The Calligraphy of Dreams

15. THE MESSENGER’S ERRATIC FOOTSTEPS

One Sunday morning in August 1958, the young man still known to some of his friends as Ringo entered the Club Natación Cataluña to enquire about the benefits of membership. The club was situated on the ground floor of a building next door to the Delicias cinema, at number 218 on Travesera de Gràcia, and used the installations and pool that belonged to the Baños Populares de Barcelona. The young man was considering going for a swim there three or four times a week, at times when the swimming pool wasn’t very crowded. He had turned twenty-five, and could permit himself this small outlay. He had a steady job in a bookshop, two of his short stories had recently been published in a literary magazine, and he was planning to write his first novel. His mother was still looking after old people in the Residence on Calle Sors, at more reasonable hours these days. His father, after spending three years in Modelo prison and returning home very thin, with pulmonary emphysema and physically diminished — although just as loudmouthed and unreliable as ever, as to her great relief Alberta light of my life was able to confirm — had, thanks to the efforts of the mother superior at the Las Darderas convent, obtained the post of supervisor in a school run by the Sisters of Mary. During the breaks he was there to keep an eye on both the youngsters and on any strangers trying to sneak into the school.

The first thing Ringo did was to take a look at the pool from the balcony, where a group of local boys were playing noisily among the wooden benches. A game of water polo between two youth teams had just finished, and some of the players were still fooling around with the ball in front of one of the goals. Their cheerful splashes and shouts echoed round the enclosed space of the club. On the edge of the pool, just about to dive in with their hands together and knees bent, a gaggle of girls were trying to attract someone’s attention. Three boys were competing to dive for something at the bottom of the pool: a coin perhaps. On the far side, a suntanned man in a brief pair of trunks was instructing a group of small children swimming in single file, all of them wearing rubber rings. From the balcony, a few married couples in their Sunday best were admiring their offsprings’ prowess while they guzzled drinks and packets of crisps. Behind them, an old man in a white overalls and a cyclist’s cap was pushing his broom beneath the seats to sweep up what they had thrown away.

Ringo sat on the bench, draped his arms over the railing, and stared down at the bottom of the pool three or four metres below him. It reminded him of the muddy water and leaping frogs in the irrigation ponds that marked the childhood summers he spent in El Panadés, and for an instant the recollection made him feel as if he had somehow been caught out, as though somebody had read his thoughts and was reproaching him for his secret love of frogs and dirty water. It was then that he noticed the old man: he had stopped sweeping and was staring at him, raising the peak of his cap with one finger to see more clearly. Ringo did not recognise him until he saw him suddenly lurch towards him as if unscrewing his foot from the floor, and come over smiling, hand outstretched.

“My, my, look who’s here.”

Ringo stood up feeling uneasy, pretending not to see the hand.

“How are you?”

The yellowish, still abundant head of hair that the cap could barely cover, the greying stubble, the voice weakened by asthma, his profile more angular, but the same weary grey of the eyes, the same handsome symmetry of the deep wrinkles on his face. He also still retained something of his former energy in the high shoulders and neck, and a friendly air that suggested a constant readiness to help.

“So-so, my lad. No more than so-so. Sit down, don’t stand on ceremony.” He sat down beside him slowly, leaning on the broom. Before speaking he took a deep breath and cleared his throat nervously. “What a surprise seeing you here at the club.”

“I might join. To swim a bit.”

“Good idea. Are you interested in water polo?”

“I was just looking … I didn’t know you worked here.”

“I’ll soon have been here two years.” Ringo did not know what to say, so Señor Alonso added: “Would you like a drink? A beer? I could bring it you in a jiffy, there’s a bar downstairs …”

“Thanks, I don’t want anything.”

It was hot, so Ringo took his coat off and hung it over the railing. Abel Alonso sat very still, his mouth wide open as he drew breath before he spoke again.

“Life became hard, you know? The club lent me a hand. Maintenance and things like that. Just think, my best goalie, from way back, a kid who lived in the shacks at Can Tunis and was always looking for trouble, is now the hundred metres butterfly champion here.” He smiled, giving slow, feeble nods of the head. “He’s the one who got me the job. As you see, there’s always some grateful kid.”

Ringo felt confused. He looked around.

“It’s very noisy, isn’t it?”

“Everything echoes in here.”

“It seems like a nice atmosphere.”

“A family atmosphere, especially on Sundays. And they scream like little devils. It’s a sign of the kids’ good mental health. I’ve always believed that. Would you like one?”

He had taken a sweet out of his pocket and began carefully unwrapping it. Ringo said no. Then he said, just to break the silence that troubled him more than the conversation:

“Well anyway, it wasn’t that long ago.”

“Ten years. Too long for me.” He rolled the sweet around in his mouth noisily but without any fuss, covering it with saliva and the bitterness of his words. Yes, now he really was an old man, inside and out, thought Ringo. “You must have done your national service.”

“Yes.”

“That’s good. Well, what’s new? How are things down there, what are people saying?” He cleared his throat again, then said more darkly: “What news of Violeta, that girl you didn’t like …?”

“I haven’t seen her since she left the neighbourhood with her mother.”

“Oh, so they went in the end, did they? She wanted to be an operating theatre nurse, didn’t she?” He nodded his head slowly and thoughtfully again, as if confirming something to himself. “Yes, that was what she was studying. So you haven’t seen her again. Well, well. Nor her mother either?”

Ringo paused for a few moments before replying.

“Señora Mir died some time ago.”

“She did? Victoria died? When was that?”

“It must have been about five years back. I heard Agustín say so in the tavern. It seems she was very ill.”

“I’m sorry to hear it. Poor Victoria was an alcoholic.”

“It wasn’t just the drink,” Ringo snorted. “She never recovered from a night when she went out looking for you and got lost. She caught pneumonia and had a very hard time of it.”

“I didn’t know any of that. Where did she get lost …?”

“You’d already washed your hands of the situation.”

The note of reproach took the old man aback. Nodding resignedly once more, he smiled wryly:

“If I remember rightly, my lad, the last time we met you were quite merry.”

“I was drunk. There was no way you should have trusted me that night.”

Señor Alonso took his time replying.

“Oh, well, I suppose you’re right. I was irresponsible, see, and at my age that kind of stupidity is unforgiveable … Besides, it was cowardly of me, I should have sorted things out myself … By the way, I never had a chance to thank you. It’s true, we faced that difficult situation shoulder to shoulder.” The frantic chorus of childish cries from down in the pool caught his attention. A string of corks floating on the surface marked off the area where the youngest children were swimming, closely watched by their instructor. Ringo looked down as well. Little frogs doing the breaststroke in their rings. “Anyway, you weren’t so drunk that night, no sir. But you were very excited at exploring the seamy side of the city, you felt like a real man. So serious, wanting so much to fall in love …” His face crumpled as he smiled at the pleasant memory. “Do you remember, in that dive on Calle San Ramón? You do remember, don’t you?”

“Of course,” Ringo admitted reluctantly, preferring to concentrate on what was going on in the pool, the scuffles between the water polo players and the little splashing frogs.

“It’s true you were a bit tipsy, but you knew what you were doing, otherwise I wouldn’t have entrusted you with that errand. I always appreciated you, you know, and always trusted you — don’t ask me why. Such an observant, polite and responsible lad … I suppose you got home safely, and the next day took the letter to the Rosales bar. I suppose you must have, although the fact is I never heard anything more …”

“Yes, I got home safely.”

“Well then,” he nodded, satisfied, “everything turned out as intended. And when you handed Señora Paquita the letter, you knew who it was for, didn’t you? Because you looked at the envelope …”

“There was no need, Señor Alonso.”

“Don’t tell me you weren’t the tiniest bit curious …” he paused as Ringo gestured impatiently. “What’s wrong? Was there some problem?”

“No problem, no,” Ringo retorted. Why on earth does this fellow want to rake up that ghastly business again now? “Look, don’t get me wrong, but I wasn’t in the least bit interested in your love affairs … besides, it wasn’t hard to guess what the message was, it was predictable.”

“Oh, it was, was it?” Señor Alonso’s eyes searched his face. “You mean to say you knew beforehand who the letter was for?”

“Of course I did,” said Ringo, picking up his jacket and putting it on again. “Time had gone by, and you had no wish to see her again, so the message was clear …”

“What are you doing? Leaving already?”

“It’s late.”

“Hang on a moment, will you? There’s something I wanted to explain …”

Señor Alonso hesitated. His head sank between his shoulders in a sudden gesture of contrition. Ringo sat down again to listen to his stammered, confused excuses. He made so many false starts, coughs, and clearings of the throat that he sounded just like the engine of a Biscuter scooter. He admitted it had been a mistake, and beyond that a crazy move, I must have been mad, he said, just think, a desperate plea from someone who doesn’t even dare show his face, a cry for help that had to pass through the hands of a fifteen-year-old boy, and then those of an old maid running a bar … It was crucial Señora Paqui didn’t discover where he was living, he added, not her or anyone else, so the details of the rendezvous were inside the envelope, together with the insane proposal. That they should run away together, no less! It had been the greatest, most unforgivable mistake he had ever made, and it had taken him less than two days to regret taking advantage of such a level-headed and reliable boy like him, and he had felt really bad, because he couldn’t shake off his crazy passion for that young girl. He had tried to forget her, spending a lot of time and effort to do so without success, and anyway in the end he never got any reply from her, and had not heard anything more about it. He never knew if she hadn’t wanted to respond to his call, or if she’d been prevented from doing so, and besides, it was all for the best … Yes indeed, because when a man plays such a dirty trick as he had, he didn’t deserve anything more than scorn and to be forgotten. He recalled Victoria’s generous hospitality, and its unfortunate consequences, the coming into close contact with that strangest of creatures, someone so unhappy, so withdrawn and sullen, and yet at the same time so full of life, with a furtive sensuality that was so intense it could have led them both to perdition …

“I bet she laughed at me and tore the letter up,” Señor Alonso concluded, puffing out his cheeks. “So much the better. She really was unbelievable. The last time I saw her she pretended she had fallen in the bathroom, just to keep me from leaving.”

“But …”

At first, Ringo had been only half-listening to this tortuous outpouring of guilt, regrets, and self-justification, until the old man’s dark voice began to trail off. Doubts had already been growing in his mind, but at that moment the truth struck home in both his heart and his brain. He sat staring at him like somebody who has seen a ghost but still can’t quite believe what he is seeing. He got to his feet slowly without knowing why, staring into space as though trying to interpret the flood of images overwhelming him.

“What are you saying?” he murmured, collapsing back onto the bench.

“Believe me, I was desperate to avoid it.”

“That’s impossible. Señora Paquita was expecting a letter for Señora Mir. Right from the start she said it was for her … the letter was for Señora Mir!”

“I never told her anything of the sort. No way. What a gossip she was! I can understand she must have been really surprised when she got the letter, but naturally … Are you listening?”

But naturally, he explained, he couldn’t tell Señora Paquita who the letter was for, because she would have gone straight round to inform Violeta’s mother, and then there would have been hell to pay; all he could ask her to do was to be patient and discreet.

“But you …” Ringo could not get the words out. “You knew what great friends Señora Mir and Señora Paquita were, you knew they liked to gossip, to fantasise …”

“Yes, that’s true too,” Señor Alonso admitted, a light-hearted note stealing into his voice. “They were as alike as two peas. Well, I made so many mistakes … What can I say, I was bedazzled, I had no idea what was going on, I could only think of one thing … Anyway, you shouldn’t have paid any attention to the ramblings of an old goat like her, should you? That woman was all talk. Well, none of that matters now.”

Ringo could not get over his astonishment. Among the many dismal questions whirling round his brain, what was uppermost was the feeling that he had been caught in a trap. The mouse finally took the cheese.

“So that’s it. It was pretty disgusting of you, wasn’t it? She was little more than a child …”

Señor Alonso wagged his forefinger to deny this. He smiled vaguely and said:

“No, it was her mother who was the child. Oh yes, she really was, I can tell you. She really was,” he said, closing his eyes. Then almost at once, sensing Ringo’s reaction, he opened them again. “What’s wrong, are you leaving already?”

“Goodbye, Señor Alonso.”

Ringo had got to his feet once more, and this time seemed determined to leave. The other man stood up as well.

“Well, I hope to see you again … it would be good if you joined the club. Membership is twenty-five pesetas a month. Cheap, isn’t it? You could ask your girlfriend to come along …” He decided to offer him his hand, with an imperceptible knowing wink, a timid plea for him to understand and forget. “I wish you all the best, my lad.”

Ringo accepted his outstretched hand coldly, as though mortally offended. An adolescent’s natural disposition towards pretence and imposture that years earlier had created a gratifying to-and-fro between truth and lies, and which now was starting to weave invention and memory together in his attempts to write (but as yet without any feelings of guilt), led him to utter a few conventional words of farewell, then he headed for the stairs leading down to the foyer. As he descended the first steps he could still feel the old faun’s affable, condescending gaze on the back of his neck, and before he reached the exit, when the hubbub of voices and cries from the pool began to die down, he began to reflect on good intentions and how useless they were. It was true he had nothing to reproach himself for, but in that case, why did the sense of disquiet persist?

Stepping outside, the harsh August light flooding the streets of Gràcia blinded him momentarily. Abel Alonso’s description was still ringing in his ears, although by now it had acquired an appropriately sarcastic overtone:

Such an observant, polite and responsible lad.