The Dream of the City (26 page)

With the languor of the cigarette smoke and the casual turn of the conversation, Dimas felt more relaxed, sitting there and chatting with his new sister.

CHAPTER 26

“Come on, Guillermo, time for breakfast,” Dimas said from the dining room.

“I'm coming, I'm coming. Hey, have you seen my good shoes?” the boy asked, shouting from the bedroom.

“Me? What would I want with your shoes?”

“I don't know, but I can't find them in here.”

“Look harder, man,” Dimas grumbled.

“Start without me,” the boy said.

“Start without me! Start without me!” Dimas repeated, seeming angry. “What do you think we're doing here? I don't think we're going to make it.”

“Give him time,” Juan said, and then observed him a moment before adding: “Are you in a rush? Never in my life have I seen you running to make it to Mass.”

“I don't like to show up late to places,” Dimas said to justify himself.

“To places, yeah. But to church?! Something's going on with you.” Juan took a sip of his coffee after shaking his head.

Dimas squirmed a bit after his father's commentary. He was no longer angry after his conversation with Inés, but he and his father had still not talked about the matter. There was always something unavoidable between them that cut it short: Guillermo, work, the late hour … He avoided Juan's gaze and went to his brother's room, to see if he could somehow speed up their exit. When he got there, he saw the boy in his underwear, with his clothes scattered all about the room. Dimas was shocked: He thought he'd at least have his pants on. He picked up the clothes that he himself had chosen and placed on a chair: short pants, a jacket of mottled corduroy, and a white shirt with a black tie already tied and ready. Under the bed, beneath the tousled fringe of the bedspread, he could make out the toe of one of Guillermo's shoes. He took the clothes in one hand and the shoes in the other and held them up, ready to give the boy a stern reprimand.

Guillermo was so happy to see everything ready that he interrupted him before he could get a word out.

“Thank you! I don't know what I'd do without you. Go finish your breakfast, I'll be right there,” he said, unworried. Then he stopped a moment, as if suddenly noticing his brother, and said, “Hey, you're looking handsome today. …”

He picked up his clothing and put it on calmly, seated on the edge of the bed. Dimas looked at the ceiling; there was nothing he could do but shake his head impotently. No matter how much he tried, he couldn't speed things up. In any case, they had more than enough time.

It was a frigid morning on the thirtieth of November, a feast day in Barcelona. People in their formal clothes mixed with the unhurried passersby carrying out their daily chores, as if it were just an ordinary Monday. In a city so big, often only a few hundred select people were aware of the special events taking place in its web of neighborhoods. The day had started off with a filthy sky coating everything in an irregular gray that seemed to be laid down by a thick brush. It wasn't often that such clamor gripped the whole city: the arrival of the king, a military parade, a great bullfighter and his wife coming to visit the city … Often the people who crowded in at those events had no idea what they were even trying to catch a glimpse of; they just went to events because they were attracted by the masses of their fellow citizens. For that reason, on that autumn day, a good number of onlookers began to gather around the Sagrada Familia without reason, without anything to gain, without the remotest idea of what was taking place.

Guillermo, Juan, and Dimas arrived with time to spare. The sky began to clear up and an accusatory expression began to cross Guillermo's smiling face: His older brother had made him wake up early and rushed him along when they still had at least fifteen minutes. Dimas acted as if he hadn't noticed, attentive to the important personalities in attendance. He was dressed in a black suit with pale, nearly invisible vertical stripes. The white kerchief in the breast pocket of his jacket looked like a flag on his chest and his waxed hair glimmered with iridescent reflections. He had taken care of every detail to look elegant and distinguished.

His father walked at his side. He had already listened to his son's muffled reprimands about how he tied his necktie, the color of his shirt, and the cleanliness and sheen of his scuffed dark brown shoes. Now, near the spiraling staircase that gave access to the crypts, walking at a creeping pace, because of the crowds, Juan Navarro looked down forlornly at those same shoes. The tips were matte in color, under a persistent layer of dust. He rubbed one against his calf, as he'd learned to do as a child in the parish church in Abejuela. Back then, the priest, Don Roque, would walk past them like a drill instructor, inspecting the small number of children who came to class, as Juan had done for a year or a year and a half, he no longer remembered. His life back then seemed so compressed now, so brief in his memory. From the desolate plots and endless fields of his village, to the memory of Carmela breaking his heart, his career, the birth of his son, the tension of waiting, his worries about his wife … And one day all that was obscured by a thin, gauzy layer; his dreams and hopes began to vanish, as if all he'd lived had only been a strange mirage. Luckily, the sensation passed amid the nervous behavior of all those present now, including Dimas and Guillermo, who were anxiously awaiting what the day offered.

The crypt in the Expiatory Temple was decked out ornately for the occasion. The visit of the bishop and other important figures was the motive for the huge crowds attending Mass that day. Garlands made with the colors of the city, Catalonia, and Spain had been arranged behind the altar. On the floor were scraps of colored paper and red flowers and the dank scent of incense impregnated everything with a pleasant but bitter aroma. Though it was early—the festivities were set to start at eight o' clock on the dot—the quantity of people in attendance was extraordinary. More than two thousand were gathered at the entrance, hunting for a seat inside. The first to come in were the bishop and the authorities, in front of them Enric Prat de la Riba, the president of the
Mancomunidad
of Catalonia. When they had found their places, a loud murmur coursed between the sacred walls of the temple until Bishop Reig appeared from the sacristy, his manner and expression deliberate. The silence spread out in a wave, as when a judge enters into a courtroom to announce a verdict. All present remained standing, and the ceremony began with a splendor such as great deeds impose on man's consciousness. The words, divorced from their meanings, resounded in the cavernous stone, penetrating the listeners like the damp in an ancient cave. Mass lasted more than two hours.

Dimas spent the better part of the celebration with his gaze wandering over those present. He seemed to be looking for someone among the dignified dresses, the sequins, the veils, and the tulle. Once in a while, in a studiously improvised gesture, he would stretch his neck over the rigid celluloid of his shirt collar. When Bishop Reig, near the end of the mass, commanded those present to exchange the sign of peace, Dimas spoke first to his father, then to Guillermo, and afterward received greetings from people in the row in front of him whom he didn't know. When he turned to greet the faithful in the row behind him, his eyes met the large, feline eyes he knew. Once more, when he saw those eyes, he couldn't tell whether they were taunting him or scrutinizing him maliciously, if they appreciated something in him or were showing nothing more than their habitual rigid courtesy.

The two of them looked long at each other while their hands carried on without them in the ceremonial gesture. Laura's smile was faint, Dimas's jaw clenched tighter and tighter. Both seemed isolated from the crowd in that instant, brought together by something indefinable that squeezed and pounded at them from within, like the call of some antediluvian creature.

Juan saw them and glanced at Guillermo. The boy smiled at him from below, shrugging his shoulders as if to say to the older man,
Don't look at me
. When they left the temple—which took some time, since only a small number of people could fit on the stairs at any moment—the wind lashed their faces. Distant, inexpressive, courteous, Dimas introduced Laura to his father.

“This is Señorita Jufresa,” he said.

“A pleasure to meet you, Señor Navarro.” Laura gave Juan her hand.

“A pleasure,” he replied, cordial but formal.

They walked along together in a conventional silence. Juan tried to think of something to say that wouldn't embarrass his son Dimas, about some banal topic that would lighten the mood as they walked until she left with her parents or some acquaintance from her same class. Guillermo looked at everyone, not understanding this obtuse silence. Finally, he was the one who asked, “Are you done with my sculpture?”

“I forgot to tell you! This weekend we put it in its setting,” Laura responded.

“So now everyone can see it?”

“That's correct.”

“On the façade?” Juan asked, unable to believe it was really his son's face.

“Obviously. Laura put my face on one of the angels,” Guillermo snorted, as if he was tired of repeating it.

“Well, that must be because she hasn't seen you come home after Sunday mass with your clothes filthy after running around with your friend's goats.”

“Would you like to see it, Señor Navarro?” Laura offered.

Juan looked at his son before answering. Dimas appeared unbothered.

“Yes, I'd love to.”

They turned back from the apse, where the crowd was thinner, and walked parallel to the Calle Provenza until they had passed the projection of the sacristy, in front of the Nativity Façade. There, the scaffolds rose up like stairs, clinging as closely as possible to the unfinished towers. They seemed absorbed by a kind of dense fog, because the profusion of details on the lower part gave the building an appearance of completion, when in fact it was only just begun.

“This is the Nativity Façade,” Laura explained when they had stopped in front of it. “It's joyful and lush, a song to nature and to life. That is why it's the first one to be built.”

“They're not building everything at the same time?” Juan asked.

“No. Master Gaudí is certain he won't live to see his masterpiece finished, so he decided to start with the happiest and most luminous façade to give a sign of the greatness of the building. On the opposite side will be the Passion Façade, harder and more austere. If that had been the first one, people would have imagined it would be a stern, sorrowful monument.”

Laura fell quiet and looked up. Dimas then glanced at her slender, delicate neck and became lost in that pale skin, imagining its softness. When he heard her voice again, he emerged from his daydream.

“See up there, beside the beginning of that tower?” Laura said.

“Where the windows start?” Guillermo asked, looking around anxiously.

“No, lower down, right at the base. The last figure. Does it look familiar?”

They all smiled when they saw Guillermo's face in an expression of perfect piety. He looked very small from so far away. Even so, he was perfectly recognizable.

“Well, if I want to see you quiet and behaving, now I know where to look,” Juan said with a laugh. And everyone chimed in except Guillermo, who looked at them with an air of disdain that struck them as even more humorous. The more they laughed, the angrier the boy got, and finally he exploded.

“Well, if you all think it's so funny, maybe I'll just go.”

“Hey, don't get mad, it's not such a big deal,” Dimas said.

But the boy didn't give in and began to walk off, perhaps waiting for them to try to hold him back, or at least listen to his words of protest. “Right. It's not such a big deal. … Well, you should have thought of that before. I'm happy with the sculpture and all you can do is criticize it.”

Juan turned to Laura and Dimas.

“I'm going to go try and clear this up. Thank you so much for your time, Señorita Jufresa. It's been a pleasure.”

“Likewise, Señor Navarro.”

“Guillermo, come on. Guillermo, please! Careful with that suit!”

Juan Navarro disappeared through the group of people in search of the boy, who now seemed less genuinely angry than in the mood to play around with his father. Dimas turned to Laura and looked at her, not knowing what to say.

“They're really nice,” she said.

Dimas tried to break through his seriousness for a moment, and without speaking, he gave a hint of a smile. Finally he agreed, “Yeah, they are. Even if sometimes they act like a nagging couple.”

Suddenly, the murmuring among the people rose up. Soon the two of them were surrounded and even a bit unsettled by the pushing and shoving. The multitude opened right in front of them to open a respectful path for Gaudí himself, who was accompanied by Bishop Reig. The master architect spoke Spanish with a marked Catalan accent and pointed upward and all around, offering pertinent explanations to the church authority; judging by his constant gesticulations, Laura imagined he was discussing the relation of the building's height to its base. His hands accompanied his every word and he seemed to be explaining everything down to the smallest detail. With an almost hypnotic movement, the bishop's head followed the back-and-forth of the architect's hands. At times he couldn't make out the details he was pointing out and he stood in a momentary state of confusion, until once again he had matched Gaudí's hand movements with the vertiginous speed of his commentary. Undoubtedly the bishop had no idea what the man was getting at.

Behind them, moving along more slowly and with apparent calm, the other dignitaries strolled by. President Prat de la Riba was immediately behind the bishop. He was followed by representatives of the Public Works Commission and the mayor, Boladeres i Romà, though their positions seemed threated by the distinguished gentlemen—and the odd lady as well—who were edging in to get closer to the bishop and the illustrious Prat de la Riba. Among these people, all good manners had broken down, and the careless, often involuntary elbows, pushes, shoves, and cane blows were directed indiscriminately among the multitude with rage, so much so that when the shoving citizens had disappeared, a file of children in their Sunday best followed cheerfully in their wake, waiting for someone to drop a kerchief, cuff link, or earring.