The Dream of the City (28 page)

“Wait a moment,” Dimas whispered.

He looked for his jacket, spread it out on the floor, and they lay down on top of it. They continued caressing each other, their bodies pressed together, until Laura, looking him in the eyes, took his hand from her breast and moved it down her abdomen. She guided it little by little until it was inside her. She mounted him and began to move back and forth, slowly, atop him. Dimas sat up on his elbows, raised his torso, and they brought their lips together once more, now at the rhythm that desire and pleasure imposed, the rhythm of two bodies moving in unison. He looked at her, he swallowed her, while she grabbed onto his shoulders, seeking a support to push against while she rose up and fell in thrall to the necessities of pleasure. Their panting sped up and rose in pitch until at last, the two of them were screaming. And both threw their heads back in abandon to ecstasy, each one consumed by the other.

They stayed there lying on the floor, looking at the ceiling, exhausted. Laura rested her head on Dimas's chest and he wrapped her in one of his arms. Now that they had caught their breath, each was thinking of how the other must feel, and what they could do so that what they felt just then, instead of fading, would go on forever. And the silence, which had begun out of necessity, was becoming a wall, something that had to be broken to keep the two of them from becoming unknown to each other again, as when they saw each other for the first time in the workshop.

The first one to break the stubborn silence was Dimas.

“I think I've been wanting this for a long time.”

Laura smiled.

“I mean …” Dimas tried to correct himself, somewhat nervous.

“I understand,” Laura said. And after a silence added: “But we need to be careful.”

She knew that if what had happened between them got out, they would have to face too many problems, and her image would be tarnished. It wouldn't be proper for a lady of the high bourgeoisie to give herself to someone as she had done, without courtship or promises of the future, especially a boy who didn't even belong to her social circle, whom she barely knew and who worked in her brother's employ. And beyond that, she hadn't yet dealt with Jordi's proposal, hadn't yet had the chance to tell him no. For those reasons, it was important that no one find out what had happened.

Dimas agreed, conscious of what Laura meant, and also pleased to hear her express aloud that she wanted, as he did, for them to keep seeing each other, even if they had to sneak behind the backs of the curious, to share moments like this one.

Then they fell silent again, but it was no longer uncomfortable. They knew without speaking that they both wanted the same thing: to be together, and maybe, with time, to say they loved each other, that they couldn't be apart from each other's side. But they stayed there, stretched out, not caring to talk about anything important. It wasn't necessary, not then. They began revealing what they'd thought of each other the first time they met, when he'd come in with Ferran and they'd seen each other in the distance. Dimas recognized that he had already longed for her even before he'd seen her in the shadows of the Sagrada Familia, when he thought she was a spoiled little girl who wanted nothing more than to tinker around in her father's business. Laura had felt the same attraction, but refused to accept any feeling that wasn't born from genuine affection, that had no basis deeper than sex. There was no doubt, she confessed, that her attraction had blossomed during their evening out with Guillermo.

And in that way they passed the time unrushed, without time or date or worries. Finally the cold began to chill their limbs and they had to get up and get dressed. After they left the workshop, they walked together to the Ramblas, uttering a last few words. Laura hailed a taxi at the Plaza Cataluña.

“Will I see you tomorrow?” she asked, knowing they would see each other there, in the workshop, but she meant she wanted to be close to him, to feel the two of them united.

“Of course. It will be our secret,” he said, instantly understanding her meaning.

Dimas went back home on foot. In the fading blue of the Barcelona sky, one could still count the stars that shone brightest. And all of them, Dimas thought, were now within his grasp.

CHAPTER 28

Dimas Navarro opened his eyes amid the morning light in his apartment. His mind and body seemed impatient to awaken to a new day, to go out onto the street and celebrate life. He chose the shirt and tie he would wear and afterward shaved looking in his kitchen mirror. When he rinsed his face and wiped away the last traces of lather, he looked at his own image and smiled.

He took his time getting dressed and went upstairs, where the voices of his father and brother were taking turns. Guillermo was in his room and Juan was making breakfast.

“Well, look who we have here. Are you joining us?”

“I could go for a coffee,” Dimas said.

“Naturally.” After a brief pause, Juan felt the need to fill the empty space. “The boy's having one of those chatty mornings. It must be the clouds.”

An excited shriek interrupted him. Guillermo leaped into the passageway from his bedroom dressed only in his pants. He was brandishing a ladle like a sword.

“Avast, ye mateys! You'll never take me alive! No one can make me live under the yoke of the brigands and miscreants who govern this island abandoned by the hand of God.”

Juan and Dimas looked at each other, arching their brows. Guillermo kept on.

“It's a propitious wind flogging your sails, Captain,” he said to Dimas. “What adventures did you find yesterday athwart the high seas?”

“Are you going to finish getting dressed?” Juan said, weighed down with the breakfast plates. “There is no way you aren't cold. If you show up late, the teacher will punish you. And rightly.”

“Ay, I'll do so anon; I'd not wish to be punished with a keelhauling. It's a few brave seamen who've survived such a punishment.”

Guillermo flourished his ladle a last time and skipped back to his room, riding an imaginary horse.

Dimas smiled. He watched his father sigh and shake his head. He was proud of Guillermo, that much was clear. He made it to the top of his class with ease and he had an overflowing imagination that helped him to face life serenely. Raúl, his father, was surely smiling as he watched them from wherever he was.

When Guillermo returned, dressed, to the kitchen, Juan and Dimas were sitting in front of a stack of thick slices of bread covered in olive oil and tomato. Juan was cutting cheese and laying it on their plates.

“Gentleman, First Mate Guillermo Navarro at your service,” he said with reverence. “I beg you accept my gratitude for the magnificent hospitality you have shown me aboard this ship.” He sat down and laid into his plate.

Dimas teased the little boy, rubbing him on top of his head. Absorbed in his meal, his father acted as if he didn't see them. Juan chewed conscientiously. Table manners, he thought, were a sign of character; the people he'd known who didn't mind them were brutes, ingrates, delinquents. Even in poverty, you still kept your dignity; he'd always tried to remind his boys of that. It didn't matter how far they'd now strayed from it. When he finished his bread, he lifted up his cup of hot coffee and began the conversation.

“What's cooking in the world, son? Everyone's talking about the Great War, it seems almost as if that's all there is …”

“It's true that everything else seems little by comparison. We're lucky we're not wrapped up in it,” Dimas answered.

After a brief silence, Juan began to talk a bit more, albeit solely about the war. He needed that contact with his son. He didn't even want to think about returning to the silence that had reigned between them days before.

“Yeah, but what's it all for? The country's still in a terrible state; the numbers of unemployed are growing every day. There are thousands. I'm not sure things aren't getting worse.”

Juan was referring to the consequences of the successive failures of the recent governments in Spain chosen by the Cortes and King Alfonso XIII; neither the conservative Antonio Maura with his “revolution from above” nor the acting president Eduardo Dato, a conservative himself, nor any of the presidents before him had brought any solutions during or after the social upheavals at the beginning of the century. And the recently constituted
Mancomunidad
of Catalonia, a federation of four provinces endowed with legislative autonomy, had not had the time to demonstrate its potential, despite the charisma of its leader, Enric Prat de la Riba. Spain's neutrality was hardly a synonym for stability.

Guillermo had finished his bread and was now making sure not a single crumb remained on his plate. Dimas refused to be sad on a day like today. Still, without knowing why, the war awakened in him a diffuse feeling of fear, an uncertainty. Every day the newspapers told of another country entering the fray. There were skirmishes in Africa; Europe was split from north to south by a vicious and endless front; in the Pacific, Japan was heckling Germany and forcing China into commercial treaties; on the other end of the earth, Australia had occupied German New Guinea. More than twenty countries were now involved. And that was only the beginning.

“Neutrality is no guarantee,” Dimas argued. “There are those who say we'll come out on bottom compared with the winners. Powerful countries will still be powerful in the face of the weak; they say the war could even strengthen them. And besides, when you consider our internal rivalries between the owners and the workers and between the different factions of the latter, the best thing for us to do is to focus on ourselves and whatever we can do to influence events around us,” he concluded.

“Of course, each person and his own … family.” Juan paused, as if he didn't dare to continue. Every word seemed to require superhuman strength. “Have you thought about your mother? Maybe now you could … We all need consolation.”

A silence overtook them. Guillermo sat there expectantly, looking from his father to his brother and back. Dimas was quiet as well, his eyes staring into the bottom of his cup, as if trying to see the future in his coffee grinds. His mind was filled with compassion and he was looking for the right line to draw, the path he should take in his family destiny. Everything in his life seemed to be leading to a happy ending, the construction of something pleasant and tranquil, a place he could live in peace. He thought he should do everything that was he could to make that image become real, his life and not just fantasy.

“You deserve it, too, Father. Let's take Guillermo to school.”

The boy shook his head as if suddenly reminded of his obligations. He got up and ran off toward his bedroom. Dimas and his father put on their coats in silence, and soon Guillermo was back, combed and ready. A few sheets of notes poked out from his small leather satchel. Father and son smiled at the boy's untidiness, proud of his talents and his defects.

After the day was over and the evening sun had begun to set, the wind slid down over the eaves of the apartment blocks and reached the foothills of the Sierra de Collserola. Dimas got out of the car when he parked and walked calmly toward the hotel of the Gran Casino. He had told Ferran he could get hold of him there in the isolation of the Rabassada. Jufresa had insisted Dimas take his car; it was impossible to convince Ferran he was doing something other than chasing skirts. Dimas gave up, faced with his boss's umpteenth impish smile, and stoically accepted his claps on the back.

“May I speak with Carmela Beltran, please?” he now asked without looking closely at any of the four figures pretending to be busy behind the counter. One of them was a porter who looked at him with an absentminded smile.

When he heard the name of an employee at the establishment, the receptionist arched his eyebrows, trimmed as finely as those of a woman. He was wearing a kind of tuxedo and there was something unwholesome in his meticulous movements. After a moment's hesitation, he decided to stick to protocol. He seemed confounded by the seriousness and elegance of this young man who was there to see a cleaning lady.

“Who should I say is looking for her?'

Dimas hesitated a moment, less than a second, before speaking.

“Her son.”

The receptionist looked at his older colleague, a bald man with severe eyes. After seeing his gesture of acquiescence, he walked to a telephone mounted behind the office door, slightly away from the guests. He murmured something and hung up.

“They'll let her know now. On the rare occasion that the service staff receives visits, it is generally next to the luggage room,” he said. “I do apologize, but I'm not allowed to offer you a private space. If you would be so kind as to follow me.”

After Dimas had waited a few minutes, Carmela appeared, her head lowered, taking the stairs down from the second floor. She was dressed in the same uniform he had seen her in weeks before. Her face looked tired, but her chestnut eyes were filled with a vivacity he hadn't noticed previously; she looked very different from that day when they had argued in the gardens and she had sat there, humble and unsettled, in her street clothes.

“I'm happy to see you, Dimas.”

He smoothed out the brim of his hat one last time before speaking.

“Hello.”

Seeing his hesitation, Carmela decided to break the ice, speaking of something they shared in common.

“Inés told me you had met. I hope it was worth it, that time you shared …”

“Yes. It was.”

“She's a good girl. A fighter, like you.”

“And convincing. The truth is, the visit left a great impression on me.”

Carmela still hadn't dared to call him son. She looked nervous. She needed to get back to work soon if she wished to avoid a reprimand.

Suddenly Dimas felt bewildered. Everything he thought he would say to her fell apart as he faced a mother who hadn't been one for twenty years. He wasn't used to being a good son, he thought, or at least not used to looking like one. His father never needed effusiveness of grand gestures of affection: a look was enough, a smile, a few pats on the shoulder. She must have felt something similar, so he overcame his weakness and carried on. “I think I was … a bit harsh.”

“I understand. It can't be easy for you to understand what happened.”

“Talking with my father, I've realized I'm foolish and hardheaded.”

“Sometimes your father's silences are very eloquent.”

Dimas smiled. He could see his parents knew each other perfectly. They had grown up together, and they each knew what the other was capable of.
Adults don't change, no matter if twenty years have passed
, he thought.

“We have our differences, you know. But I admire his way of facing up to life and taking at as it comes.” Dimas shook his head, as if trying to clear away that thought and center on something else. “He's suffered a lot, and there are times when I have blamed him for his resignation and even let him know it, as if I were really capable of putting myself in his place and saying what I would have done differently. But maybe, if I was him, I wouldn't have held out, maybe I would have stopped fighting a long time ago.”

She seemed not to understand.

“No, Dimas. That's not true,” she replied. “I remember when you were little, you would never give up when something didn't turn out right. Once, Juan showed you how to make a boat out of newspaper. For weeks you were making different ones and then, in the afternoon, you'd ask me to take you to the pond at Can Pere Soler to try them. None of them worked the way you wanted but you kept trying and trying and they piled up while I tried to convince you to do something else. Even at five years old, you didn't give up easily.”

Dimas's eyes got lost in the distance, piercing the painted wallpaper, arriving at Laura, and then going past his memory of her, to his friends in the streetcar depot. He thought about when he was barely an apprentice and he pushed forward through the various stages with patience until his time finally came, and he had grabbed on tight so he wouldn't miss the opportunity going past him. He saw all those who had stayed behind with Ribes i Pla, with Esteller, with Ferran. All of them had helped him to get where he was now. He looked at his shoes and saw a layer of dust over the polished leather. He smiled again, imagining what his father would do, that movement he had seen him make a thousand times. And he rubbed them on his calves.

Carmela smiled. She raised her hand as though to stroke Dimas on the cheek. Halfway, she stopped and lowered her arms, closing her hand to hide her tremors of emotion.

“Really, I was the one who was left without any strength. Maybe I should have stayed with you all and struggled, until the end, but … in the heat of the moment, some decisions seem … I don't know how to explain myself. Look”—she sighed before going on—“I suppose you could say this reprobate decided to show me who was in charge of things in this society. If you try to raise your head, there's always somebody ready to shove you down in the mud. From evil or just from the simple pleasure of doing it, I don't know; I've never even figured out how he justified what he did, that vile man, Celestí García Pérez. His name is branded on my insides.” She pressed down on her stomach with rage. Then she clenched her jaws and narrowed her eyes for a moment. “It took me years to be able to repress that rage. Every night I would wake up dreaming that I had driven a knife into that pig's chest. I swear to you, I almost didn't care that his people would come after me if I did it. I suppose the image of little Inés having to be taken away to an orphanage was the only thing that held me back.”

Dimas felt a shiver, hearing his mother's harsh words.

“You shouldn't have blamed yourself,” he replied. “Maybe you and father could have worked something else out.”

She shook her head firmly.

“At that moment, no solution looked good. I chose what seemed to me like the least evil in the midst of misfortune, the thing that would neither humiliate Juan nor drive him to revenge. Can you imagine what an outrage like that means?”