Josep Pla - Life Embitters

Increasingly surprised by Riera’s tendency to wander off at a tangent, Verdaguer snarled so furiously he immediately brought his interlocutor back to the matter in hand. Riera now resumed apologetically: “But what I’m saying, Sr Verdaguer …” said Riera, “I do beg your pardon. Obviously, you may never have met Conxita. She belongs to the past, is a memory, a trifle, to tell you the truth … Do go on, Sr Verdaguer, please …”

Verdaguer, who’d been wondering for the last few seconds: What kind of country is this? bit his lip scornfully and went on irritably, his retired boxer’s face looking more battered than ever: “Sr Dalmau or González, or whoever, lived, until we saw him walk into Carrer de Consell de Cent, in a boarding house run by two hapless widows on the Carrer de Bailén. He lived there for four long months, paying nothing, naturally. All that time he deferred payment of his rent on the excuse that he was about to receive some fabulous checks from Central America. One day, the two hapless ladies registered to their surprise or satisfaction, at any rate to their great annoyance, that the bird had flown the coop. They went to the bank, and nothing …”

“And to the police … and nothing doing there either!” added Riera mechanically.

“Precisely!”

“They carried out all kinds of investigations … and came up with nothing!”

“Yes, senyor. That’s the truth of the matter. So you’ll understand that Sr Dalmau in his present state is like a fish in water. As caution bids him to stay mostly indoors, he doesn’t even need to expend anything on imagination. Conversely, as you know, women adore men who rarely go out. I have long experience of this … So now you know the whole story …” Verdaguer concluded with his mix of sarcasm and facetiousness.

“No need to say another word, it’s perfectly clear …”

A long silence ensued, then Verdaguer eased his chair as close to Riera’s as possible. He whispered: “Senyor Riera, I have a confession to make. Do you know what I think?”

“Tell me pray …”

“Well, I think love is a powerful thing, a powerful and mysterious thing. Let’s not delude ourselves!”

“But Verdaguer …!” asked Riera reacting indignantly, “Do you really think that it’s love?”

“Call it what you will … It makes no difference!”

“What do you mean, ‘it makes no difference’? Steady on, Verdaguer! Don’t you drive me crazy, I beg you! I’m already at a loss! Don’t muddy the waters any more, I beg you … The only thing I see at all clearly is that you’ve radically changed your mind on this subject.”

Verdaguer made a few evasive gestures of denial. This led Riera to raise his voice and adopt a different tone: “Verdaguer, don’t evade the issue! You are a fine, upstanding man. It would be intolerable if you were to let your easy-going nature prevail over your sense of morality … In any case, I shall be leaving. I can’t stand any more and I hope …”

“Oh, be in no doubt about that! I will be joining you too, come what may …”

As this scene of emotional endearment unfolded, the tresillo players, annoyed by their loud voices, stared furiously at the two ebullient conversationalists — one of them arching an eyebrow over his rusty silver frames. Verdaguer responded to these lightning flashes with a slightly apologetic smile. Riera was drained and overwhelmed. When the gamblers resumed their game, one rudely proclaimed, “The cheek of the bloody devil …”

“As I was saying, Sr Riera,” said Verdaguer, almost imperceptibly when peace was restored, “I will also be leaving, because my conscience won’t allow me to stay a day longer … We shall depart together! Yes, senyor, we shall depart together. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t believe (and this was what I was saying a moment ago) that love isn’t a very powerful and mysterious thing … Don’t let what I say lead you to draw any conclusions, I beg you! I’m simply saying that to acknowledge a fact of life, merely to acknowledge a fact of …”

Then they left the basement, walked up the stairs, crossed the floor of the bar — that was very brightly lit — and started to stroll up the Rambla. Released from that smoky fug, their eyes went endlessly on the blink.

The house cat — she of the ash-white fur — was generally liked by the lodgers. But some, like Pickel and Sr Verdaguer, for various reasons, also seemed inclined to be friendly towards Murillo, the little black dog with a white spot on his face.

“This dog,” said Pickel one day during supper, in his German growl, “behaves as if he suffered a typical case of neurasthenia. He sometimes seems to jitter nervously and shake as if he were demented. At others he falls into a kind of manic depression, a state of complete limpness. He falls victim to sudden changes in the weather, the ups and downs of the barometer, the humidity or dry weather. He is a dog deformed by big city life.”

“The problem with Murillo,” stated Sra Paradís gravely, looking at Sr Dalmau out of the corner of her eye, “is that I’ve brought him up poorly. He’s in reaction to the aspirins I’ve fed him …”

“You’ve fed him aspirin? That’s criminal!” exploded Pickel, looking terrified, acting as if he was going to leave the table, staring at the mistress of the house with octopus eyes that glistened sadly.

“Sr Pickel, sit down, don’t take it to heart …!” said Sra Paradís, laughing loudly. “Don’t you see I’m only joking? Sit down and don’t budge another centimeter! He’s a strange animal!”

“That’s just what I was thinking …!” the Swiss exclaimed finally, his pink cheeks and plain nose hovering close to his Maggi broth.

Such is the banal kind of exchange one hears in this type of boarding house.

After dinner, Don Manuel Ferrer was giving a final touch to the knot of his tie — no doubt before going out into the street, a thing he never did — when the maid brought him a message. Sra Paradís urgently needed to talk to him. Sr Ferrer decided not to go out. He put on a dressing-gown the color of Priorat wine and waited. Donya Esperança arrived immediately.

“Sr Ferrer, I need to know,” said the landlady, not beating around the bush, excited and rather nervous, “whether you are leaving or not …”

Ferrer, who welcomed his visitor with a gleeful chuckle, had no choice but to look grimly serious.

“Esperança!” he exclaimed rather theatrically, “what’s behind your tone of voice?”

“I’ve heard you are leaving, do you see? If that’s the case, I’d quite like to know when the room you are occupying will be available …”

“I will simply repeat that I don’t understand the tone of voice you are adopting … It really makes little difference whether I leave or don’t! However, since you are acting in this manner, I will speak my mind … Totally unacceptable things are taking place in this establishment! I need only …”

“Hush, Ferrer!” Sra Paradís interrupted him nervously. “Don’t take that route! What happens in this establishment — if anything in fact ever does — is really no concern of yours, or almost … Now please give me a straight answer: are you leaving or are you staying? This is what I need to know once and for all …”

Sra Paradís staged her words magnificently: curt, to the point, rude, and rather flippant.

“Sra Paradís, for God’s sake, how do you expect me to leave?” said Ferrer fully embracing the dramatic pathos currently in vogue. “How could you, if I love you, if I am yours body and soul …? Please don’t force me to repeat what I told you last Wednesday … Or have you already forgotten?”

“Shush …!” said the lady, putting an index finger to her lip, stiffening her back, her other hand gripping the corner of the nightstand, in a sequence worthy of Dumas the dramatist. “Shush! Lower your voice! Don’t shout, I beg you! We can discuss that some other day. Today I’m in no fit state … Calm down!”