The Dream of the City

by Andrés Vidal

  “Pardon me, I thought it was empty, and I …”

  “It’s fine, you can come in. It’s all yours,” he said, smiling.

  He stretched out his arm and waved her into the room. Suddenly the woman stood still, looking at him and the floor, as if assaulted by some doubt or sudden illness. Dimas’s brow furrowed.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, worried and gentle.

  She nodded, though her gaze remained somewhat lost and her lower lip was slightly trembling. She muttered some excuse and rushed into the room. Dimas walked out, not giving it a second thought, and walked toward the elevator.

  When he arrived at the parking lot, he realized he had forgotten his hat. He locked the small suitcase in the trunk and went back to the room, grumbling. He hoped the cleaning woman was still there, he didn’t want to have to look for a porter or ask at the reception desk to have the door opened.

  When he arrived, he saw the door was shut. Worried she had locked it, he cursed, but he tried the knob anyway and found to his surprise that it opened. The woman was still inside, but seated on the bed now, drying what seemed to be tears with her apron. Dimas said nothing, but the woman sprang up.

  “Please, sir, forgive me. … I didn’t think you’d be back.”

  Dimas scanned the room and then pointed at his hat, which was resting on a chair.

  “I forgot it.”

  “Oh, I see. … It’s that … See, sir, I don’t want you to think ill of me. I had a bad start to the day, and …”

  Dimas nodded while he picked up the hat with one hand.

  “Don’t worry, it’s my fault.”

  “You see …” The woman twisted her apron in her hands and stared at him. Dimas wanted to leave, but something prevented him from walking out before the woman had spoken. He just wanted it to be brief. “I don’t know where my head is today. Everything I do seems …”

  She looked up and fell silent. Her eyes filled with tears. She couldn’t say another word. Dimas didn’t know how to respond. Nervous, he put on his hat, cleared his throat, and, just to say something, uttered the words, “Don’t worry. I have to go anyhow. Are you all right? Can I bring you a glass of water?”

  The woman shook her head and smiled at him kindly. She had sat down again on the bed and was once again using her apron as a handkerchief. Dimas took advantage of this moment to leave the room and said good-bye in a soft, almost sweet voice.

  As soon as the door was closed, the woman stood up. She began to pace nervously around the room. The tears kept falling, but she didn’t bother to dry them. It can’t be! It can’t be! she thought. She ran her hands over her face, trying to clear her mind. She stopped in front of the mirror and looked at her own image; her face, withered by years and work, looked back at her incredulous, ashamed. She stood there a few moments until she felt she had regained her composure. Then her lips pronounced the phrase that had resounded like an echo in her mind since that stranger entered the elevator.

  “It’s him; it has to be him.”

  Dimas was standing and leaning against one of the doors of the car when Ferran appeared. He was in an excellent mood.

  “You should have joined me, Navarro. I notice you don’t eat too much. The breakfast here is outstanding. And in those dining rooms! You drive—I’m too full—all right? I need to be strong today; I have a lot to do. Yesterday, I sealed an important deal. You’ll see. I’ll tell you on our way to the office.”

  Dimas sat in the driver’s seat, put the vehicle in gear, and began to drive away unhurried.

  “That’s right, Navarro,” Ferran continued. “Yesterday was a perfect night for me. You can’t even imagine! This thing with the war is going to be a great opportunity. You know what they say: Troubled waters make for good fishing. …”

  Dimas wondered to what point it was right to make money off misfortune. He pushed aside those thoughts about morals, which weren’t doing him any good, and focused on driving and listening.

  “What happened is, yesterday, between the card games, the roulette, and one drink after another, someone introduced me to Josep Tordera and I managed to have a very fruitful conversation with him. Does his name ring a bell to you?”

  Dimas answered with a question, “The textile manufacturer?”

  “Exactly! So, Señor Tordera is in contact with industrialists who manufacture, among other things, cellulose, which is a kind of paste made of wood and plant fibers. …” He moved his hands as he spoke, as if feeling something between them. It was clear he lacked the necessary words to explain himself. Dimas remained silent. “So, what we’re thinking is,” Ferran continued good-humoredly, “I mean, the point is, these layers of cellulose combined with charcoal are used in the filtration of certain gases. You can use cotton as well, but in wartime there’s not enough on hand: You already have uniforms, bandages … But Señor Tordera has a large supply of it to sell in Germany.”

  “Germany?” Dimas asked, surprised.

  Ferran laughed.

  “Don’t get impatient, you’ll see what it’s all about soon. … See, the president of the government, Eduardo Dato, has proclaimed Spain’s neutrality. But the country’s divided into two factions: Count Romanones, the leader of the liberals, is a Francophile and he is behind the Allies. On the other hand, the army, like the king, prefers the German empire; they must find all that Prussian military culture fascinating. So the country’s neutrality is good for us as businessmen, but, as good businessmen, we don’t want to make any enemies. So Tordera, to cover his back, needs an intermediary to make the sale happen. We have to act with extreme prudence. And to top it off, both sides have spies everywhere, and if they find out about a shipment of supplies to the enemy, they won’t hesitate to intervene. You have to realize, we still don’t even know who pays better. …”

  He took out a Cuban cigar from the breast pocket of his jacket. He lit it carefully, maintaining a silence that was meant to stoke intrigue, though his self-satisfied smile gave him away.

  “I told him I have two trucks ready to go. We’ll drive the material to Bilbao and we’ll charter a boat from there. Then, we can continue negotiating. If we sell it to the French, we’ll drive it across the border in the trucks; if the Germans want to buy, we’ll push ahead with the boat and figure out where we can dock. The part with the ship is taken care of; I have an associate in the north who owes me a favor after a week he spent here,” he said, pointing back to the mountain, making clear he was referring to the casino. “There won’t be any problem on that front. And you’ll help me round up the trucks and the personnel to get the material Bilbao safely. I’m trusting in your discretion. I’ll take care of the transport costs. Tordera’s no fool; he was trying to pay me a fixed price for my services. In the end, I managed to get him to pay me a percentage for my services and the risks involved. It’ll be a handsome sum. Don’t think the plan will end up dead in the water; Cabrils i Pou assures me that despite what you hear, this is going to be a long war.” He laughed, blowing out a column of gray smoke. “And for you, too, all right? There will be money for everyone. At least for this first shipment, I need to have someone I trust at the head of it. So? What do you say, Navarro?”

  Dimas thought that as long as the obligations were recompensed with extra pay, there wouldn’t be a problem.

  “What can I say? It sounds like a great opportunity,” he answered, looking away from the road for a moment to fix his eyes on Ferran. Ferran clapped him on the thigh.

  “I’ll get in touch with my contacts, and we’ll see what the two contenders offer us. I think one of my grandfather’s nephews has risen to a certain rank. … I don’t know if you know this, but we Jufresas are descended from the French. And I have to check with Tordera about the bales of cellulose. You look into the trucks and the people. Try and find something cheap. The cheaper it is, the more you make, all right?”

  Ferran spoke like a mac
hine gun. Dimas answered, hoping he would calm down and stop mixing the important information in with assorted nonsense.

  “Agreed.”

  Ferran fell quiet, as if carefully measuring his words before he finally spoke.

  “Ah, and the best thing was, after doing business, I enjoyed a sumptuous dinner that finished off, for dessert, with the company of a certain Dulce. … What a delightful little doll!”

  “Dulce?” Dimas asked, perplexed.

  Ferran shrugged his shoulders.

  “Don’t look at me that way, she asked to be called that. … Yeah, it’s a terrible name, you couldn’t get more pretentious … but if you saw her undressed …” Ferran gave a high-pitched whistle. “I promise it’s no exaggeration. Sweet, almost perverse. … Navarro, someday you need to make the effort and treat yourself to something like that. I pay you enough to cover it. Then you’ll understand why I’m in no rush to marry. Who wants to get bored with some wife with all the Dulces there are in the world!”

  He cackled so loudly he nearly choked. A bit of ash from his cigar fell on his suit. He swore when he saw the stain. Then he smiled.

  “I was going to ask you to take me home to change, but I’m sure my tailor has a pair of pants ready. Take me there now, I don’t have time to waste. Success is impatient!”

  CHAPTER 18

  A few days later, Dimas was waiting in a dark alley. Every time door number 3 opened, he squinted his eyes to see who was coming out. He was trusting he wouldn’t see a man of some sixty years, a worker in the Jufresas’ jewelry studio with more than forty years of experience. Pau Serra, that was the name of the subject of his investigation. His house was in the narrowest street in Barcelona, the Calle de las Moscas, in the middle of the La Ribera neighborhood. Despite his age, he was well built and had a kindly face. Dimas knew him well, as he was one of the most highly valued artisans in the Jufresas’ workshop.

  Pau Serra had sent word that day through a coworker that he wouldn’t make it in that day because he was ill with a fever. Ferran, who was obsessed with discipline, wanted to make sure it wasn’t a mere excuse for taking a day off. So Dimas, after having set up a meeting for the next day to arrange for the transport of the cellulose to Bilbao, had gone over to the man’s house. He thought it was likely Ferran simply wanted to rid himself of his most qualified artisan, a man with enough prestige to make his voice heard. But his boss’s motivations didn’t interest him in the least.

  The sun emerged then disappeared again between the thick clouds. It was already past midday and Pau still hadn’t left his house. The changing light overhead was barely noticeable in the narrow street. Dimas stood under the cornice of another doorway. A neighbor came out and looked at him with suspicion. Not long after, a number of residents from the Calle de las Moscas were murmuring about what might be the story with the individual in the trench coat who had been standing out there for hours.

  Dimas avoided their looks. The scent of roasted coffee and firewood that arose from the shop of the master roasters Gispert on the Calle de los Sombreros began to stir his appetite. He had to force himself to stay there in his position, waiting.

  The first drops of rain began to fall on the tips of his polished shoes. Water slid down the eaves of the houses; the majority of the drops struck the walls of the buildings before they could hit the ground. Dimas leaned farther into the house to avoid them. He had been there a long time already and nothing had happened. Maybe he should either knock on Pau’s door or leave, he thought. But now the rain was beating down, and he was covered where he was. For a moment he drifted off from that dark alley and the looks of the neighbors who resented his presence.

  He was thinking of Laura. Since their chance encounter he had been observing her in the workshop, while she spoke with the craftsmen, her siblings, or her father, without her noticing. In the time that had passed since that meeting at the Expiatory Temple, Dimas had sought out excuses to pass by the studio and see her. He needed to observe her, study her. He had realized there was something different about her, that she wasn’t like the others. That was why he looked at her eyes, which were bigger than he had thought; at her neck, slender and tense, with a small oval-shaped mole on her glimmering skin; at her able hands, working tirelessly away …

  When he observed her from the distance, his mind forgot what he was busy with. She would work on her drawings and templates or speak with some worker about something she needed. She moved through the studio with the stubborn insistence of a person with a mission to fulfill, just like him. He wanted money, independence, to not have to count the money every week to be sure there was enough to make it to the next, a bigger apartment, a comfortable old age for his father, a future for Guillermo somewhere besides the smoke of the factories …

  That was why he needed to take care not to lose sight of his objective, and there he was now, without any job other than to watch the door of a worker who was probably soaking the sheets of his old bed with sweat. He exhaled and looked once more at the doorway. Strangely enough, as though someone had been waiting for his train of thoughts to come to its conclusion, the door opened. At first no one came out. Dimas was already beginning to look away, convinced that it was some neighbor lady doing her shopping, when the robust figure of Pau Serra came out onto the street. Without looking up from the ground, he began to walk. There was not a trace of fever on his forehead or of weakness in his long strides. He didn’t look sick at all.

  Pau returned quickly from the pharmacy with the magic formula the doctor had prescribed him. His grandson Jesús was sick with typhoid fever and had been burning up for several days. His parents couldn’t stay away from work anymore, and since Pau had become a widower after the most recent cholera epidemic, he was the only one they had to rely on. Unsanitary conditions were a perennial problem in Barcelona in those years, and though the epidemics eventually reached everyone, the workers’ neighborhoods were always the worst affected. The apartments packed with people, the absence of hygiene, the lack of running water, the accumulation of trash, the humidity, the precarious living conditions, and an endless line of other circumstances condemned the population to cyclical outbreaks of fear and disease. Saint Petersburg was the only city reputed to be worse than Barcelona in regard to public health at the beginning of the twentieth century.

  When Pau entered the bedroom, the boy’s face was glimmering with a sheen of sweat. Tremors shook his fragile body, and his closed eyes moved frantically in shallow, restless sleep. He wasn’t the first one in the neighborhood to get sick; they had discovered that the Besós River was infected from the nearby town of Montcada. All the public fountains drawing on that source had been marked with a red cross and it was prohibited to collect water from them. After the hard workday, the neighbors had to leave the neighborhood and walk halfway across the city to retrieve water from the fountains fed by the basin of the Llobregat. On the way back, the heavy jugs tortured their aching arms.

  Pau approached the boy and sat on the edge of the bed. He stayed there some time watching him. His breathing was weary, and he was curled into a ball. His grandfather caressed his forehead covered with blotches and noted with fright that his temperature was almost as high as it had been the night before. He opened the glass bottle, spilled a few drops into a wooden spoon, and raised the boy’s head a little to give him the medicine. Without even opening his eyes, Jesús closed his trembling lips reflexively, spilling part of the solution. He swallowed and curled up once more. Pau wished more light would come in from his small windows. He was convinced that the sunshine did his fragile grandson good. He opened the trunk at the foot of the bed and took out another blanket to wrap around the boy. He asked himself how many would be necessary so that the boy would finally begin to feel warm.

  A knock at the door startled him. It couldn’t be María or Josep back from the factory or the laundry already. Unless they had stolen away a moment at lunchtime to come home and see how t
heir boy was. When he saw who it was on the other side, he lost his breath.

  “Señor Serra, I need to speak with you.”

  Dimas, imperturbable, took off his hat. Pau knew at that moment something was wrong. Politely, he invited him in. His hands began to shake.

  He led Dimas to the dining room, which at times doubled as a living room, and picked up from the floor a few scattered blankets that blocked his way; it looked as if someone had spent the night there. In the kitchen, the last embers of coal were still giving off faint trails of smoke.

  “I beg your pardon, I didn’t expect visitors,” the old man excused himself.

  The apartment was small. The only bedroom, which all of them shared, was the one now occupied by the sick boy. The coal oven stood in the corner of the room where he and Dimas stood.

  “Would you like a glass of water?” Pau asked. He was offering that priceless liquid it had cost him so much effort to get hold of, the only thing he had to give.

  “No, thank you. I’ll only be a minute. Listen, Señor Serra, Ferran Jufresa is a busy man and the workshop has many orders to take care of.” He spoke sternly, without taking his eyes off the other man for even a moment. “He can’t allow any of his workers to take a day off that isn’t assigned to them, and in addition, lying is never the proper course of action. You …” The old man tried to interrupt him, but Dimas raised his hand, forcing him to let him continue. “You have taken advantage of his indulgence by saying you are sick when it is evident that you aren’t.” Pau Serra opened his mouth again, but Dimas wouldn’t let him utter a single word. “I regret it very much, but Señor Jufresa has decided to part with your services, as he feels that he’s been deceived.”

  He rose and turned his back. Once again, he put on his hat, ready to go out to the street.

  “But, Señor Navarro, it wasn’t exactly a lie. My grandson is sick in bed; come if you wish, I’ll show you it’s true. My son and my daughter-in-law can’t manage. … And Jesús can’t stay here by himself. He has one of those fevers that’s been killing everybody. Please understand, I’m begging you.”