The Dream of the City (21 page)

CHAPTER 21

For weeks, the preparations for the sheets of cellulose had been slowly coming together. Dimas hired the drivers and managed to get the trucks for a low price; he sought out and reserved lodgings along the route; and he closed the rest of the pending matters and got everything ready for his absence, which would be ten days at most. He had arranged the dates with the ship, as it had been decided the material would go to Germany, and now everything was ready. After going over the plan for the umpteenth time, he went by the jewelry studio to explain the details. Seeing that everything was in order and that the operation would take place that night, Ferran congratulated Dimas.

“Take this, relax and enjoy it, you deserve it—and much more,” he said, offering him a cigar. Dimas took it, but slipped it into his jacket pocket instead of lighting it just then.

“Thanks. I'll light it when we're on the road.”

“Everyone has his favorite time.” Ferran took a few pulls from his to keep the ember from dying out. “Well, Navarro, I have to go. I've got a lunch date with our supplier; firing the starting gun, so to speak. I'll tell you if anything interesting comes up, but I have a feeling I'll just be sitting there listening to him carry on about Wagner. He's one of those who goes to the museum to listen to the music instead of just showing off his jewelry the way proper people do.”

Ferran smiled, showing his teeth, winked an eye, and strolled away, holding his cigar. Over his arm, he carried a brand-new beige camel-hair jacket. Dimas followed after him but stopped for a few moments, indecisive. He scanned the room quickly and to his surprise saw Laura in Francesc Jufresa's old office, which he would still visit from time to time. She and her father were talking in low voices and seemed serious and concentrated.

As if she felt the weight of his eyes, Laura looked up and pinned him with her cat's eyes. She observed him intently, almost ferociously, for a second or two, and Dimas, taken off guard, was unsure how to react. Finally she raised a hand and motioned for him to come over; she looked determined and was not smiling.

Dimas obeyed and approached them.

“Look, I want you to tell me what you think of this brooch I'm designing,” Laura said. She pointed to the tabletop, where a number of papers were unfolded.

Dimas was surprised by the invitation. He couldn't imagine why she was asking his opinion. He remembered perfectly how she had flown into a rage after he'd agreed with her brother Ferran about her previous project. Now, with Laura's attentive eyes on him, he felt as if he were being put to the test.

“What would you say it is?” she asked him then.

Dimas remained silent, contemplating the drawings scattered on the table. This time, he'd decided, he wouldn't hesitate before giving his opinion. He didn't want—couldn't accept—her calling him uncouth, not again, not for anything in the world.

Laura waited, more expectantly than she would later like to admit, while Dimas examined her recent sketch in stony silence.

At least she had to concede that he didn't rush to a conclusion. He always seemed ready to listen to what others said and to reflect on it. And that, no matter how he looked at things or how much they disagreed, implied a certain kind of respect. To see him there, attentive, with his clean-shaven face, the suit that fit him like a glove, his serious, focused face, made her feel flattered, even if she wasn't sure why.

“These figures,” Dimas finally said, tracing his index finger across the page, “remind me of the towers of the Sagrada Familia …”

Laura and Francesc shared a complicit glance.

“… and also, at the same time, the round shapes of Montserrat,” Dimas continued, speaking more to himself than to them. “But here there are three of them, and on the façade of the Sagrada Familia are four. Why three?”

Dimas looked up from the drawings and gave Laura an inquisitive stare. She stared back at him with a serious expression as she heard his question, but instead of speaking, she waited for him to find the answer on his own.

“Three …” Dimas said in a near whisper. “La Sagrada Familia, the holy family … The three are Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”

Laura's lips, pursed until then, opened imperceptibly, letting her expel her held breath, and interspersed with it, a nearly inaudible exclamation that might have expressed irritation or surprise.

Whatever it was, Dimas felt a shiver of pride travel up his spine. Unlike his daughter, Francesc's face was lit up by a broad smile, and he waved his hand, inviting Dimas to continue. Dimas swallowed and said, “The tower in the middle has an
X
at its base. I was told once that the
X
, for Gaudí, was a symbol of Christ.”

Now he was speaking to Francesc, and yet when he said this, he couldn't help but look over at Laura. It was she who had explained to him the significance of that symbol in the course of their evening out with Guillermo, not so long back.

“See?” Laura erupted like lightning to her father when Dimas was done. “And you said nobody would understand it! There are still a lot of details missing: I want the towers to be porous, but in such a way that they resemble trees; trees with their foliage …”

“Perhaps a cypress,” Dimas said, daring to interrupt her. “On the Nativity Façade, beneath the towers, it could be a cypress. The tree of life.”

“Well, it looks like we have an enlightened subject here,” Francesc ventured in a tone at once sarcastic and amicable. Laura furrowed her brow and pursed her lips in an expression of disapproval. “But go on, my dear, I've interrupted you. You had said something to me about the materials.”

“I don't want the symbolic value to be destroyed by the opulence. I don't want diamonds or gemstones; I was even thinking of using silver, or aged silver. … But then, white gold could also be a nice solution; it holds up better, and you can contrast brilliant and matte finishes … and also, gold was one of the gifts of the three wise men. And I was thinking the
X
could be red, because it's a strong tone, it will stand out from the rest, and it could be a tribute to the blood of Christ. I could do that in enamel, right? We could do it in a mosaic style, since that appeals so much to Gaudí. …” Laura was speaking out loud to her two audience members, Dimas and her father. “If only there was someone … It's such a shame Pau left us,” she added.

Dimas's jaw clenched. He felt another shiver, this time of fear. He didn't know what Ferran had told Francesc about Pau Serra, but regardless, he wanted his name dissociated from that firing, which still weighed on his conscience no matter how he tried to forget it. He bit his lower lip to keep from saying anything and crossed his fingers.

“What are you thinking, Papa?” she went on. “Who from the workshop could do it?”

Francesc arched his eyebrows and leaned back in his seat.

“Maybe Àngel Vila. He's very good with white gold.”

“You think he can do the same work as Pau? I don't know, I could try with other models and then …”

“I know you and Pau got along well, but don't dismiss
Àngel's
abilities because of his age. He may only be thirty, but he's been here since he was a boy. Àngel is your man, no doubt about it,” Francesc concluded.

Laura stayed quiet a few seconds, weighing her father's suggestion. There was nothing she could do but try. Dimas took advantage of the silence to begin stepping away. Suddenly he felt shoved aside, as if he was invisible, and he even felt a bit stung, with the feeling he'd been used, that he didn't matter to Laura and Francesc on his own, except as a kind of faceless symbol of the public the Jufresas could try their new designs out on. He could feel his expression hardening. He took out his pocket watch from his vest and clicked his tongue loudly as he saw the hour.

“I'm sorry, but I have to go, Señor Jufresa,” he said, stretching out his arm and offering his hand. Francesc squeezed it cordially. “Good day to you both.”

He turned his head slightly in Laura's direction, but she didn't seem to notice him. All her attention was on her drawing. It was as if she didn't care about him anymore.
Egoist
, Dimas thought. And though he couldn't fault her for devoting all her passion to her work, since that was what he did as well, he did curse her inside for her inveterate arrogance, her lack of manners.
All she cares about are her own needs: getting her work praised and making sure everyone agrees with her
, he said to himself. Turning around, he made it to the door in two broad, agile steps. His hand pushed the door forcefully. He was full of regret. For an instant, he had thought that his opinion, his point of view, had actually interested her, but now he understood nothing mattered to her but herself. He was about to cross the threshold when a soft feminine voice, but firm, called to him and made him stop.

“Oh … Dimas …”

“Yes, Señorita Jufresa?” he said, turning on his heels.

The first thing he saw was her eyes, looking directly into his, clear and brilliant. And then her smile.

“Thank you so much for your opinion.”

“Of course,” he managed to say, and though he tried to smile as well, he was incapable of showing the same subtle courtesy that she had just demonstrated.

Instead, he merely nodded his head from the distance with a gesture that must have seemed tense, uptight, even proud, while her smile faded, little by little, seeing the torment in his eyes, the deep, raging sea in his gaze.

When Dimas left the workshop, he felt a kind of emptiness, a sense of being orphaned. The bright winter sun jabbed at his eyes. He turned up the collar of his greatcoat and walked slowly. At midmorning, the city was stretching its limbs amid the thick scent of dead leaves, and inside, he was calling himself a fool, an idiot, a dullard, and he blamed himself for not returning Laura's smile. He regretted the paralysis that had taken hold of his face and gestures, turning him into an automaton; her smile had blinded him, he had almost forgotten how to breathe.

Then, little by little, he began to calm down. There was nothing to be done, he said to himself. After all, no matter how much he smiled, he still couldn't do as Laura had. It would take more than that action on his part to light up an entire morning.

Dimas headed toward Conde & Co., a department store situated on the Rambla de los Estudios. There he looked for an intentionally modest bag. Discretion would have to be the code of conduct for his upcoming journey. He was on the verge of leaving for another store, because the floors were all mobbed with customers, when a young woman finally came to his aid. She got what he was looking for and wrote it down on a slip of paper he could take to the counter to pay. When she had finished with the first note, she confused Dimas by beginning a second one with her name and the time she got off. Dimas thanked her for the thought but then said good-bye to her. He had things to do, he said. He was about to set off on a long trip.

When he left, he ate a sandwich at a nearby bar and then went home.

Before he arrived, he stopped a few moments at the Sagrada Familia. As the days passed, the progress was becoming clearer. Behind the scaffolding that covered the unfinished towers, the grandiosity of the building was already apparent in the grand spaces of the porticoes and the exuberant monumentality of the Nativity Façade.

There was still some time left before Guillermo would be done with school, so Dimas continued onward toward home. He would have liked to say good-bye, but he would try to make up for it with some gift. He had to pack his bags and head to Pueblo Nuevo. There were still a few last details to take care of before loading the cellulose at nightfall.

He packed his bag in the silence of his new home. He had recently rented the apartment downstairs from his father's to have his own space. He hadn't even hung up curtains, and any noise resounded through the rooms. He already had his clothes there, and he was furnishing the place bit by bit. A table, some chairs, a bed … He didn't need much. It was still strange to him, living in an apartment identical to the one where he'd lived until a few days before, but now empty. The differences between the two were minimal: the new apartment had some newer tiles in the bathroom, the doors and their frames were painted white, and it was closer to the street below.

When he heard the door shut in the apartment upstairs, he went up. His father had just arrived, had deposited several packets of food on the kitchen table, and was now putting them away in the cupboard, a small corner with a kind of built-in closet.

“Hello, son. You've come at just the right time. Look at these apples,” Juan said, throwing him one. Dimas caught it in midair and bit into it. “Are you staying for dinner? I'm making a stew tonight.”

“No, Father, I came to say good-bye. I'll be away for a week.”

“So long? Then stay for dinner; that way at least you'll have a full stomach when you get on the road.”

Dimas shook his head.

“I have things to do. I'll eat something on the way. Tell Guillermo I said good-bye.”

“I will. …”

Juan didn't press it any further. Dimas returned downstairs and finished with his luggage. As he packed, he was surprised to hear the voice of his father, singing, coming from the inner courtyard. He smiled a few moments and thought how long it had been since he'd seen him so happy. A wave of tenderness washed over him and he felt good, at ease with the family fate had given to him. Then he chose the clothing he would wear and went to the bathroom to wash his face and shave. He had already done so in the morning, but he thought he might not have the chance again until he'd returned from Bilbao, and he had gotten used to paying attention to his appearance. When he was dressed, he closed the window of the kitchen and went outside. He could still hear his father belting out some old song.