The Dream of the City

by Andrés Vidal

  As he was entering the mansion, led forward by Matilde, he crossed paths with Pilar Jufresa, who was coming down the grand marble staircase that rose from the entryway to the second floor. When she saw the scion of the Antich family, she shouted in a slightly affected tone, reminiscent of the divas at the theater: “Jordi! What a pleasure to see you!”

  Her mouth narrowed in a delighted grin. Her hair was blond and curly, pulled back on the nape of her neck in some sort of mesh. Her brows were arched and the Nordic heritage of her grandmother, who had been born in France, in Brittany, was reflected in the paleness of her skin and her intelligent, inviting blue-eyed stare. While Jordi removed his hat she put her hands on the young man’s shoulders and pushed him gently toward the sitting room.

  “Sit down, dear, treat yourself like you were home. I’ll send for Laura right now,” she told him cordially.

  Soon afterward, the patriarch Francesc arrived, his steps still unsure after his nap. His hair was somewhat sparse and graying, and he always had a bit of tan, even in wintertime, thanks to his long daily walks. Around his smile was a well-kept white beard, not particularly long. He was ten or so years older than his wife.

  “Would you like something to drink?” he asked Jordi, motioning to the mahogany bar in the corner with three stools upholstered in garnet-colored velvet. The mirrored wall behind it was lined with shelves of mahogany and metal displaying a multitude of bottles and glasses. A silver ice bucket stood alongside it, covered in beads of water.

  “No, thank you, Señor Jufresa. I just had my coffee.”

  “The boy is always so formal!” Pilar said admiringly.

  From the upper floor, Laura peeped over the banister. Once she was sure it was Jordi who had just arrived, she went downstairs, and she saw from the threshold of the room that he was uncomfortable with all the attention. She smiled and felt the touch of Núria’s arm as she came down from her rooms. Her sister smiled back at her in collusion, understanding all that was taking place.

  “Jordi, come here, let’s go up to my studio; it’s the only way we’ll be able to talk in peace,” she proposed to him, to get him away from the slightly cloying excess of friendliness coming from her parents.

  “To your studio?” Pilar said. “In my day we didn’t allow that kind of familiarity. A boy from a good family with such a promising future …” She winked at Jordi, who blushed in return.

  “Jordi, did they already offer you something to drink?” Núria asked while she knelt to receive Sara, her youngest daughter, who ran to her from the entrance. “Laura is a bit forgetful sometimes. …”

  While she spoke, she looked fleetingly into the library. Through the half-opened leaves of the double doors she could make out her husband reading the paper. Felip turned his head to them and looked up over the frames of his tortoiseshell glasses. It was just a moment, then he returned to his reading.

  Jordi didn’t know what to do. Laura smiled at him again and pressed him.

  “Are you coming or not?”

  He excused himself as best he knew how and walked upstairs with a hesitant step. A sheen of sweat made his forehead glimmer. Once in the studio, he took off his jacket and sat close to Laura in one of the chairs, over by the little balcony where she had gone to open the doors and let in a bit of fresh air. The conversation started off agreeably, though routine and rather banal. After the preliminary niceties, Jordi finally ventured to ask her, “How are you? I mean, how are you really? Since you’ve been back you’ve seemed different, distracted …”

  Laura looked directly into his eyes. She saw how they gleamed: He was getting tense again. She took a stool and sat down close to him, in front of the large desk where her drawing tools were scattered about.

  “I’m fine,” she affirmed, self-assured. There was a tense silence; Jordi waited for her to speak again. “Italy was … I learned a lot. I enjoyed it like you can’t imagine, visiting all those museums. So much art … The streets, the plazas, every individual monument, the cafés …” She fell silent again. She realized that she wasn’t actually saying anything. Jordi noticed it as well and decided to urge her on, so she would explain herself better.

  “What happened in Rome, Laura?”

  The youngest of the Jufresas seemed to return to her former self, as if awakened from a daydream.

  “You know me too well,” she admitted with an unsteady smile. “I met a man named Carlo. I haven’t told anyone: I was betrayed by him, wounded. But as the days go by, I realize that what happened wounded my pride more than my heart. I think I let myself be dragged along: I knew what was going to happen and yet I threw myself into the mouth of the wolf. Be that as it may, I know now I won’t ever let anything stand in my path again: I won’t ever put anyone else above myself.”

  Jordi twisted in his seat. Inside he was furious, a thousand questions flitting through his mind: Who is this Carlo? Did he kiss you? Did you … do something more? But no, God no, it couldn’t be, he thought, unnerved. Laura couldn’t have changed so much, not his Laura, the Laura who kept her distance with an almost childish familiarity, despite her openness, her free and easy sincerity, the same Laura he almost didn’t dare to touch, the chaste, honest girl he had known for so long. … Surely that unknown Italian hadn’t taken laid her down, kissed her lips, caressed her body, inhaled the aroma of her hair … Jordi clenched his fists, looked at Laura, and said nothing. He couldn’t speak, he couldn’t utter any of those questions that were burning inside. But he could bait another hook.

  “You should take the bull by the horns.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You can’t let a memory change you. You say you won’t allow anything to stand in your way, but you’re letting this Carlo do it, even from so far away. You’re here, alone, shut up. It’s already been some time since you came back and we all missed you a great deal. Bru thinks you lost your touch in Italy, and even if Amadeu Robí and I defend you hair, tooth, and nail, if you don’t show up for our little talks, they’ll think you’re lost.”

  “Bru? What does Frederic Bru know about me? Like he knows how to draw anything but dissolving cats and squealing animals no one could care less about. That plagiarist …” The vitality and rage came back into Laura’s eyes.

  “That’s my Laura! I thought she’d been left behind in Italy! Bravo! Go for the throat!”

  Laura smiled combatively. She actually did miss being immersed in the cultural life of the city, the debates, the shoptalk, the unrepentant Barcelona nights. She stood up on the stool and took down a large black binder from the shelves overlooking the desk. She untied a few knots, took out the charcoal drawings from her stay in Rome, and spread them out over the desk. Jordi admired the nude bodies in silence, those perfect faces, all the petrified lust in that abundance of sketches. He recognized a number of famous artworks among the sketches, pieces he had seen in photos. It was a colossal achievement. There was something different about those sketches: They all seemed to lie somewhere on the border of life and death, flesh and stone, except for one. Jordi pulled it out and looked at it attentively.

  “This one …” he said slowly. “There’s something different about it. Something indefinable that shines from it. The gaze …”

  “Yes, he’s alive. That’s the one live model I used.”

  Laura took the sheet of paper and walked over to the balcony. The sun’s luminosity filtered in through the lace curtain and made the charcoal shine. She looked at her own work pensively and slowly, as if trying to remember all the details, every little feature.

  “It’s Carlo,” she said.

  Jordi felt the sudden impulse to tear the sheet from her hands and shred it into a thousand pieces.

  Laura fished around among the utensils there on the desk. She found something there that she hid in her hand and then she looked around the floor until her eyes reached the metal wastebasket. She motioned for Jordi to bri
ng it over to her. It was then he saw she had a box of matches in her hand. She lit one and brought it close to the drawing. She saw how the drawing shrank, first turning yellow and then gray and black, until it flaked apart in volutes and small, weightless ashes. Little by little, the face in the drawing disappeared.

  When Laura began to sense the heat between her fingers, she let what was left of the drawing fall into the wastebasket. The sheet curled in on itself until it disintegrated. Carlo was now history.

  CHAPTER 9

  Guillermo was running, relieved. He had finally been able to get free of the bow tie that had been constricting his neck since early that morning and now he was heading happily toward the area bordering La Sagrada Familia. His father had insisted he put on his Sunday clothes since they had to go to the church; the fifteenth of August was an important holiday. What he liked best about going to Mass was the snack they had afterward, when Dimas would join them before inviting them to lunch. Once he returned home, Guillermo asked permission to go out and play and his father said yes. But before going out, he had to change to avoid staining his Sunday clothes. Not happy with just that, his father also insisted he put on his cap; that summer was a very hot one. Finally he could leave for the place where his friend Tomàs was waiting for him.

  Tomàs was a sheepherder. His family lived not far from there, in an old and run-down house standing alone in the middle of the fields. He was nine—one year older than Guillermo—and he wasn’t one for words, but he did have a little pocketknife, which Guillermo marveled at, because he had tried more than a few times, without success, to convince his father or Dimas to let him have one.

  They had met because Tomàs normally passed with his flock through the lands that bordered the schools next to the Sagrada Familia. Guillermo approached him one day to look at a little lamb among the sheep and goats that wouldn’t stop leaping around and giving off funny little cries. From that time on, he knew when Tomàs would appear in the late afternoon with his animals, coming down the muntanya pelada of Guinardó. That terrain, with its abundant crop of wild grasses, was his last stop before returning home.

  When Guillermo arrived at the field, he saw that Tomàs wasn’t there. That wasn’t strange to him: The sun was still out and it was very hot. He looked around for something to do and found a group of boys playing marbles. He put his hands in his pockets in a panic but immediately felt relieved: He had brought his with him. He took them out and looked through them, trying to find the orange one, his favorite, his lucky marble. He approached the kids.

  “What are you guys playing? Keepsies? Can I get in?” He showed them his hand with his marbles. The others looked at him and nodded.

  Guillermo smiled at them, and the three boys got down to the game. One of the others, his head shaved nearly to the skin, had managed to maneuver his marble into the hole and now had the right to hunt down his challengers, to try and knock his opponents’ marbles away with his own. If he managed to do so, he could keep them; if not, his rivals would have the chance to respond in kind. Using his thumb like a trigger, the boy knelt on the ground, closed one eye to steady his aim, and stuck his tongue out between his lips while he decided where to shoot his marble. Another other boy shouted impatiently.

  “Come on, man! At this pace you’ll still be aiming when they finish that church over there!” He pointed toward the Sagrada Familia.

  After some hesitation, the boy fired off the marble. Though it came close, it didn’t manage to touch the other.

  “Great! Now it’s my turn!” the second boy shouted, raising his arms in the air.

  The other, visibly upset by his failure, shot back, “But first, you have to get it into the hole, you know.”

  “What?” he shrieked. “I already got it in before!”

  The three boys fell into a heated discussion about the rules of the game, resorting many times to the words, On my street that’s how we play it. After a few minutes it was over, thanks to Guillermo, who persuaded them to start another game. They made it clear beforehand this time that to be able to hunt down the other players’ marbles, you had to get your own in the hole first.

  The sun was beginning its slow voyage toward twilight when Tomàs arrived with his flock. By that time, Guillermo was resting with his opponents under the spare shadow of an almond tree. They were savoring the glasses of water they had been served by a passing water carter. The man was pulling a small cart of jugs, which he filled with water from the fountains and sold to people in the neighborhood, many of whom had no running water at home. He didn’t charge the boys: The afternoon was getting hot, and he had already sold most of his supply.

  When Guillermo saw Tomàs coming over, he stood up and waved his hand. The young sheepherder returned his greeting, tipping the brim of his cap.

  “And Blanquita?”

  “She’s right there.” He pointed to a white goat that had climbed up on a small pile of rocks.

  “Wow! She’s gotten bigger.”

  Blanquita had been born about four weeks back and Guillermo had been following her development. Nit, Tomàs’s sheepdog, came over to the boy and licked his lower legs. Guillermo patted the thick, curly hair of the dog and scratched him around the neck. Nit thanked him for the attention with quick licks at his face, but he was well trained and turned his attention back to the flock whenever some animal started to stray. The dog was agile, managing to keep any of them from going off too far, and he stayed constantly attentive, trotting around the flock. Looking at the dog, Guillermo secretly wished to be a sheepherder like Tomàs so he could have one as well. And a pocketknife too, and the staff his friend carried, which made him look older, conferring on him a solemnity that seemed to command respect. Soon they heard a whistle that made Nit start barking. Guillermo turned and saw his brother waving at him from afar. He waved back to him proudly: His brother was handsomely dressed and drew a sharp contrast to the boys in their worn-out clothes. The sheepherder, a boy of few words, looked at Dimas with curiosity.

  “That’s my brother,” Guillermo boasted, pleased with himself.

  “Don’t be too late; Papa is waiting for you for dinner,” Dimas shouted from the distance. “I’m leaving, I have things to do. See you tomorrow!”

  Guillermo nodded and chided Nit, who was barking, irritated by the brothers’ voices.

  “Is he going to a wedding?” Tomàs asked.

  Guillermo shook his head.

  “He’s going to work. He’s someone important, you know?”

  Dimas was working at that time in another one of the business Ribes i Pla was associated with, a company that manufactured lead pipes, and it was booming thanks to the growth in Barcelona. And yet, there was a constant loss of raw material due to the shady nature of contracts in this kind of business. Ribes knew that Dimas moved like a fish in water through those rough areas, that he was a man with stern habits, and to send him to his associate was the best thing he could do to help out. The latter’s name was Epifanio Esteller, a barrel-chested, broad-shouldered, virile man, with short arms, no neck, and a shining bald head. His booming voice accompanied an endless flow of words that exasperated anyone around him. Dimas preferred the curtness of Ribes, but he wasn’t really bothered by the man’s constant chattering either; he didn’t go to work to make friends.

  “You’re a real gentleman now, Navarro. I’ll bet the girls flock to you like flies.” Esteller laughed boisterously while he gave the man a strong clap on the shoulder. Then, pointing, he said, “The car’s over there; we’re going to go to Viladomat’s place, near Vallvidrera. What a wet noodle, that guy, you notice that? Always so tense, so … stern. Like a fucking bishop! Like you got to be all serious to run a business, you gotta do this thing, that thing … Horseshit! I don’t know why he bothers collecting restaurants and cafés; he’d be better off making altar candles.”

  Dimas smiled out of courtesy. Esteller was so pleased with his little q
uip that he repeated it several times on the way.

  “Making altar candles! That’s a good one, right?”

  Esteller had made a late-evening appointment to get in one of those card games where the money flew across the table so fast, and in such quantities, that it made Dimas’s head spin. The manufacturer asked him to come along. Frequently, a point in the game would come when Esteller would need someone to go to his house or office for more money, and at those times, he needed someone he could trust completely.

  Dimas didn’t yet know many of the players. The obligatory introductions were made, and he tried to recall everyone’s name and focus on as many details as possible. He was convinced of the importance of information.

  The host, Arnau Viladomat, had them pass through a number of empty dining rooms in the restaurant. A fervent Catholic, he was convinced that it was wrong to open his businesses on a day as important as the Feast of the Assumption, although he wasn’t opposed to holding a card game on that same holy day, a game in which obscene quantities of money would be wagered, enough to relieve the hunger of dozens, if not hundreds, of the poor and starving swarming through the city. Everyone knew him and tried not to pay him too much mind, knowing that he was prone to losing his ecclesiastical cool and arguing bitterly with anyone who dared to question the dictates of the church.

  “There’s too much corruption of morals in these times. It was a mistake, getting rid of the court of the Inquisition. I’m not saying we have to go to extremes, but the threat of a stern corrective hardens the spirit and drives lascivious behaviors into a corner where they’re afraid to come out,” he said while he guided them to the room where the game would take place.

  Everything was already arranged for them, and a discreet waiter offered to all present a wide selection of beverages. Viladomat was the only one who chose a soft drink. Dimas had nothing and kept a prudent distance from the rest. He also declined to join the game, though it was hard for him to conceal the satisfaction the invitation provoked in him: While they considered him worthy of playing along, the other men’s escorts had to wait outside.