by Mariné, Lola
What did she want to confess? she asked herself once she was back in the street. What sin had she committed? Guilty or not, the fact was that she felt dirty. She needed to clean her soul the way she had cleaned her body at that service station on the highway. She needed to tell someone everything that had happened, to wrench it out of her guts so that she could put it behind her and get her life back, a life in which nobody would abuse or rape her ever again.
The sound of burbling water got her attention. She went over to the iron fence where the noise was coming from and discovered a beautiful patio with a pool in the middle. A few geese were flapping around and gliding through the water, harmonious and quiet. It was the cathedral’s cloister.
She wandered through the Gothic Quarter, feeling small in the midst of such beautiful buildings. But she also realized that she felt protected by the streets’ walls, safe in this strange city. She zigzagged through the streets and plazas, letting herself wander, pleasantly surprised by the charm of the neighborhood, which somehow reminded her of Old Havana. Maybe it was the proximity to the sea or the humidity. She even thought she could smell salt in the air. She crossed Ferran Street and kept walking through the narrow, dimly lit alleys, but her exhaustion began to catch up with her, and she had to find a room for the night. She saw a few signs that advertised rooms and chose one that looked simple and cheap.
She pushed open the old door, ascended a creaking wooden staircase, and knocked on a door with a sign that read “Pension.” A middle-aged woman opened the door. She had a vulgar look about her—too much makeup for the robe and slippers she was wearing—and a cigarette lodged between her lips. She squinted to avoid getting smoke in her eyes. She looked at Billie with surprise, then suspicion.
“Yes?” she asked disdainfully.
“Good evening, ma’am,” Billie said. “I would like a room.”
“You don’t have any luggage,” the woman said, sticking her head out into the stairwell and then clamping her small, astute eyes back on the girl. “Not even a purse.”
“I-I was robbed,” Billie improvised.
“Did you go to the police?” the woman said, sounding skeptical.
“No,” she answered, bowing her head discouraged.
She was half-dead with exhaustion. She needed to shower, to rest. She couldn’t go to the police. If she did, she would have to tell them the whole truth, and she knew it would turn out wrong. Quiroga had made it very clear that it would be her word against his and that nobody would believe her. She would be the one to end up in prison. But she understood the woman’s suspicion.
“Please,” she insisted, holding out the thousand-peso note. “I have money.”
The sight of the money seemed to decide the matter.
“Come in,” she said, closing the door behind the girl. “I could get into trouble for lodging you without papers. I’ll only give you a room for tonight, and it will cost you extra. I’m sure you understand.”
Billie nodded and thanked the woman. After being shown the room, she took a long shower in the shared bathroom. As she tried to erase the last traces of the outrage she had suffered the night before, the memories of it all came flooding back. But it somehow felt like a distant memory, as if a lot of time had passed. The distance acted like a balm. She let out a deep sigh as the water spilled over her and washed away the terrible images. She had to put it behind her. The important thing was to find a job that would help her move forward and get back home to Cuba as soon as she could.
But once she was in bed, she couldn’t fall asleep. She knew that it wasn’t going to be easy to find a job. She remembered the hostel owner’s suspicious demeanor and thought the same thing would happen everywhere she went. Suddenly, she became aware of her true situation: she didn’t have any papers or documentation—nothing to prove her identity—and that worried her. She didn’t know how to resolve the issue, how she would explain it. It was like she didn’t exist at all.
CHAPTER 17
Billie tossed and turned, impatiently awaiting the first light of dawn. As soon as it filtered into the room, she jumped out of bed. She had hardly slept, but she couldn’t stand the anxiety any longer. She needed to get up and do something. She freshened up a little and left her room.
“You’re up awfully early …”
The owner came out to the hall with curlers in her hair and a threadbare robe whose colors were faded from years of washing.
“Good morning, ma’am,” Billie said. “Yes, I’m leaving now. Thank you for everything.”
“Wait a minute.” The woman went into one of the rooms and returned with some clothes that she held out to Billie. “I found these. Someone forgot them. They’re clean. I thought you might like a change of clothes.”
Her words came with a meaningful look up and down Billie, who was still wearing the short, low-cut dress she had worn when she left Madrid. She hesitated for a minute, a little ashamed, but quickly decided that she was more likely to pass unnoticed in more discreet clothes.
“I really appreciate it,” she said, surprised by the owner’s kindness. The woman gave her a friendly, almost affectionate smile and patted Billie on the back.
“You can change here,” she said, pointing to the room where she had gotten the clothes.
Billie went into the room and closed the door. She put on the long hippie skirt and the white, short-sleeved blouse. She didn’t care how she looked, but she did feel more comfortable.
“You’re very kind,” she said to the woman, coming out of the room with her dress in her hand.
“You look great,” the owner observed, contemplating her with admiration. “Though you’d look good in a potato sack. Do you want me to put your dress in a bag?”
“No,” Billie replied with what must have seemed like surprising vehemence. “If you don’t mind, I’d like you to throw it in the trash.”
The woman shrugged, took the dress, and gave Billie a scrutinizing look.
“I don’t know what kind of trouble you’re in,” she said, “but you’d better try not to attract too much attention around here if you don’t want problems with the police.”
“I promise I didn’t do anything wrong,” Billie said. “All I want is to find a job and—”
“Nobody will give you a job without papers,” the woman said. “But I have a friend who can help you. He has good contacts and finds documents and jobs for girls like you.”
“Girls like me?” Billie asked.
“You know,” said the woman with an oblique smile. “Young, pretty girls who need money right away. He can introduce you to some people, distinguished gentlemen, you know what I’m saying … He could earn you a lot of money. And I could put you up here. I’d give you the best room in the house, and it’d be a win-win for both of us.”
“I don’t …” Billie trailed off, finally understanding what the woman was insinuating.
“Well, then you’re a fool,” the woman said coldly. “With that face and that body you could live like a queen.”
Billie shook her head frantically and hurried toward the door.
“I have to go. Thank you for your help, ma’am. Good-bye.”
The woman followed her to the stairwell.
“If you change your mind, you know where to find me!” she yelled down the stairs as Billie ran out.
Billie found a café and ate a light breakfast with the little money she had left. Then she walked around the neighborhood and went into all the bars, restaurants, and businesses that had “Help Wanted” signs by the door. The answer was always the same: they wouldn’t mind training her for a couple days. All she had to do was present her ID and social security card. Billie thanked them and told them she would, and then moved on to try her luck elsewhere.
When night fell, demoralized and with aching feet, she bought a sandwich with her last coins and sat down on the stairs by the port, with her back to the statue of Columbus pointing to the Americas. Her eyes damp with tears, she searched the dark sea, trying t
o imagine where Cuba was.
She didn’t have money for a room, and she didn’t know where to go. So she spent the night loitering around the port, resting on a bench occasionally and starting to walk again whenever she noticed someone—usually a man—staring at her. It was summer, the weather was good, and there were lots of people out strolling and sitting on café terraces. Dawn had started to break when, exhausted, she went down to the beach and fell asleep on the sand.
She awoke to the sound of people around her. The beach was packed with swimmers. Children were laughing and splashing in the water. Adults were watching them, sunbathing, dozing on their towels, reading, or chatting with their friends. It was very hot, so Billie assumed it must be midday.
Billie stood up and stretched. She would have liked to go for a swim to clear her mind and freshen up a little, but she didn’t have a bathing suit. She was starving, but didn’t have a cent left. She thought about what she could do, where she should go. She didn’t have the strength to keep futilely knocking on doors. She decided that her only option was to call Mario. She was ashamed to do it, but she needed help. That’s when she discovered that she had lost the slip of paper with his telephone number. She let herself crumple back down on the sand. What was she going to do now? Who could she turn to? She couldn’t go back to the woman in the pension. Billie knew she would only help her if she accepted her proposition.
Suddenly, a memory popped into her head, of that man, the client from the New York. What was his name? She didn’t remember, but he had said he owned a jazz club in Barcelona. He had seemed like a good person. But she had never even glanced at the card he gave her. There must be dozens of jazz clubs … But she recalled that he had said his club was in the old city. It could be nearby, in any of the little alleys she had wandered down the evening before. Maybe she would be lucky and find it. She stood up again, suddenly hopeful, and left the beach.
She wandered around the neighborhood called El Born in search of jazz clubs, but the metal gates that protected the entrances made it impossible for her to guess what type of business was hiding behind them. She would have to return in the evening, when they were open. She walked up and down Princesa Street, as that was the direction Mario had gone after dropping her off. She prayed to her saints to give her a miracle and make them run into each other, but the saints were very far away, on the other side of the ocean, and they couldn’t hear her. Exhausted and suffocated by the heat, she decided to stop at Santa Maria del Mar church. She knelt before the image of the virgin and prayed to Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre. Although the saint went by a different name here, it was the same virgin she prayed to at home. She rested for a while on one of the benches, enjoying the cool provided by the stone walls and admiring the majesty of the place. She watched the tourists coming and going, whispering and snapping photographs. She envied their carefree way. She knew they were staying in comfortable hotels and eating in good restaurants. Her stomach rumbled and ached from hunger. As she left the church, a profusion of delicious aromas penetrated her nose and made her taste buds prick up. The restaurant patios were starting to fill up with customers, and appetizing plates were coming and going in waiters’ hands. When she got to Pla del Palau, her eyes fell on one of the stone benches. Someone had left a tray with a barely nibbled hamburger on it. She walked toward it and glanced around. There was hardly anyone in the plaza right then, just a woman with a child and some men chatting nearby. Billie sat down on the bench and looked at the food out of the corner of her eye. Her mouth was watering and nausea was rising in her throat. She snatched up the feast and devoured it with simultaneous yearning and disgust, feeling like she could vomit at any moment.
Tears of shame and disdain for herself trickled down her cheeks as she ate.
CHAPTER 18
She didn’t find the jazz club, and destiny didn’t bring her across Mario’s path. She tried her luck in bars and stores, heading to places managed by foreigners in hopes that they would be less strict about the rules, but her efforts were in vain. Without papers there was nothing they could do. She tried for several days, growing weaker and more disheartened as time passed. Billie knew that she looked worse each day. Though she tried to freshen up in the bathrooms of bars, her clothes carried the footprint of long days wandering the streets, nights on the beach, and sitting on park benches waiting for dawn. They could read the hunger, desperation, and exhaustion in her eyes.
She lost track of how many days she had spent wandering aimlessly around the streets. She always moved in circles within the same small areas, afraid of crossing beyond that perimeter of security and getting lost. She felt like this was the only place she could survive, that there was still some hope of finding her guardian angels here. Reality was growing increasingly vague, and her life began to feel more and more like a bad dream.
She grew accustomed to going to the tranquil little plaza near the port with the fountain in the center. Whenever she got tired of walking, she sat on one of the benches and contemplated the pigeons, cooing placidly as they searched the ground for crumbs and pecked at puddles. They were more fortunate than she was. They enjoyed a simple life, without worries of any kind. They spent all day enjoying the sun and then retreated to the eaves of the roofs at night.
An old woman came punctually every afternoon and gave them bread crumbs. They recognized her, rushing over to her as soon as she appeared and fluttering around her head. As soon as she sat down on a bench, the plaza was suddenly full of birds. They sat on her lap and her shoulders, eating from her hand and trying to peck at the bag she brought. She scolded them sweetly and brushed them off gently as if they could understand her. When the food was gone, the woman would leave, and most of the birds flew off.
Billie was tempted to ask her for help more than once. If she was kindhearted enough to care for these little creatures, maybe she would take pity on her. She was surely alone as well, and the pigeons were her only company. But Billie never dared approach her. She was afraid of scaring the woman. She was also ashamed. Whenever she had made the firm decision to go over to her, she broke out in a cold sweat and her heart started racing. So she remained quietly on her bench and averted her gaze. The woman never gave the slightest indication of having noticed her.
When it had gotten completely dark and the park was empty, Billie tried to freshen up at the fountain, glancing around uneasily and hiding if someone walked by. Then, she prowled around the nearby restaurants, where she always found some leftovers that had been tossed in the trash. At first, the old food made her retch, but her hunger soon overcame her queasiness. She pulled clothes out of the dumpster as well. Summer was having its last flings and the nights were getting chilly.
There were other people drifting around the streets as well. She began to recognize them by sight, though she usually acted as if she didn’t see them. A few tried to strike up conversations with her, especially the men. They offered her their company and protection. The nighttime streets were dangerous, they said, even more so for a girl as young and pretty as her. But Billie refused and kept her distance. She felt that hanging out with the homeless was like giving up. She refused to accept that her situation was a permanent way of life, and preferred to figure things out alone. In spite of everything, she still clung to a sliver of hope, a spark of dignity that stopped her from giving up. She tried to convince herself that she would eventually escape this underworld. She didn’t know when or how, but she would do it.
In the meantime, she spent her nights at the end of a dark alley, hiding behind a huge dumpster. She hardly slept, always fearful of being discovered or attacked.
One night, when she was on her way to her hiding spot, she felt a sudden need to vomit. She ran to the edge of the sidewalk and leaned over the curb. The little she had eaten—a few black, mushy bananas—hadn’t settled well. She had felt disgusted eating them, but she was starving. After ridding her stomach of its scarce contents, she kept vomiting bile until the retching stopped. A cold sweat drenched her
body, and she was afraid she might faint in the middle of the street. Swaying, she went to a doorway and huddled in the corner. She was shivering from cold, and she was frightened. She didn’t know what was going on—she could have poisoned herself, or caught some disease and would die right here, in a shadowy alley in the middle of the night, abandoned like a dog.
“Billie? Is that you, Billie?”
Who was calling her by her name? She hadn’t told anyone her name.
A man was kneeling down in front of her, breathing laboriously. Frightened, Billie curled further into her corner.
“It’s Armando! Do you remember me? We met in Madrid, at the New York.”
She looked up incredulously. It was him! Her guardian angel! He was fatter than before, but she recognized his kind, round face. With the same excitement she would have felt reuniting with her best friend, Billie reached out her arms, trembling. She touched him as if she doubted he was real and then ended up collapsing onto his chest and bursting into tears. Armando wrapped his arms around her.
“Little angel! But, what’s happened to you? What are you doing here in this cold?”
“I have nowhere to go …”
“You don’t have a home? You live in the street?” Armando was scandalized. “How long have you been like this?”
“I don’t know,” she murmured in a helpless voice.
“Come on. Get up. I’m taking you to my house. It’s nearby. Why didn’t you call me?”
“I didn’t have your number.”
Armando stood up with difficulty, still holding onto Billie who was a feather in his arms. He put his arm around her waist and took her hand to help her walk, and, slowly, they walked a few blocks until they stopped in front of a magnificent door.
“We’re here,” he announced.
He took keys from his pocket and opened the door. As they went up in the stately elevator, Billie stared at Armando, still clinging to him, incapable of believing how lucky she was. Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre, whom she prayed to every night, had put him in her path to rescue her from the ashes.
