The Dream of the City (25 page)

“Come on, cheer up, I have good news for you.”

Laura crossed her arms and gave her sister an apathetic look.

“Surprise me.”

“They're already making preparations for the wedding!” Núria exclaimed. She looked at Laura ecstatically, waiting for an embrace that didn't come.

“What wedding?” Laura asked, standing up.

“What do you mean, what wedding? Yours and Jordi's.”

Laura began to pace from one wall to the other like an animal in a cage. Around her was nothing but crates and boxes, and atop one of them, a glass of red wine. Her face turned scarlet. Núria, frightened, watched her movements, waiting for a response.

“Who said I was going to marry Jordi?”

“Mother … and, well, everyone. Everyone's talking about it.”

Laura's look was filled with the determination of a person who has thought long and hard and finally knows what she wants. Or what she doesn't want.

“I'm not going to marry Jordi,” she decided. And she kicked one of the boxes, sending it flying through the room. “I don't care who says what.”

“Careful,
Petiteta
, think about it. If father and mother are so convinced … And you're already at that age, and … Jordi seems like as good a husband as any, if not better.”

“But I don't want a husband. Why do I need to get married? Why do I need to live like you and your husband? The two of you barely even speak.”

Núria didn't say anything else. She pursed her lips and turned around.

Laura regretted what she had just said, but after Núria left, she stayed there by herself. She didn't want to face the superficial world out in the store. As soon as she left her little corner in the storeroom, she would be obliged to fake: to fake cordiality, to fake good cheer, to fake acceptance. … She sat back down on the crate and lit another cigarette. The heat of the ember warmed her face and made her anger burn even brighter. She had been cruel with her sister, even though what she said was true: Núria's marriage, which had begun comfortably, was clearly unhappy now, and that was something Laura had always wanted to avoid. She wasn't attracted to Jordi. He was a friend or a brother and the mere thought of sex with him struck her as a perverse mistake.

She wanted a love that would take away her breath, not just being content whenever the other person was around. She wanted something floating in the air between her and her beloved, something they would share, something ungraspable but also irresistible, something that chained them to each other, lashed them together inseparably. She wanted to feel the kind of physical attraction that would make her shout and moan; at first she'd rejected the thought, but she knew that rejection would vanish, while her attraction would be there forever, as long as she could find the man who knew how to awaken it. She wanted a man she could admire, someone she wouldn't get tired of seeing, a companion, someone she could love down to the finest details: the way he put his hat on with one hand, how he clenched his jaw when he was nervous. … She imagined herself pressing her lips onto his mouth, letting his big hands caress her while her body trembled beneath his touch. Just thinking of it sent a shiver up her spine.

Laura wanted a man she couldn't get out of her mind, even when he wasn't there, and she wanted to think about him night and day, every second; she wanted someone she would look at each time as if it was the first.

She threw the cigarette to the floor. She finished her wine in one sip and smoothed out the wrinkles in her dress. She wanted the kind of man who knew what he wanted, whether or not that meant spending his life with her.

She opened the door, ready to leave. Jordi stared at her from the other end of the shop, as if he had been watching for her the whole time.

“Congratulations, Laura,” Señora Miralles said, stopping her. “We hear you're going to be married soon. Jordi Antich will be an excellent husband.”

Señora Miralles couldn't help but stare disparagingly at Laura's dress: It stopped just below the knee, revealing the girl's slim legs in a titillating manner that the more traditional people still found to be scandalous. Her form was elegantly outlined by a closely tailored fabric that shimmered in the lamplight like one of the jewels on display behind the glass. Her neck and her thin arms also emerged sensually, showing off her soft, clear skin. It wasn't often Laura let herself be seen in such elegant dress, with her disinclination to pompous celebrations, but that day she looked spectacular; men and women alike were incapable of looking away from that girl with her unmistakably individual style. Under her powder and makeup, her skin looked like pure porcelain, emphasizing her features and her dark stare, which now shot arrows through Señora Miralles. Thinking of her family, Laura swallowed her words and a lone syllable emerged from her carmine lips: “Thanks.”

While she walked over to meet the Antichs and her parents in the center of the room, she watched how Jordi contemplated her from the distance, with those big, gleaming, desperate eyes, like a lamb strung up for slaughter. Then she saw that he wanted the marriage as well, that the conspiracy hadn't consisted only of their parents, because for him, she wasn't just a friend.

She imagined herself dressed in white, with a bouquet of flowers in her hands and organ music in the background, walking between the rows of benches to the altar in the cathedral while Jordi waited for her with a smile running from ear to ear and her father watched her nervously, walking her up to him and asking all the while: “Are you sure?”

She needed another glass of wine.

CHAPTER 25

Though the recent days had been busy ones, Dimas Navarro was able to finish work early. After returning from Bilbao, he needed to ready another shipment, and the fact that the one from fifteen days back had turned out well didn't mean the same would be true now. This time he was responsible for figuring out a new itinerary, a different ship, a new cover story: the whaler wouldn't be available and Dimas didn't know what to do. With Bragado's help, he could be sure there wouldn't be questions, but that didn't keep the spies from the other side from getting wind of it. No one trusted anyone in that Europe racked by war, and the upcoming operation was causing him terrible headaches. On the other hand, it did him good, working so much; with a thousand things to distract him, he didn't have to think too much about what had happened with his mother.

Arriving at his apartment, Dimas left his jacket at home and went up to see his brother. He liked spending time with Guillermo. He saw himself projected in the boy. The difference was that whereas Guillermo's parents had been stolen from him by the violence of the police, Dimas's mother had decided to abandon him in cold blood.

Although Dimas had only been a boy when Carmela left them, he still had sweet memories of what their life had been before then: Sunday excursions in Collserola, games on the evenings when Juan didn't work, the sponge cake she would make him every time his birthday came around. Sometimes he had the feeling that those weren't memories, but rather dreams of a little boy who still lived inside him. And the more pleasant they were, the more his adult vexation grew.

His father wasn't the same after she left; the lack of an explanation and the doubts ate at him from one day to the next. For the first few months, Juan barely slept, barely ate. He lived to drive his streetcar, nothing else, and when fate took that from him as well, nothing was left of him but the shell of the strong, determined man he'd once been. Dimas had been obliged to grow up fast, and he didn't want the same to happen to Guillermo. He deserved to enjoy the innocence of childhood for as long as it could last; for many more years, he hoped. Because Dimas was older, he felt responsible for him.

As soon as he went in, he heard an unfamiliar voice belonging to a woman. It wasn't common that his father had visitors. Surprised, he shut the door, and when he crossed the hall to the living room, he heard his father say, “He's here.” Three people were seated at the table: his father, Guillermo, and a young women with a serious face.

“Dimas, this in Inés,” his father said shyly.

She stood up and Dimas came closer, nodding his head slightly in greeting.

“She's Carmela's daughter,” Juan went on.

Dimas was paralyzed on the spot. He began to feel the same discomfort in his stomach that had assailed him in the gardens at the casino. Before he could say anything, Juan stood up, took Guillermo's hand, and said good-bye, telling them he would go to the neighbor's house for a moment. The boy touched Dimas's hand as he left, passing just next to him before disappearing down the hall.

Inés was a good-looking girl with big, caramel-colored eyes. Her brown hair, parted to one side, fell down loose over her shoulders. Her cheeks gave her face an angular cast, and her fleshy lips sat over a prominent chin. Her green dress was a little tight. When she got up, Dimas could see the sinuous curves in her body.

“I really wanted to meet you,” she said. “I'd like to talk to you about a few things.”

Dimas didn't answer. It bothered him that her manner was so easy so soon after meeting him. He had to restrain himself not to shout an insult and run out of the room.

“Do you want to sit down?” Inés asked him, returning to her own chair. “I know the proper thing would be for you to ask me that question, since it's your home, but I do think it would be more comfortable for both of us.”

Dimas sat down in front of her. He crossed his hands and went on gazing at her defiantly. After a pause that seemed interminable, he asked, “What are you here for, ma'am?” He wasn't ready to be on familiar terms with a woman he didn't even know.

“I told you. I want to talk to your father, and to you, too. I think there are some things you should know.” Inés was nervous, but that didn't stop her from putting up a confident front. She took a sip of the glass of water in front of her.

“I don't know what you and I have to talk about, ma'am. Did she send you?”

“No, our mother doesn't know I'm here. And stop talking to me that way. No matter what, we share the same blood.”

“That lady is no longer my mother, and I'm not interested in anything that has to do with her,” Dimas announced. He laced his hands together, feigning calm. The light from the bulb hanging over their heads emitted a buzzing sound like a fly, which struck him, at that moment, as unbearable.

“Look, I love my mother very much and since you made her cry the other day, she hasn't stopped. Maybe if you listen to what I have to tell you, you won't think that way.”

“Or maybe I will.”

Inés reached into her plain cloth bag and pulled out a metal cigarette holder. She offered a cigarette to Dimas. He declined. She seemed to relax a bit after exhaling the first mouthful of thick smoke, which stayed there a moment, obscuring her face.

“You could at least try.”

With her thumb and forefinger, she picked away the threads of tobacco that clung to her lips.

Dimas leaned back in his chair, causing the wood to creak. He looked at her for a moment, and she held his gaze with those eyes that seemed to never blink. He decided to give her a few minutes. After all, she wasn't the one who had ruined their lives.

Inés seemed to understand his perspective. She cleared her throat and began to tell her own story; everyone had one.

“The last twenty-two years haven't been easy for our mother.”

“Not for anyone here, either.”

“I can imagine. And I'm not trying to deny that; all I know is what it was like for her, because I was there with her.”

Dimas understood that he should stop resisting her. The strength of the woman sitting across from him was like his own: she wouldn't stop for anything. In any case, he had already decided he would listen, so there was no point in being resentful, hateful, disdainful. It had been hard for her, too; he could see that. He made a conciliatory face and was silent from then on.

“Our mother left here after she became pregnant with me. I wasn't supposed to happen. Celestí, her boss at her old job, was the one who got her pregnant. He had been after my mother for months and she had always managed to avoid him. She tried never to be at work alone because she didn't trust him. He was one of those men who doesn't think anyone has the right to tell him no, especially not a woman. But one day …”

Ines pressed the butt of her cigarette into the ashtray until it was completely extinguished.

Dimas nodded incredulously, rejecting the thought that his mother could have been a victim. The only victims he had ever known before were himself and his father. Maybe Carmela had lied to Inés to awaken her daughter's compassion. But it would have been too cruel, making the girl believe her birth had been the result of a rape. Inés was silent while she saw the struggle taking place in Dimas's mind through the reflections in his eyes.

And yet, something didn't add up: his mother had been in control of her decisions, and she could have told his father everything; he loved her, and he would have helped to care for the bastard child. If she hadn't spoken, there had to be something else. As if his half sister were reading his thoughts, she continued.

“She didn't tell anyone. Not that son of a bitch Celestí, not your father. She knew Juan wouldn't rest until he saw that repulsive criminal six feet in the ground and my mother couldn't take it. She didn't want to see the man she loved end up dead or in prison because of his foolish sense of honor. Carmela knows your father well and always told me he would never have just stood there with his arms crossed.”

Dimas thought they must be talking about a different person. His father was no fighter, at least not now. Maybe life had given him so many setbacks that resignation had finally changed his character.

Inés went on with her story.

“This Celestí was not a person to be played with; he was dangerous and very rich. She wasn't the first one he'd done it to. The son of a bitch must have left children all over the city.” Inés lit another cigarette and then continued. “Forgive my language; my mother calls me out because I say things impulsively, without stopping to think.”

She continued looking at him through the veil of smoke that rose slowly to the ceiling. Dimas's expression was more generous now; he didn't look angry or afraid after discovering the painful truth.

“Don't apologize,” he said, finally letting down his guard. “You've got reason to feel this way. You never met your father?”

“No!” she shouted, raising her already powerful voice. “It's never even crossed my mind. What is there to want to know about a person like that?”

Dimas nodded. He hadn't wanted to meet his mother on the day he did either. At first after she left, Juan lied, saying she had gone to the village and would be coming back soon. Barely six years old then, Dimas often dreamed he saw her crossing the threshold of the house and receiving him with open arms. But soon he had to get used to her absence. The days passed and in the boy's mind his mother became a mere memory, almost just a feeling. The present was what counted. Then the years dashed by, and his day-to-day reality became work, long shifts at work. And then Juan's accident happened.

“Our mother is not like that piece of trash,” Inés continued. “She's a good person, and she loves you deeply. I know you think she gave you up for me, but it's more complicated than that. She knew Juan would take care of you. It tore her apart to do what she did; she told me she cried for months on end, day and night. When she had me, she couldn't cry because of the birth pangs, she didn't have any tears left. She says that's why I have such a dry personality.”

“Look, I appreciate what you're trying to do, but you have to understand—”

As if afraid that Dimas's quibbling would lead him to reject her, Inés interrupted him.

“She always talked to me about you. She said that when she remembered you, she could feel a little closer to you again, and for years she would repeat to me these images of you all that she kept crisp in her memory, just like in a photo album. She told me you were born one morning in winter, when a few snowflakes were falling over Barcelona, and that at first they were going to call you Samuel, but when they saw your angel face they decided on Dimas, the good thief, the only person sainted by Jesus Christ himself.” Dimas knew the story; it was another of those memories that sometimes got confused with his daydreams. “It was the happiest day of her life. She also told me about a toy streetcar they gave you for your third birthday; she said you went crazy when you saw it because you wanted to be a conductor like your father when you grew up.”

He also remembered that train made of tin; he must have preserved that memory in some faraway corner of his mind.

“She adored you and your father, and I used to get so jealous of you for being born into a real family, with parents who wanted your birth more than anything. I wasn't as lucky as you, Dimas.” Her light brown eyes pierced him like two bullets. “When I was delivered, it was just my mother and the neighbor lady standing in for a midwife in a single room in a pension in El Raval where we lived for a couple of years.”

Inés paused between each revelation, as if to be sure she didn't leave out any details, and Dimas respected her silence. Those words must have filled her with feeling, and from time to time she would stop, light another cigarette, take a deep drag, and blow smoke up at the ceiling. That seemed to calm her down and give her the strength to continue. Something awakened in Dimas, and he had the urge to hug her.

“You haven't seen the sorrow in her eyes every time she mentions you. She has never been with another man after your father, and she's a good-looking woman. She's only forty-nine, for the love of God. She devoted those twenty-two years to raising me, working like a slave to give me enough to eat, to give me everything she could, until I was finally able to work myself. She was the one who got me work in the casino; I sell tobacco there”—she pointed at her cigarette—“And that morning when she saw you in the hotel, the desire to see you both again flared up. Of course, it was never really gone. She recognized you as soon as she saw you; only a mother's love can do that after twenty-two years. She didn't tell me for days, but I could easily see something had happened to her. She sat there so quiet, staring off into space …”

Inés spoke while she waved the hand holding her cigarette from one side to the other. Her personality was different from Dimas's, who never commented more than was necessary.

“There hasn't been an easy moment, Dimas. Barcelona is a hard place for a single woman. I grew up fast and I understood early on that you can't expect anything from anyone; you have to be strong and you can't let anyone walk all over you.”

Dimas could see that Inés and he had much more in common than he had imagined: She too had lost her dreams when she was only just a girl. He didn't know exactly when the tension had flowed out of his body, but he was no longer on the defensive. He felt comfortable sitting there, hearing the story of a life not so different from his own.

Inés spoke and spoke about all she had learned and all she had suffered in her twenty-one years of life. Not with disdain or rancor, but with acceptance. What you can't change, you shouldn't waste even a second of your life fretting over: That seemed to be the attitude she had taken. But if there was something you could change, you couldn't stop until you'd made it happen, just as she had done when she'd decided to talk to Dimas: she didn't hesitate, she didn't stop to think, she wasn't proud, and she wasn't afraid of what that other family, the one that was partly hers, would think.