The Dream of the City (18 page)

Ferran spoke like a machine gun. Dimas answered, hoping he would calm down and stop mixing the important information in with assorted nonsense.

“Agreed.”

Ferran fell quiet, as if carefully measuring his words before he finally spoke.

“Ah, and the best thing was, after doing business, I enjoyed a sumptuous dinner that finished off, for dessert, with the company of a certain Dulce. … What a delightful little doll!”

“Dulce?” Dimas asked, perplexed.

Ferran shrugged his shoulders.

“Don't look at me that way, she asked to be called that. … Yeah, it's a terrible name, you couldn't get more pretentious … but if you saw her undressed …” Ferran gave a high-pitched whistle. “I promise it's no exaggeration. Sweet, almost perverse. … Navarro, someday you need to make the effort and treat yourself to something like that. I pay you enough to cover it. Then you'll understand why I'm in no rush to marry. Who wants to get bored with some wife with all the Dulces there are in the world!”

He cackled so loudly he nearly choked. A bit of ash from his cigar fell on his suit. He swore when he saw the stain. Then he smiled.

“I was going to ask you to take me home to change, but I'm sure my tailor has a pair of pants ready. Take me there now, I don't have time to waste. Success is impatient!”

CHAPTER 18

A few days later, Dimas was waiting in a dark alley. Every time door number 3 opened, he squinted his eyes to see who was coming out. He was trusting he wouldn't see a man of some sixty years, a worker in the Jufresas' jewelry studio with more than forty years of experience. Pau Serra, that was the name of the subject of his investigation. His house was in the narrowest street in Barcelona, the Calle de las Moscas, in the middle of the La Ribera neighborhood. Despite his age, he was well built and had a kindly face. Dimas knew him well, as he was one of the most highly valued artisans in the Jufresas' workshop.

Pau Serra had sent word that day through a coworker that he wouldn't make it in that day because he was ill with a fever. Ferran, who was obsessed with discipline, wanted to make sure it wasn't a mere excuse for taking a day off. So Dimas, after having set up a meeting for the next day to arrange for the transport of the cellulose to Bilbao, had gone over to the man's house. He thought it was likely Ferran simply wanted to rid himself of his most qualified artisan, a man with enough prestige to make his voice heard. But his boss's motivations didn't interest him in the least.

The sun emerged then disappeared again between the thick clouds. It was already past midday and Pau still hadn't left his house. The changing light overhead was barely noticeable in the narrow street. Dimas stood under the cornice of another doorway. A neighbor came out and looked at him with suspicion. Not long after, a number of residents from the Calle de las Moscas were murmuring about what might be the story with the individual in the trench coat who had been standing out there for hours.

Dimas avoided their looks. The scent of roasted coffee and firewood that arose from the shop of the master roasters Gispert on the Calle de los Sombreros began to stir his appetite. He had to force himself to stay there in his position, waiting.

The first drops of rain began to fall on the tips of his polished shoes. Water slid down the eaves of the houses; the majority of the drops struck the walls of the buildings before they could hit the ground. Dimas leaned farther into the house to avoid them. He had been there a long time already and nothing had happened. Maybe he should either knock on Pau's door or leave, he thought. But now the rain was beating down, and he was covered where he was. For a moment he drifted off from that dark alley and the looks of the neighbors who resented his presence.

He was thinking of Laura. Since their chance encounter he had been observing her in the workshop, while she spoke with the craftsmen, her siblings, or her father, without her noticing. In the time that had passed since that meeting at the Expiatory Temple, Dimas had sought out excuses to pass by the studio and see her. He needed to observe her, study her. He had realized there was something different about her, that she wasn't like the others. That was why he looked at her eyes, which were bigger than he had thought; at her neck, slender and tense, with a small oval-shaped mole on her glimmering skin; at her able hands, working tirelessly away …

When he observed her from the distance, his mind forgot what he was busy with. She would work on her drawings and templates or speak with some worker about something she needed. She moved through the studio with the stubborn insistence of a person with a mission to fulfill, just like him. He wanted money, independence, to not have to count the money every week to be sure there was enough to make it to the next, a bigger apartment, a comfortable old age for his father, a future for Guillermo somewhere besides the smoke of the factories …

That was why he needed to take care not to lose sight of his objective, and there he was now, without any job other than to watch the door of a worker who was probably soaking the sheets of his old bed with sweat. He exhaled and looked once more at the doorway. Strangely enough, as though someone had been waiting for his train of thoughts to come to its conclusion, the door opened. At first no one came out. Dimas was already beginning to look away, convinced that it was some neighbor lady doing her shopping, when the robust figure of Pau Serra came out onto the street. Without looking up from the ground, he began to walk. There was not a trace of fever on his forehead or of weakness in his long strides. He didn't look sick at all.

Pau returned quickly from the pharmacy with the magic formula the doctor had prescribed him. His grandson Jesús was sick with typhoid fever and had been burning up for several days. His parents couldn't stay away from work anymore, and since Pau had become a widower after the most recent cholera epidemic, he was the only one they had to rely on. Unsanitary conditions were a perennial problem in Barcelona in those years, and though the epidemics eventually reached everyone, the workers' neighborhoods were always the worst affected. The apartments packed with people, the absence of hygiene, the lack of running water, the accumulation of trash, the humidity, the precarious living conditions, and an endless line of other circumstances condemned the population to cyclical outbreaks of fear and disease. Saint Petersburg was the only city reputed to be worse than Barcelona in regard to public health at the beginning of the twentieth century.

When Pau entered the bedroom, the boy's face was glimmering with a sheen of sweat. Tremors shook his fragile body, and his closed eyes moved frantically in shallow, restless sleep. He wasn't the first one in the neighborhood to get sick; they had discovered that the Besós River was infected from the nearby town of Montcada. All the public fountains drawing on that source had been marked with a red cross and it was prohibited to collect water from them. After the hard workday, the neighbors had to leave the neighborhood and walk halfway across the city to retrieve water from the fountains fed by the basin of the Llobregat. On the way back, the heavy jugs tortured their aching arms.

Pau approached the boy and sat on the edge of the bed. He stayed there some time watching him. His breathing was weary, and he was curled into a ball. His grandfather caressed his forehead covered with blotches and noted with fright that his temperature was almost as high as it had been the night before. He opened the glass bottle, spilled a few drops into a wooden spoon, and raised the boy's head a little to give him the medicine. Without even opening his eyes, Jesús closed his trembling lips reflexively, spilling part of the solution. He swallowed and curled up once more. Pau wished more light would come in from his small windows. He was convinced that the sunshine did his fragile grandson good. He opened the trunk at the foot of the bed and took out another blanket to wrap around the boy. He asked himself how many would be necessary so that the boy would finally begin to feel warm.

A knock at the door startled him. It couldn't be María or Josep back from the factory or the laundry already. Unless they had stolen away a moment at lunchtime to come home and see how their boy was. When he saw who it was on the other side, he lost his breath.

“Señor Serra, I need to speak with you.”

Dimas, imperturbable, took off his hat. Pau knew at that moment something was wrong. Politely, he invited him in. His hands began to shake.

He led Dimas to the dining room, which at times doubled as a living room, and picked up from the floor a few scattered blankets that blocked his way; it looked as if someone had spent the night there. In the kitchen, the last embers of coal were still giving off faint trails of smoke.

“I beg your pardon, I didn't expect visitors,” the old man excused himself.

The apartment was small. The only bedroom, which all of them shared, was the one now occupied by the sick boy. The coal oven stood in the corner of the room where he and Dimas stood.

“Would you like a glass of water?” Pau asked. He was offering that priceless liquid it had cost him so much effort to get hold of, the only thing he had to give.

“No, thank you. I'll only be a minute. Listen, Señor Serra, Ferran Jufresa is a busy man and the workshop has many orders to take care of.” He spoke sternly, without taking his eyes off the other man for even a moment. “He can't allow any of his workers to take a day off that isn't assigned to them, and in addition, lying is never the proper course of action. You …” The old man tried to interrupt him, but Dimas raised his hand, forcing him to let him continue. “You have taken advantage of his indulgence by saying you are sick when it is evident that you aren't.” Pau Serra opened his mouth again, but Dimas wouldn't let him utter a single word. “I regret it very much, but Señor Jufresa has decided to part with your services, as he feels that he's been deceived.”

He rose and turned his back. Once again, he put on his hat, ready to go out to the street.

“But, Señor Navarro, it wasn't exactly a lie. My grandson is sick in bed; come if you wish, I'll show you it's true. My son and my daughter-in-law can't manage. … And Jesús can't stay here by himself. He has one of those fevers that's been killing everybody. Please understand, I'm begging you.”

Pau Serra spoke quickly, so that Dimas wouldn't leave without learning the truth. His face was shrunken from worry and anguish; he couldn't lose his job, because at his age no one would hire him. But Dimas, already in the doorway, looked at him with the same callous expression from before. He had no intention of uttering another word. Once again, he began to leave.

“I beg you, Señor Navarro. Ask Señor Jufresa not to fire me. Come see my grandson; he can't even open his eyes. We don't have anyone else. In this house everyone works, and the neighbors are all afraid of getting infected too, now that word's out about the fever; it's struck many people in the neighborhood. Please, Señor Navarro …”

Pau Serra, despite his years, was on the verge of tears. He resorted to a last desperate attempt. He flung himself at Dimas's feet and grabbed one of his hands, placing it on his forehead in a sign of reverence. He needed to keep working to hold on to his home.

Dimas opened his mouth and Pau hoped desperately that whatever words came out would be those he needed to hear.

“I'm sorry,” Dimas finally said, pulling away from the man's hand. He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket, took out his wallet, and removed all the bills inside it without paying attention to their number. Pau looked at him mute, expectant. Dimas took the money, opened the old man's hand, and put them inside it before leaving. “That's all I can do.”

He disappeared behind the door, and Pau stayed there on his knees, defenseless. He sank his head between his hands and stayed there that way a long time. His tears fell down over the slats of worn wood covering the floor of the apartment.

That afternoon, Dimas returned home on foot. He crossed the Calle Princesa and then walked upward, passing by the monastery of San Pedro de las Puellas. Inside, he could still make out the traces of the fire that had gutted it in 1909, during the events of the Tragic Week. Afterward, he came to the Paseo de San Juan and then continued on toward his home. The day was over, and a bitter taste remained in his mouth. As he walked along, his hands sunken in the pockets of his overcoat, he couldn't forget the expression of pain on the face of Pau Serra. He knew he could do nothing else for him, since his adopted role was that of Ferran's shadow, but Serra's situation was heartbreaking. Suddenly he saw his father, Juan, in the person of the craftsman: the same workingman who had devoted his entire life to an enterprise and who lost everything because of one tragic moment. It was completely unjust. And yet Dimas didn't have time for compassion. He had marked out a path and he would have to cross through many stages, some of them painful, before he reached the end.

He looked up and saw he was approaching the foot of the Sagrada Familia. The walk had been a short one. He saw the half-built columns and buttresses. When he glimpsed the towers, cut off halfway, enveloped in scaffolding, he asked himself about the work, the effort these men were making to construct something that surpassed human understanding. Some of the workers were coming down; the rain had begun to pelt down with force, and it was bothering them. Dimas had convinced himself that no one would look out for him but himself, and that he should push ahead, independently of everyone else, just as he had been doing for some time.

Even so, leaving the apartment of Pau Serra had not been easy.

“Dimas?”

A woman's voice made him look to the corner of Calle Provenza and Cerdeña. Laura greeted him with one hand in the air. Dimas began to walk slowly toward her, still a bit lost in his own thoughts.

“Are you all right? You look a little pale,” she asked when he was in front of her.

“I'm fine, Señorita Laura,” he responded right away in a neutral voice. Her manner had seemed formal, the way you act around an employee you don't quite trust, to mark the distance, and calling her
Señorita
had the same effect. “I'm just tired. I'm heading home.”

“I'm going to stay a little longer here. You know, I wanted to give Pau the sketches for some engravings, but he didn't show up this morning at the workshop. His hands are perfect for those little jobs; he's the best out of any of them,” Laura said quickly. He could see she was in a rush to return to work, as if having him there made her nervous.

When Dimas heard Pau's name, he took a deep breath.

“Yes, he's very good at what he does.”

“They told me he's sick,” Laura continued. “I thought of going by his house to take him something warm. Do you know where he lives?”

Suddenly he heard himself replying. The words came from his mouth as if he were controlled by someone else.

“I have no idea. But there's something you should know: He's quit the studio. It seems he was offered a better job with another jeweler, with more favorable conditions, and he told your brother Ferran today that he was done.”

Laura's face, full of surprise, went suddenly dark: Had she lost her best craftsman without even being able to say good-bye? Dimas knew that by telling that lie, he had prevented a clash between her and Ferran. And it also kept him safe from her rebukes. He didn't want to fight with Laura and have her accuse him of being a bootlick or something worse, or give her more reasons to look down on him and treat him with that coldness that she was adopting just then, which made that evening they had spent with Guillermo seem like a mirage. His nervousness led him to reinforce his story, adding a few more words, “Who would have thought it, right?”