A Film (3000 Meters) Read online

  It had been painful to tell the boss he was leaving, and the unpleasant aftertaste lingered. Anticipating the inevitable, Nonat made his preparations on the quiet and out of sight. A colleague of his in the Locksmiths’ Company, Peroi, had quarreled with his foreman and decided to leave for Barcelona. The colleague had never been before, but an aunt of his lived there and he’d stay with her while looking for work. If Peroi liked the city, he’d stay, if not, he’d find somewhere else.

  All of a sudden the sky cleared over Nonat. Girona oppressed him; he hated the place. From the moment he sensed he was going nowhere, he’d broken all emotional ties to the city. He reckoned that the city and its inhabitants owed him something; they’d made him victim of a swindle, of an immoral con; all things considered, he was being held there against the law and his rights, like in the Orphanage, and he wanted out, though he couldn’t decide how and when. He’d started hatching a thousand plans and spawning countless escape routes that all fell short or were silly in one way or another. And though leaving was constantly on his mind, he stopped worrying and, like in the Orphanage, he trusted that his freedom would come by chance. An obscure instinct—the instinct of the born adventurer—told him chance was the great provider, that where human guile and foresight failed, chance would resolve his dilemmas. It had opened the doors of the Home for Bastards, now it would bring the walls of Girona crashing down, lead him to his parents, and put him on the road to fame and fortune. When? When God willed! His goal could remain more or less distant—though not by much, the mysterious voice whispered deep inside him—but he would get his own way, and find the source of his fate—of that there was no doubt—however much they hid it from him, whatever hurdles they placed in his way …

  Such stubborn self-belief curbed his impatience, ensuring he did nothing stupid, or acted inopportunely … That confidence again produced a small miracle and gave him the opportunity he was seeking: the aforementioned colleague’s departure to Barcelona. Nonat had been attracted to the idea of Barcelona for some time. He always thought of his parents and Barcelona together. The two ideas were always entwined, inseparable. After the disappointments dispensed by Matron and his godmother, after his retrospective scrutiny of scandal-mongering in the old city of Sant Narcís, he had unconsciously focused everything driving his filial inquiries on Barcelona. That city had to be the ark where his secret was hidden; he would find the answer to his enigma there; wandering its streets, one day or another, out of the blue, a hunch would suggest: “That’s your father!” And he was certain his hunch wouldn’t disappoint him, as that gentleman’s had in the Orphanage, the millionaire who mistook him for his son …

  And so, Nonat asked to join the departing Peroi.

  “It’s all I needed to make my mind up to go … A colleague: to have an acquaintance there … So I wouldn’t be a total stranger …”

  Peroi was delighted, because Nonat was highly regarded in the trade. His haughty, supercilious manner belonged to his innermost life and character, and wasn’t part of his daily attitude at work. He was perhaps the best tradesman on the block, since his wonderful manual dexterity went with a fertile brain and consummate patience when it came to analyzing problems and the mechanics of his art, and he never flaunted that superiority in an offensive or demeaning way to others, and was always ready with a perceptive word of advice or a helpful hand to get them out of a fix.

  They agreed the colleague would look around once in Barcelona, and if Peroi found anything suitable for them, he would send Nonat a couple of lines.

  That letter took a week to come, meanwhile Nonat suffered the feverish anxiety he’d felt in the past, that struck at times of great mental tension, when he was perpetually on edge and a victim of high hopes. A strange luminosity created a blinding veil that blurred everything in his sight. It was as if he’d been looking at the sun too long, and his eyes saw only a glittering, phosphorescent dance, a shimmering shower of golden dots in an electric atmosphere that was uniformly red, blue, or green; his blood hammered his temples, rushed to and from his face so fast that one minute it flared up like a turkey’s wattle, but the next it blanched as if he were about to faint … And an ominous black cloud overshadowed that tempestuous turmoil. What would he tell the boss? How could he sugar the pill of his escape? They’d never signed a contract, they’d never talked about it, but quite naturally, by force of circumstance, they’d forged an understanding that they would be together for life. The boss had rescued him from the Orphanage, the boss had generously taught him everything he knew, the boss had treated him and loved him like a father; he never scolded him, left the management of the workshop entirely in his hands, often alluding to what Nonat could do when he, the boss, was no longer of this world. Reckoning his youthful fantasies and hopes of finding his unknown progenitors were unlikely to be fulfilled, that upstanding man considered Nonat to be his one and only heir … How would his boss now react to his planned desertion? What pleas, what imploring would he face as the locksmith tried to dissuade him from leaving? When he thought about it, Nonat felt a painful twinge in his heart; something deep inside sternly reproaching him, disapproving of his behavior, telling him, whether he listened or not, that he was acting disloyally and wasn’t repaying his debt as a grateful human should … However, as usual, Nonat angrily rejected a sentiment he found disconcerting and tried to quash it with a derisory shrug of the shoulders.

  “Hey! Let’s not jump to conclusions before the evil deed is done … Who knows if Peroi will ever find us work!”

  But Peroi did. Here’s the letter he wrote to El Senyoret:

  Dere frend: cum wen you like. Heer you got job and home I think we’ll be all rite.

  Then he’d scrawled his address and signature; the latter an uncouth scribble, like the battered rings of a broken chain, set out in a wobbly line that feigned an impression of insouciant savoir-faire, pretentiously surrounded by a huge labyrinth that had it all: curly spirals, arcs, circles, straight, curved, crisscrossed, broken, or freely added, as if it were an embryonic locksmith’s project created by a mad artisan.

  Poor Peroi had been born in a mountain farmhouse a good four hours from the la incompleta … But Nonat—when Nonat had been apprenticed to a blacksmith in the biggest clump (a dozen) of scattered houses in the parish, he had also started school, and the priest taught him for an hour every Saturday, imparting basic knowledge later supplemented with the radical newspapers Nonat devoured and the trade unions he began to join, which injected into his bloodstream the idea of his own distinct social and individual merit as a member of that vague, mysterious thing that was, nevertheless, referenced continuously in those printed pages and endowed with formidable unknown power via a hugely evocative phrase: the working class.

  So there was no way Nonat could delay the day. The time had come to pluck up courage and deliver the mortal blow to the boss. And El Senyoret did so with determination, jettisoning any scruples.

  It was indeed a mortal blow. The wretched bachelor was all but floored. That lad was his family, his pride and joy, his only love, his only hope … He had ingenuously nourished the illusion that, apart from bringing him into the world, everything about that young man was the work of his own hands, of his own skill and endeavor. He even contemplated Nonat’s physical beauty with a father’s modest appreciation And that sense of paternity wasn’t any less intense for being secondhand; it constituted for that hapless fellow the axis, pinnacle, culmination, and crowning—indeed, the alpha and omega of his life. He’d also cherished another illusion: that the bastard loved him. And, despite the youthful follies now obsessing him and monopolizing his brain, follies that were sure to melt away as he matured, he was convinced Nonat loved him with all his heart, the heart of a true son. He would never have dreamt that Nonat would forsake him on the threshold of old age, when he was almost good for nothing, when, thinking he’d found a proper heir, he’d already begun to cut free from his business as the boss and obeyed the young man’s orders without ever arg
uing, as if Nonat, and only Nonat, was the journeyman, when, say, only a couple of days ago, he’d let him dismiss a good, intelligent young worker, who could have been a good companion, helping to extend their trade and giving it real drive. The boss was so ingenuous he’d never have suspected a thing, hadn’t even had an inkling.

  When El Senyoret told him to take it in his stride, that he needed to go to Barcelona, the boss replied simply: “Bueno, that’s up to you … but try not dilly-dally there too long … I don’t understand how the new factory operates, because you did the deals and signed the contracts, and you know they are a scheming bunch and you can’t negotiate with your eyes shut.”

  But, as he began to get a clear grasp of what the lad’s words meant, the boss was so stricken his mind went blank. None of the pleas or sermons Nonat had feared issued from the boss’s lips. He tilted his head to one side, started trembling as if he suddenly had a fever, and tears streamed silently down his cheeks; despite his best efforts, he wasn’t brave enough to hold them back, and … that was all. No complaints, no criticism, no comments followed Nonat’s terrible declaration. It was precisely that silence, that blankness in the face of the enormity of the disaster that changed Nonat’s attitude. He wanted to do what he wanted, always what he wanted, but to do it as someone exercising his rights, serenely, not as someone committing a violent act or crime, the unfair imposition of the strong on the weak that always leaves in its wake an unpleasant, troubling aftertaste. If the boss had resisted, protested, even come out with a hostile tirade, Nonat could have defended himself, spelled out his reasons, argued for them, passed them off as the real deal … But rather than that, the boss was crying, and Nonat couldn’t fight those tears prompted by pure emotion that exposed, without camouflage or fig leaf, the naked selfishness of his act.

  Nonat frowned.

  “Come on now, it’s not so bad. Don’t take it like that … I was bound to leave one day or another … You’ll find another tradesman like me soon, we’re hardly needles in a haystack … The business has a good reputation, and when people know I’m leaving, they’ll come in swarms, like flies to a pot of honey … I might even come back … depending on how things turn out … And supposing you still need me …”

  But the boss, who’d slumped on a chair, sprawling face down over its back, slowly raised his head between his arms, and feebly waved a hand: “You’ll never come back … I’ll never see you again … You’ll never give this workshop or this wretched old man another thought …”

  And a sob he’d been choking down erupted from his gullet. His words of misery and his tears showed how futile it was to attempt to offer hypocritical excuses and vapid consolation, and Nonat didn’t dare respond.

  In the three or four days that remained to collect his things, put some order into the jobs going through the workshop and inform his friend that he’d arrive in Barcelona the following Saturday, his departure was not mentioned again, yet even so the bastard’s final days with that silent, depressed man were long and drawn out. His boss was at all over the place. He’d start a job, leave it, walk up and down, move things for the sake of it, and didn’t know what he’d done. He couldn’t eat and every now and then went to the café on the sidewalk and sipped a coffee, he, a man who never drank or snacked between meals.

  Whenever Nonat made an effort to gather his tools and picked one up, his boss placed three or four more in front of him.

  “Hey, take these. Whatever you end up doing, they’ll come in useful …”

  Nonat protested. “They belong to this workshop and you’ll need them for some job or other …” The boss shook his head.

  “No, I won’t … I can’t use those things … I no longer have the eyes or a steady hand …”

  The young man talked about buying a big trunk, and his boss responded immediately: “If you want, you can have the one I had when I was a lad … As you’re emptying the drawers, I’ll have more than enough space for my clothes … It’s not exactly the latest fashion, but it’s strong and could hold a cathedral …”

  So Nonat took the boss’s old trunk, and as the boss was taking his things out, he found a set of new vests he’d never worn, and said: “I’ll leave these. It’s very drafty in Barcelona, and you youngsters are always short on money, you think of everything except keeping warm …”

  Finally, on the day of Nonat’s departure, the boss went to the young man’s room where he was tidying up, and wordlessly handed him a cardboard box. El Senyoret opened it and saw a doubloon bearing the king’s head. That minted gold coin stood out regally and sumptuously against a sky-blue cotton cloth. The young locksmith’s eyes glowed; he was surprised and entranced.

  “What is it?”

  “The first wage I ever earned, that my boss wanted me to preserve like that, in a single coin, to bring me prosperity … and, thanks be to God, as far as my luck goes, I’ve had no complaints until now …”

  “So?” asked Nonat, moved, albeit reluctantly.

  “It’s yours now … It can be your memento from this place … Don’t sell or lose it … do what I did … Who knows what power such things possess? My boss was well-read, and when he said something, it was for good reason. You’re one for showy baubles, hang it from your watch chain; I knew a notary who did that … Well, maybe not; it’s not for a worker … Who knows what people might think … ? Better keep it in the box, as I did …”

  That was the present that most touched Nonat; like everything that glittered, like everything that suggested wealth, it gave him a deep sense of wonder, and owning it, and knowing that it was his, without any doubts or cavils, suddenly infused him with an extraordinary sense of well-being and confidence. The robust optimism emerging from the dark depths of his subconscious was bolstered by that beautiful object which, according to his boss, brought good luck … He’d always been subject to small superstitious manias, to surges of fatalism that directly related any trifle to unknown causes and effects. On Sunday, for example, it was always a good idea to go to festivities near a fountain. He would tiptoe slyly along the edge of the pavement, telling himself: “If I don’t slip up, Sunday will be my lucky day …” Or else: “If the first person I meet is a woman, the cobbler will soon be making me some new shoes …” And he’d say that time and again. We hardly need to say that the gold doubloon soon became his lucky charm: hadn’t he said it was right to go to Barcelona? That he’d find what he was searching for in Barcelona? And lo and behold, that coin now linked his good fortune to that new enterprise just as he was setting out, proof that it would turn out as he wished … And, cheered by the prospect, he checked all the packets and lists he’d prepared to make sure he wasn’t missing anything. As someone unaccustomed to traveling, he’d been thorough in his preparations; he was afraid he’d get everything wrong; he packed every little item, didn’t forget a thing, and had a mountain of luggage: a box here, a bundle there, a knotted scarf …

  His boss appeared with one last gift: two bread rolls, an omelet, a slice of cold sausage, and a bottle of wine he’d had filled at the café next door, and had clumsily wrapped in newspaper tied up with black, fraying string.

  “Here you are, a bite to eat … If you get off at a station, you might miss the train …”

  His boss walked around for a moment, as if he wanted to say something but didn’t dare. Then he made up his mind: “Got everything ready?”

  “Yes, nearly …” Nonat glanced at his watch. “Almost an hour until the train, but I don’t want any last-minute … It’s a good stretch from here to the station.”

  His boss closed his eyes, and, as if his head was in a spin, he leaned on the dresser full of rubbish, its drawers hanging out: “I’ve a little job to do … I have an errand … you might not be here when I get back … So it would be best … to say goodbye now and …” He rubbed his big black paw on the leg of his pants, looked around, his eyes full of tears, and the floor creaked as he held out his hand casually, matter-of-factly …

  Nonat was shocked.
He was still stunned by the gift of the doubloon and the speed of his pending departure, and he too felt his heart breaking for a second. He took that rustic hand between his own and squeezed it. He tried to say something, but the words caught in his throat; he struggled to free them; he blinked … and suddenly felt a huge void in his palms … His boss’s hand had vanished, as had the boss from his bedroom.

  After donning his jacket and carrying his numerous parcels to the workshop, Nonat searched the building for the old man and said a final goodbye to his neighbors, asking them if they’d seen the boss … Nobody could say … That was the last time Nonat was ever to see his boss …

  As a final farewell to his life in Girona and callow youth, he heard news of his boss some twenty months later, from an old work-mate, Granaire, whom he bumped into one Sunday in Plaça de Catalunya. When he enquired about his boss and the workshop, Granaire clamored: “You know, you’d barely recognize the place. Big cobwebs hang like aprons in every corner, and we often don’t have metal to make so much as a key … People are never where they should be; no job is ever finished on time; every week, there’s a new tradesman; each steals what he can and runs off. It was once so prosperous and now it’s going downhill! You were the drive behind everything, and with you gone, the workshop is dead in the water … It’ll shut down any day now … That’s obvious enough! The old man has lost his way … When he drops by, he turns everything upside down … He’s taken to drinking, would you believe? And it goes to his head rather than his feet … He never moves from the tavern … Who’d have thought it? He always seemed so sensible … He must have kept that vice well hidden, and now he’s alone he lets it rip … Ever since you left, he’s gone to pot … He looks a hundred years old … His legs shake so much it’s a wonder he can stand straight; his hair is snow-white and his eyes are bloodshot, as if someone had thrown quicklime at them; he only goes for a shave every two or three months, and when you speak to him, he never answers …” Granaire gave a little smile. “I think that those tufts of singed hair sprouting out of his nose and ears are stifling all his energy …” Then he went all solemn again. “Believe me, lad, wine and rotgut make animals of men … God save them! Otherwise, I’ve advised him to go to the Sisters … if only to be rid of the sickness that’s eating him alive …”