The Dream of the City (37 page)

CHAPTER 39

At the Sagrada Familia, they said Laura had left some time ago. Dimas hoped to find her in the workshop, and because of the rain, he took a taxi there. Guillermo's message had given him a bad feeling and he wanted to speak with her as soon as possible. The past few months had been far from easy for Laura; the entire city seemed to be against her. Maybe something bad had happened; he wanted to be there to help her.

Before he entered the workshop, he shook off his coat. When he opened the door, Àngel passed in front of him, giving him a cordial greeting. Dimas waved back, but he barely looked at him; his eyes were already scanning the room in search of Laura.

“Ferran's not here yet,” Àngel said.

Dimas shrugged.

“I'll wait for him here.”

Àngel returned to his workstation and Dimas walked in calmly, trying to cover his anxiety, as if he weren't in any rush. His face lit up when he saw Laura in the back, bent over a table. He wanted to run over to her, but he held back. When he was only two yards away, Laura lifted her head slightly and her eyes fled from his. She got up and left, ignoring him. Dimas couldn't believe what had just happened. Could she be angry? What had he done to deserve that reaction?

When he reached her, he called her name in a whisper and put his hand on her arm, knowing how imprudent it was. But she pulled away and went on walking. He followed her through the rows of tables, but she went to her father's office and shut the door in his face. Dimas couldn't understand, and he stood there paralyzed. He didn't want to spend the entire afternoon chasing her. The workers, absorbed as they were in their tasks, would wind up knowing something was happening between them beyond a mere professional relation. Knowing this, Dimas knocked twice at the door and entered without waiting for a response. Her furious eyes bored into him from behind the desk.

“What's going on with you? Why are you acting this way?” Dimas asked, walking toward the table.

Laura leaned back in the chair and gave him a defiant look. Then she began to speak.

“This afternoon at the Sagrada Familia, you know who I ran into?”

“No idea. Who?”

“Pau Serra.”

Dimas went pale. When Laura noticed, she nodded her head.

“He works in the quarries at Montjuic. Now his hands, which he used to cut precious stones or gold or silver, are covered with cuts and dust. Do you have anything to say?”

Dimas understood it was time to face up to the mistakes he'd made, and gathering his courage, he admitted without prevarication, “Only that it must be true.”

Laura looked at him astonished, and after a tense silence, he tried to keep talking, “I didn't want to argue with your brother. But I …”

She sliced the air with her hands, telling him, ordering him, to be quiet. Then she bent forward, still looking at him.

“Right now I don't want to know anything else, Dimas. I still had the smallest hope that there was some motive that would convince me you had no choice but to do something like that. You and my brother were so unfair …! No, even worse: you were cruel. And to top it off, you lied to me, you treated me like a complete fool.” His face reddened further. “You're not who I thought you were,” she whispered, pressing her eyes into her quivering hands. “It never occurred to me that I barely know you. Just a little bit. And now I know a little more, and I don't like it.”

Dimas tried to take a step forward, but Laura raised her hand and stopped him. He respected her decision, because deep down, he knew she was right: he had barely opened himself to her in all their time together. His refusal to speak, his obstinate silence, his compulsion to protect himself from everyone and everything had made the person who most mattered to him in the world distrust him. He hadn't even spoken to her of Inés, of Carmela and all the changes in his family this past year, while he had seen hers from every possible angle. He deserved this. He couldn't be with a woman like Laura unless he was willing to gamble, willing to risk it all. She had been so sincere, had shown her soul with each word, with each gesture …

Her eyes focused on the papers on the table, Laura sighed.

“Go, I want to be alone.”

He wanted to tell her how much what he had done had hurt, that in a rush he had given Pau all the money he had, and if he'd had more, he would have given more, but when he saw her like that, so disgusted … At that moment, his gesture looked dishonorable, a trifle compared to all the harm he'd done. He was afraid of disappointing her even more, so he obeyed, discreetly, in silence. Inside he felt the whole world coming apart, his heart tearing in two, his breath giving out …

Outside the office, he shut the door carefully to avoid making any noise. He looked disoriented from one side to the other, not knowing what to do or where to go. Ferran still hadn't arrived and Dimas was alone in that silent space, in the shadows, where everyone had a job but him. He walked outside and took refuge under the balcony of another building. The air seemed too thin. From the distance, he looked at the workshop, which suddenly seemed so strange to him. After a moment, Laura came out and disappeared in the direction of the Plaza de la Constitución, not even noticing him as she passed. He couldn't believe everything had ended that way.

When Ferran arrived, a few minutes late, Dimas listened to his orders during a brief conversation the two of them had in his office. Neither of them was particularly talkative. Ferran had been frustrated, irritable, taciturn for several days, as if afflicted by a headache or some deep-seated worry that kept him from concentrating. It had been two days since Dimas had suggested to him how to solve his problem with Campo del Arpa; he had given him the names of Víctor Giménez and Joaquín Cuesta, but Ferran had said he'd need to think about it, that the issue was more complicated than could be imagined. Nor did he give a response this evening: it was clear his boss wasn't in the mood for making decisions of any kind. Dimas harbored the hope that Ferran would accept the situation and let his real estate project go for the moment.

While all this was happening, he couldn't get the image of Laura and her disappointment out of his mind: how she'd disappeared, as if he were in a boat without oars and the tide was pushing him out to sea, taking him away from her. He had ruined everything.

Ferran asked him to deliver some packages to important clients that evening. Recently he had been doling out more of this personalized attention to try and restore the Jufresas' good name in their ordinary circles. Dimas walked over to one of the workers to pick up the package with the opulent necklace: After a delicate repair, it would need to be returned to its owner. When he was about to leave, Àngel came over to him.

“How are you doing, Dimas?”

“Good … fine …” he answered, unable to connect with anything outside the drama in his mind.

“Listen, I don't want to be pushy, but … I was thinking maybe you could use a couple of beers when the day's over. What do you say?”

Dimas accepted, almost from inertia, with a silent nodding of his head. He needed it; he needed to be comforted, for someone to listen to him and understand him. He had been fighting against the world for too long, trying to make his name, and his thick skin had suddenly stopped protecting him: now he felt completely vulnerable. They agreed to meet in front of the Royal Shipyards.

Out on the street, tufts of clouds raced by above, as if wishing to scrub the sky clean. It was no longer raining, but the wind and humidity soaked down into his bones.

“You want to eat anything?” Àngel asked Dimas when he arrived.

“Sure …” he answered, distracted.

“I know a place in Pueblo Seco where they'll treat us right. Let's take Paral
·
lel up there. Do you know Quimet and Quimet?”

“I heard of it. Good tapas, supposedly.”

“And excellent wine! And the house beer is delicious, too,” Àngel added. “I stick by what my father always said: if you're going to drink, don't forget to eat, too.”

When they turned onto Paral·lel, the busy and popular street also known as Marqués del Duero, the people were pushing and shoving to get into the theaters, the cabarets, the bars and restaurants. The Café Sevilla and the Teatre Nou were some of the places that had opened their doors there in the past twenty years. Since then the street had become the center of nightlife in the city. Travelers always wound up there, intrigued by the bustle, by its tireless merriment. Paral
·
lel had a reputation like Montmartre in Paris or the West End in London.

Àngel was talkative and chatted on and on about this and that. Dimas listened, somewhat relaxed, as if the artisan's good humor were contagious. They turned down Calle Cabañas, and after dodging a puddle, Àngel sped up until he'd reached the place, excited by the idea of showing it to Dimas.

It was small, but welcoming. The customers were standing up at the bar; there were only two or three tables. The walls were lined with bottles stretching to the roof. Àngel greeted both the Quimets, father as well as son, while they busily filled the bar with tapas that they were preparing to order. Taking the advice of the two men, Dimas and Àngel started with a cod liver that both found excellent, then moved on to sea urchin, mussels, hake with tomato, baby broad beans … They ate like gluttons, savoring every bite. And all that while drinking down a white wine recommended by the owners. It came from Penedés, one of the zones that was bouncing back after the phylloxera plague that had left Catalonia without grapevines at the end of the nineteenth century.

The comradely atmosphere, the animated but warm conversations, the simple but exquisite food, and the wine lifted Dimas's spirits and helped him forget, at least for a moment, his wounds.

A while later, they were back on the street. Àngel offered to take him to the largest café in Spain, and maybe in all Europe.

The Gran Café Español was situated between the Gran Teatro Español and the Teatro Arnau; it had countless tables both outside and in and was known as a place where people of all social classes gathered. Many came there to start off or end their evenings out; some, because of the crowds, came to see or be seen; others, to participate in the impassioned debates that sprang up there without warning. It was common to find Salvador Seguí, nicknamed
Noi del Sucre
, or Sugar-boy, at the café; Seguí was an anarchist who was gaining popularity among the working classes. To his misfortune, he had enemies both among the forces of public order as well as the more radical fringes, who accused him of being soft. His message was based on the transformation of society through education.

Once inside, Dimas heard a familiar voice.

“Dimas! What a surprise! Come here; today's my day off and I just got all my tips. Hi, I'm Manel,” he introduced himself to Àngel. “Sit down, I'll buy you a round.”

They sat down at one of the tables. Salvador Seguí was close by and came over when Àngel called him. Dressed in a jacket and vest, with his hair slicked back, he attracted Dimas's attention by his elegance. He was used to anarchists in wool jackets with holes in the knees of their pants.
Noi del Sucre
treated Àngel like a companion and after a few minutes, he was sitting with them, laughing about the tribulations he'd been through just an hour before: on his way to the Gran Café, a thug had shot at him several times from a dark street. Manel and Dimas exchanged glances. It seemed incredible that someone could be so cool while explaining another person had just tried to kill him.

“It must have been some jittery greenhorn trying to look good for his boss,” Seguí explained, amused. “The fact is, I jumped on the ground, I rolled around, and I was able to escape the bullets. I came in,” he concluded, “with my clothes still damp. But like I said to myself a moment ago, it wasn't my time: I hadn't even had my anisette yet!”

Dimas looked at the lower part of his coat and saw two blackened holes, two bullet holes.

“And that doesn't make you want to pick up a gun too?” Manel asked.

Seguí shook his head, smiling.

“That's exactly what they want, for the workers' struggle to radicalize. That way they can have the excuse to lock us all up, and the masses will get frightened and reject the workers' just demands. We can't fall into those provocations. Strength is what makes you right, not pistols.”

Salvador excused himself because a group was calling him over to some tables in the back. They toasted to his health as he walked away.

“So? What do you all think?” Àngel asked, clearly satisfied.

“He's brave,” Dimas admitted.

“He's got balls,” Manel agreed.

“You're a subtle one, right?” Àngel replied, winking one eye.

“That's what happens when you work with artists all day, you end up with a talent for poetry.” Manel smiled and let loose a chuckle.

Àngel and Manel went on joking with each other until they noticed Dimas's silence.

The brief conversation with Seguí, his courage and his strength to fight for justice, had brought his mind back suddenly to Laura. In her own way, she too was rebelling to defend her own convictions, for principles that she would defend to her last breath. He had never met anyone like her before: in the world he came from and the one he was moving toward, money and appearances were the only values. Either way, it wasn't easy to fight to the end: without resources, the struggle would be reduced to mere fireworks, like those of the workers Seguí had just referred to, who accomplished almost nothing but paid for their daring with their lives.

Dimas remembered Laura's steely expression while she confessed her disappointment with what she'd seen in him. She was a brave and honorable person, and she wouldn't ever look at him the same if he didn't demonstrate that he could be one as well, that he had left behind the heartless brute who had fired Pau Serra, that he had changed. And not even that guaranteed her forgiveness.