Lost Cause (6 page)

Dwntwn Barca
,
I texted, hvng a cb, u cld pave 403 w/ this stuff. evry1 really friendly, but they speak odd. gl w/ mountain. u'll b on top by lunch tbl bro.

Then I texted Mom. It was the middle of the night in Toronto, but I had promised to let her know I had arrived safely. I sent it in plain English. Everything is great. People really friendly. On my way to the address to meet up with my guide. “I hope,” I murmured under my breath as I folded my phone.

People came and went, the traffic became heavier and eventually the shutters on some of the shops rolled up. I paid and set off down Carrer de la Portaferrissa. I was nervous as I passed through the shadows below the narrow wrought-iron balconies. I had come all this way chasing a mystery. The address had been my goal through all the preparations. Now I was only a few doors from it. What if no one was there? What if the mysterious package was just something meaningless, or not even my grandfather's? Worst of all, what if they knew nothing about a letter or a package or me?

I would be fine, I told myself. I had a ticket home and money to live on, but I would have failed. The other six, even Rennie, the mystery grandson, probably all had specific tasks like DJ's mountain climb. They would all complete their tasks, I was certain. I would be the lone failure. As I had researched the Spanish Civil War, I had begun to see Grandfather differently, not as the old man I knew, but as the kid with the weird haircut in the photograph. He had walked this very street when he was my age. Why? What was he doing coming here in the middle of a war? Would I find out? Would I—?

And then there I was, standing in front of the doorway in the photograph. It looked older, more worn. My eyes drifted to the wall beside it, as if I expected to see the faded hammer and sickle and the words
Mac Pap
. There was nothing.

Well, this was it, the moment that would determine the next two weeks. Whether I succeeded or failed. I stepped forward and raised my fist to knock. Before I had a chance, the door flew open and the girl from the photograph stood there, smiling exactly as she had all those years ago. The insane thought that she was a vampire, one of the ageless undead, flashed into my mind before I squashed it. That was stupid, even for me.

It wasn't the same girl. Not only was that impossible, but now that I looked closely, this girl was different. There was a similarity around the mouth and she had dark hair and an olive complexion, but I was starting to understand that was pretty common in Spain. The nose was the clincher; it wasn't at all like the one on the girl in the photograph. Hers had been small and straight. This girl's nose was longer and narrower, more like mine, and it was slightly skewed, giving the impression that her head was continually tilted slightly to one side as if she was questioning everything.

All this flashed through my mind in the first second I stood staring, slack-jawed at her, but it was her eyes that made my knees go weak. They were the deepest brown I had ever seen, so deep that I almost felt I was falling into them.

“Are you going to hit me?” the girl asked in perfect English.

Horrified, I realized I was standing in front of this beautiful girl with my fist raised threateningly. I snapped my arm back to my side. “No. Of course not. I was about to knock. I'm sorry,” I babbled.

The girl's smile broadened. “You are lucky, Steve. I was just on my way out. I expected you earlier.”

“Sorry,” I blurted out again before I realized what she had said. “How do you know my name?”

“Your grandfather told me.”

“My grandfather told you?” The more I said, the stupider I sounded. But how
could
my grandfather have told her? She wasn't the girl in the photograph and, as far as I knew, my grandfather had never been to Spain after the war. “How?”

“In the letter he wrote to me.”

“The letter?” My brain seemed to have stopped working.

“Yes,” the girl said patiently. “My great-grandmother wrote your grandfather a letter and he wrote back. Then I heard from your grandfather's lawyer that you would be arriving on an early flight this morning and would be coming here. That's why I expected you before now. A taxi from the airport does not take this long.”

“There weren't many taxis,” I said, “so I took a bus, and had a coffee.”

The girl nodded as if what I had said made any sense. “Well, now that you have had your coffee and are here, shall we go inside?”

“Yes,” I mumbled and followed her through the door.

It took my eyes a moment to adjust to the gloom inside, but I could soon make out a row of mailboxes along one wall on my right. The girl was already climbing stone stairs ahead of me.

On the first landing, the girl produced a key and opened a second heavy wooden door and waved me into a wide corridor. Doors opened off to the left and right, but we proceeded down the corridor's full length into a wide room, brightly lit by floor-toceiling windows that overlooked the street. The high ceiling was carved dark wood, and the walls were almost completely covered with framed pictures, both old black-and-white photographs and paintings. What wall space was left was covered with overloaded bookshelves, and a variety of old-fashioned chairs were scattered around a low wooden table. The floor, too, was wood but was covered in the center by a worn red patterned rug.

“Welcome to my home,” the girl said. “Put your pack down; it looks heavy.”

“It's okay,” I replied, although I was glad to set it on the floor.

“My name's Laia,” the girl held out her hand. “Welcome to Barcelona.”

I shook her hand. “Thank you. I'm Steve, but you know that.”

“I do, and I have some things for you, but sit down.” Laia indicated a high-backed chair. “I will fetch them and get us a cup of coffee. If you haven't had too much already.”

“Coffee would be nice,” I replied, “but not too strong.”

“You do not like our
café solo
. Don't worry, I make regular American coffee.”

Laia left the room, and I had a chance to gather my scattered thoughts. My concerns about no one at the address knowing anything about my task had proved groundless. The opposite seemed to be the case, and my mind was full of questions: What had my grandfather said in his letter? Who was this girl, Laia? And what connection did she have to what I was supposed to do?

All these questions raced around my brain, but I didn't really mind not knowing. Laia's eyes dominated my thoughts. I smiled. I doubted DJ was meeting beautiful girls on his mountain.

“You look happy,” Laia said. She was carrying a tray with a tall silver coffee flask, a smaller jug of milk, a sugar bowl and two cups.

“Just glad to be here,” I said.

Laia placed the tray on the table in front of me. “Please pour yourself a cup as you like it. I like mine black.” As I busied myself with the coffee, she went to an ornately carved sideboard, knelt and pulled out a small battered suitcase.

The suitcase was a faded checked pattern in black and brown. Where it was scuffed, it appeared to be made of cardboard, although the corners were reinforced with leather strips. It was considerably smaller than an airline carry-on bag and sported a number of old-fashioned stickers, including one for something called Trans-Canada Air Lines and another for Canadian National Steamships. It was closed by two locking silver clasps on the front.

Laia set the suitcase on the table beside the coffee cups and sat down beside me. We both stared at the suitcase for a long time. Was the answer to my mystery inside? What did the suitcase and its contents mean to Laia?

“Have you looked inside?” I asked eventually.

“I cannot,” Laia replied. “It is locked and there is no key.”

I almost laughed out loud. “Yes, there is,” I said, pulling my keychain from my pocket. The old key looked the right shape to fit the suitcase's locks. I reached forward and then stopped. I was excited and nervous at the same time. I doubted the suitcase contained a simple answer, so what would I find inside? More mysteries?

Laia noticed my hesitation. “Perhaps you should read this first,” she said, producing a new white envelope she had been holding by her side. “It came with the letter from the lawyer. It is addressed to you.”

I put the keys down, took the envelope and tore the flap open.

Hello again, Steve,

If you are reading this, it means you have taken me up on my challenge and are in Barcelona. I hope you have met Maria and that she has agreed to help you and has introduced you to the collection of memories in my old suitcase. That is where you should begin.

I find myself envying you and the discoveries you are about to make, but some of the things you will find out will be hard. I know they were almost impossible for me to live through. That is a life lesson I learned in Spain: the most wonderful passion can exist alongside the most brutal pain. But I must allow you to find things out in your own way.

I can visualize every scrap of paper in that suitcase, and there have been countless hours over the past decades that I have sat and imagined going through it as you are about to do. That suitcase contains a piece of my life. A piece that no one except Maria knows about and that does not even exist in my mind, now that I am gone. Yet, if, at the end of my long and eventful life, I were offered the chance to relive any three months of my life, despite the pain, it would be my time in 1938 in Spain.

I have traveled all over the world, but I never voluntarily returned to Spain. After I was shot down in the Second World War, I was smuggled through Spain on my escape, but that was all very secretive and I barely knew where I was. After the war I was not allowed back into Spain—had I gone anyway, I could have been thrown in prison or worse. Later, when it would have been safe for me to return, I didn't because I convinced myself that there was nothing left there for me. The letter I received from Maria proved that I was horribly mistaken in that assumption, and I sometimes wonder how my life could have turned out differently. Of course, I have had the best life a man could hope for, filled with the wonderful love of my wife, my children and my grandchildren. Still, I can't help but wonder.

I think, if I am honest with myself, it was fear that stopped me ever going back. Not physical fear, although I experienced enough of that in Spain to last a lifetime. Oddly, I think it was two opposite fears: fear that Spain would not be as I remembered it, and fear that it would be too much as I remembered it.

To you, this is probably just an old man becoming nostalgic. I hope it will mean more in time. What is important now is your present and your future, and I fervently hope that the suitcase before you will give you a tiny fragment of the wonder and passion that was mine so many years ago.

Good luck with your quest.

Give my love to Maria, and know that I love you and wish you everything you wish for yourself for a long and happy future.

Grandfather

SEVEN

I let the letter drop and stared at the battered suitcase. This was it, what Grandfather had wanted me to find. There was a tremendously important part of his life in this case, a part that no one else knew about and that I was about to discover. I felt as if he was sitting beside me, more alive than he had ever been when I knew him. But something was wrong.

I looked up at Laia. She was watching me intently. “Where's Maria?” I asked. “Who is she?”

Laia lowered her gaze to the table and blinked rapidly. When she looked up at me, there were tears in her eyes. “Maria was my great-grandmother,” she said softly. “She died the night before this letter arrived.”

“I…I'm sorry,” I stammered. I felt helpless. More than anything, I wanted to put my arm around Laia's shoulder and comfort her, but I'd only met her minutes ago. “You were close?”

Laia took a deep breath and wiped her eyes. “Yes, we were very close. She always claimed that I was her soul mate and that watching me was like once more being young. She said looking at me was like looking in a mirror that turned back time.” Laia smiled sadly. “We both have a very stubborn streak. Even when she turned ninety years old and the stairs took her an age to climb, Maria refused to leave this place. She said that it had always been her home and that her past was here. She told me many times that without a past we are nothing more than fallen leaves that blow around the park at the whim of any breeze that comes along. Our past anchors us and makes us real. That is why you are here, no? To discover your past.”

“My grandfather's past,” I said.

“It's the same,” Laia said with a shrug. “The past does not begin when you are born. It is a line, a thread that winds back through your parents, grandparents and all your ancestors. You live in Canada?”

I nodded.

“Then at some time an ancestor of yours stepped onto a boat in the Old World to seek a better or a freer life in the New World. He or she is a part of you, just as the Moors who ruled this country a thousand years ago are a part of me.”

Laia sipped her coffee. “But listen to me go on. We have just met and already I am lecturing you as if we were in a class at the university. It is a failing of mine. I have no brothers or sisters and no interest in the dancing and parties that my school friends find so entertaining, so I spend my time with books. They are very good companions, but not so good at conversation.”

“It's okay,” I said hurriedly. In truth, under normal circumstances, I would happily have sat all day listening to this girl talk endlessly about anything she wished, but my eyes drifted to the suitcase.

Laia noticed my glance. “But the past you seek is much more recent.”

I pulled the suitcase closer and reached forward with the key. Laia placed her hand on top of mine, halting the movement. “I don't know what you will find in here. I know it is very important to you, but I also know it was very important to my greatgrandmother. One night, as a child, I came through to get a glass of milk and found Maria sitting at this table, just as we are now, staring at the suitcase. In all the years of keeping it, she never opened it, but I suspect that there is a piece of her past, and mine, in here as well.”