The Skating Rink (9 page)

Gaspar Heredia:

I’m a rookie in this hell-hole of a town, said the Rookie

I’m a rookie in this hell-hole of a town, said the Rookie when I
asked him how he got his name. A rookie, a newbie at the age of forty-eight, a
hick who doesn’t know his way around the traps, and has no friends to help him
out. He earned a bit of money salvaging stuff from dumpsters, and spent the rest
of the day hanging around bars away from the beach, on the edges of Z, where the
tourists don’t go, or clinging like a limpet to the ever-unpredictable Carmen.
She had dubbed him the Rookie, and it sounded best coming from her: Rookie, do
this; Rookie, do that; Tell me your woes, Rookie; Time for a drink, Rookie. When
Carmen said “Rookie,” you could hear the background music of an Andalusian
street, full of poor draftees on leave, looking for a cheap rooming house or a
train to save them from the disaster foreseen in recurring dreams. Her lazy,
luminous intonation, which, by the way, made the Rookie swoon with delight, had
something of the men’s shower room about it, with a little hole in the roof for
the Field Marshall’s young daughter to peep through each morning and see the
soldiers suffering under the cold showers. Right then, a cold shower was a
tempting thought—the air was thick with heat, and for hours at a time it was
hard to do more than feel resentful and gasp for breath—but the cold shower in
Carmen’s voice was terrible. Terrible, yes, but desirable, and systematically
marvelous. The Rookie worked the dumpsters, or scavenged cardboard boxes
directly from shops and warehouses; then he sold his stock to Z’s one and only
recycler, a greedy little son of a bitch, and that was the end of his working
day. He tried to spend the rest of his time with Carmen, though he didn’t always
succeed. It was, incidentally, his first visit to Z, although his friendship
with the singer dated back to their meeting in Barcelona, a year or two before.
She’s the reason I washed up in this heartless town, he explained to whoever
would listen. I came here one stormy night, my friend, following that fickle
woman, and often she won’t even spend the night with me. To which Carmen replied
that she valued nothing more highly than her independence; the Rookie, she felt,
should emulate the forbearance of the Catalans, the civilized practice of biding
one’s time. Don’t you know there are things we’re not meant to know, Rookie?
Don’t you know it’s crass to ask too many questions? The Rookie moved his head
and hands in desperate assent, but he was clearly not convinced by the singer’s
explanations. His greatest fear was that a separation, however short, would lead
to death, a sudden death for both of them one night. The worst thing about dying
alone, he used to say, is not being able to say good-bye. And why would you want
to say good-bye when you’re dying, Rookie? Better to think of the people you
love and say good-bye to them in your imagination. They often talked about
death, sometimes in a quarrelsome way, although mostly they seemed to be either
detached, as if the subject was of no personal concern to them, or phlegmatic,
as if the worst was already well and truly over. The only real source of
conflict—from time to time—was the business of sleeping alone. The Rookie wanted
to sleep with Carmen every night, and when she refused, he was clearly
suspicious and felt abandoned and cross. Their friendship had been born in a
homeless shelter and was still going strong, they affirmed triumphantly. You
can’t compare living things, you see, said Carmen. Take plants, for example,
they’re happy with a thimbleful of water, or take the trees called oaks or the
ones they call stone pines: they might be engulfed by the flames of a forest
fire, or brought back to life by a trickle of dirty pee . . . to
which the Rookie replied that he was happy with something to eat and shelter
from the cold. Dreamily, maybe remembering
Lady and the Tramp
, the singer said that the Rookie was a hick and
she was a lady of quality, that’s just the way it was. To bridge the gap,
perhaps, they had taken to telling stories, and sometimes they would spend hours
going over their pasts; the way they talked you might have thought they had
known each other from the age of five and witnessed every episode in both their
lives. They were confident about the future: Spain is on the path to glory, they
used to say. And about their personal futures. Everything was going to work out;
when autumn came, they wouldn’t have to leave Z, not even when winter came. On
the contrary, they would have a good house with a fireplace or an electric
heater to keep them warm and a television to keep them entertained, and the
Rookie’s patience would pay off, he’d find work, not some boring or backbreaking
job— their days of slave labor were over—no, something stable, like cleaning the
windows of offices and restaurants, or guarding empty apartment buildings, or
gardening for the local fat cats in their big houses, although for that he’d
need a car and proper tools. The Rookie’s eyes opened wide when Carmen conjured
that rosy future. And what will you do, Carmen? I’ll give singing lessons, I’ll
train young voices, and take it nice and easy. That’s the fucking way! That’s
what I like about women: the up and down! Everything that goes up comes down and
whatever hits the bottom rises back up to the surface again, exclaimed the
Rookie fervently. I have a plan, Carmen confessed to me, but my lips are sealed,
it’s a secret I’d guard with my life. Yet temptation overcame her prudent
resolve, or she simply forgot that she wasn’t supposed to tell, and one
afternoon she explained, in broad outline, her plan to us: first of all she
would go and put herself on the electoral roll in Z, then she’d pay a visit to
the mayor’s henchman, and ask for, no, demand, a public housing apartment, and
thirty years to pay it off; then, to drive her point home, she’d tell him a few
things to prove the reliability of her sources, or, if he preferred, she’d and
go tell the mayor—it would be up to him. And how do you know who Madame Mayor’s
henchman is? asked the Rookie. From experience, said the singer, and, running a
green comb through her hair, she began to tell us what had happened during a
previous stay in Z, two or three years before, she wasn’t sure exactly, maybe
even four years ago, but she did remember her daily visits to City Hall trying
to get some help. Purgatory. At the time Carmen had thought she was critically
ill and she was scared. Scared of dying alone and abandoned, as the Rookie said.
But she didn’t die. That was how I got to know all those bureaucratic vermin.
The jackals and the vultures. Dyed-in-the-wool liberals quite prepared to let me
die, without showing any pity or even laughing when I cracked a joke or imitated
Montserrat Caballé for them. Never trust anyone who works in an office, cutie.
Assholes, the lot of them; they will all be put to the sword, one way or
another. There was just one girl who really tried to help me: the social worker,
a very pretty girl, and she knew her classics backwards and forwards too. Opera
classics, that is. That’s how I got to know the mayor’s henchman, I mean how I
got to know what he’s like inside: blacker than a hole. It was like this: I kept
demanding an appointment with the mayor, and eventually her secretary sent me to
see the henchman, who sent me to see the social worker. The girl would have
solved my problem but they didn’t let her. I know because I used to hang around
outside the offices of Child Welfare and Social Services each morning, mainly
because so-called working hours aren’t much good for singing, and the waiting
room was air conditioned. I adore air-conditioning, cutie. Well, that was where
I heard the henchman through an office door, sounding like Zeus himself,
thundering against all sorts of things in general and me in particular. I wasn’t
registered to vote in Z, and that was a mortal sin, never to be redeemed. I
don’t have official proof of identity, just a Caritas card and my Red Cross
donor’s card, so you see the bind I was in. I’m not registered to vote anywhere.
But even the police, when they stop me in the street, know they should turn a
blind eye to such things. In the end I got better on my own and didn’t need his
help any more. When health returns to the body, you cheer up and forget, but I
haven’t forgotten that wretch’s face. The shoe is on the other foot now; I
happen to have come by some information (from a perfectly sound and reliable
source) and I’m going to demand whatever I feel like. Not a hospital bed but an
apartment, and some help to start a new life; it’s payback time. She wouldn’t
say what sort of information she had come by. It sounded very much like
blackmail but it was hard to imagine Carmen in the role of blackmailer. The
Rookie suggested she ask for a camper instead of an apartment, that way they
could go from place to place. No, an apartment, said the singer, an apartment
and thirty years to pay it off. We laughed and talked about apartments for quite
a while, until it occurred to me to ask how Caridad fitted into all this.
Caridad is a very clever girl, said the singer with a wink, though at the moment
she’s a bit poorly, so I’m taking care of her; when I get the apartment, she can
come and live with me. You’re as generous as the sun, said the Rookie with a
touch of envy. After me, they broke the mold, said Carmen. And if they ignore
you, what will you do? If who ignores me, cutie? The people at City Hall, the
mayor’s man, everyone . . . Carmen burst out laughing, her teeth
were chipped and uneven, and most of her molars were gone, but her jaw, by
contrast, was strong and well-formed, the sort that holds firm when things are
falling apart. You don’t know what I have on them, she said, you don’t know what
a fuss I’m prepared to kick up. You and Caridad? Me and Caridad, said the
singer, two heads are better than one . . .

Enric Rosquelles:

I am used to being the object of resentful gazes

I am used to being the object of resentful gazes, but it was only
that summer, my last summer in Z, that I began to notice something else in the
way people were looking at me, a mixture of malice and anticipation. At first I
presumed it was because of the approaching elections; there were quite a few
people on the City Council who had spent the previous four years waiting to see
Pilar defeated, and me with her. I was slow to realize that this time it was
different; the council employees who still hadn’t gone on vacation seemed
physically rather than mentally possessed by a kind of unspoken suspicion. I
tried to be pleasant but it was no use; their gazes remained fixed on the
windows or the tables, the washbasins or the stairs. Not one disrespectful
remark or barbed joke was uttered in my presence, yet I couldn’t help feeling
that I was being condemned. In the end, as always, I put it all down to stress,
the crazy hours I was working and my private problems, because, after all, no
one had said anything that could be construed as criticism, and the usual
sycophants went on congratulating me whenever one of my undertakings came to
fruition. Even the projects that withered away, to stick to botanical metaphors,
met with an appreciative response, a consoling remark of some sort: the town’s
governance would need to develop before such an initiative could make its mark,
and so on. The fact is that I lowered my guard, and those signs, which could
have saved me so much grief had I been able to read them correctly, passed me
by, leaving only a vague sense of persecution, to which I was in any case
accustomed. At the time Pilar had just come back from a trip to Mallorca, partly
work, partly a vacation, during which one of the party’s big wheels had
suggested, half in earnest, half in jest—in keeping with the dominant mood in
Mallorca at the time—that she could have a significant role to play in the
Catalan parliament. Pilar, needless to say, returned to Z in a state of high
excitement, and was constantly on the phone to people in Barcelona, the few who
had stayed in the city or had come back already from their vacations, which is
to say very few indeed, but that did not prevent her from getting a head start
and sounding out, as they say, a number of well-placed and influential friends.
I realize now that her febrile excitement worked in my favor, but it also
allowed me to relax my vigilance, and that was to cost me dearly in the long
run. Some advice for beginners: never drop your guard. Pilar, my nervous
indecisive Pilar, needed to talk to someone she could trust, and as usual I was
the one she chose. She was facing a moral dilemma: should she stand for
re-election as mayor, knowing that in a few months’ time she would have to
resign? Would her supporters feel snubbed when she took up a seat in the
regional parliament? Or would they understand that, in her new position, she
would be better placed to defend the interests of Z? We considered the problem
from various points of view, and when I had convinced her that there was in fact
no moral dilemma, she felt confident about the future, as she put it. So
confident that she invited a few friends from her inner circle to celebrate in
advance as it were, at Z’s best restaurant, which specializes in seafood and is
one of the priciest places on the Costa Brava. And that’s where I made my second
mistake; it was understandable, but I will never forgive myself. I took Nuria to
the dinner. What a night of dizzy joy it was! A night full of stars and tears
and music strewn over the sea. I can still see the looks on their faces when
they saw me turn up arm in arm with Nuria! There were four couples: the mayor
and her husband, the councilors in charge of culture and tourism with their
respective wives, and the surprise couple, Nuria and myself. It all went
smoothly at the start. Enric, the mayor’s husband, was particularly cheerful and
sparky. A cynic might have attributed his good mood to the prospect of Pilar
spending a lot of time away in Barcelona. It was a pleasure to listen to him,
truly it was. Normally I can’t stand a raconteur, but Enric’s an exception.
Before the entrées arrived, he had us all in stitches, treating us to
mischievous anecdotes about various apparently idiotic acquaintances and even
friends. Enric Gibert’s reputation in Z as an intellectual and a man of the
world is well deserved. Normally he’s a serious and reserved person, but a
celebration is a celebration. Maybe Nuria’s presence helped to unfetter his wit,
I don’t know, but faced with her beauty there were only two options: to remain
silent throughout the evening or to be an intelligent, vivacious, dazzling
conversationalist. I have no doubt that Pilar was glad when she saw us walk in
together. Nuria’s beauty was like a prefiguration or a symbol of her triumph,
but apart from that, I know that my happiness, the happiness of her faithful
lieutenant, made her happy too; ingratitude is not one of Pilar’s faults, and,
as I have said already, she had every good reason to be grateful to me. With the
arrival of the entrée, Z’s traditional fisherman’s soup, the mayor’s husband was
briefly upstaged: the owner’s nephew came over to the table with two bottles of
wine from the special reserve and took the opportunity to ask Pilar how her
vacation in Mallorca had gone. Pilar and he are the same age, and I think they
were even at school together. The owner’s nephew is one of the most active
members of the Convergencia i Unión party in Z, but that didn’t prevent him from
being on frank and friendly terms with Pilar. Until recently, political rivalry
was civilized in Z; after the scandal, of course, they cast aside all propriety
and revealed their true, bestial natures, but at the time our social
interactions were still governed by common sense. Those were, in fact, the last
days of common sense. Or to be exact, the last hours . . .