Juan Marsé - The Calligraphy of Dreams

“It’s the best. Last month they were playing at the Salón Cibeles.”

They fall silent for a while, watching the couples slowly gyrating round the edge of the dance floor. A boy with a huge conk and a tightly combed zeppelin head plants himself in front of Violeta, hands in pockets, and asks her to dance. He’s even uglier than the one before, thinks Ringo. She says no, and the boy turns round and walks off dejectedly. Violeta takes Ringo’s scarf from him and puts it on the back of the chair.

“Your scarf smells really nice,” she says. “Roast coffee, isn’t it?”

Ringo shrugs. The scarf is a perfumed reminder of his secret nights. Less than twelve hours ago it was hanging from a hook in a corner of Señor Huguet’s shed while he turned the handle by the fire. But he doesn’t want to talk about the fire or those nights with Violeta.

“Come on, let’s go,” says Violeta, standing up. “Mama ought to see you’ve come. She’s in the bar. Come on, what are you waiting for?”

“No, dammit, that’s not why I came!”

“It isn’t?”

“No. But you … can I tell you something? You shouldn’t leave your mother on her own, least of all in the bar. You shouldn’t do that.”

Applause for the orchestra. Violeta stares at him, then drops into her seat and sighs.

“I know,” she says, suddenly overwhelmed. “But there’s no way … We had another argument as soon as we got here, just for a change. She stays in the bar, and nobody can get her out of there. She burnt herself on the hand with her cigarette, but she insists it was a boy next to her, that of course it wasn’t her … that she almost fell because the boy was laughing at her and me. I bet her head was spinning. Something always happens to her. She’s so accident-prone. But the fact is she’s not well, not well at all … And you know why? She’s still waiting for news from that footballer! How stupid can you get?”

“What footballer?”

“The lame one, who else? That old man who says he broke his leg years ago, Señor Alonso,” she says harshly. “Always talking about that leg of his. And then there was that letter that Señora Paquita told Mama about, another of his lies. I bet he never thought of even writing her a postcard.”

“A letter?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t know about it. The story’s going round of the entire neighbourhood!”

The orchestra strikes up a bolero. Ringo looks pensively down at his hands.

“Well, yes, I did hear something … What do you think Señor Alonso would say to her in that letter?”

“Heaven knows. Lies to make it up with her, to see her again … God forbid. Mama is getting worse all the time. I don’t know what to do. It’s like … like an illness. The other day she had an argument with Señora Grau; she called her an old busybody and insulted her. Mama said she was sticking her nose in where it was none of her business, and she got dressed and stormed out without paying. I’m sure she won’t be back. And it wasn’t the first time something like that has happened … Really, something needs to be done. Someone ought to tell her that he’s married, for example … because I’m sure he is, and with children. Eight of them at least. And that he’s been in jail … Did you know he’s been in jail?”

“No.”

“Well, he has. He was out on the street when he met Mama. He had just come out of Modelo prison or a concentration camp …”

“How do you know?”

“He gave Mama a very nice ring he himself had made out of a sheep bone or whatever. All prisoners make them. Before he went to France, Uncle Ramiro used to make bone rings with a file when he was in prison. I reminded Mama of that, but she didn’t want to listen. She never listens to me. But somebody ought to convince her that he’s a jailbird …”

“But why was he in jail?”

“What does that matter? For being a thief, a con man, or a black-marketeer. Who knows? Most likely for being a Red.”

“That’s not the same.”

“Well, it is more or less.” Violeta shrugs. “The fact is that he’s a liar, a scrounger, a good-for-nothing. To think she could get involved with someone like that! Exactly what Papa hated! A jailbird, a criminal, a damned Red …”

“But he’s not a bad person, Violeta. He isn’t.”

“What do you know?”

“If you tell your mother that, it’ll really hurt her.”

“So what? Let her suffer. Because who is he anyway, where did he spring from, why did he have to come into the flat …? I bet he’s from a shanty town. I could swear he lives in a shack on Montjuich, up near Can Tunis or worse still, in Campo de la Bota. A lady who gives catechism classes in Las Ánimas and goes a lot to Somorrostro doing charity work saw him one day with a gang of kids playing football on the beach, down by the shanties of Pequin. I didn’t tell Mama that, she’s capable of going to try to find him in that rubbish dump … Have you ever been there? There’s nothing but rats and shit! But of course, the fraud would never admit it … how does the saying go: ‘Easier to catch a liar than a lame man’. Well, it’s not true.”

“So what are you thinking of doing?”

“I’d like to convince her that he’s never coming back, and that he’s not going to write or anything. That he’s gone to Brazil to work, for example, a long way away, and has no intention of returning … You could tell her. Tell her how you saw him one day saying farewell to everybody in the bar.”

“But that’s a lie. Why don’t you tell her?”

“She wouldn’t believe me. Ever since the day they had an argument and she threw him out, mama doesn’t believe a word I say.”

“Why’s that?”

Violeta falls silent, and stares cold-eyed at the couples crowding the dance floor, their heads turning submissively to the slow rhythm of the melodious bolero.

“Aaagh!” she spits in disgust. “Because that’s how she is!”

Here, as she waits on her chair to be asked to dance, in this harsh light and rocked by the suggestive music, the imbalance between her pretty legs and ugly face is more shocking and disconcerting than ever. And yet the more striking the contrast, the greater the attraction. Perhaps this is why he tries again:

“Well, shall we dance?”

Violeta makes a vague gesture with her head that could just as well be a yes as a no, then thinks for a few moments before saying:

“No.”

She busies herself once more with her purse and straightening the pleats of her skirt. Her fingers move rapidly and delicately. All at once she stands up.

“Alright then,” she concedes. “That’s why you came, isn’t it?”

Just by putting his arm round her waist, fingers brushing against the ridge of her back under the blouse, his hand can sense the lively spring in her buttocks as she steps out. Even his amputated finger can feel a slight tautening that lifts the heart. She holds up her moist, hot right hand and as they take the first steps he folds it in his and brings it down to his chest, encouraging a more or less casual touching. Her other hand is resting on his shoulder close to the back of his head, but she is still clutching her small gloves and purse, so there is no chance of any effusive response. Even so, as she stretches her neck and turns her face away from him, he can feel the docility of her body as she lets him pull her to him. Violeta’s left thigh slips between his legs, imprisoned as if by accident and always slightly behind his movements, and he summons a warm rush to his groin: he needs to believe that this is why he is here, for this bumping and grinding, that this is the only reason for coming, what else, Quique, Roger, Rafa, lads, what else could bring me here, what other emotion could lead me to want to please an old bat who’s searching for a boyfriend for her daughter? Why could he have come if not to press his tool up against those thighs, even if only to confirm yet again that it means nothing to Violeta, that she doesn’t respond to any prompting, that she seems unaware of your hard-on, and with complete indifference starts to hum the song along with the orchestra, apparently oblivious to the ritual of stealthy movements between her thighs, her body as unresponsive as it was during the saint’s day fiesta the year before.