Barcelona at dawn. The hotels are dark. All the streets point to the sea.
The city is deserted, Nico sleeps bound by tangled sheets, by her long hair, by a bare arm sticking out from under the pillow. She is still, not even breathing.
In a cage whose silhouette can be guessed under a square of indigo blue and black silk, her bird, Kalil, sleeps. The cage is in an empty chimney that has been scrubbed clean. Beside her are flowers and a bowl of fruit. Kalil sleeps with his head hidden under a soft wing.
Malcolm sleeps. His wire-rimmed glasses, which he doesn't really need—they're not even prescription—are open on the table. He sleeps on his back and his nose plows through the dream world like a keel. That nose, which is his mother's, or at least a replica of his mother's, looks like a theatrical device, a strange decoration that someone has stuck to his face. It is the first thing one notices, the first thing that is attractive about him. In a certain sense, that nose is a sign of commitment to life: a big nose that cannot be hidden. Also, he has terrible teeth.
At the top of the four stone towers that Gaudí left unfinished, the light begins to reveal some golden inscriptions that, being so pale, cannot be read. It is not sunny, there is only a white silence. Early Sunday morning in Spain: fog covers the mountains that surround the city, the shops are closed.
Nico has gone out on the terrace after taking a bath. He has the towel wrapped around his body, the water still glistening on his skin.
— It's cloudy — he says — it's not a good day to go to the beach.
Malcolm looks up.
"Maybe it will clear up," he answers.
In the morning, Villa-Lobos plays on the gramophone. The cage is on a stool, by the door. Malcolm is eating an orange on a scissor lounger. He is in love with Barcelona. His deep involvement with the city is based in part on a story by Paul Morand, but also on an incident that occurred years before: one afternoon, at twilight, a tram ran over the great architect Antonio Gaudí — mysterious, frail, with almost as a saint — when he attended mass. He was very old, had white hair and beard, dressed in the simplest clothes possible. Nobody recognized him: he was left lying on the street without anyone, not even a taxi driver, deciding to take him to the emergency room. In the end, he was transferred to a charity hospital where he died the same day Malcolm was born.
The apartment is in the ronda del General Miter and its "tailor" — that's what Nico calls it — is near Gaudí's Sagrada Familia, on the other side of the city. It is a working-class neighborhood with a slight smell of garbage. The monument is surrounded by walls, there are quatrefoils engraved on the pavement. The towers rise above all: "Sanctus, sanctus," they exclaim. They are hollow. The cathedral was not finished: on both sides of its doors you are in the open air. Malcolm has walked around this empty monument many times on quiet Barcelona afternoons. He has stuffed one peseta bills, of virtually zero value, into the slot marked with the inscription: donations for the continuation of the work. He has the feeling that the bills fall directly to the ground on the other side or, if he listens carefully, perhaps a bespectacled priest locks them in a wooden box.
Malcolm believes in Malraux and in Max Weber: art is the true history of nations. In his person there is evidence of a process that has not been completed: the conversion of a man into a true instrument. He is preparing for the arrival of that great artist that he hopes to be one day, an artist in the true modern sense of the word; that is, without any achievement, but with the conviction of genius. As an artist freed from the demands of craft, as an artist of concepts, of generosity, his work consists in creating his own legend, and as long as he has only one follower, he can believe in the sanctity of that design.
He is happy in Barcelona. He likes the wide streets cooled by trees, the restaurants, the long sunsets; he is immersed in the currents of a slow conjugal life.
Nico goes out onto the terrace wearing a sweater the color of wheat.
"Would you like a coffee?" - ask -. Do you want me to go look for it?
He stays thinking.
"Yes," he answers.
"How do you want it?"
"Only," he answers in Spanish.
— Negro.
Nico likes to run those kinds of errands. The building has a small elevator that goes up slowly. When he arrives, she goes inside and closes the doors carefully; then, with the same slowness, the elevator goes down floor after floor as if it were decades. Meanwhile she thinks of Malcolm, she thinks of his father and his second wife; she decides that she is probably smarter than Malcolm. Of course, she has more willpower. He, however, is more handsome in some strange way. She has a big, foolish mouth; he is generous; she, rather dry. She passes the second floor. She looks at herself in the mirror. Of course, no one discovers such things from the beginning. It's like a play: slowly, one scene after another, the reality of the other person is changing. Anyway, pure intelligence is not that important. It's an abstract quality, unrelated to that cruel, intuitive knowledge of how the new life should be lived that her father lacks and that Malcolm does possess.
At half past ten the phone rings. She takes it and begins to speak in German, lying on the sofa. When she finishes, Malcolm yells at her:
-Who was?
-Do you want to go to the beach?
- Yeah.
“Inge will be here in an hour or so.
Malcolm has heard of Inge and is curious. Besides, she has a car. Morning, obedient to his wishes, she has begun to change. Down the street there's some early morning traffic. The sun breaks through for a moment, disappears, appears again. In the distance, beyond his thoughts, the four towers move between shadow and glory. In the luminous intervals the letters are revealed at the top: "Hosanna."
At noon Inge arrives, smiling. She is wearing a beige skirt and blouse with the top buttons undone. She's a little thick for that skirt, which is also very short. Nico introduces them.
"Why didn't you call me last night?"
— We were going to call, but it was late. We don't have dinner until eleven,” Nico explains. I assumed you would have dated.
No. Inge explains that she was at home all night, waiting for her boyfriend to call. She is fanning herself with a postcard from Madrid. Nico has gone into the bedroom.
"They're bastards," says Inge. She raises her voice for Nico to hear. She was supposed to call at eight and she didn't call me until ten. She didn't have time to talk; She said that she would call me back in a while, but nothing. In the end, I fell asleep.
Nico puts on a light gray pleated skirt and a lemon sweater. He looks at his back in the mirror, his arms are bare. Inge speaks from the living room.
— They don't know how to behave, that's the problem. They have no idea. The only thing they know how to do is go to the Polo Club.
He starts talking to Malcolm.
— When two people go to bed, it is supposed that it should be nice afterwards, that they should treat each other correctly. Not here; They don't respect women here.
He has green eyes and well-aligned white teeth. He thinks what it must be like to have a mouth like that. Her father is supposed to be a surgeon in Hamburg; Nico says it's not true.
“They are like children here,” Inge continues. In Germany, now, they respect you a bit. No man treats you like this: they know how to behave.
"Nico," Malcolm calls.
She appears brushing her hair.
"I'm scaring him," Inge explains. Do you know what I did in the end? She call him at five in the morning. I asked him: "Why didn't you call me?" and he told me that he didn't know, that what time it was. I realized that he was asleep. "Five o'clock," I told him. "Are you mad at me?" "A little", he has recognized me. "Well, very good, because I'm angry with you," and boom, I hung up.
Nico is closing the terrace doors and putting the cage inside.
Look at the bird.
- I think he is not well.
- Nothing's wrong with him.
"The other one died last week," he tells Inge. Suddenly: he wasn't even sick.
Close one door and leave the other open. In the sunlight, now shimmering, the bird flaunts its feathers, serene.
"I think they can't live alone," he says.
“There's nothing wrong with him,” Malcolm insists, “look at him.
Its colors shine a lot in the sun. Installs on top hanger. His eyes have round and perfect eyelids. Blinks.
The elevator is still on his floor, Inge goes in first and Malcolm pulls on the narrow doors: it's like closing a cupboard. They begin to go down with their faces close together. Malcolm is looking at Inge, she is thinking about her things.
They stop for another coffee in the small bar downstairs. Malcolm holds the door open for them. There is no one, just a man who reads the newspaper.
"I think I'm going to call him back," Inge announces.
"Ask him why he woke you up at five in the morning," Malcolm says.
She laughs.
"Yes," he tells her. It is wonderful. That's what I'll do.
The phone is on the other side of the marble counter, but he can't hear it because Nico is talking to him.
"Not interested?" Malcolm asks.
"No," she answers.
Inge's car is a Volkswagen of that blue color that some plane mail envelopes have, it has a dented bumper.
"You haven't seen my car," he tells them. What do you think? Did I get a good bargain? I don't know anything about cars: it's the first one I have. I bought it from an acquaintance, a painter, but it looks like he had an accident and the engine is half seized. I know how to drive," he adds, "but I prefer someone to sit next to me. Almost better if you drive, can it be?
“Sure,” Malcolm says.
He gets behind the wheel and starts the engine, Nico sits behind.
-How about?
"I'll tell you in a second.
Although it is only a year old, the car is somewhat beat up. The headliner seems faded. Even the steering wheel looks battered. After driving a couple of blocks, Malcolm says:
- It seems to be going well.
-Yeah?
— The brakes are not going as they should.
-Oh yeah?
— I think you have to change the pills.
“I just got oiled up,” she says.
Malcolm looks at her. He is serious.
"Turn left that way," she tells him.
He guides you through the city. At that time there is some traffic, but he hardly stops. In Barcelona, many junctions are wide, in the shape of octagons, and only have a few red lights. They advance through vast neighborhoods of old buildings, leaving behind factories and reaching the first open fields on the outskirts of the city. Inge turns in her seat to look at Nico.
"I'm sick of this place," she tells him, "I want to go to Rome."
They pass in front of the airport. The road to the beach is jammed: all the scattered traffic of the city has jammed there like a funnel, buses, trucks, an infinity of tiny cars.
"They don't even know how to drive," Inge says. But what do they do! Can't you overtake them? Come on! — Invade her space to honk.
"It's no use," Malcolm warns him.
Inge touches it again.
- They can't move.
"They make me furious!" she exclaims.
In the car ahead, two children turn to look at them, their pale, thoughtful faces leaning out the small rear window.
—Have you been to Sitges? Inge asks.
— In Cadaqués.
— Ah, yes, it's very nice, although you have to know someone who has a good house.
The sun is white. Under its light, the earth takes on the color of straw. The road runs parallel to the coast, along with dull beaches, campsites, houses, cheap hotels. The railway line makes its way between the road and the sea, with small tunnels dug below so that bathers can reach the water. After a while, the sea begins to disappear: they advance alongside practically deserted land.
— In Sitges there are all the blondes in Europe: Swedish, German, Dutch. You'll see,” Inge explains.
Malcolm looks at the road.
"The brown eyes of the Spaniards seem irresistible to them," adds Inge, putting her arm in front of him again to honk her horn. Look at these! They move like turtles! Anyway, the girls come full of hope; they save up, they buy little bathing suits that barely fit a spoon and what happens? That someone loves them for a night, in the best of cases: the Spanish do not know how to treat women.
In the back seat, Nico is silent. She seems calm, but she is actually bored.
"They have no idea," Inge insists.
Sitges is a small town of humid hotels, green shutters and the typical dry grass of tourist places with a beach. Cars are parked everywhere, crowding the streets. Finally, they find a space two blocks from the sea.
“Make sure you lock it,” Inge says.
“They won't steal it from you,” Malcolm replies.
"So you don't think it's so pretty anymore," she replies.
They walk along the road that is half submerged because of the heat. All around them rise too crowded buildings with smooth, undecorated facades. Despite the abundance of cars, the town is strangely empty. It's two o'clock: everyone has gone to eat.
Malcolm is wearing Bermuda shorts made of coarse cotton, similar to the glassy blue cotton of the Tuaregs. They have a very thin belt, the width of a finger, which only shows at the front. He sports the body of a runner, a flawless body, of a Flemish painting martyr. Veins poke like ropes under the skin of his arms and legs.
The cabins on the beach have a concrete back wall and hemp mats on the floor. Malcolm's clothes hang on a hook, amorphous. He goes out into the hallway. The women are still changing, he doesn't know behind which door. There is a small mirror hanging from a nail. He smooths down his hair and waits. Outside the sun shines.
The sea begins on a small slope full of pebbles as sharp as nails. Malcolm goes in first, Nico follows without saying a word. The water is cold; he feels it creeping up his legs, brushing against the edge of his bathing suit, and suddenly, with a wave—though he tries to jump over it—she hugs him. He dives. He leaves with a smile on his face and the taste of salt on his lips. Nico has dove in too, coming up close to him, gently, brushing back his wet hair with one hand, then squinting, not sure where he is. He puts his arm around her waist and she smiles at her: she has an instinct that tells her with certainty and certainty when she looks most beautiful.
For an instant, a serene mutual dependence is established between them. Malcolm picks her up and carries her in her arms, with the help of the sea, water inside her. She rests her head on her shoulder. Inge is lying on the beach in a bikini, reading the Stern.
"What's wrong with Inge?" he asks.
- All.
— No, I mean why he doesn't want to get involved.
— She has her period.
They lie next to her on separate towels. Malcolm notices how dark Inge is. Nico never gets tanned like that, no matter how long he spends in the sun. It's like stubbornness, as if he himself offered her the sun and she refused to accept it.
Inge tells them that she got a tan in one day. One day! It looks awesome. She looks at her arms and legs as if she wanted to confirm it; yes, it's true: she naked on the rocks of Cadaqués. She looks down at her belly, and in doing so causes some plump, youthful lozenges to form.
"You're getting fat," says Nico.
Inge laughs.
"It's my savings," he answers.
That's what they look like: belts, as if they were part of a dress she was wearing. When you lie down, they disappear. His legs and arms are firm. The belly, like the rest of its body, is covered in fine golden down. Two young Spaniards walk along the shore.
She talks to heaven. If she goes to America, she recites, will it be worth taking her car? After all, she got it at a very good price; if she doesn't want to keep it, she'll probably be able to sell it and get some money out of it.
"America is full of Volkswagens," Malcolm says.
-Yeah?
— It is full of German cars, everyone has one.
"It must be that they like them," she decides. Mercedes are good cars.
"Much admired," Malcolm concedes.
— That is the car that I would like for myself: I would love to have a pair. When I have money, that will be my hobby,” he says. And I would love to live in Tangier.
— There are fantastic beaches out there.
-Yeah? I will turn black like the Arabs.
"But you'd better put on your bathing suit," says Malcolm.
Inge smiles.
Nico seems asleep. They lie quietly with their toes pointed at the sun. She has lost strength: there are only temporary moments of heat when the wind slackens and the sun hits them full, weak but invasive. An hour of melancholy is approaching, the hour when everything comes to an end.
At six, Nico gets up. He is cold.
— Come — says Inge — let's go for a walk on the beach. - Insist. The sun has not set yet. She becomes very playful. Come here —she says again—, this is the best area, where the luxury mansions are. We will take a walk and make the old people happy.
— I don't want to make anyone happy — Nico answers, hugging herself.
"That's not easy," Inge assures him.
Nico follows her with a wistful expression, arms crossed, hands cupping her elbows. The wind blows from the sea, some little waves break almost silently: they emit a soft noise, as if forgotten. Nico is wearing a gray bathing suit, whole, but low on her back, and while Inge plays in front of the houses of the rich, she looks at the sand.
Inge goes into the sea.
"Come," he tells her, "it's hot."
She seems smiling and happy, filled with a joy stronger than the moment, stronger than the cold. Malcolm walks slowly after her. It is true that the water is hot. She also seems cleaner, and as far as he can see there is no one bathing: they are bathing themselves. The waves swell and gently lift them up. The water passes over them, it washes their souls.
Young Spaniards stand around the booths hoping to catch a glimpse of something if the shower door is opened too early. They are wearing blue or black woolen bathing suits, their toes seem longer than normal. There is only one shower, with a single faucet bleached by saltpeter: the one for cold water. Inge goes in first. She hangs one tiny piece of her bathing suit after another on the top edge of the door. Malcolm waits. He hears the soft clapping and brushing of hands against skin, the sudden pattering of water on concrete as Inge steps to the side. The boys at the gate speak of him with admiration. When he turns around, they lower their voices and tease each other to make it look like it was a joke.
The streets of Sitges have changed: the time announced by nightfall has arrived and crowds of walkers appear everywhere. It's hard for the three of them to stay together. Malcolm puts his arms around them and they let themselves be led like horses waiting for the slightest contact. Inge smiles, says that people will think that the three of them are doing it.
They stop at a cafe.
"Not very good," Inge complains.
— It's the best there is — Nico simply answers.
One of his virtues is the ability to distinguish at first glance, wherever he goes, which is the right place, the ideal restaurant or hotel.
"No," Inge insists.
Nico doesn't seem to care. They wander a bit apart and Malcolm asks in a whisper:
-What are you looking for?
"You really don't know?" Nico answers.
"See those guys? says Inge.
They are already sitting elsewhere. All around, tanned arms and legs, long hair bleached by the long scorching afternoons, young people relaxed and with the sweet look of indolence.
"They don't have money," he says. There is not a single one who can buy you dinner, not a single one. They have nothing, this is Spain — she concludes.
Nico chooses where to have dinner. It has grown smaller throughout the day: the presence of that friend, that girl she happened to live with during the days when they both struggled to find their place in the city, when they still didn't know anyone or the names of each other. On the streets, when she was so ill that they wrote a telegram to her father together—they had no telephone—Inge's sudden revelation has made the past seem less pleasant. Suddenly, she feels the heartbreaking certainty that Malcolm despises her: her trust, without which she is nothing, is gone. Her tablecloth looks white and dazzling: it seems that she illuminates the three of them with a relentless light. Forks and knives are arranged as if for surgery. The dishes have gotten cold. She is not hungry, but she does not dare to refuse food. Inge is talking about her boy.
— It's terrible — he says — he doesn't have a heart, but I understand him, I know what he wants. Also, no woman can expect to be everything to a man; It's not natural: men need a few women.
"You're crazy," Nico intervenes in an expressionless tone.
- It's true.
That statement is all that was missing to demoralize her. Malcolm is inspecting her watch strap and it seems to her that he is the one allowing all of this. He's stupid, she thinks. She that girl has something of a slum and he finds her interesting. She thinks they are going to propose to her because they go to bed with her, of course not! Never. It's impossible to be more wrong, she thinks, though at once she realizes that she might be wrong.
They go to have a coffee at Chez Swann. Nico sits aside, she says that she is tired. She curls up on a sofa and falls asleep: she is exhausted. The afternoon has cooled down quite a bit.
She is awakened by a voice, music, a wonderful voice between the occasional strumming of a guitar. She listens to her between dreams and gets up. Malcolm and Inge are talking. She feels as if she has been waiting for, looking for, that song for a long time. She reaches out a hand to touch Malcolm's arm.
"Listen," he tells her.
-That?
— Listen — he repeats —: it's María Dolores Pradera.
"Maria Dolores Pradera?"
— The lyrics are beautiful — says Nico.
Simple phrases. They are repeated as if they were a litany. Mysterious repetitions: "brown mother...brown daughter." The eloquence of the poor, pure and smooth as a stone.
Malcolm listens patiently, but hears nothing. Nico realizes: he has changed while she was sleeping, he has gradually poisoned himself with stories of a horrific Spain that now circulate through his veins, a Spain conceived by a woman who knows well that she will never manage to be more than a part of what what men need. Inge is calm, she believes in herself, she believes that she has the right to exist, to command.
The road is dark. They have opened the hood to the night, so full of stars that they seem to spill over the car. Nico, in the back seat of her, is scared. Inge is talking; to Malcolm's chuckles, she reaches out her arm to admonish slow-moving cars with a honk. She tells that in Barcelona there are private rooms where he has spent entire winter afternoons with her lover, next to a warm and crackling fire, that there are houses where they have made love on fur blankets. Of course he was kind then. So, she imagined the Polo Club, evenings in the best houses.
The streets of the city are almost empty. Midnight is coming: Sunday midnight. The day in the sun has left them exhausted, the sea has absorbed their strength. They get out of the car at General Miter and say goodnight through the windows. The elevator goes up very slowly. They feel as if they are hanging from silence, they look at the ground like card players after losing everything.
The apartment is dark, Nico turns on a light and then disappears. Malcolm washes and dries his hands. Everything seems calm, he walks slowly through the rooms until he finds her on her knees on the threshold of the terrace door, as if he had fallen.
Look at the cage: Kalil is on the floor.
"Give him some brandy on the end of a handkerchief," he proposes.
Nico has opened the cage door.
"He's dead," he says.
- Let me see it.
It's stiff. His little legs are curved and dry as a twig. He seems lighter: the breath has left his plumage; His heart, smaller than an orange seed, has stopped beating. The cage is empty on the cold threshold. It seems that there is nothing to say, Malcolm closes the door.
Then, in bed, he listens to Nico's sobs. He tries to comfort her, but she can't. She turns her back on him, she is not going to answer him.
She has small breasts and large nipples. Also, as she herself says, a rather big butt. Her father has three secretaries. Hamburg is close to the sea.
