The Dream of the City

by Andrés Vidal

  The first hands were accompanied by cheerful commentaries. The bets were still low and the smoke from the cigars had yet to clog the air in the room. Occasionally someone would launch into a clever anecdote, and it wasn’t long before they brought up the theme that most interested Dimas: business.

  “I’m celebrating, boys,” Esteller began. He threw his cards on the table, picked up his winnings, and leaned back in his luxurious baroque chair with its rounded designs. “I just closed a deal with Carcañano to supply the plumbing for his next four projects. The water in the new Barcelona will be flowing through my pipes.” He laughed, contented. “And the best thing is I managed to get an excellent price out of him, even though he’s a crook and was offering me peanuts.”

  “How’d you manage that?” one of the younger men asked him.

  Dimas recognized Ferran Jufresa, who was not many years older than he was. Though Ferran defined himself as a simple businessman, Dimas, as always, had paid close attention to every word that was uttered there and knew that Jufresa was a jeweler.

  “Navarro helped me,” Esteller responded, pointing to Dimas. “Carcañano told me he couldn’t pay me more because he wouldn’t have the cash on hand until the contracts for the apartments were signed; he said I had to be understanding, and that he had another company that was interested … you know, the usual excuses. That was when ‘my associate’ here intervened: He figured out which company was competing against us and put in a fake order. The son of a bitch made himself out to be a developer who had just come into Barcelona, can you imagine? The scam only lasted a few days, just enough. … But you tell it, Navarro, tell them yourself.”

  Dimas felt pushed to continue the story. Ferran Jufresa looked at him with interest.

  “It was a matter of gaining a little bit of time. The fake order for the lead pipes was obviously bigger than whatever the other guy, Señor Francisco Carcañano, could have put in, so our rival, the one from the other pipe company, opted to take care of us, and in order to ‘take care of our needs,’ as he put it, he began to break his ties to Carcañano, and that irritated both Carcañano and the other customers. By that point, all we needed was another meeting where we repeated our initial offer, stressing that we wouldn’t leave him in the lurch just because some other customer came along. We also reminded him of the need to have your supplier list in order when the time comes to apply for the necessary permits from the city; if all that’s not in order, the paperwork gets delayed. Of course, Carcañano knew the risks he was dealing with. We offered him a break on the down payment in exchange for a cut of the sale price of the apartments and a promise of continued cooperation down the road.”

  “And you know what he did?” Esteller broke in. “In a week, we had all the money in our pocket! He paid in C-A-S-H.” With each letter, the businessman rapped his knuckles on the table. “We’ve already got years’ worth of stock sold. And in the meantime, we’ve held on to our old customers, because some of Carcañano’s apartments won’t be built for some time still. Good business, Ferran, good business!”

  Ferran Jufresa clapped his hands softly, though Esteller’s laughter had taken him aback. He took a draw on his cigarette and remarked, “You should loan me your assistant for a few days, I have a little problem that’s been bothering me for some time …”

  “Ask away. … Do you guys mind?” he asked the rest of them. “Shoot, let’s see what he comes up with.”

  Ferran took a sip of his brandy. Dimas took advantage of the pause to check out the man’s clothing. His suit was impeccable. The jeweler threw his cards on the table, signaling that he was out of the game for the moment, and stood up, inviting Dimas to step into a dimly lit corner where he could begin to explain the matter in question.

  “I have a handful of employees who have been spoiled by my father. They’re used to the old way, to moving at a pace that doesn’t fit in today’s world. The easiest thing would be to hire new people, but in jewelry, it’s not easy to find skilled hands. I tell them over and over that if they don’t go faster, the business will collapse … but it doesn’t matter. I even think it’s made things worse. What would you do?”

  Dimas thought for a moment. In his mind, he drew a picture of the Jufresas’ business that he could compare with his experience in the depot.

  “How are the employees arranged?” he asked.

  Ferran looked at him for a moment doubtfully.

  “Each one has his own table. They’re spread out across a room at tables that face one another. … Why?”

  Dimas shrugged his shoulders.

  “I would need to see how it looks, but the most likely thing is you could install panels separating the tables from one another. That way the workers won’t take their cues from the people in front of them.” Dimas paused, and when he didn’t see an adverse reaction, he continued, “Afterward, I would demand that your worst workers produce at the level of your best, and be sure it doesn’t go the other way around. And at the end of the year, I’d fire whoever came in last, no questions asked.”

  Ferran squinted his eyes while the smoke from his cigar trailed up from his lips in a thin column. He looked satisfied. He went back to the table.

  “You know, it seems like a good idea,” he said from the distance, without thanking Dimas.

  “What did I tell you?” Esteller thundered, his breast swelling. “That boy’s worth his weight in gold! But anyway, let’s leave off with the chitchat. I’ll raise you two hundred pesetas!”

  While the game went forward, the theme of the Great War, as it was commonly known, came up again. Since hostilities began on July 28 of that year the German side had conquered Belgium and Luxembourg, declared war on Serbia, France, and Russia, and had drawn England into declaring war on Germany in return. Spain had proclaimed itself neutral, but the country was divided into two groups. Viladomat, for example, was manifestly Germanophile.

  “Prussian discipline is what we need here in Spain, not the influence of the libertine French,” he affirmed, convinced.

  Many of those present agreed. Everyone knew that King Alfonso XIII and the better part of the army were for the Germans as well, but the majority of the government and much of the population sided with their enemies, the so-called Allied Powers, feeling closer to France and to democracy. Nonetheless, the strength of the Germans was widely feared, and many were convinced the war would end quickly. For that reason, it was best not to indulge in favoritism and to wait and see what happened.

  For his part, Dimas noticed that Ferran was far away from this conversation, that his mind was elsewhere. He hoped he had made a good impression on him. He was surrounded by well-positioned, well-connected rich men. And he, of course, wanted what was good—good for him. Indeed, he yearned for it.

  Days later, Dimas was emerging from Esteller’s factory with his jacket slung over his shoulder. He fanned himself with his hat, then dropped it as he was rolling up his sleeves, and it fell, to his great dismay, on the crown. Irritated, he looked for a taxi, thinking he would go to the Conde & Co. department store to look for a new one. Before he could raise his hand to hail one, a car crossed in front of him, a beautiful, cream-colored Hispano-Suiza two-seater with the top pulled back. Dimas thought the driver must have gotten lost.

  “Navarro, can I take you somewhere?”

  Ferran Jufresa opened the door to the vehicle, and after looking both ways, Dimas got in. The scent of the leather interior showed that the car was fairly new. Ferran asked where to go and Dimas stated his destination.

  “Not a bad place,” Jufresa conceded. “But for clothing and things of that sort, I know somewhere better.”

  Dimas looked at his suit and knew he was telling the truth.

  “It must be twice as expensive as well.”

  Ferran laughed, showing off his perfect teeth.

  “A gentleman shouldn’t get caught up in such trifles.”

&n
bsp; “For that, you need money, I’m afraid,” the other man replied.

  “You’re sharp, Navarro. That’s a good thing.”

  “Thank you,” he answered, unconvinced.

  “And that sharpness of yours is exactly what I need.”

  “I suppose it’s a question of training yourself to be sharp,” Dimas ventured.

  “Training yourself? Wrong. Money, that’s what it’s about.” Dimas swallowed; he was on the verge of something important. Ferran went on driving, though he slowed down a good deal. “I want to make you an offer, Navarro: Work for me. Tell me what Esteller pays you and I’ll go higher.”

  “To do what? Be foreman in a jewelry workshop?”

  Ferran snorted and continued.

  “So he hired you as a foreman, then? That old fox! He treats you like a partner, takes advantage of your abilities, and then doesn’t pay you what you deserve. …” He clicked his tongue. “Listen, obviously I need your help with the workshop, but I’m looking beyond the family business; I want more. The time is ripe in Barcelona for those who know how to take advantage of it. I’ll offer you double whatever Esteller pays you. Or name your price; I know you’re as ambitious as I am. What do you say?”

  Dimas remained silent a few moments. His heart was pounding and his stomach was tingling all over. He bit his tongue to prevent looking too eager and took his time in responding.

  “Okay, I accept. If you like, tomorrow I’ll come by your office and we can talk money.”

  Ferran shook his hand.

  “Perfect. Let’s go: I’ll take you straight to my tailor.” Before Dimas could protest, Ferran stopped him: “Trust me, there’s no one better than him for helping you make a good impression. And if you’re going to work for me, you need a good image.”

  The noise of the motor roared when Ferran began accelerating. As they wove through Barcelona, Dimas was filled with a sense of well-being. He breathed deep and calmed his spirits; he still had a long road in front of him before he reached his destiny, he told himself. After so many years of working in silence, with so much contention, so much holding back, he wasn’t going to be satisfied with crumbs.

  Ferran stopped the vehicle in front of the entrance to the tailor’s. When he set foot on the ground, it seemed to Dimas that Barcelona didn’t smell the same, that the air was lighter, more pure. He took his scuffed hat and threw it in the trash can that was standing beside the entrance.

  CHAPTER 10

  The conversation with Jordi had left Laura feeling positive. As the days flowed by, she realized the symbolic act of burning Carlo’s portrait had marked a turning point. Now it was time, she decided, to take the reins in her life, to take part again in the city’s pulse.

  And what better way to do so, she thought, than to start at the beginning, where everything had commenced, at La Llotja, the place where she stopped being an artisan and became an artist.

  Knocked about by the soft jostling of the vehicle she was in, Laura observed the strange, incessant activity in the city center through the small window in the hired carriage, one of the many horse-drawn vehicles that was moving through Barcelona. They were called “point carriages,” because you caught them at a designated spot and the driver calculated the price of the voyage by the distance from the destination. The view of the streets she passed by was random, colorful, contradictory. Right before her eyes, she saw the luxury of the top hats, the parasols, the horses in their harnesses, the phaetons out for a drive and the first motorcars alongside the humble workers heading to the factories, wrapped in their unmistakable smocks, the women with their tattered aprons or the men in their berets, their corduroy caps, or their threadbare espardenyes.

  At the end of the Ramblas, the carriage turned around the monument to Columbus. It had been built for the Universal Exhibition in 1888, just before she was born. Laua smiled as she remembered how her mother spoke of that event as “an immense occurrence that elevated Barcelona to the highest altar of the modern world,” a phrase she always uttered with great excitement. When Laura arrived at Paseo de Colón, she got out to feel the salty sea air on her face. After a terrible August, the heat had begun to die down and at the end of the day, the storms would come; the night before had been filled with lightning. Just before reaching the Pla de Palau, she stopped. The neoclassical façade of La Llotja rose up before her proud and imperious.

  She entered the vestibule and asked for her former professor of sculpture, Eusebi Arnau. The air smelled of stale paper, earth, salt, and youth. The echo of her steps followed Laura as she crossed the different halls. Groups of students turned to look with the nervous eyes of newcomers in early September. The various classrooms flanking the hallway were like a familiar country to Laura. She smiled as she passed by the drawing class, where the model that day was holding his pose amid a sea of easels. Many students, absorbed in their work, didn’t even notice her footsteps, but others followed Laura’s svelte frame with curiosity. Most of the students were men.

  On the second floor, she crossed through a ghostly chamber, filled with silhouettes draped in white sheets that had gone yellow at the edges. In the back, she could see the cluttered office of her professor through his open door. He was concentrated on his notebook, writing away frenetically. Laura rapped her knuckles on the door frame, startling the professor. Although he could barely see her in the half-light—she was little more than a shadow at the threshold—Eusebi Arnau recognized her.

  “Laura, what a surprise!”

  Arnau had only been her professor for two semesters, but he had discovered early that the young Jufresa was a talented creator who imbued everything she touched with symbolism. She knew how to give personality to every line, vigor to every expression. Her sculptures and carvings were alive from the moment she made her first sketches and mock-ups, regardless of the nature of the assignment. Some individuals took years of practice and hard work to make it to that level, and others never did. Arnau and his former student hugged.

  “How are you?” the professor asked.

  “A lot of people are asking me that these past few days,” Laura responded. “It’s making me think maybe I’m not as well as I believe.”

  They looked at each other and smiled in silence.

  “I’ve been in Italy,” she said after that pause. “Learning.”

  “With Zunico, I know. Castells told me; he said he saw you before you left. I figured you would stay there.”

  “Why? I was already dreaming of coming back when I left. …” Laura was confused. It frightened her to think she had become so predictable. The truth was, though, she had been very close to staying.

  “Because Rome is Rome, my dear. And besides, the Italians are very convincing and if you find your path or it finds you, it can be very difficult to escape.”

  “I had my doubts,” she admitted, “but in the end, I came back. And now I don’t know where to turn. I can’t find my place in the jewelry workshop and I feel a little like an orphan. …”

  “It must seem like the ground is giving out beneath your feet.” The professor looked into the distance, his liquid gaze homing in on some undefined point. “What was once sure nowadays is spirited away. Like when you fill your hand with sand in the sea and it slips away between your fingers before you can lift it to the surface.”

  “Exactly, Eusebi. And I was hoping you could help me.”

  “What you have to do is not go backward. If your drawings don’t work out, finish them and move on to something else; if your jewels look conventional, finish them and start with others. You already know my philosophy …”

  “Work, work, and work,” Laura concluded. “I don’t know if that will be enough.”

  “Well, if you don’t overcome the crisis, at least you won’t be able to blame yourself for not trying. But just in case …” Eusebi pointed to something on the paper with one of the bits of charcoal that he grabbed f
rom the table at random. “You have my prescription here, maybe this will help cure you.”

  Laura picked up the paper and read with surprise.

  “I’m not a sculptor,” she objected, looking up from the sheet. “Not in the strict sense of the term. …”

  “You’re not a jeweler either, in the strict sense of the term,” he replied with irony. “I suppose that in Italy you must have deepened your understanding of classical art, the human figure, relief … And I’m sure you have your own ideas about them; if not, you wouldn’t be who you are. Consider it training. It certainly won’t do you any harm. And having your head filled with a task will keep you away from dark thoughts.”

  They talked a long time, and thanks to her teacher’s serenity and his faith in her talent, Laura regained much of her former aplomb. She had never lost it completely, but she couldn’t deny that, despite being a strong woman, she had been assailed by doubts. And now she knew that freeing yourself sometimes meant taking a completely different road. Just as that smudged paper from her teacher advised.

  The next day, Laura woke up very early and went to the area where the new nave of the Sagrada Familia was under construction. Its dimensions impressed her. She didn’t see many people working, maybe because of the early hour, but the multitude of scaffolds, stones, structures, and tools scattered about composed a scene reminiscent of a burgeoning beehive. It made her ask herself what the purpose of so much effort was, but it also reconciled her to the striving of her fellow man, the will and perseverance of the human race determined to make its dreams into reality. The people walking around there were moved by an almost irrational force, as though something far from them, and far greater than them, compelled them to finish their task.

  When she arrived to the Nativity Façade, the only façade that had been completed, she began to realize that what had been built so far was only a small part of the totality. The storied length of time required for the construction of a cathedral was wedged in her mind as something anachronistic, and in fact the entire building seemed like an anachronism, a project born centuries ago, unconstrained by the fevered pace, the zeal for practicality, that had imposed itself on the modern age. At that very instant she thought that it was the best place in which to forget. Or to remember: to recollect who she was and discover who she wanted to be. And there she could do it, in that basilica from another time that now appeared to emerge from a forgotten past, now from a remote future where seconds and minutes did not exist and everything was measured in units whose meaning and logic lay beyond the grasp of a single generation.