Love in Lowercase (16 page)

I spent the rest of the day wandering around the city like a man possessed, in the hope that the exhaustion would make me forget what had just happened. I escaped from El Raval into the Sant Antoni neighborhood and then walked up through L'Esquerra de l'Eixample.

When I reached Avinguda Diagonal—which has traditionally separated the rich from the rest of Barcelona—I kept going north, impelled by some mysterious urge. I knew that as soon as I got home the whole world would collapse on my head, so I decided to continue on my expedition until I was completely worn out.

On a whim, I decided to stop walking in a straight line, so I turned into Carrer Muntaner and kept climbing up toward the mountain. My feet were boiling hot when the sun reached its zenith. Walking past schoolchildren, executives, and well-to-do retirees, I understood that I'd have to keep walking until I'd left every last remnant of the city behind me. Only then would I stop.

I got to Plaça de la Bonanova and turned left, looking for a street that would let me continue my mad ascent. I found one that ran alongside a prestigious business school and kept going up the slope without looking back.

After climbing for twenty minutes, I reached the point where the blocks of luxury apartments gave way to large and small mansions. After that, a few run-down villas. Finally, there was only the forest.

Tired after my long walk, I sat down under a stand of pines that, rearranged by gravity, were leaning at odd angles. For the first time I managed to calm down more or less. It was a relief to have the city at my feet and to know that, even if just for a few minutes, I wasn't part of it.

From my lofty vantage point all desires and aspirations seemed insignificant. It was like watching the frenzied activity of an anthill.

While I filled my lungs with resin-scented air, I could see the sun's orb sinking slowly and inexorably down toward the horizon. A little bit of common sense began to emerge from the calm that had settled inside me.

I've ruined this girl's birthday. I should really just go home and try not to crash into the furniture.

One Day in a
Life

I was much calmer when I walked down the mountain and finally got home with the night sky over my head, unaware that the weirdest twenty-four hours of my life still lay in store for me.

I could have gone to see a film in order to distract myself from my worries, but I was too tired to concentrate on a movie. The best option was probably to go to bed and forget about my situation.

As I climbed the stairs, I was convinced that Gabriela would have left a message on my answering machine. Either she'd ask if I was OK—which would be very kind of her—or she'd take me to task for my behavior and tell me to not bother her anymore.

At least she was very close to home. I had to climb a mountain to find myself again.
I turned the key in my door.

There was no message. That hurt. Didn't she care about my suffering?

I took a shower, and by the time I came out I was quite resigned.

I got into my pajamas and, since I wasn't hungry, I started wandering around the apartment, tidying up here and there as Mishima kept an eye on me. Coming across Valdemar's backpack for a second time made me uneasy.

How come he hadn't tried to come and get it? What if he'd been so drunk he'd hit his head and was lying there upstairs, badly injured?

There was only one way to find out. In my pajamas and slippers I went upstairs and rang the bell a few times. Its familiar sound was all I heard. Nothing else.

It took me quite a while to notice—after ringing the bell for the third time—that the door wasn't closed but had been left slightly ajar. Even more worried, I pushed it open, certain I was going to find the remnants of some awful catastrophe.

However, when I turned on the light, everything looked impeccable, which seemed at odds with the open door. The keys were hanging from the lock on the inside. I put them in my pocket before closing the door and continuing my investigation.

The lemon-scented air suggested that the floor had just been mopped. The living room was clean and tidy, and the computer sat on its table, where not a single speck of dust was visible. I looked in the direction of the kitchen, which, like mine, had a window opening onto the outside. Then I started feeling really alarmed.

There, in the middle of the kitchen, was a large telescope mounted on a tripod, one end poking out of the window and up to the sky.

I left the kitchen without touching anything and searched the entire place, calling Valdemar and checking every room, including the closets. Then I remembered the metal box he'd brought the first night. Without a doubt it had contained the telescope. He wouldn't have gone away leaving that behind him unless something unexpected had forced him to flee.

The same sixth sense that had alerted me when I saw the empty backpack told me that Valdemar wouldn't be coming back. I inspected the apartment once more, only to discover that everything
was in its place, even the cigarettes. Only the manuscript was missing. It was very strange.

I went back to the kitchen feeling bewildered. There was a handwritten note tucked under a saucer that I'd missed the first time I'd looked. The message was both simple and disturbing:

I'VE LEFT. WILL I BE BACK?

With a heavy heart and a guilty conscience because I'd been so remiss, I looked through the eyepiece to see if the stars might offer me some clue as to Valdemar's whereabouts. As if it had prior knowledge of the exact moment of my arrival, the telescope was focused on the full moon.

I don't know how long I remained there, mesmerized, exploring the craters and dark seas that may have once held water. I missed Valdemar but was comforted by the thought that he'd gotten there somehow. I imagined that, right then, he was looking at me from some crater through a powerful telescope that had been left behind by the
Apollo 17
astronauts.

It was midnight. Perturbed by what had just happened, I got dressed again and went out to walk through the streets and get some fresh air.

From the pavement I looked up at the two top floors of my side of the building. After recent events it had turned into a shadowy mausoleum, and I'd decided to run away before I was sealed inside forever. I didn't want to share the same fate as the man from Tokyo.

Just above my head, a gigantic moon shed an eerie light over the city.

I was fascinated by the sight. I didn't remember ever having seen the moon so close. It was as if it was only half its usual distance away. What if it was heading toward us because of some nasty trick of gravity? Then it would keep getting bigger and bigger until it crashed into earth. The end of the world was nigh.

Was there some connection with Valdemar's disappearance?

There was no way I could stay at home. If this was the night of the end of the world, I wasn't going to spend it in bed.

Maybe it was due to the proximity of the moon, but that February night was particularly warm. My legs were aching after
the afternoon's urban marathon, but I was high on adrenaline, so I walked to the city center with my eyes wide open.

I was certain that Valdemar's flight was only the prelude to something momentous and inevitable. Instinct told me that this was going to be an eventful night, culminating in the moon's collision with the earth. The final kiss of a love affair that had lasted 4,600 million years.

The strangest thing was that I wasn't afraid. I accepted the catastrophe as a suitable end to my wretched existence.

—

As I walked down Passeig de Gràcia, I could see that a lot of people had the same idea as me. It was almost one in the morning, yet the street was packed.

Nobody seemed scared. More than anything, people seemed fascinated and kept flashing their digital cameras to capture the phenomenon. How could they be in such a good mood watching the disaster that was about to hit them?

Tired of dodging the crowds of people who kept colliding with one another because they were staring at the sky, I turned onto Gran Via to walk down the last stretch of Carrer Balmes. I hadn't intended to go to the bar at the crossroads, but there I was, standing right outside it. The blind was halfway down, but the light was on. I thought that if Valdemar was anywhere in this world, he'd have to be inside.

After weeks of not going there, it seemed like a good spot to see in the end of the world. I ducked under the metal blind and entered the bar.

When I popped up from behind the half-lowered blind, the waiter looked at me with ill-concealed annoyance. Convinced that the end of the world gave me total impunity, I leaned against the bar and asked for a glass of wine.

“We're closed, but since you're a regular I'll serve you,” he said, uncorking a new bottle.

After he'd poured my wine, he disappeared into the kitchen, from which I could hear the sounds of a radio news program.

Alone at the bar, I sipped my wine and glanced at the day's newspaper. On the front page there was a big photo of the moon hanging low over the rooftops of Barcelona. Perhaps they'd announced the end of the world and I hadn't heard the news. Was I so cut off from everything?

Before I could read the article, a familiar figure entered the bar. It was the man in black, the redhead, the seventeen-minute fellow. The night was starting to get interesting.

“We're closed,” the waiter shouted from the kitchen.

I stood up for him. “He's a regular.”

Now that my heart was broken, I realized that there were
only two things I wanted to do before the end came: read the article and time the man in black for the third and last time.

The waiter cursed out loud before leaving his bunker to get him a beer.

“You've got fifteen minutes and then I'm closing,” he informed us.

“Can't you give us a bit more time?” I asked, thinking of the magic number.

He shot me a withering look, then vanished again and turned up the radio, which was now airing a scientific debate. Was Valdemar among the experts?

I checked my watch. It was ten past one. I kept an eye on the minute hand and read the newspaper at the same time.

WINTER MOON ILLUSION: scientists fail to come to any agreement as to the causes of the phenomenon.

Agencies
. A NASA communiqué states that the moon will appear to be twice its usual size tonight. This is a purely optical phenomenon known as the “moon illusion” or, in more technical terms, the “apparent distance theory.”

Although the exact causes of this effect—usually a summer occurrence, which makes today's phenomenon so exceptional—are as yet unknown, it would seem that the illusion is created by the convergence of rays of light from the moon, which appears much larger to observers when it is near the horizon.

This optical illusion results from the way in which the moon is perceived by the naked eye. It does not occur with cameras. To demonstrate this, NASA suggests an interesting experiment: isolate the moon by looking at it
through a cutout circle or a tube. Once the reference points of its surroundings are thus eliminated, the magical effect disappears.

Annoyed, I closed the newspaper. What I had almost looked forward to turned out to be an illusion.

We'll have to wait a bit longer for the end of the world
. I checked my watch: twenty-seven past one. Set in motion by some invisible mechanism, the redhead left a coin on the bar and agilely ducked underneath the blind to emerge on the other side.

I felt an overwhelming urge to follow him. I was too tired to resist the impulse.

Even though it was late, I went after him. The huge, ghostly moon hovered over our heads.

The man in black strode across Carrer Pelai and kept going down Portal de l'Àngel, after which he turned left, heading for the cathedral.

I followed fairly close behind, like a detective hoping for a breakthrough in order to solve a case. Actually, I had embarked on this pursuit in order to ward off the pain of having lost Gabriela. All good detectives have something in their past they want to forget about.

The seventeen-minute man reached the cathedral. Now the moon looked like a gigantic, milk-colored fruit impaled on its highest spire. Then he took one of the side alleys, Carrer del Bisbe, which passes beneath a neo-Gothic bridge linking two old buildings.

The street was deserted, so I lagged a little farther behind, trying to make sure that my shoes made no sound on the ancient cobblestones. He, too, slowed down to light a cigarette, staring at the sky as he did so.

We crossed the Plaça de Sant Jaume and continued along one of the streets leading to the port, although the enigmatic redhead
soon turned off to the left into Carrer Bellafilla. He paused for a moment outside a well-lit door before going inside.

Once he'd entered his lair, I stopped, just a few steps away from what turned out to be the door of a cocktail bar called L'Ascensor. True to its name, the entrance was an old mahogany elevator with sliding doors. It still had its original early-twentieth-century buttons.

In that old, out-of-place elevator, wondering what to do next, I remembered the final scene of the film
Angel Heart
, in which Mickey Rourke descends into the bowels of hell in an elevator.

The sliding door opened onto a small bar with mirrors and marble tables. Still hesitating, I went inside. All the tables were occupied by groups of young people cheerfully downing their drinks in that fin de siècle atmosphere.

I stayed close to the bar, not sure what to do. I wasn't Mickey Rourke, and anyway I was very tired.

As often happens in such moments of indecision, someone else took the initiative. The black-clad redhead suddenly got up from his table—which he was sharing with two very good-looking women—and came over to me, with a grim expression on his face.

His companions, who couldn't have been much over twenty, observed the scene, somewhere between amused and expectant. I think one of them, a girl with extraordinarily blue eyes, said something along the lines of “Let him be.”

Leaning against the bar, I had no idea how I was supposed to deal with this situation and stop it from turning into an undignified fracas. Before I could decide what to do, the redhead asked, politely but firmly, “Were you following me?”

The only answer I could come up with—and which was not really Hollywood material—was “Yes.”

“Would you care to tell me why?”

“I'm helping a friend with a study in urban anthropology, and
we're looking at the habits of bar-goers, especially people who stick to some kind of predetermined ritual like yourself.”

He stood there with his arms crossed, studying me as if waiting for the evidence to be presented before pronouncing his verdict. Yet a faint smile told me that the man was not looking for trouble and only having a bit of fun at my expense.

Feigning indignation, he asked, “What makes you think I'm one of your bar creatures?”

“We're regulars at the same bar. In fact, thanks to my earlier intervention you were able to have your beer . . . in seventeen minutes.”

That last comment seemed to mollify him, since he loosened up, patted my shoulder, and said, “Come and sit with us. Let's have a drink.”

Seeing us coming over, one of the girls, a brunette with an angular face, stood up and said to me, “Here, take my chair. I've got to get up in five hours.”

Before I could respond, I was sitting between the blue-eyed girl and the redhead, who called the waiter over by snapping his fingers. The girl then put the icing on the cake of this bizarre gathering.

“Rubén,” she said, “this is Samuel de Juan.”

I was flabbergasted. It's always awkward when someone you don't know recognizes you. I didn't want to say something embarrassing like “Who are you?” so I waited for some kind of clue to put me on the right track.

The girl continued, smiling, “He's my contemporary literature lecturer. We'll have to get him drunk so he does something crazy, and then he'll have to give me a good mark to buy my silence.”

Then the penny dropped. This was Miss Know-It-All, Round-Specs. Since she wasn't wearing her glasses that night, I hadn't recognized her. Her nearsighted deep-blue eyes gave her a fragile
look, which was very different from the impression she gave in my classroom.

“That won't be necessary. You've already got it. The results will be out in a couple of days.”

She must have been drinking for a while, because she threw herself at me and planted a loud kiss on my cheek. I felt suffocated and unable to hide my discomfort, but luckily the waiter came over and saved me from this tricky situation.

“Three aquavits with ice, please,” said Rubén.

He was clearly a nightlife veteran, because he was brash enough to order for the whole table without asking what anyone wanted. As if to justify his unilateral action, he leaned over and muttered to me, “To celebrate my friend's success.”

Before going off to get the drinks, the waiter asked, “Do you want Line?”

“Of course!” He seemed offended.

“What's Line?” my student asked.

To which I added: “What's aquavit?”

Pleased that his choice had aroused such interest, Rubén smiled and began his lecture. “Aquavit is a Norwegian spirit. A friend of mine here introduced me to it. There are two kinds, the normal one and the
Linie
aquavit, which is much more expensive because it's aged in oak barrels then loaded onto ships sailing from Norway to Australia and back again, which means it crosses the line of the Equator twice before it's bottled. Only then can it use the official
Linie
label.”