The last writer I translated had a very mechanical way of phrasing ideas; his book was full of pistons and levers and drills and pumps and so on. Gloria’s vocabulary is romantic: heart, jungle, loin, flaming, river, lust—I could make a list of a hundred words and that would be her novel, the same words over and over.”

  I had a sip of beer and a potato chip. “Architecture has a vocabulary too. And hairstyling.”

  “Poof, frizz, tease, sculpt, trim,” said Ana brightly.

  “Curve, buttress, tower, skyscraper, gargoyle,” said Carmen, not to be outdone.

  The disco music blared loud and violent, until suddenly it shifted into the familiar notes of the Sevillana. As the three of us watched, transported, two long lines of men arranged themselves opposite each other and lifted their arms in the classic curve of that graceful, ubiquitous Spanish dance. They twisted their wrists, flourished their palms, snapped their fingers, moved forward and back and around each other, caught each other by the waist and twirled each other quickly around and around. Those who weren’t dancing gathered together and clapped their hands in a regular beat.