A Film (3000 Meters) Read online

  When they finished for the day, Peroi and his new workmates showed Nonat the streets around the factory, and they went up Gràcia’s Carrer Major and down Muntaner at an hour when there was a dizzy flow of cars and carriages, in which the newcomer saw lightning flashes of mouths, bosoms, hats, or whole profiles: fleeting fragments that stood out strongly against a blurred backdrop of expensive cloth or extraordinary faces. They were snapshots of sophisticated, urban luxury: flying along, languidly posing on soft cushions, enjoying the voluptuous pleasures of twilight, speed, and the covetous eyes of the poor …

  Nonat looked up at the sky, a huge concave of burnished topaz, and at each sidewalk dotted with magnificent mansions between lush but sternly regulated green gardens of bygone days or the showy, polychrome patchwork of more youthful parks; he looked ahead and behind at the evanescent vistas descending on both sides of the mountain and joining on the skyline. He remembered the stunning morning emptiness of Passeig de Gràcia … This was real life … This was life … ! And, gradually, a frenzied, almost aphrodisiacal desire possessed him …

  Nonat’s spirit was totally in awe of those two parallel streets that had framed his first day in Barcelona—Passeig de Gràcia and Carrer de Muntaner.

  The following day the owner didn’t turn up at all; someone said he was taking a rest: El Senyoret felt relieved, as if after a sedative or cold drink, and worked in a light-hearted, lively way all day. However, the day after, the moment he saw his new boss walk in on the other side of the yard, with a sallower face and more prominent cheekbones than two days before, his heart thudded and the plane he was holding juddered and made an incision on the piece he was making. Hey! the bastard reproached himself, What’s wrong with you? But later the same day, a memory suddenly shone through his anxiety like a ray of light, and he saw things as clearly as could be. When the owner gestured, turning around to reply to Rovira, the sad, sickly image of Jordiet, Nonat’s former companion in the Orphanage, came to mind. The squint eye and sallow hue made that child and man seem very similar, and this similarity, striking his heart rather than his memory, was what made such an impression on Nonat the infant that had sprung back from his earlier life.

  That was when the bastard realized, much to his surprise, that his deep, inner obsession hadn’t surfaced since the day he’d arrived in Barcelona. As he became aware that three days had passed without him remembering his dispute with destiny, he felt happy. When he fell back on the treadmill of that idée fixe, he also fell back into the isolation of his feudal castle, now raising the drawbridge that had once descended over the surrounding moat to connect him to the world of ordinary mortals.

  From that day on, the owner, the innocent cause of Nonat’s renewed inner turmoil, inspired a secret rancor, like Maria la Gallinaire and the nun in the Orphanage before her.

  However, Nonat’s entry into that new world wasn’t what you’d call difficult or unpleasant. Like a fountain in full flood, good feelings flowed spontaneously around him, flattered him, and he didn’t have to make the slightest effort to provoke them or keep them in check. After a few days, everybody doted on him: Auntie, not for nothing once seduced by her presumptuous little tailor, was thrilled by Nonat’s suave refinement, nothing like the coarse manner of her nephew or so many other journeymen; Carlota’s lively, sparky spirit glittered like a firework display, galvanized by the presence of such a handsome young man; as for Peroi, his friend was an oracle he listened to in a state of intense reverence; in the factory, Nonat soon overtook his workmates in status; the latter asked for his opinion, the foreman gave him the most challenging tasks, and the owner, despite being the serious, meticulous sort, soon deigned to accept the practical solutions Nonat found for all kinds of problems.

  He was also admired and respected far from his usual habitats. When he walked from Carrer de l’Hospital to Carrer del Carme, he often crossed the Boqueria market and the greengrocers, fishwives, chicken women, and butchers stared at him, and dubbed him “the luvverly handyman.” When he walked between stalls, knives hovered in the air, sentences were left half-finished, one fish after another dropped on the scales, and the price of lettuce suddenly tripled, as if he’d just come from Peking; conversations stuttered or were interrupted as every female eye was hooked on his figure.

  And it was no different in La Maravilla, a bar on Carrer Arribau, a working-class haunt where on an evening before a holiday workers played dominoes, argued, and read the newspapers, or in the cafés on Carrer Major, where they also gathered in numbers to sip cold drinks at terrace tables and watch girls go by. After a very little while, and without him having to say or do anything unusual, he naturally became the focus of attention; it was so obvious that Peroi noticed and commented in his warm-hearted way: “Christ, I don’t know how you do it! Everyone’s hanging on you … You’ve got that special thing, like Carlota … You seem to be alone in this world, or smelling of catnip …”

  Nonat smiled, but didn’t reply or acknowledge tacit or explicit homages; he welcomed them as the most natural occurrence in the world; he was neither petulant nor contemptuous; he acted with aristocratic insouciance and polite indifference, as a mythical hero or blue-blooded prince would have done, accustomed to ruling over the masses as a matter of right.

  And thanks to the waves of innate attractiveness he radiated, the air with which he dismissed the presence of his neighbor was effortlessly forgiven or went almost unnoticed; that cold selfishness with which he pursued his objectives, never thinking or feeling the hurt he could inflict on those who crossed his path, that electric circuit encircling his mind and enclosing him within himself, which constituted a threat of mortal danger to anyone who dared enter. Because while he exerted his influence on all around him, he never suffered any in return; nothing that tempted other lads of his age and estate tempted him. He was measured and sober in what he said, only gambled to please friends who invited him to play; he hated fights and squabbles, was repelled by all political ideas, wasn’t drawn to young men’s sporting activities, didn’t like reading; even women, who might have lured him out of instinct, struggled to make an impact. To interest him, it wasn’t enough to be young and physically beautiful: something extra was needed.

  He much preferred mature women, even if they were ugly and in decline, to the fresh, piquant, spontaneous grace of a young seamstress. His fondness for the Eden Concert and other such dance halls, much criticized by his acquaintances, came purely on account of his desire to feast his eyes on the racy exuberance and licentious appeal brought to dance floors or stages by a constellation of French women who, in those early days, represented the sum total of elegance in the neophyte’s eyes.

  That was his weak spot, the vulnerable heel of the young Achilles. Just like in the Orphanage, his outward appearance continued to be his central obsession, and, second to the enigma of his origins, the vital key to his happiness or disillusion.

  He never found it in himself to walk the streets like an anonymous blob, and brought to the factory a worn outfit and espadrilles that he donned on arrival, and also a towel, tooth brush, and hair brush to spruce himself up before changing back when he finished work. What’s more, to ensure he didn’t dirty or scuff his shoes, he spent half his savings on the purchase of an old bicycle soon after coming to Barcelona and, as Peroi was upset at having to walk by himself, Nonat lent him the other half—to be paid back in weekly installments—to buy one as well.

  It was around that time that Nonat felt an impulse to do wrong.

  He saw a tie he judged to be the latest fashion in a lit shop window. He went into the shop and asked after its price; six pessetes. He didn’t have six and they were only mid-week. He was downhearted. From then to pay day he was sure someone else would buy that tie.

  He worked bad-temperedly throughout the day and passed by the shop in the evening. The tie was there in all its solitary uniqueness, a true pearl among a mass of vulgar tawdriness.

  The temptation wasn’t simply strong, it was violent. He
thought of asking for a loan from a workmate, or Rovira, but was stopped by a kind of inner restraint. Those in his trade already felt Nonat was too much of a beau and he was repelled by the idea of laying bare his inner desires and being in debt to anyone. A work errand the next morning meant he would head in to the factory later and cycle by himself: the tie was still in the shop window as he rode past, entrancing and luring him in. He stopped, one foot on a pedal and the other on the ground. A young man had just walked into the shop and was asking for something. An assistant went to retrieve something from the window display, and as he returned, his hands full, he left the window slightly ajar. It was at that moment the lethal impulse surfaced in Nonat, as if springing from the murky depths of instinct: to stick his hand in the window, grab the tie, and pedal off at top speed … However, before impulse could lead to action, the shop assistant returned to fetch one last item and closed the window.

  For hours Nonat experienced a bitter aftertaste of regret, but not remorse, and it was even worse when he cycled back past the shop and saw the tie was gone.

  Days went by, and he let life drift and develop as it suited him. At the end of the work day, he found no pleasure in roaming the streets and chasing maids, nor was he entertained by gambling and arguing in bars. He preferred to spend his time differently. As a result, he asked the foreman, who in turn asked the owner, to be allowed to stay on at the end of the day and work on small commissions and new-fangled things he liked to make, quietly and unobtrusively. The owner willingly agreed, as Nonat wasn’t asking for a raise and they’d noticed that his little extras always benefited business. Once Nonat could excuse himself like that, he felt relief: his emancipation had started. Of course, some workmates initially offered to join him and Peroi decided to stay on as well, but by the end of the week, outside attractions and the desire to escape the walls that caged them in for so many hours won out and drew everyone away except for Rovira, the foreman, who, more for the pleasure of seeing him work than the fact the factory was open, stayed until Nonat finished. Though one day Rovira had to leave midafternoon for a funeral and, rather fearfully, asked Nonat to take charge of everything, to see to this and that, leave this like that, and that like this, and finally to shut up shop and take the key home with him.

  The next day, Rovira found everything so much to his liking he no longer worried about leaving Nonat by himself—first, when it suited him, and then every evening. And that wasn’t all: he soon gratefully started to share all his responsibilities with Nonat, making him his substitute, a sort of deputy foreman. From that moment on, Nonat was free. He didn’t stop being friends with the lads; occasionally he still went out with his mates and meandered, and, with single and married, went to La Maravilla, but he preferred to stay on at work, and once everybody had left and he’d done what he wanted, he washed and spruced up before leaving. Despite being such a beau, he loved his trade and the blue overalls that went with it.

  Never patched or darned, made-to-measure, and carefully adapted to his specifications, that outfit bore the distinguished lines of a military uniform. Now that he wasn’t being watched or hustled, Nonat could spend all the time he wanted on his appearance and emerge on the street as a dandy. His naturally attractive features were better set off by his modest attire, and you’d have said he wasn’t a real worker but a famous actor disguised as a worker. Then, by tram or on foot, depending on his pocket (he only took his bicycle when he was going shopping or on errands, because he wouldn’t have known where to leave it), he went downtown and strolled along Carrer Fernando or sat on a chair in Passeig de Gràcia. El Senyoret felt blissfully on top of the world, eying elegant goods in shop windows or mingling with the bourgeois languidly enjoying the shade from the plane-trees.

  Nonat’s gleaming shoes, bright white collar, and cuffs enhanced the somber simplicity of his overall, and combined with his tastefully slanted tie-pin and sleek hair, his appearance didn’t jar in such surroundings.

  Something about him did stand out, however: on workdays he never wore anything on his head, though he owned caps of all kinds. He considered a cap to be an unsightly item that didn’t go with his ensemble. If it was English, he found it made him look common, even thuggish, and if it was leather-peaked, it didn’t go with his blue dungarees; the latter cried out for white piqué or raw silk that he was too embarrassed to sport for fear of being ridiculed. As for the ugly little outfits worn by Peroi, Nonat would rather have been dead than seen wearing them. So, unable to find anything suitable and after lengthy soul-searching, he decided against them, suppressed the problem by suppressing the cause, and initiated, perhaps even pioneered, the hygienic, fetching fashion of going bare-headed at all times.

  Comfortably ensconced in a wrought-iron chair on the corner of the central sidewalk, his pant legs hiked up to avoid baggy knees, and one leg across the other, Nonat whiled away his time, listening to the gossipy chatter of nearby groups of girls, pursuing with an attentive eye the carriages going up and down; especially the latter, given that those vehicles carried the cream of Barcelona’s high society, and he silently enjoyed the glorious spectacle provided by the grand boulevard and its parade of the latest touches of high fashion.

  One day, though, he was no longer content simply to look … On the excuse that he had a prior commitment, he took the afternoon off, dressed up to the nines and went from street corner to street corner looking for an elegant horse-drawn carriage with a coachman whose jacket wasn’t threadbare or coming apart at the seams. When he found one, he jumped in, and, breathless and inhibited, gave the order to be taken to the city outskirts and then along Passeig de Gràcia.

  It was a fine day, beyond words. Under the canopy of the hood he’d left raised out of a sense of fear and timidity, Nonat’s heart galloped and his blood throbbed at his temples like a hammer striking an anvil. He’d settled himself well, in a premeditated pose that wasn’t too stiff, as if he’d never traveled in a carriage before, or too casual, which might seem affected and in bad taste. He crossed his feet; a slim calf, visible above the lower Russian leather shoe, was finely shaped by a dark-green silk stocking. His face remained stubbornly hidden by the hood, but an off-white cotton glove played with its partner on his knee. If a fellow tradesman had happened to pass by, nothing about that foot, ankle, or hand would have made them suspect they belonged to a workmate; nor did Nonat feel like an intruder or an oddity among the grandees rushing up and down the boulevard at that hour.

  When darkness fell, he ordered the coachman to drop him off far from his neighborhood, to avoid any unpleasant surprises, and walked home. He felt a fire burning in his chest, its devilish flames rising to his bluish-green eyes, and then he told himself, with utmost conviction, that if he didn’t find his parents very soon, he’d kill himself: “Either the life that is my right, or none at all!”

  Carlota opened the door to him. She was alone. Peroi had come home, but when he’d seen Nonat wasn’t about, he’d gone down to the barbershop.

  Nonat made to hurry to his bedroom so nobody would see him dressed in his finery, but, noticing that Carlota’s bewitched, carnal gaze was following him, in a moment of unconscious indecision, unsure why, perhaps driven by the emotions he’d just experienced, he swiveled around and smiled warmly. Carlota blanched like a slab of wax, shut her eyes, and staggered against the wall. The journeyman had registered her interest some time ago, and would have clipped her wings right away and acted standoffishly if that hadn’t threatened his own interests. Carlota’s energy was consumed by her love, and by her endless efforts to add more meat to the pot, to provide Nonat with special treats on Sundays, or a nosegay of flowers in his bedroom every day; she went to bed late and got up in the middle of the night to wash and iron the white underwear he frequently changed, and always wore under his more colorful outer attire; she ironed his stockings and polished his shoes, starched his collars, purchased and embroidered handkerchiefs she then secretly mixed in with his others so he couldn’t protest at her gifts. And all
that made Nonat’s life more comfortable and saved him money he could then devote to other expenditures, so he let her get on with it as if he hadn’t noticed, never showing a moment of sympathy or gratitude toward the hapless girl, who always melted away like a candle, but instead looking with sullen irritation at the ugly eyes that always stared at him as if bewitched.

  Peroi never suspected a thing. As his cousin was always more affectionate and talked more to him than with El Senyoret, as he never found rips in his clothes and ate the very same special dishes, as the flowers were for their shared bedroom and he never saw the young woman starching Nonat’s collars or embroidering his handkerchiefs, nothing seemed different. However, her mother did notice, and once again, after years of relative peace, she began to watch the oppressive haze of acute anxiety mist the shadowy valleys of her heart and rise slowly to cloud her horizons.

  Not only was their double income not benefitting them as it had initially, but now Carlota was working harder than ever and still not punctually paying the installments owed on the bed; she was damaging her already poor health with excessive physical effort and a burden of simmering sentiment, and was in danger of throwing her future out the window. Experience meant her mother’s clear-sighted eyes saw what the martyr’s dimmed vision didn’t; Nonat never showed the slightest interest in her daughter, and he would destroy her only possible betrothal: to Peroi. Her maternal heart rebelled against that terrifying possibility and prepared to fight back. When veiled criticism and lists of cavils began to supplant Janeta’s hitherto gushing praise of the young man, Carlota immediately suspected she’d been found out and put herself on the alert; from the moment her mother decided to open her eyes, a confrontation was inevitable. For the first time, Carlota disrespected the woman who’d brought her into the world, telling her she was a scandal-monger, that she cared no more for her cousin and Nonat than she did for some lad she’d met yesterday; that everyone should mind his own business, for Carlota herself had enough work as it was and wanted to be left alone; she was adult enough to look after herself.