A Film (3000 Meters) Read online

  Rovira was in seventh heaven and spent the rest of his life equally amazed by such “ayccidents.”

  The news hit the haberdashers like a bucket of cold water: they’d dreamt of somebody quite different for their daughter, who was so pale, fair, and refined, but, as they only ever did what she wanted, in a resigned rather than joyful mood they agreed to let her marry the young man of her choosing.

  Pepita wanted to marry immediately; the reason for her haste was threefold, each being equally transcendental.

  Firstly, she was looking forward to a white wedding with a grand train. Secondly, she wanted a Napoleonic portrait, wherein she was photographed at the top of a long stairway, her train gathered at her feet and cascading down the steps like a waterfall, with the bridegroom standing by her side, gazing into her eyes. And thirdly, because she could fulfill her lifelong dream the moment she married: visiting cards that announced, in the most flowery script: Pepita Tomaset de Rovira, and, in one corner: At home on Wednesdays …

  And she executed her plan step by step. The wedding was quite an event for those parts. Nobody could wait to see the cortège—stuffed into six or seven carriages—or, above all, the bride, who, as everyone said who knew about such things, was “a sight for sore eyes.”

  Once the blessing was bestowed and the traditional rides down Les Rambles and Passeig de Gràcia accomplished, they all went off to a packed hostelry.

  Innuendo and chatter abounded. Midway through the meal, Pepita’s haberdasher father, Senyor Tomaset, who until then had seemed the one least happy with that union, felt an evolution taking place within himself—though it wasn’t an evolution, rather a manifest revolution—and suddenly leapt to his feet, glass in hand, to launch into a speech that, while not entirely lucid or fluent, was most eloquent. Among other infinitely interesting things, he said it was the happiest day in his life, that now he could see his posterity in the wake of the marriage, which is what every paterfamilias wants, and what he most deplored was that his ancestors, vulgo grandparents, were not there to partake in the joy and preside over the wedding banquet, because years ago he’d had to take them to their final resting place … Senyor Tomaset’s occasional faux pas didn’t matter because it was drowned by a salvo of enthusiastic applause. The loudest applause came from Pepita’s haberdasher mother, whose eyes shone brightly from so much laughter as if all the condiments she’d ingested had blended to inspire hallucinations.

  At the end of lunch, the bride whispered something in her husband’s ear, and they both rose to their feet and disappeared to cries and hurrahs from the guests. At that moment, Rovira believed, at the very least, that he was leading away the Princess of Asturias and, from then on, he only ever saw life through his wife’s practically blind eyes.

  As the bridegroom’s only patrimony were the fingers of both hands and a sister he had to maintain, the haberdashers furnished a flat, looked over their finances, and took out a loan for the items the couple needed. Pepita would have liked a maid, but as her parental budget didn’t stretch that far and they’d already used most of it, Rovira’s sister served as both maid and butler. We hardly need note that Pepita was good for nothing: as a result of her natural inclinations and lack of training, she was utterly useless. It was just as well she was resigned to being like that, for when she felt the occasional, belligerent urge to be the mistress of the house and tell people what was what, her sister-in-law was truly horrified. Since she couldn’t see and had never done a stroke of housework, if Pepita wanted to dust, whatever she touched fell to the floor and smashed to smithereens; if she tried to cook, she burnt the sauce or knocked bottles over without noticing; if she put washing out to dry, she dropped it on the flat underneath, and apart from needing to be salvaged, it all had to washed again … Everything followed a similar pattern. Carmeta, Rovira’s sister, sorted those calamities and was only happy when she saw Pepita focus on her own world, because at least, if she didn’t help, she wasn’t getting in her way and Carmeta didn’t have to witness more slaughters of the innocents. Pepita’s world was: waking, getting up, washing, eating breakfast, getting dressed, and going to the haberdashery so her mother or sister could curl or comb her hair, since being her own hairdresser didn’t appeal to her and, in any case, as she’d never practiced, she had no idea where to begin.

  Pepita came home for lunch; she and her husband enjoyed a leisurely meal, and Carmeta left the table now and then to serve them. When Rovira departed to the workshop, Pepita retired to their salon. Their salon was furnished with a settee, half a dozen chairs, and the piano and music cabinet her parents had given her as a wedding present. The traditional portrait of the bride and bridegroom sat on the piano in a red, plush velvet lyre-frame with leather flowers—a gift from Senyoreta Bonafont. The couple was conventionally posed, him standing, her sitting at the top of the stairway, her long train gathered by her feet and cascading down like a waterfall.

  When Pepita’s mother gave her that piano, her father had said: “Whatever you do, my love, don’t give up the piano after all the sacrifices we’ve made to give you lessons … Although you’re married now, practice a little every day, and remember that a piano is the finest adornment a lady can ever have.”

  And Pepita heeded her mother and practiced a little every day after lunch. Behind a bolted door, nose to the score, she tinkled away on the ivories while Carmeta washed dishes and tidied up to the rhythm of a Boston two-step or mazurka, and when Carmeta was ironing or darning stockings, Pepita emerged from the salon, powdered anew, clasping her crochet bag and invariably declaring: “If you don’t need me, I’ll go and keep Mama company for a while.”

  Of course, Carmeta never needed her and Pepita went off to keep her mama company, spending the whole afternoon with her until her husband came to collect her after work, and in the summer, after chatting to his in-laws a while, he took her for a stroll before supper; in winter, they went straight home in order to be in bed nice and early.

  That complex existence suffered slight variations: Sundays were more for husband and wife, and on Wednesdays Pepita was “at home.” That day, she’d dress more fetchingly than usual and stayed in her salon the whole afternoon receiving visits from her lady friends: the daughters of Senyor Eusebio, the chiropodist, the daughter of Senyor Bonafont, her music teacher, the herbalist’s granddaughter, and, from time to time, Senyora Anneta from the shoe shop, as well as her mother, who would take time off that day even if the haberdashery was bustling.

  Her mother was the star attraction in Pepita’s salon and the one who ran the “at home” show. She knew perfectly well that to attract and retain each customer—in this case, visitor—one had to talk to each guest about her special interests; thus, she talked to Senyora Anneta about how expensive life was compared to when they became established. “Back then we could do more with a two-cent coin and a copper from Morocco than with today’s pesseta. Fish cost this, meat that, and sugar slightly more … And as for our goods … I mean, elastic cost us … etc., etc.” And she’d practically insert her lips into the ears of Senyora Xirau, who was on the deaf side, or so she claimed in order to be the center of attention all afternoon, for in fact she heard as well as the walls of Montjuïc Castle, so Pepita’s mother spoke slowly: “So how are the public lectures going?” to catch her attention. “It’s scandalous, truly scandalous, Senyora Tomaset; I don’t know where the sick come from … It’s unbelievable …” And she gossiped to the chiropodist about pharmacists. The pharmacists’ wives—apothecaries, as the women at the “at home” scornfully labelled them—were their bêtes noires, because they eschewed contact with the neighbors and socialized only with la crème de la crème downtown. Pepita’s mother talked to Senyor Bonafont’s daughter about her sewing and knitting. Senyor Bonafont’s daughter was a forty-year old who ought to have been awarded the great cross of some order if there were any justice in this world. If it is true, as someone once said, that the most beautiful sacrifices are the most pointless, Senyora Bonafont’s life
was an example of articulated beauty, an interminable gold chain, a kind of cord running from the void to the infinite. As it was only her and her father, and they had both income and the Academy, plus an old servant who saw to everything, Senyoreta Bonafont could do whatever she pleased with her life, and dedicated her entire existence to her sewing and knitting with a martyr’s frenzy and the strenuous efforts of a rubble-carrying mule (if you’ll pardon my poetry). She knew all the stitches for hemming, embroidery, stockings, crochet, and needle work; she owned all kinds of samples of all kinds of things, in the dozens, the hundreds, the thousands; she knew what was going out of fashion and what was coming in; she was a living manual of everything that had been in vogue and when, from wax fruit to beaded flowers, from rugs made from remnants and curly sheeps’ wool to gold filigree slippers and Bristol-board watch pouches, from triangular shawls to dainty baskets and paper candleholders, etc. etc., and possessed exclusive patents to achievements that would make Hercules a laughingstock, like, for example, two particular paintings—one of which was five feet by two, and showed a train going at top speed, spewing out smoke, thick and dark like something evil.

  A green meadow dotted with white daisies stretched out in front of the train; behind it a range of mountains; one covered in snow, another blue as the Virgin’s mantle, yet another with a scattering of pine trees, and finally the fourth, magnificently crowned with red, volcanic flames: behind the mountains, a paler blue sky streaked with shimmering-gold sunlight. That tableau was embroidered in silks—which had cost over seven hundred pessetes—and she’d worked on it, off and on, for nigh on twenty years. The other tableau wasn’t a tableau, but a varnished wooden box with a glass lid and a hook to hang it from the wall. She’d embroidered the inside of the box, in the highest relief on a background of crimson damascene. Employing every kind of stitch, material, and imitative procedure, a life-size parrot in equally life-like colors sat perched on a contorted tree branch, carrying in its beak a white card, where one could read, in thin, straggly script the classic line: “To my dear father on his saint’s day.”

  Years ago, the train that flew and the parrot that didn’t had been the pride and joy—before such taste went out of fashion—of Senyoreta Bonafont, and had been continually admired by the old servant and the young pupils who passed in waves through the Academy. The maid, who had bad lungs, always declared; “Ay, Lord! That wisp of smoke looks like it’s about to escape the frame, and dampens my spirits as much as the fumes in the kitchen …” And the tiny tots were overjoyed; boys imitated train noises and girls stood in front of the varnished box and shouted: “Lovely, lovely parrot, give me a leg and I’ll give you my love!” Additionally, Senyoreta Bonafont made mats, eiderdowns, pillowcases, lace curtains, lace bows, and all kinds of godly wonders for saint’s days, birthdays, weddings, and christenings throughout the neighborhood, and she took her exemplary generosity to such lengths that she’d even go to the homes of lady friends and acquaintances to teach them stitches they didn’t know or combinations they couldn’t get right …

  And with the herbalist’s granddaughter, the haberdasher found plenty of material to chew over in the contrary behavior she was forced to endure, and that shop assistant her daughter wanted but her grandad didn’t, and the cousin her grandad wanted and her daughter didn’t!

  When she’d talked a bit to everyone about their problems, the cutter of cloth and seller of pins and needles decided to talk about her own, which came closer to her heart, to the extent that she couldn’t put them out of her mind for a second.

  “Now we’ve had our say about our work … or the weather, our groceries, or our gout—all roads lead to Rome—my love, tell us what you’re studying …” and when Pepita had done that: “Come on now, don’t be such a shrinking violet, play us a tune and we’ll see how pretty it is … Us ignoramuses like music too, don’t we, ladies?”

  And Pepita played until everyone had left.

  It was all Pepita ever did, apart from listen, on her days “at home.”

  Those days brought hustle and bustle to the house and extra work for Carmeta, even if it was only cleaning and coming and going to the front door, and that along with her sister-in-law’s calamitous management of the household annoyed her no end. Every Wednesday she’d tell the neighbor… “You see, Angeleta? More of the same … I’m telling you loud and clear: this simpering soul my brother has landed will be the death of me … And the saddest part is that the day I depart, they’ll have to go begging … Because nobody will be able to salvage her from her fatuous limbo … Her mother spoils her, and that will be the ruination of us all.”

  Carmeta Rovira was a wholly unhappy woman. She’d longed for one thing in life—to be a midwife—but had never managed it. When, as a young girl, she had asked her parents, they said: “That’s not work for a decent girl. When you marry, you can learn how to do it, if your husband lets you …” And Carmeta would have willingly married in order to become a midwife, but the years passed, and, as no suitor presented himself, Carmeta couldn’t marry or learn her preferred métier and that profoundly embittered her; she saw the whole world as a sad, dreary place, as if through tinted glass. A tiny light only entered her life when her nephew was born.

  Pepita spent her whole pregnancy being sick and watching the calendar. She couldn’t think what name to choose from the ones she read there. She wanted one that sounded distinguished and gentlemanly … Finally, after lots of arguing, doubting, and consultation, she reached a decision. The “offspring,” as Senyor Tomaset called him, would be Margarita if a girl, and Octavio if a boy—or “Uuctavio,” as Pepita always pronounced it.

  It was a boy. White and fair like his mother, with a head almost as big as his father’s. As he grew, that lack of proportion only augmented.

  Octavio had small, insipid features and a blank, soporific expression, but his high, broad forehead protruded from beneath his lank, stringy hair, as if it were hydrocephalous: a forehead so vast it seemed a well of wisdom, though it was hard to say whether the well was full or empty. The baby had only two redeeming features that delighted the whole family. One consisted, from a very, very early age, in bellowing like a carter, and the other in calling his parents and relatives by their Christian names in his half-lisping way: Dovira, Pepitta, Cammetta …

  After the huge binges of wedding, apartment, christening, wet nurse, and almost completely meeting the expenses of both households for three or four years, the haberdashers were finally cleaned out and were obliged to tell the couple it had to stop, and that Rovira couldn’t stick to his day wage but must procure a higher income. However, as he was hard-working and knew his trade, he soon found a position in Senyor Ramoneda’s firm, on a decent fixed wage and a little bonus for additional jobs. That was when they went to live on Carrer de las Ximeneies to be closer to work.

  The day when Nonat had that argument with Peroi, he had as usual taken the firm’s key to the foreman’s house after work. The latter wasn’t in, and as Nonat needed to see him he sat and waited on the doorstep on the street where Octavi was playing.

  The boy ran in and out of the house opposite, which was a greengrocer’s; one time he came out with a calabaza squash that he went to show Senyor Nonat. Nonat asked: “Do you want me to make you a horsey?”

  Since the boy was keen, Nonat looked for a few branches that he cut to size. As he was attaching the legs to the horsey, Rovira arrived and they all went inside.

  “Hey, ask Auntie to give you a piece of string or cord and we’ll give him a bridle …”

  While the boy went to get it, El Senyoret told his friend what had happened. When the boy returned, he continued to talk while he tied the cord to one of the horsey’s legs: “So you see, I’m out in the street and have to find new lodgings. As I have no choice, I’d rather it was nearer to work than my last place … Do you know anywhere around here that would do?”

  Octavi made the horsey gallop across the table, and seemed unusually elated. He appeared to be absorbed i
n his new game, not seeing or hearing anything else, but out of the blue, he interrupted the list of houses Rovira was enumerating, bellowed, and cheerfully kicked his feet: “I don’t want Thenyor Nonat to go … I want Thenyor Nonat to thtay here …”

  “Where do you want him to stay?” asked his father, taken aback.

  “With uth, with uth … I want Thenyor Nonat to thtay with uth …”

  The child was showing how pleased he was by the horsey the locksmith had made for him.

  Everybody was amused by his outcry, but if at first they thought he was joking, they very soon had to take it seriously when the little chap was so insistent he grabbed Nonat’s leg and threatened a huge tantrum if they refused him … And as the child was the apple of everyone’s eye and nobody had ever refused him anything, they were helpless. The game was soon up. When they saw the boy didn’t want to give in, digging his heels in the more his father tried to dissuade him, the adults yielded, particularly when Pepita and then Rovira decided that there was no reason why Nonat shouldn’t stay with them. In fact, they did have an empty bedroom he could have without displacing anyone.

  Nonat initially didn’t accept out of politeness in that affable, courteous way of his, until the foreman insisted forcefully that he should accept their offer, invoking imaginary advantages to living together. And Nonat accepted, to everyone’s delight, except the only person who would have to deal with the extra work the guest would bring and the only one not consulted: Carmeta. Naturally, when she heard the news she went through the roof, and, if till then she’d had only two loves in her life—her brother and her nephew—and one pet peeve, from then on she refocused her feelings and divided the latter between her sister-in-law and the intruder.

  And once again what tended to happen, happened. In a flash, the bastard became lord and master of the wills of Rovira and the child. Without intending to and never unfairly, he gave the orders in their home as he did at work, since the only opposition he might have met was amply countered by Pepita’s apathy and the warm reception afforded by everyone else, including all those who worked in the haberdashery. He’d made their acquaintance when accompanying Rovira, who went there after work to collect his wife and son. At first they had reacted poorly to the idea of their daughter starting a lodging house because they thought it demeaned her socially, but when they met Nonat they were so pleased that, from then on, they welcomed him like one of the family, whenever he went to visit with them, even though he went bare-headed.