The Serpent Papers (30 page)

The Giants of Pine dance on the path! The Giants of the City dance on the roof!
Emily fought for breath in the tumult. Roaring in her elbows and her knees. Blood rushing to her temples. Church spires spinning. Pale stone glinting in the sun. Geraniums and begonia. A scent of sulphur or smoke? Music!
Music everywhere!
Tinny blasts of brass. Droning clangs of drums. There danced Mulassa the donkey! A wreath about his neck. Bou the bull of Barcelona – then the dragons – the metal-breasted Vibria, the serpent demon, wings extended, fierce eyes, gaping mouth festooned with ivory blossoms. Daisies and lilies! Pointed breasts with thick iron nipples! Drums, drums drums!
Faaaaaan-farron!
The crowd roars.
Olé! Olé! Olé! Olé!
The Vibria’s scaly metal hide flashed gold. Emily glimpsed the legs of the dancer wearing the fibreglass shell. The man beside Emily finished a cigarette and threw the butt into the street. Emily moved to escape. To leave the march behind.

‘Stay,’ the man said, barring Emily’s path with his arm.

‘
Jo sóc l’Esperit Sant.
’

A voice ruptured the crowd. Drowned by music. Pipes! Drums! A voice high pitched shouted again.

‘
Cos de Crist!
Corpus Christi!’

More giants rocked forward, a Moorish king and queen – the Babylonian
Gegants de Santa Maria del Mar
, the bearded king with his red cape, crest of the Catalan flag; his wife followed, jaunty feather in her hair, draped in the style of an empress. Delicate stars emblazoned on her trestles. Behind these Giants lumbered the most terrifying of all, the
Tarasca de Barcelona
, an ancient dragon – or She-Devil? – jaw hanging open, operated by an internal mechanism. Bright humanoid teeth, an iron-spiked tortoiseshell, four clawed hands. A ghoulish, serpentine figure. Eyes bulging into the crowd. Four women,
Tarascaires
, moved the dragon, wearing purple capes. The
Tarasca
swayed rhythmically, weaving in and out of the square. Teeth gnashing. Red mouth drooling.

A man broke from the crowd, caked with the veneer of streets, dustbins, trash heaps – mad-haired, frail bones, age mid-seventies perhaps. A farmer’s coat, waxed cotton, flax hair slicked down with water or oil, his face stretched, lean. In one hand, he carried an open leather flask, in the other a lighter – bright pink. Cheap. The kind you buy in tabacs, licquor stores,
Carrefours.

‘
Sóc el cos de Crist!
’

Again the reedy voice. Thin and menacing. He reeled forward, danced two steps with the
Tarasca
. The monster tumbled away.

And then, with no warning, no shout, the man burst into flames. His jacket sprouting a fire that runs up his shoulders to his hair. He reeked of kerosene. Cremated flesh. The
Tarasca
clattered to the ground as the four women lunged towards him. A mounted guard leapt from his horse, racing towards the flames – he ripped the cloth from the
Tarasca
’s frame, throwing it over the fire, covering the burning man’s shoulders, hiding him from the crowd. Children cried out, babies squealed, but the band continued playing as the mounted guard stamped out the fire, men running with buckets of water from the well of the Chapel of Sant Just at the corner of the square, and Emily fell, half fainting into the stone wall behind her. Sirens blazed. Policemen on motorcycles slammed through the crowd, men running towards the crumpled, blackened figure of the man, the lump hidden in the
Tarasca
’s cape, the blue-and-yellow herald of the dragon, as Emily broke free, launching across the parade. She hurtled through the crowd, each face as intricate as the next, children carried on parents’ shoulders. Grandfathers wearing the red, snail-shaped cap of the Catalan peasant, symbol of independence. Flags! Gold and vermilion spilling over Gothic awnings, black shutters, ivy balconies. She moves desperately towards the harbour. Away from the chaos. Away from the
capgrossos
and metal dragons. The world neared dusk. The electric lights of the city expanded into the approaching night, creating an urban aurora borealis – toxic hallucinations of colour that soaked into her skin. Shop fronts oozed red light into dark alleyways stained with green illuminations. Emily was like an animal, hunting out the water, and when she walked across the sand to the sea, past the boys with their beer bottles, she slipped off her shoes and stood in the lapping folds of the sea. She looked out to the horizon, to the tiny lights of far-off shipping giants, and felt cold.

Empty.

Behind her: laughter.

A young woman laughed, and the sound floated out over the Mediterranean, magnified by the dampness of the night. Emily disappeared into the ache of the water between her toes.

* * *

On the evening of 24 June 2003, days before his body washed up in Sitges, Adrià’s mother walked ahead, solemn as an asp, to the edge of the pier and the painted wooden dinghies. Núria carried the bread roll with the candle placed at the centre of the cross. She lit the candle and closed her eyes. The sun set over the foothills. It was dark, and the water was cold, as the wizened mariner led the way.
Careful. Careful.
La Marta settled her rear in the bow of the boat, resting on the little cushions the good fisherman set out. She pulled the veil full across her face. Back straight, she looked over the prow, towards the waves. Behind her, clouds swallowed the horizon with deep indigo, sky bruised from the heat of the day. Núria sat next to Emily, who crossed her hands in her lap demurely, and watched the last of the sunlight wane against the silhouette of Columbus above the city, his finger outstretched and ominous. Following the call, the fisherman uncoiled his rope, wood scraping wood as the boat bumped its way into the sea. Dampness underfoot and splashing waves, and so into
el mar
they motored and out and across the sea.

La Marta sat hidden by an ornate black veil, cut like a paper snowflake. Husband conspicuously absent. Núria covered in a long dress wrapped round her ankles. A wisp of hair caught in her mouth and stayed there like a hook. She kept her hands around the flame of the candle, as the old man’s motor churned into the water and he led them to an unfixed marker in the sea, some arbitrary point which to him seemed suitable with all his knowledge of such things.

Here.

La Marta raised her hand. She pointed to the water. The candle stuttering. A hungry flame that stung Núria’s fingers and cast long shadows onto the water. The bread in the basket scratched with the marking of the cross.
Bread of the drowned man.
Bread to find the sailor lost at sea.
Pan d’Ofegat
, made holy on the feast day of Saint Peter, La Marta’s offering blessed by the priest in solitude, a trusted way to find the disappeared.

Ofegat.
Oh Fe Gat. Emily turned the syllables like marbles.
Drowned Man.
In Catalan a single word. One identity. One meaning. She felt the water fill her own throat and threaten to choke her as La Marta raised her hand and pointed, and summoned the bread, with its candle inside, which Núria brought to her, looking to the spot where La Marta points and together they drop the bread into the sea, which found the water with a low
plop
and kept to the side of the boat as if it did not want to leave.

What’s in a word? In a name? Your destiny. Adrià.
Derived from the old Venetic language . . . Adrià. Taken from the word ‘
adur
’ for water. For the sea.

Emily cursed herself for thinking as the bread grew heavy in the water and floated stoically on, passing the boat, with its little light, to dip and turn in the sluggish waves, and a voice leaps from some hidden fold in her memory and reads out with all the clarity of a bell:

Forget your fish eggs for eyes. Look, the claw of the crab cradles your ear and the snake has found a home in your mouth where your tongue once was. Take off your clothes and dance for me. Let me see your chest, all sleek and smooth. Your copper skin has turned to pearl, the snails have eaten out your calluses. Your genitals are swollen, fat and bloated with water.

You hide them with seaweed. I call your name.

Dead One. Disappeared. Dance for me. For everything that happened is Truth. Was true and is true. I swear on my life. I swear on Santa Eulàlia, on the Church of Saint Mary of the Sands, now Santa Maria del Mar, Mary of the Sea, Patron Saint of Sailors and all those who gravitate to the water’s edge to breathe.

Candle for the soul. Bread for the body.

Emily’s eyes locked on the little light as it drifted away, and slowed, the bread pregnant with water, and stayed still for a moment, sinking against the surface of the sea, until with an inaudible sputter, the flame quickened out and was gone.

V

EXHORTATION TO THE INSPECTOR

I emerge from the metro at Plaça de Catalunya only to be drenched by an onslaught of black rain. The sky breaks and water cascades down. I hide in the doorway of a coffee shop, open my umbrella and leap forth. Heavy clouds leer overhead, washing the city in a freezing deluge. A dismal damp wind howls in from the sea, carrying whispers of hoar frost and capsized fishing boats. In the winter months, the city is barren, like a stone that cannot feel the sun. The trees of Las Ramblas crouch in corners, bare and wettish. In the summer, a transformation of colour will occur. Reds that have hidden explode beside ochre, redolent of anarchy, fierce and unforgiving, and the heat hangs over the city like a hot blue blaze. Tempers flare and Catalan flags shake above the demonstrations that rage through Plaça de Catalunya, and down Passeig de Gràcia and Via Laietana. Las Ramblas bloom, leaves sprout on threadbare trees, the florists bring their canopies, their bustling wares. Live statues will bow to onlookers. Men and women who have painted themselves silver and gold dance for euro coins. This is the Barcelona of imagination, the balmy idyll. But things are not so now. At four o’clock, the streets are deserted. Human statues conspicuously absent. Crowds retreat indoors. Black coats and scarves wrapped around cold throats
. Storm descending.
I move steadily forward, past the taxi ranks, down Las Ramblas to the covered market. La Boqueria, food hall of
la
ciutat vella
, the old city. Fabregat has asked that I meet him here. Near the police station where he once worked.

When I enter the market I am greeted by a barrage of colour. Sugar-coated plums, candied chestnuts. Chocolate almonds. Pink meringues. Mangoes and strawberries, imported from abroad. Mushrooms and cured cheese. Olives from across the region. Fish heads and sow’s ears. Honey from the Pyrenees. Fillet of beef and suet. Tortilla made to order. Endless food stalls, labyrinth of flavours. I take my time, making my way to the back, where the tapas bars rank towards the parking lot. Wet crates piled with drooping heads of lettuce, unhappy with the day. Lorry loaders and shouts of
Hola! Tío!
and
Pescado!
and
Would you like to try?
A cornucopia of scales. Echoes of fresh blood and tide pools. I turn away. At the little bar in the thick of it all, ornamental painted lamps hang from a wooden awning. There are stools lining both sides of the bar facing two thin glass cases of tapas.
Pintxos
from the Basque country.
Embutidos.
Pressed sandwiches. Green peppers salted and fried. Fresh in the mouth.
Albóndigas
. Minced meatballs drenched in a gently spiced sauce. Hard ewe’s cheese cut in triangles. Quince jelly. Three waiters administer food, offering beer on tap and coffee for the thirsty. Businessmen and women grazing. Selecting a stool beside the warped bar, I take off my hat and coat.
No more than fifteen places to eat here.
I guard a seat for Fabregat.
Now he is late. This is meant to be a quick in-and-out. A bite on the go.