Falls the Shadow

by Tommy Dakar

  'When a sigh dies, it floats up to the sky, when a tear dies, it runs to the sea, but, oh tell me, where does a love go when it dies?'

  That was Loli taking aim at the shooting gallery, Paco not listening as he stared vaguely out to sea chewing a toothpick. She handled the gun like an expert, seemed to hold it lightly like a toy but rarely missed a prize.

  She peered down the sights distrustfully, shifted her elbows a little and fired. The tin soldier pinged and fell, and she smiled to herself. She knew all the guns and their inaccuracies, where exactly to hit the target to make it drop. Paco knew, too, and paid little attention as she picked and loaded the next rifle. Loli looked up at him quizzically, and he felt her eyes on his, lining him up. He turned to her and raised his eyebrows.

  'Well it must go somewhere'

  she stated simply. Paco shrugged, non-committal.

  'It's the same when someone dies'

  she continued,

  'he's got to go somewhere, because his soul can't just cease to exist, can it? When you see someone who's dying, and they're still there, well, they're warm, aren't they, and alive, but then, when they're dead, they go cold and still and you know they're not here anymore, they've gone, and if they've gone, they must have gone somewhere.'

  Paco looked as if nothing on earth could get him to speak about what she was now referring to. He took out the toothpick and flicked it over the counter. Loli shot a jolly wench off her perch. I carried on with my foreign newspaper in case she thought of asking my opinion, but she seemed to have forgotten I was there. Despite the lack of response she warmed to her subject as she practised.

  'When a baby's born, he comes from nowhere, he just isn't there, you know. Then he grows and develops and lives inside you and then he comes out and he's one of us, with his own character and ... from nowhere. Then he grows up and is like you and me, then, like I just said, he dies and goes to heaven. Maybe he came from heaven. I, well, love's not exactly like that because it doesn't ... it's not like us, although it lives and grows and dies. It came from nowhere, that is somewhere, and when it dies it goes somewhere too. It must do, because love is sacred and eternal, like life.'

  She stopped and looked hard at Paco. He shrugged and raised his eyebrows again.

  'Huh!'

  she snorted and walked off. I sneaked a glance at Paco and he winked,

  'never had any kids'

  he declared by way of explanation and disappeared round the back of the gallery.

  I don't know what had started her off in the first place, all that nonsense about sighs and tears; it certainly wasn't anything that Paco had done or said. I suppose, like her little speech later, she doesn't need a context, it all pours out of herself quite naturally, without a logical starting point. I folded away the paper I wasn't even reading and strolled over to the balustrade that runs along the car park overlooking the sea. I too had believed in the sanctity and everlasting nature of love, our love, that which kept us together and gave us a joint purpose, a dual goal. I used to think that without her I wouldn't be able to carry on living, that a life lived in the darkness of her absence would be intolerable, pointless, too sad to bear. Too lonely to bear. If mankind had or not a future, whether there was or is or will never be a vast universal scheme of things made little difference to us. We had no need for such things; our love was the means and the end, the fuel and the motor of our existence. And with that fucking incredible chicken lorry I felt it all come tumbling down until I was left with nothing but debris and ruins. Then I looked at all the thousands of broken pieces of our life and love and could not put them back together again, could not even re-imagine the whole. As I look out across the endless sea, cut abruptly at the edge of the endless sky, I see images of sandcastles being washed flat, cloud formations breaking up, bubbles bursting, echoes dying and I ask: Is all creation no more than a teetering tower of children's bricks? I imagine if I asked Paco that he'd shrug and spit out his toothpick, pick up his rod and saunter off, whistling. It seems he doesn't see things like that at all. Pah! So why should I? I'd be better off getting myself a coffee and a chocolate doughnut, they may not last forever, but at least they taste good. There's something about a dream not coming true that leaves a bitterness in the mouth.

  I bumped into Paco on my way to the caf? so I invited him to a coffee. It's great to go anywhere with him, he's so full of life and seems to know just about everybody in the town. As we walk along I feel like his son or younger brother as he greets people with a shout and a slap on the back, or breaks into some sea shanty (I imagine they're sea shanties as I've never heard them before. It's possible, though, that they're rugby songs because I hardly understand a word), and I sheepishly tag along, over-shadowed by this monument to sociability and happiness. He took me to a small bar hidden away under one of the arches near the market. I'd never been there before but that didn't surprise me, there must be more bars in this town than all the banks and churches put together. A couple of middle-aged men who had been standing in the doorway stood aside to let us in with a grunt of a welcome. The slot machine gave us a better reception and burst into a vaguely recognisable tune as we approached the bar. Everybody turned to stare at us, as they always do here, and I watched Paco scan the room for a familiar face. The barman was playing dice with another customer and made no move to serve us.

  'Two white coffees'

  bellowed Paco and, as an after thought

  'When you can.'

  We were in no hurry. Still talking to the other customer the barman began to prepare the coffees - he'd hardly given us a second glance. Paco smoothed down the few hairs of his practically bald head and started humming himself another song.

  It was a gloomy, ill-lit place, dominated by the bar, with a few tables and chairs against the opposite wall and a pool table at the far end, over which hung a naked light bulb. It was about half-full, and everybody seemed quite relaxed, but the noise was incredible. Apart from the incessant fruit machine, with its ditties and whoopers and spitting sounds, there was the clack of the dice game, the coughing and shuffling of the old men as they argued about whatever it is they argue about. The coffee machine screamed as it heated the milk, the young boys at the pool table giggled and shouted and clapped as they played and by my side Paco was well into the fifth verse of his song. I wondered why they had the TV off. Above the bar, between the bull fighting posters and the Coca Cola adverts I read a sign which said that it was prohibited to sing. It struck me as odd that in such a town singing, the local habit, should be frowned upon in the bars. And Paco by my side singing! I nudged him and pointed to the sign just as the barman brought us our coffees. He wiped his hands on his shirt and followed my eyes 'Bad singing' he explained and winked at Paco, who, encouraged, took a deeper breath and sang the chorus with passion. The pool players applauded and the barman returned to his game.

  I watched a cockroach crawl across the tiles above the coffee machine and disappear behind the cups and saucers stacked on top. Paco started up a conversation with a couple of the old men seated at the table, and try as I might I couldn't pick up what they were saying. Strange expressions that I could translate but not understand, a slurring of words that took me minutes to decipher, and straightforward sentences that they seemed to accept but to me sounded out of place and disconnected. Sometimes they'd nod at me or ask if I agreed and I'd smile or shrug or laugh depending on their mood. It's sometimes a strange feeling to be a foreigner. There are so many things you misunderstand or miss altogether, and not only in the spoken sense. There are gestures and mannerisms to learn, customs to appreciate, symbols to have explained. And you know that however long you live, however many languages you learn, there is always somewhere you are a foreigner, an outsider. Always something you don't quite catch.

  The coffee cups were pushed aside to attract the flies and Paco suggested we went elsewhere for a cognac. Down by the market it reeked of fish, and you could see their squidged bodies lying in dirty pools between the c
obblestones. There weren't many people about, it being siesta time, and we walked slowly along the narrow streets under the plant draped balconies. Every so often Paco would point out his aunt's house or a good bar or cheap barber's, much as a tourist guide would point out the birth place of some famous composer or an ancient building erected by nuns. He was patient with me and forgave me my deliberate speech. Most of the time, in fact, I'd resort to gestures as he seemed to appreciate them more. Anyway, he seemed quite happy to have me along as his audience, and told me that having been a seaman for years he understood the communication problem.

  On a corner of one of the squares we found another bar, this time a more modern conception with smoked glass and swing doors. Undaunted, we swept in. Again the wall of noise. There was a background of radio music punctuated by the inevitable slot machines, at least three in this larger bar. Here everything was more spacious, brighter, cleaner. There were women and children and even the odd dog despite the signs. Behind the bar four waiters worked almost non-stop supplying coffees and chocolate drinks and milk shakes and cakes and biscuits and beers and rolls and crisps and ice creams and gin-tonic. And cognacs. A gypsy girl and boy were begging in their usual arrogant, pestering, effective way. A young man was helping a child play the fruit machine (again, regardless of the signs and pictures forbidding it). Spoons on saucers, coins on the bar, a wriggling mass of human voices, waiters practised calls, the door opening and shutting onto the square like fingers blocking and unblocking your ears. Women with hair piled up high on their heads sucked and puffed at cigarettes and squinted along the bar at each other through enormous glasses. Men roared at each other and jiggled the coins in their pockets, or watched the young girls as they passed the tinted windows. Children under your feet, screaming, squealing, sulking, staring. Students hunched over black coffee, businessmen with decaffeinated drinks that came in sachets, blow dried youths with a gin or a whisky or a Coca Cola. People brushed past you, apologised, smiled, jostled you again, blew smoke over you, spilt your drink, invited you to another, passed it to you, nipped in front of you as you went to the toilet. Life, teeming and rowdy and relaxed and simple, as mundane and natural as the need for a drink.

  An ex-Legionnaire spotted my foreign accent and decided to impress me with his juggling tricks and magical ability, and in so doing show off his tattoos. He could make a coin disappear and then, with a flick of his elbow, toss it up and catch it behind his back. He must have had four or five tricks which he repeated slowly, methodically, never saying a word. Paco and those near enough to see sighed and laughed so I copied them, unsure whether to clap or leave. I haven't had much contact with Legionnaires but they always give me the impression that they're warriors on leave. One night coming back from Melilla on the ferry I'd met a couple of them, all of sixteen years-old, out-doing each other in their accounts of suffering, preparing themselves to kill by lifting rocks without their shirts on or running across the desert with full pack and trench coats. Not old enough to marry or bugger, they'd volunteered for a life of sweat, pain and manliness. We listened to them, sensing the sickly sweet edge of fear contained in their tough immature voices. In their uniforms they seemed as out-of-place among the passengers as the brightly-lit ship in that sombre darkness of night and sea. We shook hands as we departed and I remember thinking 'these hands are trained to kill'. The fighter turned magician saluted and left us in peace and it served as a cue for us to leave.

  We stepped into the square. On the benches that surround it sat lovers and mothers and pensioners. Palm trees, oleander, bougainvillea, orange and lemon trees. A fountain trickling in the middle covered in pigeons. The cognac was having its affect and I saw everything in pieces, in movie shots. A ball rolled in front of us chased by a group of children who seemed always about to fall over in their ecstatic haste. Somebody said hello so we responded - it could have been anybody, a friend of a friend, a customer, a waiter, a bus driver. As we left the square a group of young men approached us. They were dressed in tight jeans, sports shoes, denim jackets, T-shirts. There were about four of them and as many dogs Dobermans and Alsatians held by short leather leads or choke chains. One of them was darker, with sideburns and a moustache - a gypsy. Unconsciously my stomach shrank and I swallowed.

  Still this fear! I glanced at Paco who appeared as relaxed as ever. They stopped us and asked if we had a cigarette paper. Paco shook his head. A cigarette, American? 'Si hombre!' he yelled and offered them a couple. They smiled, thanked us and carried on. It's me, you see, me and my northern habits. I saw them coming and I tensed up, and I should have known, there is no threat. They're young, wild, interested in drugs and dogs and petty theft, but they are not aggressive. Paco was whistling by my side and the youth went back to beg a paper off somebody. Nobody would bother them as they drank their beers and smoked a joint in the square. They could sing and shout, too, nobody would complain or call the police. And I thought to myself, would I have given them a cigarette, or would I have pretended that I didn't smoke and hurried on with my head down and heart pounding? I was glad to be with Paco then, and invited him to a drink. Needless to say he accepted and we wandered through the streets waiting for a bar to catch our attention.

  As we walked he told me tales of the sea, of ports he'd been to and women he'd had (whores all of them, admittedly, but women too). He talked of Loli a little too, how kind she was, but how mad as well, always gibbering on about destiny and mysteries and nonsense like that. 'She'd believe anything, that one. Like in the old days when the doctor would convince you he was right and that you needed a good bleeding! She'd've swallowed it, alright'. He had his theory, already expounded that morning, that she was really a thwarted mother. And he an ex-sailor, and me ...? Easy talk, talk designed for bar-hopping, letting language and ideas play with each other lightly, avoiding profundities without realising that they've already slipped out unnoticed. We had a gin each in a bodega, much to the owner's horror, he'd really wanted us to try his wines, but after coffee and cognac only a gin will do.

  Heading back to the fair we strolled along the shopping mall where the beggars congregate and I suppose I ought to have guessed that Paco'd know most of them. One cross-eyed man with a twisted leg waved to us and Paco slapped him on the back. They talked a while about nothing in particular while I, child like, looked on in amazement. He knew the gypsy mother too and gave her a small coin for the baby. And on he sailed, cutting through the crowds who now swarmed the evening streets, singing, greeting, laughing, winking at girls, telling stories, putting his arm around me and whispering obscenities in an undercurrent voice. At home, fearless and as free as he needed to feel he would have been an oddity elsewhere, but here he was simply Paco, the one who runs the shooting gallery.

  By the time we got back it was past six o'clock and the Boss was looking for us, fretting and wiping his nose with his thumb and forefinger. A group of children stood near the merry-go-round and we had to hurry to get everything started up. The Boss didn't say anything but the look in his eyes was enough. He straggled back to his post; a kind of raffle with numbers and pieces of card and the usual prizes of teddies, table tennis bats, torches. Antonio was already working quietly and Loli'd be about somewhere preparing hot-dogs or more raffle cards. The first kids scrambled onto their favourite vehicles as I eased off the brake, and gradually we picked up speed. I watched them spin round me for a while, and I'm not sure if it was the brandy, or the inevitably impressive sunset, or their open-mouthed enthusiasm, but I felt optimistic; for me or them or something else I couldn't say, but I felt hopeful.

  Vague, I know, but it was that simple, that impossible to explain.