Dídac held a hand to his chest, his face turning red as he tried unsuccessfully to dislodge the unwanted moisture in his windpipe. Before he knew what was happening, Daniel had pulled him out of the bar and outside into the street. Holding him from behind, he wrapped his arms around his midriff and squeezed tightly with a hard jerk. Dídac felt the air forced from his lungs, and the beer stuck in his throat was finally expelled with a splutter, dribbling down his chin and falling on the floor near his feet. His eyes were watering and he felt perspiration on his scalp.
Some of the smokers looked on, but turned away when they saw that he was all right. The older, tough-looking guy with the kid seemed to have sorted him out. Inside the bar, a girl had fetched a mop and was doing her best to clean up the spilt beer and broken glass.
Bent double, with his hands on his knees, Dídac was trying to catch his breath, but Daniel looped an arm under his shoulder and pulled him along.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘You’re making a scene.’
Once they got around a corner, out of sight, Daniel threw Dídac against a wall, pressing his hand hard against his throat.
‘I should have fucking left you there to die,’ he said. ‘You fucking piece of shit.’
His grip tightened. Dídac felt the veins thud in his neck and his head as he struggled – less against his father’s sudden stranglehold on him and more to understand what was going on.
‘S-sorry,’ he gasped, barely able to speak.
But Daniel leaned in harder, pressing his weight into Dídac’s arm, holding it straight as he pushed.
Dídac saw Daniel’s eyes boring into him, black pools of anger. Then bright flashing stars of purple and red.
And nothing.
It was still dark when he woke. He had the sense of returning – from what, he could not say. But it was as if for a moment he had stepped outside of time and back into it. A second, or perhaps hours, could have passed. He was alone, but around the corner he could hear the voices of people still drinking outside at the bar.
Gingerly, he got to his feet and patted himself down, as though needing to feel his own body again, to re-enter and engage with it once more. His throat ached horribly, ascending to a sharp, almost unbearable pain when he swallowed.
The tears came uncontrollably and his stomach spasmed in deep sobs. He needed to leave that place: the street was quiet, but someone sooner or later would start to get curious about the young man with dreadlocks crying on the edge of the pavement.
He wiped his face clean on his sleeve and started to stagger back in the direction of the Ramblas and the Barri Gòtic: there was nowhere else for him to go.
At number 2 he pushed the door open and started to climb the narrow steps, glancing up through the centre of the staircase towards the top floor. It felt like a mountain to climb. And what if Daniel were there? He dreaded the thought, yet hoped desperately to find him.
The key refused to go into the lock for a few seconds, before finally he held it steady with two hands and forced it in. He twisted, pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Silence. No sign of Daniel. Or Ximo. There was one person who he could turn to, however, and the light shining under Sònia’s door told him that refuge was only a few metres away. She would understand; she would listen. He needed her now. He loved her. And from the way she had touched him he knew that she loved him too.
He stepped across to her bedroom door and stretched his hand out to push it open, sighing with relief.
Sònia’s eyes were closed, but now, as he stepped noisily inside, they snapped open. She was lying in bed, on her back, the sheet loosely covering her. And next to her, with his sleeping head resting on her breast, was the young man with the goatee who had been coming down the stairs the day he had arrived at Ximo’s flat.
‘Oh,’ she said, registering Dídac standing there. ‘It’s you, Valencia Boy. What do you want?’
He was unable to breathe, as though his very life force were caught in his chest. And his throat began to pound; the feeling of Daniel’s hand pressing hard against it, strangling him, sparked back into life.
‘Well?’ said Sònia. The man lying at her side was stirring now, rubbing his eyes open. And without lifting his head, he stared at Dídac. And grinned.
‘I—’ Dídac tried to speak. Sònia shook her head at him.
‘Look, just fuck off, Dídac,’ she said. ‘You’re weirding me out. Fuck off. Get out of my room.’
He took a step backwards, feeling for the wall, stumbling as he turned to leave. Closing the door behind him, he could hear the other two laughing inside.
His feet barely touched the ground as he sped down the staircase, his own weight pulling him out through the door and back on to the street.
In a nearby alleyway, dark and greasy, the stone doorway of a gloomy building embraced him and he huddled in its corner, arms pulled tightly around his knees.
Wrapped in a blanket of festering, treacherous night, he felt there was only one star shining for him. Faint at first, but as his mind churned it grew stronger for a moment. One person out there, someone he might just be able to turn to now.
He could trust him.
Could he trust him?
He could trust no one.
But there was no one else.
He felt in his pocket for his phone. Should he call? No. Just a text message would do.
He tapped out a single sentence, pressed ‘send’, and then turned his phone off.
Right now, all he wanted, crouched in his dank corner, was to sleep, to forget.
If he was there, if he could help, Cámara would call back in the morning.
FORTY-TWO
CÁMARA READ THE message.
I need help.
He tried Dídac’s number, but his call went to voicemail.
‘I’m in Barcelona,’ he told the recording machine. ‘Ring me when you hear this.’
And he hung up.
The message disturbed him – its brevity, and the fact that Dídac’s phone now seemed to be switched off.
He opened the texting app again and stared at the words. Then his fingers began to tap out another reply.
Will be at the Bar Nuria at the top of the Ramblas tomorrow from 9 am. Come and find me there if you can. Max.
The progress bar at the top of the screen shot across, but paused before completing. After waiting what felt like an age, it finally skipped to the finishing line, and the words Message sent appeared in its place.
He just hoped that it had been received at the other end.
FORTY-THREE
THE SHOPKEEPER STEPPED over him to open up, rattling the shutters noisily. Dídac rubbed his face and crawled out of his corner, his limbs aching and cold. He steadied himself as he walked a few paces down the street, then at the end he bent double and retched, his empty stomach pushing with insistent force against his ribs. A few moments later the shopkeeper came up and handed him a plastic bottle half-filled with tap water.
‘Here,’ she said, and thrust it into his hand, a hopeful, uncomfortable smile on her face.
He mumbled a thank-you and drank; the cold trickled down his damaged throat, calming and soothing.
At a nearby bench he sat for a while, sipping gently. His head buzzed as though a thousand voices were shouting at once. And out of the din, bright flashing details of the night before swam in front of him. He kneaded his fingers into his hair and scalp, trying to ease the pressure inside.
After a final slug, he finished the water and tossed the bottle lazily in the direction of a dustbin a couple of metres away. It missed and fell on the floor with a light clatter. For some reason the sound reminded him of his phone: he pulled it out of his pocket and turned it on. A few seconds later it flashed that he had both a text and a voice message. His heart thudded out of sync for a beat as he wondered whether they were from Daniel, perhaps calling to see how he was, where he was. But then he remembered the desperate text he had sent to Cámara just before falling asleep
. He wished now he had never written it.
Having listened to Cámara’s recorded message, then reading his words, Dídac glanced at the time: it was almost nine o’clock already. In ten or fifteen minutes he could make it to the bar in the Ramblas. He stood up, his legs still slightly shaky: it would be worth going for the chance of some breakfast at least.
He started wending his way through the maze of narrow streets. The first groups of tourists were already appearing, following their guides like swarms of bees in the wake of their queen. He felt their eyes boring into him as he slunk past. They could tell, he knew, that he had slept rough, as though he gave off a peculiar smell, his wretchedness naked and exposed for all to see. If they would just stop looking at him! He tried to cut down smaller and smaller alleyways, to avoid the growing crowds, but everywhere he went the people flocked, as though it were he that they had come to see, not the guidebook monuments.
His chest tightened and he struggled to breathe, sweat clinging to his skin as he tried to walk faster, breaking out into a trot. Crossing the Plaça Nova with his head low, trying to avoid their gaze, he crashed into a waiter serving drinks at a terrace café. The tray tipped out of his hand; the glasses smashed on the ground where they fell. Just like the beer bottle of the night before. And Daniel’s eyes, a violent flare within in them, drilled into his mind.
‘Watch where you’re fucking going!’
He hurried on, not turning back. A hand reached out to grab him, but he slipped away and broke out into a run.
A few shops had opened and people were already filling the street. For some reason he felt safer there, the world of brands and retail offering a buffer of anonymity: products for sale became the focus of attention; other human beings were invisible. At the top of the next street were the Ramblas, where they met the Plaça de Catalunya. Where Cámara would be waiting.
He checked the time: it was a quarter past nine. Already he could sense doubt and hesitation growing within him.
He stepped out into the wide avenue, pushed through the tourists and headed for the trees that lined the central area. The bar was at the far corner, where half a dozen tables were laid out in the hazy, morning-orange sunshine. And there, at the edge of them, he could see Cámara.
Dídac watched him from behind the shelter of a tree trunk: he was no more than six or seven metres away, with his back turned, but sitting at an angle so that Dídac could see his profile. Cámara was holding his phone to his ear, talking in a serious monotone. The words were unclear, but it was clearly police business. It must be. Why else would he be in the city in the first place?
His legs felt heavy, his feet as though they had been welded to the spot where he stood. He could not move, unable to step out, even to call out to the man he had sent his pathetic little SOS to the night before.
What would Daniel say if he could see him now? Perhaps he could see him now, was watching him the whole time.
He turned and glanced around with a sudden panic, his eyes darting from side to side. No Daniel. But that did not mean that he was not there. And would he approve if his son now reached out for help from a policeman? Cámara was their friend. Or had been their friend. Dídac liked him; Cámara had always been kind to him. But betrayal now stalked him like a hunter, waiting for him to make another mistake, to fall into its trap. Why would Cámara not betray him as well? He was, after all, who he was. He could either be a policeman or an anarchist. Not both. And which was he here, now, sitting at this bar in the centre of Barcelona? Why was he even in the city in the first place?
Dídac watched as Cámara glanced at a newspaper resting on his table, then checked something on his phone. He dialled a number and brought the device to his ear again. At that same moment, the phone in Dídac’s pocket broke into song. With a jerking motion, he thrust his hand down and quickly hit the silence button, feeling it vibrate for a few seconds more against his leg before Cámara gave up, and the buzzing stopped. Dídac pulled in tighter behind the tree trunk; he had not been seen, at least not by Cámara.
Sitting at his table, Cámara paused for a moment, staring out into space, seeing but not seeing. A breeze tousled his dark wavy hair, flicking a lock of it over his face, but he did not seem to notice, as though caught in some kind of trance. His shoulders relaxed and he stretched his neck upwards before letting out a long, deep sigh. A moment’s pause, stillness, and then he raised his hand to catch the waiter’s attention. As he opened his wallet to pay the bill, his police ID card became visible for a split second, with its national coat of arms, the badge of authority.
And repression, thought Dídac.
Instinctively he backed away, skipping to a tree further behind, then to another, watching to make sure that Cámara had not seen him.
But Cámara was walking in the other direction, quickly and with purpose, heading straight for the metro station, where he disappeared from view.
Dídac watched for a few moments, to make certain that he had gone, was not trying to trick him into showing himself. Then he spat hard on the floor and walked away.
Half an hour later, after some rapid and efficient shoplifting, he stood in a narrow pedestrian street in front of the large glass window of an antique shop. From his pocket he pulled out his newly acquired scissors and with little ceremony began to cut off his dreadlocks one by one, watching their reflection as they fell to his feet. When they were all gone, he rubbed his scalp, feeling the short bristles of his new hair brushing against his palms. He felt lighter, quicker, more invisible already.
He let the scissors fall to the ground and began to take off his clothes, oblivious to the passers-by staring curiously at him. A couple of Japanese youngsters took photos as he undressed, imagining him to be a street artist of some kind. When he was wearing nothing but his underpants, he pulled out the dark grey trousers and white shirt that he had stolen a few minutes before and put them on, buttoning the shirt to the top. His bruised throat rebelled against the pressure, but he embraced the pain: the choking sensation made him feel alive.
Checking himself one last time in the window, he stroked his hands over his new self, feeling it, absorbing it. Then he turned and walked, barefoot, along the street.
Behind him his old clothes and hair lay in a discarded heap, like a pile of shit.
FORTY-FOUR
DÍDAC WAS ACTING strangely.
Cámara saw him from across the Ramblas as he ambled closer, slowly making his way over. But his body language was different; he seemed to be in pain, his shoulders stiff, his walk slightly disjointed, as though he were uncomfortable within himself. And Cámara could just make out the darker hue of the skin around his throat, curling around in a ring almost from ear to ear. He had been attacked, but if he was coming to Cámara for help, there was also a fear there, as though he did not want to be seen.
Cámara sensed the boy’s nervousness and shifted his chair to look the other way; let him come of his own accord, in his own time.
From the reflection in the window of the bar, he could catch glimpses of Dídac scampering behind, jumping from tree to tree as he came closer before stopping, just a few metres away. And then waiting, watching, peering out from behind the trunk as though it were the most natural thing to do in the world. Some passers-by glanced at him curiously before moving on: he looked like an actor; perhaps someone was filming him.
And so Cámara sat passively, staring out into space, his senses awake for any sign that Dídac might come out of his hideout and finally approach him. But the minutes ground on and there was no movement. He began to wonder about turning around, about calling out, letting him know that he knew he was there, but decided against it. As a compromise, he picked up his phone and called Dídac’s number. From behind, he heard the trill as it rang once before being killed. Dídac must have hit the silence button.
Cámara closed his eyes for a moment. Dídac was not the only thing on his mind: an article in the newspaper on the table in front of him had stirred something in him. It was
a free rag, of the kind that people rarely scanned for more than a few seconds between stops on the bus or metro, and it was already lying on the table when he sat down. He had glanced at it in the usual perfunctory fashion, but one of the articles had caught his eye: an opinion piece on the Catholic Church in Catalonia. Archbishop Forner of Barcelona had now been made a cardinal in Rome and was returning the following day to Catalonia. For weeks he had insisted that he and the other Catalan bishops should leave the Conferencia Episcopal Española – the Church’s governing body within Spain – after the other bishops insisted on condemning Catalan independence moves.
There can be no doubt – said the writer – that this step will be taken with the blessing of the Catalan regional government. The governing left-wing party, never known in the past for its piety, has paradoxically discovered a religious ardour in recent weeks owing to a shared political ideology with Forner. That the Church in Catalonia feels confident enough to contemplate a break with the rest of Spain can only mean one thing: that a unilateral declaration of independence by Barcelona is close, perhaps imminent.
Tomorrow the ceremony welcoming our new cardinal at the Sagrada Familia is taking place. Mere coincidence? I think not. As well as the religious dignitaries invited are also the entire Catalan cabinet. The president is due to make a speech. What better moment and in what better place – a symbol of Catalan national pride and a monument instantly recognisable across the entire globe – to give birth to a new (and ancient) country?
On reading the article, Cámara’s initial reaction was to dismiss it as exaggerated. But sitting there, with half an eye out for Dídac, he started to wonder. A declaration of independence was a dangerous move; the sense was that it could happen soon, but as early as the very next day? Yet, as he thought it through, it made sense; better to do it when no one really expected it, or certainly before they had a prepared response. And a declaration within a church, a sacred place, one generally associated with peace … How would the centralists in Madrid deal with that? It would be a clever move.
A Body in Barcelona: Max Cámara 5 Page 22
