Fons turns green. ‘No. It is painful to remember the slight. They abandoned me. Wanted nothing to do with me – they would not let me near her. Bad politics. We’re all over that now. Atenció! Caminem!’ He storms on ahead, saying it will calm his nerves. ‘My heart is fragile.’ He puffs and shakes his head. I relax into the familiar crisp of winter darkness. A brisk roam through the city at night, a cafè amb llet from the bookshop behind the university.
‘Do you remember if Natalia Hernández had any books or papers she valued? I’d be very interested in getting my hands on something like that.’
‘Books!’ he shouts. ‘Goddesses don’t read books! They embody them!’
He pauses, ruminating on something.
‘You must come to visit my archive.’
‘When?’ I ask him.
‘Ara.’ Fons growls, suddenly aggressive. ‘Now.’
I check my watch. Fons nods; he hums and haws. I agree. He beams.
‘Natalia Hernández represented this city for me, she was made of it, for it . . .’ We stand at the corner of Carrer de l’Hospital and the Rambla del Raval. Our breath makes dragons in the air. I watch him closely, out of the corner of my eye, suddenly, inextricably uncomfortable. His thoughts roam across the music halls, the opera houses, lurking on the red tiles of the Mercat de Les Flors, thoughts opaque and musty.
‘I have devoted my home to the recording of modernity for future generations of thespians. My therapist encourages me to express myself through this non-sexual form of shrine-making. He says shrines are important to a modern sense of well-being and our culture of anxiety has come as a result of deifying the interests of the individual rather than the collective spirit of the community.’
Ferran Fons leads me up the stairs to his apartment in the Raval.
‘I moved five years ago – wanted to be closer to the action. More room. The place is quite special, I think you’ll find.’ He opens the double wooden doors, painted aquamarine. ‘It’s very festive, very bright.’
My eyes adjust to the sepulchral darkness as we enter.
‘One moment! One moment!’ Fons cries as he flicks on the lights. ‘Et voilà! Así nació el teatro!’ Four walls covered in human faces – young, old, male, female, all histories, all persuasions, perhaps a hundred portraits? Stacks of books, two wide balconied windows and bright red curtains. Aubergine-coloured lounges at the centre of the room, ornate and baroque, puffed-up armchairs. A glass coffee table laden with architectural monographs, design pamphlets, sharp typography.
‘Take your time,’ Fons says. ‘My salon is dedicated to remembering.’
On the largest wall of his living room, above a black tiled fireplace filled with drying violet orchids, the centrepiece – the treasure of his collection. A poster, recovered I assume from some billboard or the press office of the theatre, of that face emblazoned into the subconscious folds of the city. The wide-open eyes, the shadow like a severance down her nose and brow and jaw, playing on the sheer lines of her face, the plum flesh of her lips parted, her tongue moist against her teeth, open. Waiting. Beckoning. I have a secret. Just like yours. The name of her play, the last play, serenading the reader in full caps. 20 JUNE – 10 AUGUST 2003 . . . The show that Natalia Hernández never closed. How many of these were tossed aside? Torn down in the wake of her death? Fons has mounted the poster against the wall in the style of an Andy Warhol print, eye-popping, room consuming. There’s nothing else to see but her. To either side, potted ferns, fecund and dripping. At the centre of the poster, beneath her mouth, a small wooden table perched on a single wooden leg. On this a kitsch figurine of the Virgin Mary and a red burning candle. He has hung pink and orange flowers round the sides of the poster, in the style of a Hindu shrine to Ganesh.
Fons beams.
‘I keep the Eternal Flame of Natalia Hernández lit whenever I am home. It’s complicated. I would like to have it burning always, but we had an accident when I first put the poster up – I burnt the bottom. Had to have it replaced. Took me ages to find one. An Artistic Disaster. Total Disaster. So now this must be footnoted as the eternally monitored flame of Natalia Hernández, the central altar in the Salon of Remembering, primary feature of the Museum of Departed Glory. She is well accompanied –’ he opens his arms wide in a swooping gesture – ‘by the collected treasures of my dramatic appreciation.’
‘She doesn’t make you uncomfortable?’ I ask.
‘No!’ he says, aghast. ‘Quite the opposite. She demands that I remember to feel alive.’
The walls are covered with a wide-ranging assortment of framed photographs and prints – ‘All original,’ he chirps behind me – dipping into a kitchen behind a silk curtain. I hear him turning on the tap. ‘I have Federico García Lorca, three weeks before he was shot in 1936!’ He shouts. ‘A rare Margarida Xirgu, the Catalan actress, on tour in South America. Gandhi in 1948! Oscar Wilde in Paris! And I have the anarchists – Émile Henry! And our very own Santiago Salvador, who so felt the fervour of his cause he threw two bombs into the Opera Liceu!’ He whisks through a collection of faces I don’t recognize – ‘This sub-exhibit is dedicated to Poets-Murdered-Under-Nazi-and-Soviet-Regimes,’ he tells me, holding a crystal glass of water in each hand. ‘The second collection immortalizes Spanish Republicans assassinated by Fascist forces in the Civil War.’
‘And the women?’ I ask.
Retracing my steps to the centre of the living room, looking at the wall facing Natalia Hernández.
Garish photographs. Modern.
‘The third wall is dedicated to the Assaulted Feminine. I have titled the collection: “Victims of the Unknown Assassin”.’
Four rows of three. Twelve photographs. Five vulgar and bright, done by a cheap photographer’s studio, hot pinks and nuclear yellows. Souls hidden beneath thick make-up, peroxide blonde hair, lips and brows provocative. I scan down the faces – until I reach one placed in the centre of the quadrant, eye to eye with the poster of Natalia Hernández, a bright pink frame among the cheap painted gold.
‘That’s Natalia’s mother,’ I say, pointing at the studio portrait of Cristina Rossinyol.
‘Indeed, indeed.’ Fons draws each blind shut behind me as I look at their faces.
‘And who are these?’
‘Victims of a common murderer. Or so I believe. I assumed you might be interested in seeing what I have. The police have no creativity. It takes an urban curator to unearth these beauties – a lifetime of dedication. Have you seen the Raval? Do you think the maître d’s of the finest establishments would talk to anyone about the murder of their illegal girls? Ferran Fons –’ he pounds his chest – ‘is a man of the people. A man whom the ladies of Carrer de Sant Ramon trust.’
‘But only three women were murdered alongside Natalia.’
‘Three were found,’ Ferran says factually. ‘Three women, mind you . . .’ He’s mad. These are conspiracy theories. ‘My art, my Museum to Departed Glory, juxtaposes theory with image. My more illicit friends, who must remain anonymous for the preservation of our working relations – a diplomatic stance if you get me – my friends have supplied me with their portraits, though they are not sure of their true names. Here you have dear Roseanne and poor Rosa.’ He points at two girls arranged either side of Cristina. ‘These were women found by the police in that week. But I have recorded the deaths of many others. Or rather, disappearances. I find them very unsettling. But what does most of humanity do when a girl who does not exist disappears? She has no papers, no documentation – she might have never been born – what does society do when a girl who has never existed disappears from the streets of a city? They forget. They never know to begin with. But not Ferran Fons. No, he records. He collects the images of their lives, and he records them here, amongst the great and the departed artists who were also disappeared by history.’
The girls are arranged above a mahogany chest of drawers decorated with enamel flowers.
‘But the true gems of the collection – for the work you are embarking
on . . .’
He pulls out a drawer. I step back, stunned.
‘. . . rest in here.’
Clipping after clipping. Thousands of newspaper scraps. Photographs yellowed, neatly trimmed. Laid one over the other. He draws them out slowly.
‘You are welcome to return. There are more than you can read in an hour.’
I feel my nerves mounting.
‘This is me in the Tragafuegos. That is Cristina Rossinyol, there is Villafranca.’ He turns another over.
‘The full company is pictured here. They ran this in the local paper. There is Oriol, Villafranca, Cristina and myself. You would not find it in a typical archive. These were done on the small presses, barely any distribution.’
The faded yellow clipping frames a photograph of the full ensemble. In the picture a much younger Fons, with thick black hair and a broad grin, is holding the head of a papier mâché dragon.
‘What role did you have?’
‘El Diablo.’ He pauses. ‘I was cast as the Devil . . . But things became . . .’ He slows again, and frowns. ‘Fraught. I gave it up after the first round of shows.’
‘Why?’
‘I became possessed by something cruel.’ He bats a memory away with his hand. My heart skips faster.
‘Could you describe that for me?’
He pauses. Chews his lip. I can see the thoughts running across his face.
‘Please. Sit,’ he says. I make my way back to the sofa, staring at Natalia Hernández. He pulls up a chair behind me. He clears his throat.
‘Àngel Villafranca made a pact with the devil that summer.’
He pauses. Eyeing me up.
‘He won’t say so – no, of course he won’t, but the truth is that he sold us out for success. He wanted us to play with things – to push ourselves beyond the normal restrictions of human behaviour.’
I nod.
‘At first I didn’t listen to the rumours. I was a young actor, at the start of my career, it was an honour to work with his company, but when the devil came to me I took it more seriously. First he entered my dreams. In the beginning he was a striking young man, black hair, blue eyes, exquisitely dressed, like a nineteenth-century English gentleman. He would look at me, talk to me . . . tell me what to do. I listened. I did as I was told, because I thought it was a manifestation of my subconscious helping me in the role – that I was constructing a character – not –’ he coughs and clears his throat – ‘interacting with a kind of spirit.’
‘Have the police ever spoken with you about this?’ I ask.
‘With me? No.’ His eyes narrow. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Curiosity.’
He raises an eyebrow.
‘I am allergic to authority.’
‘When I spoke with the case officer, he said there was no unifying characteristic of the killings,’ I lie. See what he will do.
Fons sputters. Bright red.
‘I know who you’re referring to – Inspector Fabregat is a self-preserving fool. There was a hell of a significant “characteristic”, as you call it, a stamp: the killer gave thought to – was obsessed by . . . tongues . . . No one likes to talk about it, because the suspicion is, the real knowledge was, that it was in-house. One of us. Took. Each one.’ Fons waves at the wall of women before us. ‘Each one with the exception of Cristina. All the rest lost their tongues. Which is why I have decided to immortalize them. Preserved for perpetuity in silence.’
The air inside the shuttered room becomes claustrophobic.
‘Do you mind if I take some photographs?’
He nods. ‘You’re welcome to document the exhibition as you please.’
The camera comes out of my shoulder bag. As I press down on the shutter, his eyes sear into me. Snap, snap, goes the camera.
His smile broadens. ‘I am an artist, you know.’
I catch his eyes boring into me, as he stands, arms crossed, before the print of Natalia Hernández, she suprahuman. A goddess to be worshipped in solitude.
‘You must tell no one what you have seen. I wish to be an anonymous source,’ he tells me formally, as he leads me to the door. ‘I wish to be known only as the Curator of Departed Glory.’
I accept this. Perturbed. I duck into the metro. Invisible eyes hot on my spine. Skin-coloured tiles, green strips. Sound like a train roaring. A man with a ukulele busking. Through the crowds I sense a presence. Had Fons followed me from the apartment? Hunched shoulders. Dark silhouettes. I get out at the next station, change carriages. Making my way north. Again the feeling of being trailed. Of a lingering attachment. I veer through the underground maze, thoughts tumbling and spinning. No one. There is no one here with you. And yet I am convinced of being watched.
Oriol Duran stands with his back towards the theatre door, smoking a cigarette slowly, a cheap cup of espresso in his right hand. His curls, the colour of burnt sugar, blond caramel, part to the side, in keeping with the period, with short sideburns from the inner rim of his ears to the neat line of his cheekbone, coiffed at the back of his neck, where his hair is kept neatly ruffled. His eyes owl-specked, ruddy hazel, with shards of honeyed gold, into the depths of which many lovesick women have fallen, but Oriol cannot help this fact (beauty is as beauty does) and, despite the multitudes of fans, the orgiastic presence of his blinking beneficence on the television screens of Spain, his eyes preserve a certain innocence, cloaked in dainty lashes, elongated and doe-like. Oriol’s cheeks are smooth and firm like a Roman soldier’s, and were he not so small, and slight in form, a sculptor might have rendered him a model for David or Marcus Aurelius.
He hasn’t aged at all, I think with a start. Not a single year, not a single wrinkle. He could be a decade younger than he is.
‘Duran. A pleasure,’ he continues. Outstretched hand. Warm grip. I can feel the heat rising on my cheeks – I curse myself – Don’t blush. There’s nothing more humiliating. He waits for my response with eyebrows raised.
‘I’m sorry if this comes as a surprise – I always get in early, Fons mentioned you might be here, I asked at the house and . . .’
He shrugs.
‘. . . thought I’d catch you.’
His gaze locks onto me. ‘We’re rehearsing Oscar Wilde. You familiar with Salomé?’
I can make out the scenery for the new show – the backdrops and curtains, the wooden sets. The only lights are the exit signs, green above the rows of velvet seats, and two exposed bulbs above either side of the stage doors. Rest in the quiet. There is something sad about an unlit theatre. Something ghostly. The closest thing we have to an experience of death. Oriol strides to theatre flies and switches on the lights. Pop! Pop! Pop! A giant wooden terrace behind me, set above a banqueting hall, to the left of an enormous staircase and an ageing cistern engulfed by a wall of bright green bronze.
Oriol raps the wooden staircase with his knuckle. ‘Do you know the play?’
I shake my head. He looks straight into my eyes, again that piercing stare. No shame. A bizarre vulnerability.
‘An arresting piece, Wilde’s strangest and his best.’ His face changes ever so slightly. ‘How beautiful is the Princess Salomé tonight!’
I blink. He is reciting lines.
‘Look at the moon. How strange the moon seems. She is like a woman rising from a tomb.’ Oriol comes closer. ‘I play John the Baptist.’ He draws a line across his neck and makes a rushing sound with his lips. ‘Head ends up on a plate. I hope you’re not intending to do the same to me. Writers have a tendency towards violence.’
Standing next to me, he is uncomfortably taller than I had imagined. So close to my skin! I run my hands through my hair, steady my breath, trying to stop my eyes from covering his features as he stands before me; they strain to linger on the glow of his tawny bearing, his skin a flawless texture like polished sandstone . . . I distract myself (What is he wearing? A light grey sweatshirt and loose trousers) . . . restrain my eyes from dancing down the curve of his bicep, raised veins on the back of delicate hand
s. Nails immaculately trimmed. I make my introduction. He listens dutifully. ‘I’m happy to hear someone is doing a piece on Natalia.’ His eyes soften. ‘I hadn’t spoken to Fons in years – but I agree, it’s been too long since someone paid her attention. Fons says you’re good. The American scholar. You’re publishing with Balmes and Sons? That’s very fancy for a foreign kid.’
His eyes flick up and down, resting on my chest. I feel the heat rising again on my spine.
‘I’m free to talk now. If I like you, you’ll get more. But later.’
‘Of course,’ I stammer. ‘I’m all yours.’
Oriol leads me to the edge of the stage. ‘Sit?’ he asks. Not waiting for an answer, he lowers his body to the floor gracefully and leans back on his hands, legs dangling off the side, taking his cigarettes and BlackBerry out of his rear pocket, stacking them neatly beside him. Oriol hits the interview like a professional; not too rehearsed; he’s comfortable. Tone even. I don’t ask any questions – he starts with family. Get a little of his own history out.
He explains that his mother and father were local politicians killed in a terrorist attack in Madrid . . . There was something about the perpetrators being an off-shoot group – inspired maybe by the Baader-Meinhof Gang, the Red Army Faction? An anarcho-communist liberation front that disappeared into Cuba or the Soviet Union. Their car was bombed during a military procession in the capital.
He shrugs as if this were normal. ‘Natalia suffered more than I did; she lost her siblings and her parents. She was divorced from her home – she had no relatives and no family money, while I was blessed with aristocratic parentage and grew up surrounded by excess. I was too young to remember much of my parents when they died. Natalia lost parents she remembered and younger siblings. She was much more damaged than I was – but we shared a bond.’ Oriol waves his hand generously at the empty seats, gesturing at the proscenium arch behind us. ‘The theatre. My grandfather was draconian. He wanted me to be an athlete; he forced me to compete professionally as a fencer. “To uphold an old family tradition.” So I did.’ His hand twitches in the air, swoops and flies. ‘When I was fifteen I took up ballet – in a therapeutic kind of way – teach me some self-control. I was too old to be a dancer, professionally, exclusively, but I took to dance with ferocious appetite. I went to the Institute. They sent me here. I was seventeen when I joined Villafranca’s theatre. Natalia was a child who hid in the flies. She watched me, and I watched her. I thought nothing of it for years – you’ve got to realize, I was eight years older than her. But she grew up, and I stayed the same. It was our secret. You could be anyone! You could slip out of your memories and try another human voice, leave yourself in the dressing room and disappear into the adrenaline, the rush of performing. Of making. For that reason I can only perform when I become entirely. Natalia understood my sense of isolation. After her parents died, we shared . . .’ He pauses, looking for the word. ‘More than a relationship – how do I put it? A conception – yes – a conception of loss. A great yearning to simultaneously forget ourselves and be embraced by love. She understood me. I couldn’t talk about it then – we wanted it to be secret. But we fell in love. When she was sixteen then and I was twenty-four. For years I didn’t act on it. I waited. We couldn’t keep it secret after that. And then she died.’
The Serpent Papers Page 26
