The Dream of the City

by Andrés Vidal

  When he arrived, he unfolded the map of the Ensanche Ferran had given him with the construction plan for Campo del Arpa. Bartolomeu’s buildings were exactly what Dimas was looking for. He took his time tracing out a strategy, and he had to leave to buy notebooks and carbon paper. He made as many copies as were necessary until he came up with a credible image in which Bartolomeu’s buildings were not the future enclave, but rather a hypothetical arterial that would need to be demolished. If he argued it was a matter of eminent domain, he could surely convince the owner, and at a low price as well.

  When he was satisfied, Dimas thought of taking a copy of the map to his boss’s office so that Ferran would be up to date. But he wanted to bathe first. He heated the water on the stove in the kitchen and emptied it into the metal tub until it was half full. Then he added cold water until the temperature was ideal and the tub full. He stripped and knelt down inside with a tremble. The hot water turned his flesh bright red. The memory of Laura emerged with force from amid the hot vapors. That morning he had only seen her a few moments in the workshop, while Ferran was explaining his plans and Dimas was acting as if he was listening. In reality he was looking through the windows of the office. Laura had her back turned, bent slightly over the desk of Àngel Vila. She was beautiful when she got lost in her thoughts like that, far from everyone and everything. She looked fragile, defenseless.

  After the water grew cold, he decided to soap himself before getting out. While he dressed, he looked at the still-full tub: the water didn’t look dirty. He wanted to see it clouded, filled with the ambition, the vanity, the pride, the love for business and for money that he had scrubbed away, but in fact, the soap had hardly whitened it. He picked up the cardboard tube where he had rolled up the plans and went to look for Ferran at his office.

  When he arrived at the workshop, he realized it was later than he’d thought when he left. Absorbed in his work, and later in the relaxation of the bath, he had let time slip away. Everyone seemed to have left already. He knocked at the door with little hope of an answer; maybe it would have been better to leave the bath for later.

  The door creaked softly and opened slowly.

  “I saw you through the window, otherwise I wouldn’t have opened up.”

  Laura was there, enveloped in the shadow, looking at him with her enormous eyes. Those lips … Dimas swallowed.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she said in a whisper that Dimas didn’t know how to interpret. It seemed like a reproach, but also like a sarcastic joke of the kind he had heard her say to her brother or the artisans in the shop.

  He looked at her closely, still there on the threshold, not sure if it would be proper to stay there or come in. Maybe it wasn’t prudent to do so. He still couldn’t tell whether she enjoyed his presence or not, whether she found him agreeable, bothersome, or simply inevitable. How was it possible, he thought, indecisive, that after all the jobs and errands he had performed for Ferran, all of them accomplished without a hitch, he was still incapable of understanding the demeanor of that young woman who sometimes struck him like a little girl, other times like the very essence of a woman?

  As if she could divine his thoughts, she stood aside to open the way in for him. He entered and immediately knew that it had been a bad idea; he wasn’t sure he’d be able to control himself; she was the wife of his boss, a society girl, and he, he …

  “I came to drop this off for your brother,” was all he managed to say, with his customary seriousness.

  “I’m at the table in the back,” she said, pointing with one hand. They walked together toward the offices. The noise of their steps broke the silence of the workshop.

  Dimas left the cylinder on Ferran’s desk and closed the door to the office behind him. He had nothing else to do there. He understood that he should leave, but he resisted. Laura was standing beside her worktable, illuminated by the pale yellow light of a small lamp, as if waiting for him. Dimas approached her with his heart beating fast. She moved to one side to show him what she was working on. He bent over to see better and heard the rustling of her clothes when she stepped slightly back to avoid blocking his light. After a few moments looking at the piece she had been fashioning, he finally dared to pick it up. Holding the jewel between two fingers, he stood up straight. He looked her in the eyes and said, “I like it.”

  She had been holding her breath waiting for his verdict. When she heard it, she breathed a sigh of relief, softly, calming herself down. Suddenly, for Dimas, the whole day had a reason for being: Laura and her cheerful face. All those hours, the sins and virtues, the hunger and gluttony, the satisfaction and sorrow vanished, as when someone pulls away a cloth and leaves the clean table underneath. The day was ending, but it had finally found its meaning.

  The sound of Dimas’s voice made Laura shiver. Everything had been silence before then and the shadows emphasized that feeling of defenselessness, of solitude. All day she’d been working, and all at once, she found herself far happier at his compliment than she would have liked to admit.

  “Really?” she murmured.

  Dimas could not stop looking at Laura’s face: her eyes, her half-open lips, her neck …

  “Really,” he repeated in his deep voice.

  Laura went on looking at him and a desire pounded away at her: kiss him, kiss him, kiss him …

  Dimas approached her slowly. First he pressed his forehead against hers to see whether the touch was invited. Both closed their eyes as if to preserve that moment, to sharpen the rest of their senses. And they kissed. He pulled her close to him by the waist and she wrapped him in her arms. They could feel the warmth of each other’s bodies. And their movements, until then sinuous and slow, became more daring, more rapid. Dimas sat her on the table. Laura pushed away all that was on it and some of her tools fell to the floor. They went on kissing, frantically, as if afraid time would stop; and then more slowly, savoring each other, eyes open, perfectly conscious. Laura gave a moan when Dimas ran his lips down her neck and stopped on her ear.

  “Laura …” he whispered.

  She wanted to cry, to laugh, to shout. She brought her small hands up to Dimas’s face and pushed him a few inches away. She looked at him like that for an instant, as if trying to catch her breath. Then the caresses and the kisses returned. Dimas slid his hands down her back and unfastened the closures of her dress. She took off his jacket and nervously unbuttoned his shirt. His chest rose and fell in time with his frenzied breathing. Both were now naked to the waist.

  Dimas continued kissing her. He traveled over her neck, her breasts. Laura moaned a bit and that only stoked his desire. Then she pushed him softly with her hands and he stood before her, perplexed, until she removed what remained of her clothes and stood before him unclothed. She felt neither embarrassment nor shame, despite all that she’d been told or had imagined. Then she came close to him while he stood there unsure and took off his pants. Both were naked and staring at each other. She took his hand and walked him into a corner.

  “Wait a moment,” Dimas whispered.

  He looked for his jacket, spread it out on the floor, and they lay down on top of it. They continued caressing each other, their bodies pressed together, until Laura, looking him in the eyes, took his hand from her breast and moved it down her abdomen. She guided it little by little until it was inside her. She mounted him and began to move back and forth, slowly, atop him. Dimas sat up on his elbows, raised his torso, and they brought their lips together once more, now at the rhythm that desire and pleasure imposed, the rhythm of two bodies moving in unison. He looked at her, he swallowed her, while she grabbed onto his shoulders, seeking a support to push against while she rose up and fell in thrall to the necessities of pleasure. Their panting sped up and rose in pitch until at last, the two of them were screaming. And both threw their heads back in abandon to ecstasy, each one consumed by the other.

  They stayed there ly
ing on the floor, looking at the ceiling, exhausted. Laura rested her head on Dimas’s chest and he wrapped her in one of his arms. Now that they had caught their breath, each was thinking of how the other must feel, and what they could do so that what they felt just then, instead of fading, would go on forever. And the silence, which had begun out of necessity, was becoming a wall, something that had to be broken to keep the two of them from becoming unknown to each other again, as when they saw each other for the first time in the workshop.

  The first one to break the stubborn silence was Dimas.

  “I think I’ve been wanting this for a long time.”

  Laura smiled.

  “I mean …” Dimas tried to correct himself, somewhat nervous.

  “I understand,” Laura said. And after a silence added: “But we need to be careful.”

  She knew that if what had happened between them got out, they would have to face too many problems, and her image would be tarnished. It wouldn’t be proper for a lady of the high bourgeoisie to give herself to someone as she had done, without courtship or promises of the future, especially a boy who didn’t even belong to her social circle, whom she barely knew and who worked in her brother’s employ. And beyond that, she hadn’t yet dealt with Jordi’s proposal, hadn’t yet had the chance to tell him no. For those reasons, it was important that no one find out what had happened.

  Dimas agreed, conscious of what Laura meant, and also pleased to hear her express aloud that she wanted, as he did, for them to keep seeing each other, even if they had to sneak behind the backs of the curious, to share moments like this one.

  Then they fell silent again, but it was no longer uncomfortable. They knew without speaking that they both wanted the same thing: to be together, and maybe, with time, to say they loved each other, that they couldn’t be apart from each other’s side. But they stayed there, stretched out, not caring to talk about anything important. It wasn’t necessary, not then. They began revealing what they’d thought of each other the first time they met, when he’d come in with Ferran and they’d seen each other in the distance. Dimas recognized that he had already longed for her even before he’d seen her in the shadows of the Sagrada Familia, when he thought she was a spoiled little girl who wanted nothing more than to tinker around in her father’s business. Laura had felt the same attraction, but refused to accept any feeling that wasn’t born from genuine affection, that had no basis deeper than sex. There was no doubt, she confessed, that her attraction had blossomed during their evening out with Guillermo.

  And in that way they passed the time unrushed, without time or date or worries. Finally the cold began to chill their limbs and they had to get up and get dressed. After they left the workshop, they walked together to the Ramblas, uttering a last few words. Laura hailed a taxi at the Plaza Cataluña.

  “Will I see you tomorrow?” she asked, knowing they would see each other there, in the workshop, but she meant she wanted to be close to him, to feel the two of them united.

  “Of course. It will be our secret,” he said, instantly understanding her meaning.

  Dimas went back home on foot. In the fading blue of the Barcelona sky, one could still count the stars that shone brightest. And all of them, Dimas thought, were now within his grasp.

  CHAPTER 28

  Dimas Navarro opened his eyes amid the morning light in his apartment. His mind and body seemed impatient to awaken to a new day, to go out onto the street and celebrate life. He chose the shirt and tie he would wear and afterward shaved looking in his kitchen mirror. When he rinsed his face and wiped away the last traces of lather, he looked at his own image and smiled.

  He took his time getting dressed and went upstairs, where the voices of his father and brother were taking turns. Guillermo was in his room and Juan was making breakfast.

  “Well, look who we have here. Are you joining us?”

  “I could go for a coffee,” Dimas said.

  “Naturally.” After a brief pause, Juan felt the need to fill the empty space. “The boy’s having one of those chatty mornings. It must be the clouds.”

  An excited shriek interrupted him. Guillermo leaped into the passageway from his bedroom dressed only in his pants. He was brandishing a ladle like a sword.

  “Avast, ye mateys! You’ll never take me alive! No one can make me live under the yoke of the brigands and miscreants who govern this island abandoned by the hand of God.”

  Juan and Dimas looked at each other, arching their brows. Guillermo kept on.

  “It’s a propitious wind flogging your sails, Captain,” he said to Dimas. “What adventures did you find yesterday athwart the high seas?”

  “Are you going to finish getting dressed?” Juan said, weighed down with the breakfast plates. “There is no way you aren’t cold. If you show up late, the teacher will punish you. And rightly.”

  “Ay, I’ll do so anon; I’d not wish to be punished with a keelhauling. It’s a few brave seamen who’ve survived such a punishment.”

  Guillermo flourished his ladle a last time and skipped back to his room, riding an imaginary horse.

  Dimas smiled. He watched his father sigh and shake his head. He was proud of Guillermo, that much was clear. He made it to the top of his class with ease and he had an overflowing imagination that helped him to face life serenely. Raúl, his father, was surely smiling as he watched them from wherever he was.

  When Guillermo returned, dressed, to the kitchen, Juan and Dimas were sitting in front of a stack of thick slices of bread covered in olive oil and tomato. Juan was cutting cheese and laying it on their plates.

  “Gentleman, First Mate Guillermo Navarro at your service,” he said with reverence. “I beg you accept my gratitude for the magnificent hospitality you have shown me aboard this ship.” He sat down and laid into his plate.

  Dimas teased the little boy, rubbing him on top of his head. Absorbed in his meal, his father acted as if he didn’t see them. Juan chewed conscientiously. Table manners, he thought, were a sign of character; the people he’d known who didn’t mind them were brutes, ingrates, delinquents. Even in poverty, you still kept your dignity; he’d always tried to remind his boys of that. It didn’t matter how far they’d now strayed from it. When he finished his bread, he lifted up his cup of hot coffee and began the conversation.

  “What’s cooking in the world, son? Everyone’s talking about the Great War, it seems almost as if that’s all there is …”

  “It’s true that everything else seems little by comparison. We’re lucky we’re not wrapped up in it,” Dimas answered.

  After a brief silence, Juan began to talk a bit more, albeit solely about the war. He needed that contact with his son. He didn’t even want to think about returning to the silence that had reigned between them days before.

  “Yeah, but what’s it all for? The country’s still in a terrible state; the numbers of unemployed are growing every day. There are thousands. I’m not sure things aren’t getting worse.”

  Juan was referring to the consequences of the successive failures of the recent governments in Spain chosen by the Cortes and King Alfonso XIII; neither the conservative Antonio Maura with his “revolution from above” nor the acting president Eduardo Dato, a conservative himself, nor any of the presidents before him had brought any solutions during or after the social upheavals at the beginning of the century. And the recently constituted Mancomunidad of Catalonia, a federation of four provinces endowed with legislative autonomy, had not had the time to demonstrate its potential, despite the charisma of its leader, Enric Prat de la Riba. Spain’s neutrality was hardly a synonym for stability.

  Guillermo had finished his bread and was now making sure not a single crumb remained on his plate. Dimas refused to be sad on a day like today. Still, without knowing why, the war awakened in him a diffuse feeling of fear, an uncertainty. Every day the newspapers told of another country entering the
fray. There were skirmishes in Africa; Europe was split from north to south by a vicious and endless front; in the Pacific, Japan was heckling Germany and forcing China into commercial treaties; on the other end of the earth, Australia had occupied German New Guinea. More than twenty countries were now involved. And that was only the beginning.

  “Neutrality is no guarantee,” Dimas argued. “There are those who say we’ll come out on bottom compared with the winners. Powerful countries will still be powerful in the face of the weak; they say the war could even strengthen them. And besides, when you consider our internal rivalries between the owners and the workers and between the different factions of the latter, the best thing for us to do is to focus on ourselves and whatever we can do to influence events around us,” he concluded.

  “Of course, each person and his own … family.” Juan paused, as if he didn’t dare to continue. Every word seemed to require superhuman strength. “Have you thought about your mother? Maybe now you could … We all need consolation.”

  A silence overtook them. Guillermo sat there expectantly, looking from his father to his brother and back. Dimas was quiet as well, his eyes staring into the bottom of his cup, as if trying to see the future in his coffee grinds. His mind was filled with compassion and he was looking for the right line to draw, the path he should take in his family destiny. Everything in his life seemed to be leading to a happy ending, the construction of something pleasant and tranquil, a place he could live in peace. He thought he should do everything that was he could to make that image become real, his life and not just fantasy.

  “You deserve it, too, Father. Let’s take Guillermo to school.”

  The boy shook his head as if suddenly reminded of his obligations. He got up and ran off toward his bedroom. Dimas and his father put on their coats in silence, and soon Guillermo was back, combed and ready. A few sheets of notes poked out from his small leather satchel. Father and son smiled at the boy’s untidiness, proud of his talents and his defects.