Love in Lowercase (8 page)

I led the way through the maze of alleys to the Romesco, a small restaurant I'm quite fond of in the Raval neighborhood. Valdemar didn't say a word all the way there, which gave me the opportunity to try to make sense of what was happening.

Then it hit me, and I laughed at myself for not having seen it earlier. It was no miraculous coincidence that Gabriela had reappeared in the music shop. Of course! She worked there.

This realization was comforting in a way, because now I knew where to find her. I didn't need to go back to sitting on the terrace on the off chance she'd walk by. I only had to go to the shop. Yet this didn't help me with the main problem—namely, that Gabriela hadn't recognized me or been at all receptive to my reminiscences of our childhood. As far as she was concerned, I was a stranger, and the most intimate interaction I could hope for between us was my purchasing a CD from her. And that was exactly what I decided to do.

—

We managed to grab the only unreserved table in the restaurant before a horde of low-budget tourists swarmed through the whole place. They serve simple dishes there, so I asked for salad and fish for both of us, plus a bottle of white wine.

“I don't have much time,” Valdemar said.

“They're very quick here. Don't worry. Where do you have to go?”

“I have to get back to my research.”

He tasted the wine, his index finger drumming on the thick manuscript that lay on the table. He then wiped his mouth with the napkin and announced, “A marvelous future is in store for humanity.”

At first I didn't know what to say. As if I was experiencing a new déjà vu, I had the feeling that this wasn't the first time I'd heard such nonsense.

Then I said: “Now, that's certainly an optimistic viewpoint. But what's that got to do with the book?”

“A lot. I'm working on this book because I haven't been able to do anything else since I started feeling nostalgia for the future.”

“You've talked about this before. You know where you'll be at some point in the future, but you can't see the moment you'll get there because that will be incredible. Am I right? But what's it got to do with the moon?”

Valdemar stabbed a morsel of white fish with his fork, lifted it up, and inspected it carefully before inserting it into his mouth. Then he said, “The book's been through several mutations. It might even be incorrect to call it a book, because by that we understand a finished, closed object. This is something else. It's a monster that keeps getting bigger and more and more deformed as new paths keep opening up. Let's call it destiny. Let's call it life.”

“Does the title
The Dark Side of the Moon
refer to the huge rocky mass up there in the sky, or is it symbolic?”

“Both.” There was a flash of enthusiasm in his eyes. “Let's say I started out with a purely scientific inquiry but then it branched out to other levels.”

“So, are you a physicist?”

“Something like that. I'm a selenologist, but they kicked me
out of academia. I began to have problems with my colleagues because of a theory I came up with. Scientists are a conservative bunch. You get the impression they're searching for truth, but in reality they're afraid of discovering anything beyond the limits of what they're prepared to accept. They prefer to close their eyes.”

“Did you see something? What was your theory?”

“Well, actually, it was no more than a supposition, a working hypothesis. I came to the conclusion that people don't age on the moon.”

“What was the basis of your conjecture?” I was fascinated. “I mean, nobody's ever lived on the moon. Astronauts have been there only very briefly, right?”

“So they say. You've hit the nail on the head, Samuel. At the time, I was trying to demonstrate that there is a direct relationship between cellular oxidation and the earth's gravity. When I began to study the data collected by the various lunar missions, I began to doubt that any human being had ever set foot on the moon. I found too many gaps in the information. This would explain the fact that, despite the vastly superior technology we have nowadays, there have been no more trips to the moon. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to prove anything, because these missions either didn't happen in reality or their results were so insignificant that they might as well have not existed.”

“How long have you been interested in the moon?”

“Since I was a little boy, when I dreamed of going there. In the sixties we were convinced that everyone would be able to travel to the moon in a couple of decades. That's why I feel I've been hoodwinked.”

“Yet you're still going on about a marvelous future.”

“Because I've realized that we'll get there in the end. There'll be a cataclysm on earth, and we'll have no choice but to colonize the moon. Then we'll discover that we're immortal. Happy ending.”

After lunch, Valdemar took off into his own world, and I was left with the bill and two hours to kill before the music shop opened again.

Faced with a bunch of ravenous people who wanted my table, I got up without knowing where I should go with all my troubles. Wanting to avoid the masses of people pouring down La Rambla, I stayed in the Raval, wandering past Pakistani-owned international-call shops and video-rental stores.

On autopilot, I ended up at Marsella, a beautiful but run-down bar I hadn't been to since my student days. It had been my favorite then because of the mirrors covering all its walls and its bohemian atmosphere.

I went inside out of pure nostalgia, and to check that there'd been no major changes. But it still had the same scruffy mirrors, hoary old bottles covered in dust, ancient posters with warnings to customers:
SINGING IS PROHIBITED
and
NO PARKING
.

Sitting at one of the many tables that were free at that hour, I remembered that I'd read somewhere that this was Barcelona's oldest café. A waiter with a South American accent brought me a coffee.

I checked the time. Half past three. In just over an hour I'd see Gabriela again. The mere thought of it made my hands break out into a cold sweat and my pulse race.

Seeing her again earlier today had been almost physically painful, and at the same time I had experienced a feeling of vertigo, as if I were about to fall into an abyss and she was the only thing I could cling to. Right then, I thought I'd die of grief if I had to give her up.

As I was pondering all this and getting a bit teary, I saw that an old drunk at the next table was observing me with a maternal expression as she smoked her rank cigarettes. She was coughing between drags, but I could see in her eyes the empathy of someone who has consumed all her passion and is finally free.

Just then, the waiter came over to her table with the house special, a glass of diluted absinthe with a burning sugar cube. The old woman stopped looking at me to concentrate on the flames.

The scene reminded me of a book of poems by Bukowski. He's never been one of my favorite authors, but I believe he deserves a place of honor in world literature just for the title of the collection:

BURNING IN WATER, DROWNING IN FLAME
.

I gulped down what remained of my coffee and left Marsella feeling jittery, planning to wander around for a while and think about what to do when I saw Gabriela. I came to the conclusion that the best course of action would be to tell her I was sorry for my idiotic babbling—which essentially amounted to apologizing to her for the fact that she hadn't recognized me—and then behave like a regular customer.

In order to take my mind off that scene and the anguish its memory provoked, I started thinking once more about Bukowski, a German who'd landed in the United States in the early years of Nazism. I'd never really liked the grotty adventures of his alter ego Chinaski, but on reading an anecdote about him I discovered what a great man he was.

Once, when he was traveling by train along the West Coast, a small boy sitting next to him looked at the ocean and said, “It's not pretty.” Bukowski shivered and thought the child was a genius because he'd never noticed this before.

Right from the moment of our birth we are made to think that the sea is pretty without being allowed to decide for ourselves.

I was walking along, lost in thought, when someone tugged at my sleeve. Emerging from my daydream, I saw a young man
dressed in a djellaba. He was in a phone booth, and he was holding the receiver in his other hand.

“There's still some money left,” he said.

“What?”

“It's still got thirty cents. If I hang up, the phone company will get them, and I don't want them to. Come on, call your girlfriend.”

He gave me the receiver and walked away, whistling. I didn't even have time to thank him. Since I didn't have a girlfriend, or any friends for that matter, I had to think about whom I could call in order to not waste the man's kind thought.

I remembered that I'd jotted down the number of the Hospital Clínic in case I needed to speak to Titus and decided to use the call to find out how his tests had gone.

After being put on hold for almost two minutes, I heard his cavernous voice on the other end of the line.

“I'm fine. You don't have to worry about me. How's the book going?”

Damn
. The truth was that I'd written very little, so I quickly changed the subject, launching into a summary of recent events.

“I met this man,” I told him. “His name is Valdemar, and he sounds like you when he talks about science.”

“Must be a sign of the times,” Titus remarked. “And what about Gabriela?”

“I tracked her down at last. She works in a music shop. But I don't stand a chance. She doesn't remember me.”

“That doesn't matter. For the time being, just go and buy some records. You know what they say—”

But I didn't find out what they say, because the money ran out and the call was cut off. I searched my pockets for coins, but I only had ten cents, not enough for a local call.

I left the phone booth none the wiser and went on my way, as agitated as a soldier going off to the front.

They say that just before the curtain rises even the best actors go through a moment of excruciating tension that evaporates as soon as the play begins.

Something similar happened when I reached my destination. All of a sudden I felt calm, ready to rummage through the CDs like any other classical-music lover. Borne along by the strains of a very slow string quartet, I went to “M” for Mendelssohn in order to solve the mystery of the gondoliers.

I knew she was there, but my tactic was to focus all my senses on that section as if my life depended on it. Nonetheless, I couldn't help feeling apprehensive when I noticed Gabriela gliding toward me like a gentle shadow. As I flipped quickly through the CDs, I saw out of the corner of my eye that she was watching me with a faint smile on her lips. I turned toward her. I'd decided to play the part of a customer who is irritated at not being left to browse in peace. But, the moment we were face-to-face, the words that came out of my mouth were not at all those I had in mind.

“I'm sorry about the confusion the other day . . .”

“Don't worry,” she said, smiling. “Can I help you at all?”

You have no idea
.

I had to stick to my script.

“I'm looking for something you were playing here last week.
It's one of the piano pieces from
Songs without Words
. I thought it was ‘Venetian Boat Song,' but now I'm not so sure.”

“Which one?”

“So there's more than one?” I was trying to put on an appearance of calm, which was completely at odds with my actual state of mind.

“There are three or four songs by Mendelssohn with that name.”

“Well, I'd like to get acquainted with all those gondoliers.” I was trying to be funny. “Which version would you recommend?”

Gabriela carefully flipped through the CDs. I took the opportunity to admire her long, dark, beautifully wavy hair, with highlights so black they were almost blue.

Finally she said, “There are two very good versions: the whole set by Barenboim and a selection played by András Schiff.”

“I'll take the Barenboim. I'd like to have all the songs.”

“We don't have it in stock at the moment. I've got only the Schiff recording.” She handed me the CD, which had a photo of a rosy-cheeked man and the title
Lieder ohne Worte
.

I held it in my hands for a few seconds, wondering what to do. I wanted to take the songs home, but if I did that, I'd be throwing away the chance of seeing her again. There was a compromise solution that would end up costing me twice as much.

“I'd like both versions,” I said. “Can you order the Barenboim for me, please?”

“Of course. It should arrive within a few days, and we'll let you know when we have it. Could you give me your telephone number, please?”

I gave it to her, ridiculously pleased that she should have it. Although it was only to inform me that the CD had arrived, in my dreams it had become a lovers' tryst.

“I'll see you in a few days,” she said, smiling. Then she disappeared into the storeroom at the back of the shop.

I was spellbound. “See you.”

It doesn't matter
. There I was, all alone in my apartment, making some coffee and repeating this.

“That's precisely the problem,” I informed Mishima, who seemed to be listening attentively. “It doesn't matter because for her I don't exist.”

I flopped on to the couch as the last light of the afternoon disappeared from my living room. With a heavy heart, I looked at the shelves full of books, the hi-fi system, the posters with portraits by Brassaï, the reading lamp that hadn't been turned on yet . . .

I wasn't up to listening to the CD I'd just bought. I was haunted by the Japanese notion of
mono no aware—
the pathos of things, a term that was beginning to pervade my being, very much against my will.

I remained there in the gloom for several minutes, until I finally decided to switch on the light, whereupon Mishima gave an approving meow. I picked up Rheingold's dictionary from the coffee table, longing to wallow in melancholy and knowing full well what I was doing.

The expression in question didn't feature in the dictionary itself but in a clipping I'd slipped inside it. It seems that it was
used for the first time by the eighteenth-century Japanese poet Motoori Norinaga, who was referring to an extreme sensibility to things and an unfiltered relationship in which the observer merges with what is being observed, like the lover inhabiting the heart of his beloved.

This profound experience breeds melancholy, a condition that would seem to be inherent to the world's substratum. It's all about beauty and sadness. This is the title of a novel by Yasunari Kawabata, Japan's first winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Maybe everything that is beautiful is sad because it's so ephemeral, like a butterfly kiss.

Fed up with myself, I closed the book and went to wash the dishes. I'd been insufferably romantic lately.

As I was running hot water over a plate, I could see the moon, full and splendid in the sky. I thought it looked very lonely up there. A good reason for going to visit.

Perhaps Valdemar was right in thinking that our immortality resided there. But who would want to spend eternity on the moon?