The Calligraphy of Dreams

11. A NOT VERY CLEAN, POORLY LIT PLACE

“Ringo, are you coming to the Barrio Chino?”

This is the third Saturday running that El Quique has come into the Rosales bar after supper with the same suggestion. If you’ve never set foot in a whorehouse in Barrio Chino, nano, you’ve never lived. There are three in Calle Robadors almost next to each other: El Recreo, El Jardín and La Gaucha, it’s easy to slip inside. And although El Quique is not allowed in because he’s too young, and usually ends up in the gutter outside with a slapped face or a kick up the backside, nosing around in brothels has become his favourite pastime.

“You should see the fat cows in El Jardín, they look like they’re from before the war! But there’s one, La Manoli … Wow, I get a hard-on just looking at her.”

“Alright, you don’t have to be crude about it.”

“Well, are you coming or not?”

Ringo is enjoying the cool of evening on the pavement outside the bar, sitting with his chair pushed up against the wall, his jacket over his shoulders, a beer in his undamaged hand, watching the world go by. He doesn’t seem to want to do anything. A while ago he was reading his very dog-eared but favourite book of short stories, and now he stuffs it into the baggiest pocket of his jacket.

“Not if you’re going in a gang,” he says. “Too much fuss.”

“Just you and me.”

It’s a misty, muggy evening towards the end of September. El Quique has burst into the bar dressed up in a stifling, brown double-breasted suit, with a polka-dot tie, a litre of brilliantine on his hair and extravagantly framed sunglasses, because sunglasses make you look older, nano, so it’s easier to sneak in. Four Lucky Strike cigarettes snitched from his father are poking out of the top pocket of his jacket. Very pleased with himself, hot but all smiles, he pushes his round, greasy face close to his friend’s and awaits his response. When he saw Ringo so caught up in his book, he stared at him in astonishment, wondering how on earth he could spend Saturday night sitting out here or inside the bar reading or listening to the old-timers’ boring conversations or the slap of dominoes on the marble tabletops. He sometimes thinks Ringo isn’t growing up normally like the rest of them, like him and Roger for example, as if he is still fantasising with his outlandish stories, lying flat on a stagecoach roof firing at the Apaches chasing him across the prairie. He feels like telling him: Ringo, those horses are cardboard cutouts!

“Jesus, don’t be such a dummy. Come on, let’s do it!”

“Find somebody else,” he says. “I haven’t even got enough for the tram.”

Before he left home, after his mother went to La Esperanza to do her night shift, he had looked in a small coffee cup on the sideboard where on some Saturdays she leaves him two or three pesetas. This time there is only small change. The sight of his mother fiddling with this money always makes him sad; whenever he saw her pale, skinny hand fumbling for a few coins in the bottom of her small purse just for him, he felt selfish, useless and a spendthrift. There was a five-peseta note under a small plate, but that was for the bread and milk and a kilo of sweet potatoes that he himself had to buy early next morning before she got up, and, if there was enough, for a pot of cream sprinkled with sugar.

“It won’t cost you a thing,” El Quique insists brightly. “I’ll pay. I’m flush, kid, I won at dominoes this afternoon. Come on! We’ll go for a stroll to El Jardín to see what’s going on.”

“What will that be? Nothing.”

“Well, we can only look, but …”

“Yeah, like wallflowers.”

“What else can we do? They don’t let you touch them. And as for a fuck, for now don’t even dream of it … In El Recreo it’s fifteen pesetas a time. But you can see the girls close up. Then at home you have a toss, and that’s that.”

“They won’t let us in.”

“Of course they will! What do you bet? We’ll get in whenever you like, kid, I swear. On Saturday nights it’s crowded with guys and they don’t pay much attention, you just have to get in the queue and slip through. The only place where they wouldn’t let me in was at La Carola, oh, and in La Madame Petit, the women there cost the earth … Look, I’ll show you things you’ve never seen, Ringo. In a shop window on Calle San Ramón there’s a dildo that looks like a donkey’s donger, you’ll split your sides laughing when you see it … but first we’ll have a few beers in Los Cabales, to get in the mood. I’ll pay. What do you say?”

Ringo excuses himself by raising his bandaged hand.

“I can’t even put my hand in my pocket to buy a round.”

“Like I said, I’m paying. Come on, man!”

You can see from his dull, bulging eyes that all he thinks about is naked women. Out of the gang from four years earlier, El Quique, Roger and Rafa Cazorla are the only ones who still go to the Rosales bar, at first for the table football more than anything else, then to play dominoes, and to go together to a dance every Sunday. El Quique, who doesn’t hide his soft spot for Ringo and claims to be his best friend, and to understand and respect his love of pianos and novels — and not just thrillers or cowboy books — has often tried to get him to the Verdi or the Cooperativa La Lealtad, the two dancehalls where Violeta goes, with her mother as chaperone, but he has always refused.

Tonight though, he lets himself be dragged along out of curiosity. And after he has seen what was to be seen, it occurs to him that to some extent the fantasies El Quique demanded in the tales he used to invent, fantasies of tits and arses, wherever possible glimpsed through Oriental veils, odalisques in brilliant Technicolor concealed beneath gauzes and tulles like Yvonne de Carlo or María Montez, have finally become real in his Saturday night forays into the roughest brothels, especially in the crowded, poorly lit salon at El Jardín where eight or ten women parade round the centre like in an Arab slave market. They display themselves in their slips or nothing more than bras and suspender belts, flushed and bumping into each other because of the lack of room. They walk round as if in their sleep, rolls of flesh rippling as they fan themselves, their greasy, thick hair falling in waves onto bare shoulders; one of them has a towel wrapped round her head like a turban. On their feet they wear threadbare satin slippers or green and red very high-heeled shoes; another has black stockings and a suspender belt, and bruises all over her body; the youngest is wearing white socks and rubber sandals. They sway their fat buttocks in a bored fashion, and smile at the men peering at them with mocking looks of desire or submissive melancholy. Most of the men are standing, although some occupy the bench that runs round walls painted a greeny-yellow colour, as lumpy as a pool of vomit. A small door leads to a darkened staircase, and in the corners spittoons are overflowing with cigarette butts and gobs of spit. A thin layer of bluish cigarette smoke floats in air saturated with bursts of sour sweat and talcum powder, murmuring and occasional laughter can be heard between long silences laden with all kinds of coughs, the insidious clearing of throats, and the uneasy movement of feet in an inhibited, reverent shuffle that for an instant reminds Ringo of Good Fridays in the Las Ánimas chapel packed with the faithful advancing like sleepwalkers towards the altar. A few of the whores are singing softly to themselves as they turn and turn, apparently oblivious to the charms they are displaying. One of them has her hands busy doing some crochet-work, while the youngest and least ugly (although she is still ugly) with bushy eyebrows and dimples like slits in her doll’s face, catches his attention by glancing at him over her shoulder with a sorrowful look, as if saying: What are you doing here, child, how old are you?

Some years earlier he had imagined in great detail a tall tale he has never dared tell the rest of the gang. It featured a pretty young prostitute battered and bruised by her experiences, ruined by a tragic destiny, while he was her pampered lover, a pariah living the life of a vice-filled libertine, redeemed by her love. That lurid, lowlife story in which he saw himself as an adventurer and a louse, but also a misunderstood genius of the piano who had sunk into perversion and failure, now seems to him ridiculous to him as it floods back into his memory in this filthy brothel amongst idle, inert gawkers who only want to pass the time, and makes him feel utterly naïve. This is no place for fantasy, kid, this is a whorehouse, and men come here to fuck. He feels for the book of short stories in his pocket and is already thinking of making his escape, when behind his back he hears a familiar voice.

“Don’t turn round,” whispers El Quique. “Guess who’s behind you.”

“It was too awful to be true, Señor Anselmo,” the voice is saying. “You can see for yourself, she doesn’t work in a place like this. I’ve asked and they don’t even know her. We’re wasting our time. For the love of God, forget that woman; don’t torment yourself any more.”

It is a hollow, sombre voice that suddenly takes on a note of patient commiseration. Yes, it’s his, there’s no other voice like it. Ringo waits a few seconds then turns cautiously round to confirm out of the corner of his eye that scarcely two metres away, among the group of standing onlookers, he can make out the familiar reverential attitude, the furtive, predatory look of the slender figure leaning his splendid snow-white locks towards the squat little fellow he is towering above as he talks to him, so considerate and enveloping that is it almost as though he is manoeuvring to steal his wallet: the same thoughtful deference, the same lofty kindness that he demonstrated in the Rosales bar. His companion, a well-dressed middle-aged man, is bald and chubby and is listening to him with a hangdog expression, his neck stretched as he tries not to miss any of the prostitutes’ twirls on the floor. Señor Alonso, on the other hand, shows no interest in the spectacle; twisting his body as lame people do, and lifting his foot from the ground with some difficulty, he seems anxious to leave.

Ringo would not have paid him the slightest attention anywhere but here. More than three months have gone by since the last time he was seen in the Rosales, and his unseemly affair with Señora Mir only survives in the secrets she shares with Señora Paquita, the two chatterboxes at the bar. Unless Señora Mir revives their interest with another public performance out in the street, the neighbourhood will soon forget the lame man who once prowled its streets. Yet, although Ringo would never admit as much, this character has never ceased secretly to intrigue him. Tall, broad-shouldered and with a thin, hooked nose that reminds Ringo of the sinister Fagin, he now sports a bushy moustache as thick as his head of hair, and a weary grimace on his full lips. His long, olive-skinned face with its deep, strangely symmetrical lines, still exudes its magnetism and flinty harmony, and yet something — possibly the novelty of the moustache or the hooded, mournful lids over his grey eyes — is starting to make him look his age. A man with a vigorous old age, as he remembers Señor Sucre once remarking. He is dressed with his customary care and formality, that of a veteran sportsman from a poor suburb, a faded blue unbuttoned polo shirt, a tobacco-coloured loose-fitting linen jacket with ample pockets and the collar raised, with a black scarf round his neck.

“What, you’re surprised?” whispers El Quique. “I’m not. You can meet anyone here, including your own father. One day I saw Señora Rufina’s husband come in, and another night it was the owner of the store on Calle Argentona.”

“Okay, so we’ve seen all there is to see. Shall we go?”

“What are you talking about? We’ve only just got here! Did you see Manoli? Yum!”

“No, I didn’t see her. It’s very dark in here, and it stinks. I’m off.”

“Shit, nano, but what did you expect? I know what’s wrong with you. You’re afraid someone you know will see you and mention it in the neighbourhood, and your mother will get to hear of it …”

“Are you coming or not?”

All this time he has been concealing his injured hand in his pocket, wearing the scarf round his neck. Before he leaves he wants to put his arm back in the sling, and with it recuperate, or so he hopes, his secret, most authentic identity. While he is asking El Quique to tie the scarf for the sling, he sees La Manoli staring at him over her shoulder. She is a voluptuous, dark-haired woman, her breasts bare; her stern gaze tells him she knows he is little more than fifteen.

“Shit, what’s your hurry?” El Quique reproaches him. “I’m staying until I get thrown out. Then I’ll take a look in the Cádiz bar or the Kentucky, which will be full of tarts …”

“In that case, good luck to you,” says Ringo, and as he slips towards the exit he casts a last glance at Señor Alonso, who is still trying to convince his companion that the woman he is looking for isn’t there.

Out in the street he has to force his way through the stream of men walking slowly in both directions, crowded together but not looking at each other, pretending they are somewhere else. El Quique had already told him that on Saturday nights there are so many men in the Calle Robadors that it’s almost impossible to move, and every so often the police have to come and disperse them with their batons. Whenever they do this, the strollers seek refuge in the doorways and bars, and come out again once the police have passed, to renew their visits to the three brothels. As Ringo forces his way through, leaving behind the silent crowds of men entering and leaving the packed bars, purulent words like syphilis, blennorrahgia, chancre, gonorrhea, which have so worried him since he first heard them from his father, press in on him now and slide along the glistening cobbles, where the neon lights are reflected: Urinary tract, Beds, Rubbers. Soon afterwards he finds himself in dark, less busy side streets, treading on rubble and in foul-smelling water along a route he hopes will take him back to Las Ramblas.

He is in no hurry, and besides, he would not mind getting lost, although he is well aware of the stigma and bad reputation attached to this legendary neighbourhood. At a certain point his excitement grows when he thinks someone is following him. He turns round, but sees nothing unusual; a drunk’s wavering shadow, an empty bottle rolling across the cobbles, a dog scavenging in the rubbish. Curiosity leads him to prolong his exploration with a detour: first he takes Calle San José Oriol, then plunges into Calle de las Tapias, where according to the older men in the workshop a trick with a whore up against the wall in the darkest part of the street would only cost him a peseta … Or were they talking about somewhere even more infamous, a hole known as Terra Negra at the foot of Montjuich hill? Two women with enormous backsides are chatting on the pavement to a weedy-looking guy in a vest, while another woman stands in a doorway looking at herself in a hand mirror. Ringo carries on quickly without pausing, avoiding the light from the streetlamps and hearing the tinkle of laughter behind him, then turns left into Calle San Pablo. His intention is to reach Conde del Asalto via Calle San Ramón, with its strange offers and low dives. He comes to a halt on the corner and by the light of a streetlamp confirms he has no money left either for a last beer or for the tram home. A few metres away on the same corner a tavern is open, with the sound of clapping and music coming from within. He is staring at the sign — Bar Los Joseles — when he hears the sombre voice behind him once more:

“My, my, who’s this I see? I know this lad.”

It could be a coincidence, but that would make it the second of the night. Ringo slowly turns round, annoyed, not knowing what to expect, and finds himself confronted with the familiar twisted smile, the grey gaze beneath the hooded lids.

“Do you mean me?”

“Your name is …” the man pauses for a moment. “Let’s think, something that sounds like a bell … Oh, yes, I remember! Ringo. That’s what the boys in the Rosales bar call you, isn’t it?”

“Yes, you’re right, but that’s not my real name.”

He would never have imagined that one day he would renounce being called Ringo, and he wonders why he has done such a thing.

“What brings you here, so far from home? You’re not lost, are you?”

“No, señor.”

“Well, well. You do remember me, don’t you?”

“Of course. Señor Alonso.”

“That’s right. And how are you, lad?”

It is only now that he realises the man is holding out his hand, with an elaborately carved bone ring on his middle finger. His skin is silky and warm, his handshake firm. So formal — as if they were meeting for the first time.

“I saw you go by and said to myself, why, it’s that boy who studies music and spends his days sitting in the Rosales, always on his own and so polite, always reading, studying, or discreetly listening in when the grown-ups are talking.” He speaks slowly, in a friendly singsong that is slightly mocking but encourages his complicity. His tired eyes smile as he takes a pack of Luckies from his pocket. “Well, well. Do you smoke?”

Ringo shakes his head, and watches as the man transfers the cigarette to his mouth without touching it: he taps a couple of times on the back of the hand holding the packet, the cigarette pops out, and his lips catch it almost in mid-air, smiling all the while. Not bad, thinks the youngster, although he’s seen William Powell do it much more stylishly. Yet he cannot deny he feels a certain curiosity. Perhaps he should have accepted the cigarette and been friendlier and more receptive, to discover his intentions, whatever they might be; it could be that the man is sorry he was seen in such a well-known whorehouse and wants to justify himself. He stares at Ringo, strokes his moustache with his knuckle, and then notices the bandaged hand peeping out of the sling.

“What’s this? Did you trap it in the piano lid?”

Ringo takes the joke on board reluctantly. He explains briefly what happened in the workshop, without admitting to any regret for having to give up his music studies. He does not look the older man in the eye, and stays facing the opposite corner of Conde del Asalto, making it plain he intends to continue on his way. Hesitating over how harsh he should be, he is surprised to hear himself saying in a cold, cutting voice:

“I walked a girl home, she lives close to here. Her mother works at night in Calle Arco del Teatro, in Madame Petit’s, but the rest of her family don’t know that … she used to work in La Emilia, but now that she’s old … Well, they’re quite poor. Her grandfather has a Steinway piano and she told me they were selling it, so tonight I wanted to see it, because my mother promised to buy me one, but it’s very old and out of tune, and there are three keys missing, so I’m not sure …” Pausing for breath he goes on: “Do you live near here too, Señor Alonso?”

Señor Alonso shakes his head. He tugs and shifts the position of his bad leg on the pavement, so he is now facing the bar on the corner.

“I was with a friend. Listen, are you in a hurry? Can I buy you a soft drink or a beer?”

“The thing is, it’s very late …”

“Just five minutes. Right here.” He points to the Los Joseles sign. “What about it?” And, seeing him still unsure, he adds: “I know, you’re asking yourself what I came looking for at night in this godforsaken place … It’s not what you think. I came for a friend who’s having a hard time. A sad story.” He falls silent for a moment, looks down at the cigarette smoking between his fingers as if surprised by it, and adds: “He was married to a young woman who left him, and he still hasn’t got over it. Every so often he takes it into his head to go looking for her, wherever it may be, especially if somebody tells him he thinks he’s seen her. One day I had to fetch him off the women’s beach at La Barceloneta. You should have seen the row that caused. He’s a good man, you know, a benefactor. Not long ago he gave a proper football, boots and new shirts to the lads I train in my neighbourhood … He’s been unlucky.”

He’s lying, thinks Ringo. Chinese whispers in the Barrio Chino. A load of nonsense. He wants something from me. He feels Señor Alonso’s hand lightly touching his elbow, encouraging him to come with him to the bar, while he goes on in his smooth, even voice:

“Although you have to make your own luck in this life. Or so I reckon. What do you think?” He shrugs. “So what?” ‘My good friend made a mistake. He doesn’t want to admit it, but he made a mistake. Firstly, he should never have married such a young woman, don’t you agree? Secondly, once he’d done that, he should never have behaved like an old man who can’t bear to be reminded that he married a woman too young for him. I don’t know if you follow me …”

“Is it true what Señor Agustín says, that you played as a forward for Europa? And that you had to give up because you injured your leg?”

“A bear bit me. One of Jupiter’s defenders.” Then, with a sly smile: “The bastard really did bite. One day he made a vicious tackle, and that was that.”

He is limping more than before, and is just as slippery and enigmatic. Ringo’s mind fills with dark conjectures: seeing him so much at ease in the Calle Robadors brothel, so at home in that atmosphere and with the clients, so much part of the raw desires of that rancid market, yet at the same time so indifferent to it, dealing with his own business without showing the slightest interest in the prostitutes, makes Ringo think he could well live close to here. This man has never wanted to reveal where he lived, so these wretched, foul-smelling streets could well be his secret field of operations, whatever they might consist of.

And yet, when they got inside the tavern, and he trod with obvious distaste on the filthy carpet of sawdust, prawn shells and olive pits beneath the counter, breathing in an atmosphere heavy with the smell of sour wine and rubbish, the lame man suddenly does not seem at all in tune with either the neighbourhood or its inhabitants. Despite his lameness and the way one foot is twisted slightly inwards, he enters the bar with smooth, elastic steps, like a prowling feline.

“Take a look at this,” he says dismissively. “Ali Baba’s cave.”

Los Joseles is a small tavern that tonight has been taken over by a gypsy clan dressed to the nines, determined to enjoy a family celebration. They are sitting at the only two tables beneath a ceiling of hams and sausages hanging from the beams together with strings of garlic, bunches of herbs and sticky flypaper. The men sport frilly white shirts, chunky rings on their fingers and alcohol-soaked voices. The women wear large hoops in their ears and flowers in their hair. A girl who seems to be asleep in a chair propped against a barrel is breastfeeding a baby whose bald head is peeping out of the shawl wrapped round it. There is no-one serving behind the bar, but as soon as the two of them come in, a dark-complexioned young man with plastered-down hair smothered in brilliantine gets up quickly from one of the tables and positions himself behind the array of tapas on the counter. When they are both sitting at the bar, Señor Alonso examines the food and orders two beers and some skewered meat.

“Or do you prefer something else, Ringo?” he asks in a friendly voice. “Some anchovies, perhaps?”

On display are baby squid, Russian salad, prawns, tripe, snails, mussels in tomato sauce. For a moment Ringo thinks he can see fried little birds on one of the plates with their legs sticking up, but they turn out to be sweet peppers with toothpicks in them.

“I don’t know, it’s all the same to me.”

“Those spicy potatoes look good.”

“Let’s have some then.”

He has just realised how hungry he is. Señor Alonso orders a plate of prawns as well. Behind the counter, above the shelves and rows of bottles, an ancient mirror hangs from the wall, tilting downwards. It reflects the image of the young woman dozing as she breastfeeds her baby, deaf to the racket her family is making as they guzzle beer and sangria and rowdily clap their hands and sing. She is very young: no more than a girl, with her flowery blouse and black curly hair, a sprig of jasmine woven through it.

The smiling barman pours more beer outside the glass than in it, and excuses himself halfheartedly. He says he’s only been doing this for a few days, because his uncle, who owns the place, is ill. His face is pleasant, but pockmarked; he is wearing a black shirt with a white waistcoat, and is constantly smiling and showing his rotten teeth. Señor Alonso changes his mind.

“Listen, make mine a brandy with aniseed instead.” He turns and slaps Ringo on the back. “Well, well, how are things? What’s new in your neighbourhood?”

“Everything’s the same … more or less.”

“What about the tavern? How is Señora Paquita getting on?”

“Fine.”

“And that fat lump of a brother of hers, Agustín?”

“Señor Agustín has bought a new radio for the bar.”

“Really? Fantastic.” He is still smiling thoughtfully. “And what about Violeta, eh? You like that girl, don’t you?”

“Me? Not a bit of it!”

“I can tell from the way you used to look at her. You had your eye on her, don’t tell me you didn’t.”

Ringo shrugs. He’s already pestering me, he thinks. He keeps his distance, suspicious. Señor Alonso says nothing for a while, then goes on:

“And how is her mother? How is the healer doing?”

“Oh, her. I don’t know … Fine.”

“Didn’t she and her daughter go to live in Badalona?” Ringo shakes his head. “No? She was always talking of leaving, she never felt happy in your neighbourhood. Her mother-in-law, Señora Aurora, has a flower stall in a Badalona market, and lives on her own …”

“Does she? I didn’t know that.”

“So they didn’t leave, and everything’s still the same.”

“No, señor. Something did happen.” Ringo adds in a solemn tone: “Señora Mir tried to kill herself.”

“For heaven’s sake, kid, what are you saying!”

“She threw herself under a tram. Yes, señor, she really did. Didn’t you hear about it?” he enquires, peeling a prawn. “Everyone saw it, in the street …”

“When did it happen? Where?”

‘They say the wheel braked a few inches from her head. Seriously. Less than that, señor.” Then, in a relieved voice: “Well, in the end it was nothing more than a dreadful scare. Don’t ask me, I don’t know anything more. You hear so many things; some people have nothing better to do. And it seems as if Señora Mir likes to have people talking about her … the whole day long there are comments and gossip about what she is or isn’t doing. She talks of nothing else herself, but I really don’t get to hear anything. And besides, I don’t care. I don’t believe a word of it.”

Señor Alonso is staring down at the floor, a troubled look on his face.

“Did she really do that?”

“She did; well, more or less.” He feels compelled to glance away, then clears his throat and changes the subject. “We haven’t seen you for ages in the neighbourhood, Señor Alonso.”

The older man reacts, taking a deep breath and running his hands slowly across the top of the counter.

“Oh, I don’t stay up late now like I used to!” he says with a faint smile. “That’s a thing of the past. At my age you don’t always feel like it. As you can see, I’ve gone quite rusty.”

What he says doesn’t make sense, thinks Ringo, because neither in the Rosales bar nor at Señora Mir’s when they were together was he known for staying up late. Ringo studies the long, bony hands with their prominent blue veins between the knuckles as they rest calmly on the bleach-scoured wooden counter, and beyond them the man as he lowers his head again, lost in gloomy thoughts. But this only lasts a moment. He straightens up, and says brightly, if in a slightly strained voice:

“Do you know what’s what, lad? What has to happen, happens, and that’s all there is to it. And it so happens that recently I’ve decided I don’t want any more bad news, or nastiness, or whatever. Yes, damn and blast it, that’s enough sadness, I told myself, quite enough of that, kid. I like to call myself kid, you know, even though I’m not of an age for it. Perhaps it’s because I spend whole days among a crowd of kids,” he concludes, his voice tailing off, then falls silent for a while. All at once he slaps himself on the forehead and exclaims: “Caramba, I was forgetting! Do you mind waiting here a few minutes? I’ve got to sort something out, but I’ll be right back … Order another beer, or anything you like, it’s on me. Listen, my friend,” he says, searching for the barman, “serve the boy whatever he wants.” He limps off towards the door: “I won’t be five minutes!”

Half an hour and three beers later, Ringo wonders how he can have been so naïve, and his mind is filled with all kinds of suspicions. But the mirror’s spell is more powerful than all the rest, and keeps him tied to the bar counter facing five small empty plates: he’s wolfed down one of prawns, another of cockles, two spicy potatoes and a Russian salad. He does a mental calculation and realizes that altogether tonight he has drunk five beers — three here and two with El Quique, plus two small glasses of wine he sneaked in Los Cabales, not counting the beer in the doorway at the Rosales bar before setting out on this adventure. He feels more than tipsy, secretly transgressive, almost euphoric; he thinks he must already have been drunk when Señor Alonso accosted him outside, pretending it was by accident. What was behind it? Possibly nothing. The fact is, if he doesn’t come back, Ringo has no idea how he’s going to be able to pay for what he’s had. But why would that lame, rusty fellow leave him in the lurch; where would that get him? To restore a sense of normality, he asks the barman for another beer and a plate of Russian salad.

“Oh, and would you have a bit of bread too?”

The barman’s easy way of dealing with the gypsy clan, serving them and joining in the fun from time to time, occasionally paying close attention to the breastfeeding mother, suggests he must in some way be related to them. The mirror, weaver of shadows and blotches of quicksilver, encloses an arcane, dark atmosphere that seems to have nothing to do with the tavern or to reflect what is in it, apart from the sleeping girl with the baby clamped to her breast. It reminds him of a strange, disturbing film in which a bedroom mirror (a larger, cleaner mirror than this one) suddenly no longer reflected the room where it was hanging, but a very different one, with a different atmosphere and decor, another marriage bed and furniture from another era, a silent bedroom lost in time, where a crime had apparently been committed.

The more he stares at it, the more incredibly beautiful and sensual the girl appears, the more confused everything around her; the dark barrel the chair back is resting against is not clear in the mirror, nor is the old bullfight poster pinned to the wall, only her and the child at her breast, and the maternal tenderness of her hands rocking him in his sleep. But the mirror offers only a partial view of them, and so Ringo moves along the bar slightly to frame the image properly, to fix it and record in his memory something he knows he will never forget: the chance transfiguration of the beauty of the girl’s face, her head to one side with the lips half-open and her purple, drooping eyelids closed, her child-like arms enfolding the baby, the persistent gentle grip of her hands rocking him, the precariously balanced chair. All around her, the rest of her family go on talking incessantly, and their nasal voices are like the buzz of a swarm of bees. The baby must have finished suckling by now and be asleep as well, he thinks, he doesn’t seem to be so tightly fixed to the nipple, and now he can see a bit of the tip of the breast behind the bald head lolling to one side. All this is in the mirror and seems stable and real, far from the deceitful quicksilver blotches and the phantom world of the tavern and its unexpected gypsy atmosphere. It all seems far removed from the contingent, blurred remainder of the scene, and he can sense in his blood the fascination of the future, something impossible to define but more tangible, intense and lived than real life, an internal exaltation that gains sustenance from good omens and unknown opportunities. He has often imagined how exciting life could be thanks to his lucky star, but he has never felt it to be so naturally possible as it is tonight, so certain and clear. Here he can glimpse all the signs that one day are destined to mark his desires and achievements; not only does he firmly believe this, but he can see and assume it so intensely and nervously that he even starts to be wary of his surroundings, as if somebody might be lurking in the shadows, ready to snatch these prospects from him.

All of a sudden the girl in the mirror opens her big, intensely black eyes, fixes them on him with a smile, and sticks out her tongue. Almost simultaneously, Señor Alonso’s dark, bony hand clasps his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, lad, I was kept longer than I expected.” He looks askance at the noisy flamenco revelry. “I can see you haven’t been bored.”

“No chance of that.”

“My God, what a pain. And no-one can stop them.”

“Don’t you like gypsies, Señor Alonso?”

The older man stares at him for a moment, eyes twinkling.

“My dear boy, gypsies have been my lifelong friends. I live surrounded by gypsies and illiterate migrants from the south who are as quick to use their fists as they are to kick a ball, kids like you who dream of becoming someone in life and escaping from their wretched surroundings as quickly as they can.” His voice is not the same as before he left, the words sound thick with saliva and he gives off a strong smell of aniseed and brandy. “But what I can’t stand is the way they get together to celebrate. I know what I’m talking about … Well, as you can see, it’s nothing like the Rosales in here, is it?”

“You’re right there.”

“We can leave whenever you say the word. Or would you like something more?” He looks him up and down, judging his condition. “It’s late, and they’re about to close. I’ll go with you to the tram stop.”

“There’s no need.”

“I think there is. Look, if you miss the last tram you’re going to have to walk home, and it’s a good stretch up to Gràcia. I’m in the same boat, but first I have to go back to my friend’s place.”

“I thought you lived around here … Do you know something? I’d like to live in this district.”

“Don’t say that. Nobody likes to live in shit. Well, tomorrow we have to get up early. Hey, barman!” he clicks his fingers to attract the waiter’s attention. As he does so, a blue ink stain becomes visible between his thumb and first finger. “Give me a packet of Virginia tobacco and tell me what’s owing.”

“Well, I’d like to,” Ringo insists despondently, staring at the hand opening the wallet. That stain wasn’t there when he left, he thinks, and then all at once he starts to feel sick. His head hurts and his hands are sweaty. He finishes the beer and mumbles: “Anyway, thanks for the invitation, Señor Alonso.”

“Are you feeling alright?”

“Fantastic. Fantastic.”

In the mirror, the girl with the flowery blouse rocks the baby, her eyes closed once more. Again, the light around her grows dim, the tavern fades, so do the barrels and the two tables with the carousing gypsies, the bullfight poster and the food hanging from the ceiling, everything around her becomes dark and hidden, and then vanishes completely. As Ringo peels away from the counter, he glances at her one last time.

A short while later he finds himself in Las Ramblas waiting for the Number 30 opposite the terrace outside the Cosmos café. Señor Alonso is still alongside him, offering him constant, incisive support: lost in the shadows, his austere face has somehow taken on a vaguely Faustian outline, with a deceptive gaze and a cardboard nose. The tram stop is deserted, and the café is shut. Ringo excuses himself at the entrance to the public lavatories and rushes down into them on his own, because he knows he is about to be sick. He hardly has time to rest his hands on the scaly lavatory wall of the lavatory before his stomach starts to churn and he brings up the first mouthful of vomit, which splashes his shoes. Afterwards, he rinses his mouth with tap water and cleans the tips of his shoes with toilet paper. Back up in the street he still feels giddy, and is convinced that his flies are open and one of his shoelaces is undone, and yet he doesn’t dare lower his gaze to look because he’s frightened his head might start to spin. It is obvious that the lame ex-footballer will not leave him alone until the tram arrives. And he keeps on talking to him.

“What happened to your hand? I guess it won’t stop you making rings and earrings.”

He shrugs his shoulders and peers down at the sling. He moves his fingers, but can’t feel them. The blood’s gone to sleep, he thinks.

“My mother’s looking for a job for me,” he says, as if dreaming.

“That’s good.” The thick, dark lips broaden in a smile. “You’ll have to learn another trade, but I’m sure you’ll make a go of it.”

“Of course.”

“What would you like to do?”

Ringo shrugs again.

“The other day I saw a sign in a music shop: they wanted an assistant. I’m not sure, I might try that. I could be a piano-tuner …”

Two municipal street cleaners cross the central promenade carrying a hosepipe over their shoulders as if it was — he thinks he must write this down in his black oilskin notebook — a huge dead snake. Bending slightly at the waist as if trying to sell a dummy on the pitch, the ex-footballer lifts his foot from the pavement and comes closer, hand in his jacket pocket.

“Now you go straight home, and tomorrow’s another day, alright?” He appears to hesitate for a second, then says: “Look, seeing that I bumped into you … Could I ask you to do me a favour? Could you leave something from me in the Rosales bar?” He keeps his hand in his pocket as he questions him with his eyes. “You told me you still went there, didn’t you?”

“That’s right.”

“I’ve got something for Señora Paquita. Could you give it her from me? She knows what it’s about. Would you do me that favour?”

Aaagh! His stomach churns again, and he is on the point of throwing up once more.

“A message for Señora Paquita? Of course.”

“Could you give it her tomorrow morning, as discreetly as possible? She’s been expecting it for ages …”

“Well, she’s hardly ever there in the mornings. But her brother Señor Agustín is.”

“No, not to Señor Agustín. It’s something you need to hand personally to his sister. I’d go myself, but I can’t: I have to go on a trip first thing tomorrow.” He takes a pale-pink envelope out of his pocket. It’s sealed and has a name written in the top corner, a name beginning with a capital V, which Ringo cannot completely make out, although he knows full well to whom it’s addressed. “Try to give it to her without anyone seeing you, right? When there aren’t many people in the bar.” He is suddenly anxious, doubtful, and so he adds with a smile, seeking his support: “That way we’ll avoid any gossip, won’t we? I was even thinking … You know the address …” he pauses again, hesitates. “No, there would be too many questions. Better for Señora Paquita to take care of that. As I said, she’ll know what needs to be done. Here it is.”

Aha, so that’s what this was all about, he thinks. So it seems the famous affair is not over yet. Still feeling sick, afraid he might black out, and choking back bittersweet saliva, Ringo takes the envelope in his bandaged hand, because with the other one he is feeling for change in the left pocket of his jacket: a couple of coins have fallen through a hole in the lining, but he can’t reach them and is worried he won’t have the forty cents he needs for the tram. All at once, with the letter in his anesthetised hand, pinned gently in his numb fingers, he feels downhearted and annoyed. In the alternative world that is being created in complete opposition to what is real (except possibly what he can see in the mirror) there can be no place for such sordid, depressing tales of woe like those of the voluptuous blonde and her crippled lover. You try to be friendly and polite, to always be ready to do someone a favour, and look where it gets you, dammit. He can feel how thin the envelope is: it must contain a single folded sheet, most likely an extremely short letter. But together with the envelope, there’s a five peseta note!

“Got it. And five pesetas!”

“They’re yours. So you can take your girl to the cinema.”

“Oh, thanks! But you shouldn’t have …”

“Don’t answer back. And be careful you don’t lose it.” He takes the envelope and the banknote from him, puts them both in Ringo’s jacket pocket, then nervously does it up. “Better in there. The truth is, I don’t know if it will be of any use, that letter should have reached its destination long ago … I asked Señora Paquita to be discreet, and I’m asking the same of you. It’s a private matter, you understand.”

“Of course, of course. I’ll t … take it.”

“Are you feeling alright?”

“Fantastic,” he mumbles, though his head is whirling.

Once again in his mind’s eye he is confronting the shadowy mirror in the tavern, where now the quicksilver is like a leprous sore devouring the young girl’s face; at the same time he nods, head down, staring at his feet, accepting the loss and the disenchantment, and finally notices that yes, one of his shoelaces is completely undone. He is feeling for somewhere to hold on to, thinking if I bend down I’ll fall flat on my face when he realises that Señor Alonso’s long, bony fingers are already busily at work, just like his mother’s nimble fingers when she ties his bandage or buttons up his shirt, with an incredible, tender agility, so that in the blink of an eye the laces are tied again. But it is not the diligently attentive fingers that surprise and disturb him, nor the evidence of how drunk he is, which obliges him to accept help if he wants to get home safe and sound, but the fact of seeing this man on his knees before him as if he is trying to embrace his feet for a favour granted.

“It’s what I do best,” the man says, straightening up. “I’m an expert at tying footballers’ boots and boxers’ gloves. Here comes your tram … Ah, and one last thing. Señora Paquita is bound to ask where you saw me. You needn’t mention this district that you like so much,” he adds with a knowing smile. “Neither Calle Robadors or Calle San Ramón, get it?”

“Of course not, señor.”

Ringo’s throat feels rough and full of bile; his head is spinning, and his feet are someone else’s. He jumps on to the rear platform before the tram has even come to a halt. Goodbye and good luck, Señor Alonso. He turns round, holding out a hand that hangs in mid-air because the tram has set off again. He stands on the platform for some distance, letting himself be seen by the man standing under the bleary light from the streetlamp, hands in his pockets and looking very correct, tall despite his limp, or perhaps because of it, the bad leg slightly behind the other as if unsure whether it can lift off the ground, while all around him the night closes in, leaving him increasingly small, solitary and hemmed in, until finally Ringo sees him turn and go limping off down Las Ramblas.

*

Five pesetas! Before they reach Calle Santa Ana, Ringo stealthily steps down from the moving tram and runs across the central promenade to the other side of the road. He gets caught up in a group of revellers outside the Poliorama theatre. He feels for the banknote and envelope in his pocket, and as he quickens his pace tries to work out where he is. He doesn’t need to see the envelope again, but wants to reassure himself about the money; he takes it out to look at it, then stows it in his pocket once more. Five pesetas is not enough to get him into El Jardín, or La Gaucha, although possibly if some young whore took pity on him and offered him a reduction … But no, no whoring. He calculates that the best way to get back to Los Joseles without bumping into Señor Alonso (by now he has no doubt that he lives in the Barrio Chino, probably in some dark side street, in an attic at the top of a narrow, slimy flight of stairs) is to take Calle Pintor Fortuny, make a detour round the inner streets and come out into Calle Hospital, cross it and then go down as far as Calle San Pablo until he reaches the corner with Calle San Ramón.

The pockmarked barman tells him he is about to close, but welcomes him with a smile and serves him one last glass of beer. Making an effort to appear stiffly erect, stubborn and befuddled, Ringo returns to his post at the bar as a solitary, fanciful dreamer. All of a sudden he is engulfed in a sweet aroma of jasmine. It takes him a while to realise what is going on. She has climbed down from the mirror and its enchantment and is washing up glasses behind the bar, her sleeves rolled and her thick black hair covering her face. Muttering under her breath, and obviously in a very bad mood, she keeps casting sideways glances at the barman, who is coming and going from the table to the counter with jugs, glasses and dirty plates. In one of his journeys, the waiter bends forward to whisper something in her ear, but she avoids him, muttering confused insults: a curse on your dead folk, I’ve had it to here shedding tears … At the same time, the group of gypsies has come to the end of its merrymaking, and is about to leave. They have all got up and are gathering their things; the baby is wailing in the arms of an old woman standing by the door, and the two oldest men are settling the bill at the bar. Ringo gulps down his beer, and from that moment on, time becomes strangely retractable. When he pushes his glass towards her with a cautious, beseeching hand, she takes it quickly without looking at him, but their fingers brush against each other, and through the mass of dark hair he glimpses a fleeting smile on her disdainful lips. By then though he has gone through the suddenly misty mirror and finds himself on the floor, one side of his face pressed against the sawdust strewn with prawn shells, gobs of spit, and toothpicks. As if in a dream, he hears gypsy voices trying to wake him by tapping him on the cheek, it’s nothing, my boy, come back, get up. She is also close by, looking him in the face in a friendly way for the first time, offering him a glass of cold, bitter coffee. As she brings it up to his mouth and he takes slow, obedient sips, her small, dark hands give off the acrid smell of bleach. What happened to me? he stutters, and feels to see if the envelope and the money are still in his pocket, but at that moment a black cat comes walking towards them with elastic steps, she strokes it and the animal arches its back lazily, and all this distracts his attention. Now it’s home for you, my boy, he hears from the sweetest cold-ridden voice he has ever heard, while her agile, caressing hands slide his arm back in the sling, shake the sawdust from his hair, and slip the jacket over his shoulders. The young waiter refuses to charge him for the drink, and accompanies him to the door in a friendly, concerned manner. When he is ten metres further up the same pavement as the tavern, he hears the metal shutter clattering down behind him, with a crash that mingles with a thunderclap down towards the port. The cobbles of Calle San Ramón gleam like dirty silver.

The first raindrops start to fall before he reaches Las Ramblas. At this time of the morning there are no trams or metro. So much the better, Ringo, you can go back home on foot, with the threat of rain in the air. First up Las Ramblas, then across the deserted, spectral Plaza de Cataluña, up the empty Paseo de Gràcia, turn onto El Diagonal until you reach Paseo de San Juan, from there up to Travesera and right again into Calle Escorial. Out of the deep shadows in some doorways he sees the girl in the mirror beckoning to him, undoing her blouse. Rain in his shoes. The pink message in his pocket. Why should I care about that damned letter? Up Calle Escorial and straight on, don’t get distracted, on the right avoid the shadows of Avenida General Mola-Mulo-Mola, as the Rat-catcher calls him, carry on uphill, making sure you keep your balance on the edge of the pavement by the gutter that by now is almost overflowing with water until you reach the blasted La Salud neighbourhood, until you have passed your future, wonderful life as a famous pianist, that’s what you should do, kid, that’s what you’re going to do, so stop feeling sorry for yourself. All of a sudden, as he is crossing Plaza Joanich, the rain starts to come down more heavily. He takes his jacket off and covers his soaked head with it, and while I’m at it, I’ll cover that shadowy mirror hanging in front of my eyes.

Leaving the square behind, he falls over three times because he insists on walking along the edge of the pavement in a state of high euphoria. Even the rain seems to him like a blessing. Aren’t those two shiny dots the red eyes of a rat staring at him from the black opening of a sewer? Greetings, comrade rat, let’s be friends, soon we’ll be swimming together in the shadows! Shortly afterwards he stops to urinate against the wall of the empty lot of Can Compte, in the darkest part of Calle Escorial, but before his hands reach his flies he realises they have been unbuttoned all this time, possibly all night, since long before he went down into the public lavatory on the Ramblas, perhaps ever since he left home to go and sit outside the entrance to the Rosales bar … Well, and so what, enjoying the rain on his face, eyes closed and his mouth open, you’ve lived your first night of whoring in the Barrio Chino, and by chance you’ve experienced more surprises and emotions than you bargained for. He still feels nauseous and disorientated, but the future is where it should be, everything is where it should be, including the book of short stories he instinctively gropes for in the baggy jacket pocket: yet again he can hear thunder crashing over the endless savannah, the horizon lit by distant flashes of lightning, he can hear the roar of the leopard lost on the summit, sniffing at its own solitary, frozen death, the crunch of its paws in the snow … A tune is rattling around his head, but again he cannot identify it. Hooded and hunched in the rain, he tries to make out the golden stream of urine as it mixes with the rain, and beneath his muddy feet he catches again a glimpse of a subterranean world full of rats and slimy tunnels, of regurgitated, pestilent waters, and he tries to find himself in an image of himself watching over the disturbing girl sleeping forever in future time. He is thinking that perhaps this image holds the answer to everything, an explanation for the world, when he suddenly feels an empty sensation in the pit of his stomach, and from out of the shadows he has a sense of foreboding that sends his hand shooting to his inside pocket.

A split second later, he turns his head and thinks he sees the pink envelope floating in the rush of filthy water sweeping along the gutter. Ghost-like and fleeting, the letter comes to a halt for a moment by the open drain, then spins round on itself as it is about to be swallowed up. Face down, then face up, the water has almost completely erased the name of the person to whom it was addressed. The swirling torrent holds it up for a moment, long enough for him to be able to bend down and save it, but without knowing why, he does not move as the rain lashes down, and watches as it spins like a carousel, round and round, shrouded by the cloudy water, until all at once the drain finally swallows it and it disappears into the abyss.

“Farewell, Señora Mir.”