Juan Marsé - The Calligraphy of Dreams

As he paces up and down in the street opposite the conservatoire entrance, he wonders why on earth he had to go and say more than he should have. Then he starts to think about the door that almost hit him in the back when it was so quickly and eloquently slammed. It was me. Was that the magic formula? Obviously it was, and behind it there must have been a secret, disturbing settling of scores between the young violinist and her teacher. Once she had got what she wanted, of course she was keen to shut the door and leave him out. He also thinks about the pink cold sore on the girl’s lip, her slow, drooping eyelids, the soft down of her hand reaching for his, and all at once everything becomes clear. There’s no point waiting for her, she won’t come and explain anything to him, she never had any intention of doing so. Even so, he hangs around in front of the building for more than an hour, risking a telling-off from the jeweller because of the late delivery of his order.

He has been back three times on purpose, on different days and at different times, and whenever he goes into the centre of Barcelona with a delivery from the workshop he comes to the corner of Calles Valencia and Bruch and stands for a while outside the conservatoire in the hope of seeing her going in or coming out with her hood up, her violin case, and those hands that feel as soft as down. But he never sees her again.

“And the Roxy cinema too?”

“Yes, the Roxy, of course,” his father replies.

“And the Bosque?”

“The Bosque as well.”

“And Proyecciones, and the Mundial.”

“Proyecciones no, the Mundial, yes.”

“And father, what about the Capitol and the Metropol?”

“Neither of them.”

“What about the Kursaal? And the Fantasio?”

“Not them either, comrade. Nor the Windsor or the Monte Carlo or the Coliseum. No first run cinema, got it?”

“What about the Maryland?”

“The Maryland, of course. But it’s a bit far. The Delicias, the Rovira, the Iberia and the Moderno. The ushers are all friends of mine. We’ll go and see them so they can get to know you too, then they’ll let you in for free whenever you like.”

“Really? When can we go?”

“In a few days.”

“When do you get back from Canfranc?”

“I’ve never been to Canfranc.

I’ve never lost anything in Canfranc. There’s no such place as Canfranc, got it?”

What a fib, he thinks. Ringo knows his father goes regularly to Canfranc because that’s where, according to his mother, he can get reliable, cheap rat poison for the brigade. But for some mysterious reason he prefers to deny those trips, to deny that Canfranc even exists, and what takes him there. The thing is, there are always lies, distortions and contradictions lurking behind whatever the Rat-catcher says. And also, in the midst of all this bluster and pretence, there is often a stupendous nugget of truth, for example this incredible list of cinemas his father’s brigade has disinfected where friendly ushers are willing to let him in for nothing.

This is a real, unexpected present he is given on an extremely cold day at the start of December, a month after he has turned thirteen and is about to leave school to start working in Señor Munté’s workshop. From early on this boring Sunday afternoon he has been in two minds whether to ask his mother for money for the cinema, because he senses there’s not a peseta in the house. His father has sent him to the bedroom to get a packet of Chesterfields he left in his jacket hanging in the wardrobe, and he has searched in all the pockets, sniffing expectantly at them (he loves the smell of Virginia tobacco impregnated in the linings) but all he has found are a few coins. He has kept them, and now is unsure if it is because his mother saw him committing this small theft, or for some other reason, that she is so silent and depressed as she irons shirts on the dining-room table. His mother’s gloomy spells are so well known to him that he can predict them: the thin film of fear on her hard-working, bony hands as she sews buttons, folds shirts and handkerchiefs, jabs oranges or quickly does up her white housecoat, the fear she has of being left without work because she is not a qualified nurse, fear that the stove might go out or she could lose the ration card, or that there’ll be a knock at the door in the middle of the night, fear that the priest-baiter could be taken away to a police station, and that the boy could end up in an orphanage if she’s not there one day. The red-fringed lamp casts its light on the wallpapered walls, and the shadow of the fringe falls on the far side of the table onto his father’s lizard-skinned hands, folded lifeless one on top of the other, and the dim light glows on the wine bottle and glass, on the bronze ashtray with the two golden spikes, and on the smoke rising from the not fully extinguished cigarette butt, before gradually dissipating in the surrounding gloom. A subtle net of domestic repercussions, of mutually agreed and accepted habits, hangs over his father and mother, suggesting conflicts postponed yet again, a possibly violent argument that for a long time now they have kept in check, one that will never burst into the open with him present.

He has been told not to snoop around at home, to go out to play. He could go up to Las Ánimas to see the latest production by the theatre group, or play Ping-Pong with El Quique or the Cazorla brothers, but he prefers to stay at home with Jim Hawkins and poor Ben Gunn, who dreams of eating cheese. He really likes that episode, he finds it very funny. Then, sitting at the table with the heating dish next to the window, he looks at the illustrations in “The Flight of Prince Hassin” and “The Defeat of James Brooke”, the last two chapters in Salgari’s The Pirates of Malaysia .

“We’re the arsehole of the world, Alberta light of my life,” his father groans, his voice deliberately sorrowful. “You can see that clearly from La Carroña. And even more so from Canfranc … well, it looks as if we’d better go out, nano .” Winking at him to win his support, he gets up from the table with a sudden burst of energy. “Let’s go out into the street for some fresh air before your mother decides to hit me over the head with the iron.”

“Wear your scarf, Son,” she says, still ironing, without even looking up at either of them. “And tell that good-for-nothing father of yours to take an umbrella. It’s going to rain.”

*

This is why from that day on, walking through Gràcia to fill a gloomy Sunday afternoon threatening rain, the doors to some of the local cinemas are thrown open for him without his having to pay. His father stops to greet doormen and ushers, and the boy is formally presented. First they show up at the Roxy in Plaza Lesseps. They’re showing a silly Spanish film and “Buffalo Bill”, with Gary Cooper, but he’s already seen it at another cinema.

“See how big this place is. Take a good look,” says his father, dropping his heavy hand on the boy’s shoulder while he stares at the façade. “It took us more than a week to clean it, but there wasn’t a flea or bug left alive. And thanks to who, eh?”

“The light brigade of rat-catchers.”

“That’s right. Come on, I’ll introduce you to the doorman, he’s a good friend.”

In every cinema, without going beyond the entrance curtain, the same confident request: Do me a favour, if my boy here comes, let him in. He loves films, he’d spend his life watching them if he could. Come whenever you like, lad, they all say. On the screen of the Roxy, at the far end of the immense auditorium, there’s the sound of shooting. A magic blink of his eyes, and he can see once again how Wild Bill Hickok is shot in the back, and the last kiss his girl gives him on the lips, only this time Bill Hickok cannot wipe it away with the back of his hand, because he’s already dead on the ground.