Juan Marsé - The Calligraphy of Dreams

“Tell me if I’m hurting you.”

“No, no …”

He can feel her sticky hands pressing insistently on his back. They glide from his tailbone up along his spine, stopping and forcing down each vertebra, and then suddenly speeding up and pressing more heavily as she reaches the back of his neck. After working there for a while, her fingers return to the bottom of his spine, where she plunges them into the top of his buttocks.

“That feels good, doesn’t it? Now turn on your side. On your left side.”

Thick, plump wrists like a big cardboard doll’s; small, fleshy hands that couldn’t stretch an octave (he knows this just from feeling them spread open on his back); podgy fingers that possess unexpected strength and which for several minutes seem determined to dismantle or displace his right shoulder blade. Then she tells him to lie on his front again, and this time her oiled hands travel over all his back, out from his spine to his sides, and from the nape almost down to his buttocks, pressuring with her thumbs as if she is trying to split his flesh open. Like steel pincers, her fingers massage the knots and tendons round his neck. Occasionally he can feel her plump lips close to the back of his head, her warm, rapid breath.

“Does it hurt here?”

“No, no …”

“And here, this shoulder?”

“A bit …”

Some quick pinches, like a spider crawling over his skin, and a new smell in the air, this time of roast almonds. He remembers his mother commenting that Señora Mir sincerely believed in the emotional treatment of muscles, and so applied very personal criteria to her work. For example, she would smile all the time as she rubbed the most painful area. Why does she do that? Because the good woman is convinced that her smile, a polite smile, even though you don’t see it because you’re face down on the trolley, has beneficial effects which are transmitted to your body through her hands … To hell with that woman’s magic powers! said the Rat-catcher one day. At any rate, she hasn’t transmitted anything special to him so far, thinks Ringo. Her fingers press down increasingly hard, especially her thumbs, but their slow, calm progress creates an expectant silence, probably leading up to what has terrified him from the start: the heart-to-heart chat, revelations. His worst fears are about to come true.

“That boy who’s a friend of yours, what’s his name? The one who plays dominoes with the old men in the Rosales bar, he’s small, a big, round head, yes, you know who I mean, one of those who goes up to Parque Güell to spy on courting couples … I feel very sorry for those peeping toms, I really do. Well anyway, that boy said that by chance he had seen Señor Alonso not long ago, in a garden … Do you know anything about that, Ringo? No? You didn’t hear him say that? Last Sunday that poor wretch told everyone in the bar that he saw Señor Alonso with a hosepipe, watering a garden. Apparently they all laughed, as if it was a joke. Of course, standing there waving a hosepipe … Paqui, who heard him, asked him where and when he had seen him, and she says the boy was embarrassed and pretended he didn’t know what she was talking about: first he said he didn’t remember, then that it was a joke … To tell you the truth, that lad has always seemed a bit slow to me, not to mention dirty-minded. That’s why I prefer to talk to you. You’re such a polite, responsible boy. Can I ask you, just out of curiosity, if you’ve heard anything about that, if they’ve told you …? No? Do you think the lad invented it? You knew Señor Abel Alonso, didn’t you? You must have often seen him in the bar … Do you know he had a soft spot for you?” Her skilful hands continue working at a deliberate pace that her voice falls in with. Every now and then he can sense her thick lips almost brushing his back. “He had noticed you, you made a good impression, he liked you. Do you know what he told me one day? He told me: That boy will go far. Yes, that’s what he said. He had a good eye for some things, the rogue … my, did he have a good eye …”

Ringo would give anything not to have to go on listening to her. He flat-tens his right ear into the pillow for a while, and then the left one, alternating the eye with which he has a partial view of the woman bent over him, her round, shiny face with curls sticking to her forehead, the wrinkled skin in her cleavage, her breasts swinging to the rhythm of her hands. Her powerful thumbs are still digging into his defenceless spine when he feels several drops of sweat hitting his back; thick, warm drops that fall infrequently but regularly, and his stomach clenches every time.

“What was that, my love?” says Señora Mir with her guttural, fleshy laugh. “Did you let off a little fart? Well, that doesn’t matter, does it? You don’t have to be embarrassed or go red over that … I let one off in the bar the other day, although it was so soft it was almost inaudible. But let’s talk about higher things, shall we? Your mother told me you’re not going back to the jeweller’s. Too bad. What does your father say? I must say, Pep is always out and about with his cleansing brigade, your mother works herself to death day and night at the residence or the clinic, and you’re always on your own … A boy your age, spending so many hours in that tavern, and always alone, that can’t be good, sweetheart. However much you like reading and all that. You ought to be at home more, child, and your father should pay you more attention.”

“There’s no-one at home,” he grunts, face down in the pillow. “My father is never there.”

“From the way you talk about him, it seems to me you don’t have a proper respect for him … Yes, he’s a good-for-nothing and a heretic, we all know that. He must have led your mother a merry dance, poor woman, and then he’s always going around claiming to be such a Red and a blasphemer … Everybody thinks he’s a hopeless case, but do you know how I see him? I see him as a peeled chestnut. Have you seen what the shell of a chestnut looks like inside? Of course you have. It’s got a soft down all over it, just like a jewel box. You make jewels, so you know what I mean. Well, your father is like a chestnut shell, tough on the outside but soft as velvet inside … Yes, you heard me. And it’s thanks to him I get news of my poor brother, God save him, the fellow had to go into exile. Listen, I’m going to tell you something very few people know. Do you remember when my Ramón started to lose his memory after his operation, and how sometimes he got lost in the street and didn’t know his way home? Well, one night as he was leaving the Rosales bar, he fell flat on his face on the pavement and started bleeding. He was pretty drunk at the time. And do you know who saw him and went to help? That good-for-nothing father of yours! I don’t know how to get home, and I’ve got nowhere to go, they say my husband said, and that rogue Pep said to him: Of course you’ve got somewhere to go, councillor, you can go to hell! And then he helped him up and took him home. I bet you didn’t know that! So you see, some people can be friendly and generous even though they don’t look it, and come to think of it, I remember that Señor Alonso, that he too … well, haven’t you got anything to say?”

He grunts, pushing his face as far as he can into the pillow to muffle his voice:

“I’m … I’m moved, Señora Mir.”

“You see, child?” she nods with satisfaction, and adds: “Goodness gracious me! I reckon your mother is right, and that all you care about is studying music and going around showing off with that sling of yours … Don’t you ever go dancing? Let’s see, let me tell you something, sweetheart. But it’s a secret, eh, you have to swear to me you won’t say a word to Violeta. The thing is, she quite likes you … Yes, don’t be surprised that I know, we mothers are aware of these things. It’s not for me to say, but don’t you think she’s a sweet, affectionate girl with everybody? If you could only see how she respects her father. But she has no luck with boyfriends.” She breaks off, moistens her fingers again in the glass pot, and starts gently massaging his back once more. “Don’t you ever go dancing at the Verdi or the Cooperativa La Lealtad? Your friends do, they never miss a Sunday, and you should see how they swarm round my Violeta … But lately she prefers La Lealtad. We never see you there. Why is that, sweetheart?”