This Too Shall Pass (9 page)

—But the sea is calm, there's not a single drop of wind, Nico complains.

—Look, kid, I've been sailing my entire life. I know what I'm talking about. If you don't want to listen, I'm jumping ship. You can figure it out yourselves. And when you're dragged out to Mallorca by the current, just remember I told you so. 'Cause when I was a boy…

The boat glides smoothly across the water, the motor's raspy, old smoker's rattle prevents conversation, but for the time being there's no need for words, our attention is distracted, we stare out into the distance; the best thing about beauty is that it often comes with silence and obliges people to collect themselves. I feel Nico's warm, plump little hand in mine. The boys, guided by Guillem, take turns at the tiller. Edgar is sitting, straddling the bow, the way I used to sit when I was his age, and Sofía is sipping a beer with her eyes closed. Patum is sleeping, stretched out at my feet. Pep is taking photos, obliged by his profession to keep an eye open. Carolina holds a drowsy Nina, lulled by the sound of the motor, in her lap, and Hugo is lying back in the sun. We anchor in a small cove where there are only two other boats, whose occupants greet us politely. The water is so transparent it looks as if we could touch the jagged, menacing rocks at the bottom with our feet, but it's really about twenty meters deep. As soon as the motor's drilling stops, we all rouse from our daydream state as if a hypnotist had snapped her fingers. Patum is an expert swimmer, in keeping with her breed, and starts barking and springing about excitedly. Edgar is the first one to dive in; Patum is right behind him and he almost lands on his head. The little ones prepare to walk down the ladder while Guillem, with Hugo's help, ensures that the boat is well anchored.

—Oh dear, Sofía exclaims suddenly. —I just realized something. I forgot my swimsuit! She looks at us like a naughty little girl.

The boys keep to their tasks, pretending they haven't heard what she said. Hugo raises an eyebrow under his sunglasses and smiles imperceptibly, though he remains horizontal and doesn't move. Guillem looks at her sideways and continues testing the anchor's line, perhaps tugging at it just a tad sharper than a minute ago. Pep, without removing his eye from the camera's objective, deviates the lens modestly out toward the sea. And Nico, who's been wearing his swimming trunks from the moment he jumped out of bed this morning, whispers in my ear:

—Sofía's a little dippy, isn't she? How could she forget her swimsuit?

—I see. It took you half an hour to change, you kept us waiting in the car, dying of heatstroke like sardines in a tin can, and you forgot your swimsuit, I say, looking at her playfully.

—Exactly. I'm so clueless!

—Yeah.

—Well, skinny-dip, then, Carolina says, —it's more pleasant, anyway.

And with the same natural elegance as when she slips out of a fur stole in winter—or when she falls asleep on the sofa, or in the middle of the lawn when the alcohol closes her eyes and she's already told me a thousand times how much she loves me—she lets the ankle-length pink-and-gray-striped tunic slide from her shoulders. She dives into the water head first, and her body, like a caramel-colored ray of light, submerges with the grace and precision of a professional swimmer, silently and without a splash.

—Maybe her gynecologist was the first to have had his hands in it, and a few other poor wretches, but we've all had the pleasure of seeing it now, haven't we? Carolina sighs.

I settle onto the ladder to get used to the water slowly. I hate the shock of cold water, it makes me bristle and infuriates me, making all the muscles of my body go tense. Finally I let go, and allow the water's cold blade graze me, eyes closed, hair like a jellyfish dancing atop my submerged head. I'm weightless at last, I feel welcome, blessed, and absolved. I wonder if the sea will be my last lover.

I'm the first one into the shower, and when I'm finished I go up to the kitchen to serve myself a glass of chilled white wine and stretch out in the hammock on the terrace until lunch is ready. That's when Elisa approaches, frowning.

—We don't have enough food for lunch, she says.

—Oh, that's too bad, I answer. —Well, there are biscuits, aren't there?

—It's not a joke.

I intuit that my half-hour break, my white wine and privileged spot on the hammock are in danger. —It's scorching and I'm tired. You can't expect me to go shopping now, I say, closing my eyes and rocking a little harder.

—Yes, I can. She's quiet for a minute, waiting for me to open my eyes, but I am a truly lazy being, and so I don't. But she, who is truly stubborn, holds out. —Blanquita, I've just spent half the morning cleaning and cooking, so get up this very instant and go buy some sausages, she says commandingly, interrupting the swing of my hammock.

I put up a weak fight, and threaten that I'm going to pass out on the way, and hit my head against a rock, and when I bleed to death it'll be her fault, but she doesn't budge.

—Oh, all riiiiiiight. I'll go. But I just really don't get this bourgeois need to eat lunch and then dinner. You're all so fickle, anyway.

The sea is like a huge magnet; it empties the town of people, drags the majority of them to the shore. Only a few castaways meander along the sleepy streets looking for the shade of houses devastated by the sun. You have to reach a certain age before it's possible to feel affection for the city you were born in, or where you spent your childhood, before you stop allowing familiarity to keep your eyes closed, or stop wanting to run away to find a new adventure every morning. I like Barcelona because it's where my life has happened—this is the hospital where Edgar was born, this bar is where I clandestinely kissed his father, here I would have an afternoon snack with my grandfather every Wednesday, and this is where you died. But I think I'd have fallen in love with Cadaqués even if I had only stopped by one afternoon on my way somewhere else, even if I were from the other side of the world and shared no cultural baggage, no language, no memories, nothing else that tied me to the steep, craggy landscape and its cul-de-sac shoreline, where the silky pink sunsets are whipped by a black wind to fade over the sea, where everything pushes you out toward the clouds and the sky.

I walk into the butcher's and feel relieved by the cold slap of air conditioning. I'd never before realized how closely a butcher's shop resembles a hospital, and the thought gives me goose bumps as I take in the grayish-white color of the walls and floor, the row of empty chairs where ladies usually sit and wait their turn, the knives like surgical instruments prepared for cutting, and the track of fluorescent tubes across the ceiling with their icy, unflattering light. I hope I don't run into a boyfriend because I must look awful. Once again, I'd become a terrible disappointment. I notice there's a woman who has her back turned to me, in front of the refrigerated display case with strings of sausage links, mountains of meat, and rows of fresh offal, tender and juicy: it's Santi's wife. We've never been introduced, but I've seen photos of her and her children in Santi's house, and undoubtedly she knows what I look like too. I feel a blend of excitement and panic, and a little pang of distaste, though I'm fully aware that she's the only one of us who has a right to that emotion. She's younger than I am, with a solid, pleasing physique. Her neck is short and thick, and she has a wide, bulky torso that's set atop thin legs, a round face and chestnut-colored eyes, very large and a little vacant. She's tanned, and her hair is combed back into a ponytail. She's wearing a long, flowing turquoise wrap with a matching beaded necklace. Despite her short stature and realist, earth-bound exterior, she speaks to the butcher in a high-pitched voice and without looking at him, showing the typical sense of superiority and condescending gregariousness of the rich. I feel terribly uncomfortable, as if I were shrinking with every minute that passed, as if her voice of command and control and her contained impatience were directed at me. All of a sudden she turns around. And her heavy-lidded glance slips right past without seeing me. She doesn't look surprised, or indignant, there's no curiosity or even the slightest shudder of encountering another living thing; she simply doesn't see me. She grabs her bags and exits with a muffled good-bye. I breathe a sigh of relief and incredulity—I could never be in a place without instantly stopping and registering everything and everyone around me—and immediately begin fantasizing about what might have happened. I'm truly happy it didn't happen, that there was no drama of humiliated, furious and scornful official wife, versus cruel, pathetic and dignified lover played out over a background of cold cuts and sausages. It makes me feel a little sorry for Santi, who has chosen to sleep next to this attractive yet authoritarian woman to the very end of his days.

I leave the butcher shop sausage-laden and make a quick stop at the casino to buy cigarettes and have a draft beer. I discover my mystery man sitting in the penumbra at a table in the back, where the town's old men usually sit and play cards. For a second I childishly think you must have placed him there for me as some sort of a sign. You were so worried that I hadn't fallen in true love for such a long time, turning what you thought so important into a game that I was playing with opponents who you considered—in typical Mom fashion—below my skill set and not on my level. You said: “Little one, at your age, you're supposed to be in love. I don't understand what you're doing.” For a long time, the only love story I cared about was ours.

I sit down at the table next to his. He smiles openly, as if we already knew each other.

—Lose any shoes today? he asks, leaning forward and looking at my feet.

We both laugh. He has a thoughtful, relentless, sensitive look in his eyes, a little sad, that he turns away occasionally out of shyness. His large mouth has kiss-me lips that are masculine but soft enough to nibble, and it curves a little when he laughs, adding a boyish look to his otherwise formidable Greek-hero head. His bushy eyebrows are darker than the burnished gold of his thick, cropped hair. The color must get darker in the winter and it sits like a crown, or a frothy cloud, atop a slightly bulging forehead. His prominent chin is covered in a four-day beard that probably only took him two to grow. His almond-shaped eyes are wide-set, dark gray and stormy, as if they want to invade the space of his temples so as not to miss anything going on around him. His voice is deep and rich but unaffected; it neither denies nor confirms his appearance.

—Not yet, I say. —It's easy to lose a flip-flop when you're walking fast because there's no grip. You know? I tell him, gesticulating and moving my foot so he can see how the shoe moves. And how thin and delicate my ankle is.

—Yeah. I only wear espadrilles. In the summer, I mean. I'm not very into fashion.

—No, I'm not either. There I go telling fibs already, I think. In another minute I'll be telling him how passionate I am about soccer, and that the only thing I read is poetry.

—Aren't you going to the beach?

—We just got back. My skin is delicate, I can't be in the sun during these hours of the day. Well, not ever. According to my dermatologist, my skin is an aberration for this country.

—Yeah. You have a lot of freckles. You're like a map.

I hated them when I was little, nobody ever had freckles like me in school, I was the strange one. Then I got accustomed to them. —And I think, it started when men like you began telling me how much they love them.

—I love freckles.

I flash a grateful smile. I've been lucky; I've never underestimated or taken for granted men's affection, I know how much my life depends on it.

—Has anyone ever counted them before?

—No…

—I imagine you'd lose count along the way.

We both have a good laugh.

—More or less.

—I'm good with numbers. And he looks away, frowning, as if suddenly he had to pay attention to some important and complicated subject.

—I'm certain you are. Can I ask you something?

—Sure, go ahead.

—What were you doing at my mother's funeral? That was you, wasn't it?

—Yeah, it was me.

—Did you know her?

—No, my father did.

—Don't tell me we're siblings.

He laughs again. —No, not that I know of.

—Oh, thank God.

—When my father was young, he had a little place for live music, very low-key, more like a den. Your mother was a regular. My father used to play the guitar and sing after hours and there was a song she always used to ask him to sing, it was her favorite.

He talks as if he were telling me a story, once upon a time, a long time ago, as if he had a box of marvelous pearls and for some mysterious reason he had decided to give them all to me. I pull my chair up closer to his.

—Which song?

—I don't remember, it must have been some Argentine song. And he continues. —My father was obviously fascinated with the woman, so cultivated and modest, shy and amiable, who came from uptown and who was thrilled to hear his songs.

—I've never heard this story.

—You probably weren't even born yet. One day, after the show, my father mentioned that he was having money problems. They weren't friends, but they chatted from time to time, like regulars in a bar tend to do. Your mother told him to meet her in her office the next day. When he got there, she asked how much money he needed, then opened a drawer and gave it to him. Without asking when he could give it back, or what he needed it for, without asking for any kind of guarantee, hardly knowing him. She simply opened the drawer and gave him the money. My father returned every last cent, but never forgot that gesture of kindness.

—What happened next? Did they see each other again? Where's your father?

—Nothing happened. He must have needed the money to pay off some debts—my father was a disaster as a businessman. The bar ended up closing and my father went back to Argentina. He died a few years ago. I was born here—my mother is Catalan. When I found out that your mother had died and she would be buried in Cadaqués, I decided to show up and pay my respects and thank her on behalf of my father.

—Why didn't you approach me?

—I didn't think it was the right time. You had a lot of people around.

—You would have made my day.

He laughs again, looking in the distance. —You think?

—Maybe not. I guess the day was pretty much ruined no matter what. Who was the girl by your side?

—A friend. That's what friends are for, right? To go on a bender with, to be with you at funerals, those types of things.

The phone rings suddenly. It's Oscar, he's just arrived. They're waiting for me to bring the sausages home.

—I have to run. Ex-husband number two just got in.

He looks shocked. —How many of them are there?

I laugh. —That's it, that's it, only two. The normal amount for someone my age with itchy feet.

—Ah. Well, see you around.

I run out of the bar while I play with the pink pearls I now have in my pocket, soft and warm.