Juan Marsé - The Calligraphy of Dreams

The would-be suicide lies motionless on the tracks, hands folded across her chest, mouthing heaven knows what fervent prayer through fleshy lips, or begging for grace from the azure sky; the tremendous expressivity of her closed, pleading eyes lends her face the gravity of a death mask. A passer-by in his Sunday best bends over her with a pitying look.

“This isn’t right, señora,” he says. “What are you thinking of, putting your life in danger like this?”

“What’s wrong with you, Vicky?” shouts a woman in housecoat and slippers who comes running up. “What are you doing lying in the street like that? Is this a joke? You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”

Señora Mir doesn’t deign to reply, but suddenly her body jerks and she puts her ear to the rail, as if she can hear tram wheels grinding round the bend, see it bearing down on her with a screech of iron: she opens her eyes and her pupils reflect a sudden terror. She turns her head in the opposite direction and, peering upwards, casts furtive glances at the balcony to her apartment, in the first row of windows giving on to the street. Her gaze becomes searching and harsh, as if she is trying to return an insult to whoever might be peering down to watch her being run over by the tram. But no-one is on the balcony, so she settles her head back on the rail again and closes her eyes once more. Somebody comments that the man she is going with at the moment is or once was a tram driver.

“She always gets these hare-brained ideas,” mutters Rufina the hair-dresser, who claims to know her well. “Something not right in your head, Vicky? What are you trying to prove? Do us all a favour! That’s enough now!” She grasps her under the arms, but is unable to lift her. “Listen, if you really want the tram to run you over, you can sit up properly to wait for it, sweetheart!” She closes her eyes with a resigned sigh and whispers to the woman standing next to her: “I’ll bet anything this is thanks to that good-for-nothing who wormed his way into her place …”

“Hmm.”

“Leave her where she is, if that’s what she wants,” another old lady says dolefully. “What’s the point? Life is for youngsters anyway.”

“Is your daughter home, Vicky? Somebody should go and tell her …”

“No!” Señora Mir immediately protests. “She’s not at home … Violeta went to the beach with her friend Merche …”

A boy aged about fifteen, in shirtsleeves and carrying a book, comes to a halt and glances as if casually at the supine woman’s breasts. They’re peeping out of her white coat, with no sign she is wearing a bra; their rough, reddish tinge reminds him of Violeta’s ugly, freckled face. A skinny, dirty mongrel ambles up and sniffs at the pompoms on the faded slippers and the folded hands reeking of embrocation, then saunters round the gathered group, whose comments are still raining down on Señora Mir, apparently to no avail. Two next-door neighbours, Señoras Grau and Trías, exchange sly smiles as they try to lift her from the riverbed.

“What’s the matter, Victoria?” Señora Grau murmurs in her ear. “Won’t you tell me? You’ve been crying … Has that lame devil beat you?”

“Why are you staring up at the balcony so often?” asks Señora Trías. “Is he in there now? Do you still allow a rogue like him in? Didn’t you say you were going to leave him?”

“If you’re not trying to teach him a lesson.”

“Oh, Vicky, when will you come back down to earth?”

“That bastard husband of hers would love to see her the way she is now,” jokes the owner of the corner store, protected by the circle of women. “Waiting for the tram flat on her back like this. I’m sure that jackass of a councillor would be proud, if he hasn’t lost all his many marbles.”

“Be quiet, won’t you?” the others scold him. “Can’t you see she’s had some sort of fit?”

“Come on, get up, make the effort,” says the man who first approached her. “Don’t you realise where you are?” he says, pointing to the rail her head is resting on and gazing sternly down at her. He seems determined to make her see sense, to suggest what’s only right and proper, to tell her for example listen, these tracks are no good for what you want to do, señora, no trams have come down here in years. But all he adds is: “Don’t tempt fate, señora. Believe me, it’s not worth it.”

“Watch out, it’s coming!” guffaws the storekeeper.

“Get her away from there, what are you waiting for?” somebody says.

“You’re only making things worse for yourself, Vicky,” Señora Grau whispers to her. “I’m telling you. Who could ever have imagined such a shameful, dreadful thing!”

The elderly lady with the mantilla nods forlornly and scolds her:

“Don’t you know that suicide is a mortal sin, even on tram tracks like this?”

“Quite a show you’re putting on, Señora Mir!” a male voice says sarcastically. “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”

“Watch out, the tram really is coming,” some wit mocks from a balcony. The warning is greeted with laughter and applause, but nonetheless startles several of the onlookers standing near the lengths of track.

“Be reasonable and get up,” one woman begs her, adding persuasively: “Shall I tell you something? There won’t be a tram coming through here for an hour at least.”

“Are you sure?” says another woman standing next to her. “What if they’ve changed the timetable?”

“I don’t think they have.”

“Whenever did those layabouts change anything?” a bad-tempered fellow interjects. “Since when has City Hall ever given a damn about the needs of us pedestrians?”

“You’re right there. This neighbourhood has always been left to its own devices.”

By now the young lad is quite close, and could swear he too has heard it. Slightly perplexed, with the dog-eared book tucked under his arm, his white shirt smelling faintly of thyme, for a moment he thinks he can hear the metallic grating sound of the tram as it turns the corner, and so on a sudden impulse, securing the book under his armpit and with the tied-up bunch of thyme dangling from his shoulder, he draws closer to the group and listens closely, almost as if hypnotised. Are they saying these things just to play along with the poor crazy woman, claiming, to encourage her to stand up, that she’s in real and imminent danger if she persists in her ludicrous performance, or is it because somehow they also can sense the danger? He has noticed that several of the people surrounding the desperate suicide, feigning extreme anguish and horror, and playing out the comedy of getting her away from the tracks to save her from a senseless death, cannot avoid a certain unease and are glancing nervously towards the street corner. All at once their pretence and play-acting, this most trite and farcical though well-meaning performance — everything that until now had seemed phantasmagorical and absurd — has suddenly become not only real, but natural and convincing: the disused tracks appear live and in use; the tram-car that was never going to arrive is on the verge of turning the corner and crushing them all, with terrible, inevitable consequences not merely for Señora Mir, but for many of those crowded around her. Some of them, giving up in the face of her stubborn refusal to move, have chosen to leave the road and climb on to the pavement. Jostling each other in a tight scrum, and still insisting on the farcical pretence, they cannot avoid casting furtive glances at the street corner.

Go on, you poor lunatic, put your neck under the wheel, make them see it, show them it can happen, he hears himself muttering. Possibly this is the very first time that the boy intuits, in however vague and fleeting a manner, that what is invented can carry more weight and truthfulness than what is real, more life of its own, be more meaningful, and consequently have more chance of triumphing over oblivion.