27   15 March 92   Of course it is all right with Bob. I told you so, my journal. I just got home from a double date. Yes, my journal: Bob and I, Betty and Paul. Once I told Greg and Marcia about him there was no longer any point in holding him back from Betty, who knew about him anyway, and confirmed that she had told Daniel. We went out to lunch and a movie. The film we decided to see was a new French comedy called Delicatessen, and because of the title Bob proposed that we eat in a delicatessen, so of course we went to Schwartz’s in the Plateau. I had not been there in quite a while, and I noticed that the sign now reads Charcuterie Hébraïque, a consequence of Bill 178. As we were waiting for a table Bob remarked, speaking as a statistician, that as a group we were exactly one-half Jewish, Paul being all Jewish, me not at all, and Bob and Betty one-half. Then Paul said that this was just like Mendel’s laws, and recited a limerick that ended “one black, one white and two khaki.” Betty burst into uncontrollable laughter. We had a great time together. But after eating and laughing heartily, we were not quite prepared for the bizarre, surrealistic humour noir of the film, whose poster featured a pig – very inappropriate after Schwartz’s – and whose central theme was cannibalism, with some sex thrown in. Though it was set in a small town in France, it was as a kind of surreal, post-apocalyptic universe, and felt more like a comic strip than a real story. Bob and Paul enjoyed it; Betty and I, not so much. Betty suggested afterwards that It might have been better as an animated than as a live-action film. Quite perceptive of her, wasn’t it, my journal? Bob said so. And Paul even agreed with her, but said that he liked it anyway. Paul is very attentive to Betty. He responds to every remark that she makes, always respectfully even when he disagrees with her. I like him very much. And to me he is now Betty’s boyfriend more than he is Greg and Marcia’s son. Speaking of G & M: I spoke to Greg a couple of weeks after the dinner at Bob’s, and he said that he and M liked him. He said nothing specific, and I didn’t ask. Greg understands people quite well, and probably sensed Bob’s anxiety. Today, perhaps because he was not the youngest person among the four, Bob seemed perfectly at ease. What else? Daniel is in Spain. I just heard his message on my answering machine. He called while we were out. He didn’t say much, except that he was tired and would call again. Why is he there? Well, I told you, my journal, that Fela called to tell me about the cousin Mauricio (that is his name in Spanish, as D told me). And he did in fact call D. Within a short time they arranged that D would go to Spain (a place called Sitges, near Barcelona) during spring break in order to meet Mauricio, and that is where he is. I am looking forward to his next call. Whirlwind   He woke up with a start. Not that any noise had awakened him, as far as he new, but the glaring noontime sun shone directly into his room, and the clothes that he had now worn for fifteen or sixteen hours felt clammy. And also his dream just before waking up: Vicky was in it. He didn’t remember any details, except for driving around in bumper cars. He didn’t think there had been anything erotic about it, but dreaming about a girl he had just met was a new experience. Should he tell Mauricio? Was Mauricio a Freudian analyst? I dreamt about bumper cars with your girlfriend! And how do you say ‘bumper cars’ in Spanish? As he got up, he remembered that he had been thinking about Mauricio just before falling asleep. He wondered how he would ever get to know Mauricio if Vicky was so intensely present. He brushed his teeth and filled the cup with tap water in order to rinse his mouth. He had forgotten Vicky’s warning about the saltiness, but as he tasted it a pleasant memory came to him. It was from when he was eleven or twelve, a time when Mireille and Betty went to Rimouski during Holy Week – probably for the funeral of some Bouchard relative – while he stayed with the Bermans. It was Passover, and they took him to a seder at someone else’s house. Fela was there too. The meal began with hard-boiled eggs in salt water, which he enjoyed. But after one gargle he poured the water out of the cup and refilled with water from the bottle of still mineral water – the label read SIN GAS – that was on his nightstand. He then showered, dried himself and put on clean clothes. It was now a little after one o’clock. In Montreal it was seven, too early to call his mother on a Saturday morning. He took the stairs down to the lobby. Mauricio and Vicky were waiting for him, sitting cozily side by side on the lobby sofa. “¡Hola!” Mauricio exclaimed. “¡Vamos a comer!” He was wearing the same outfit as earlier. Vicky now matched him by wearing jeans as well, their hems rolled up over pumps with heels not as high as earlier but still at least an inch and a half. Her hair was now shiny and hanging loose about her head. They led him to a beachfront restaurant, passing along a narrow street, just above the seafront, on whose seaward side stood two splendid palaces. Vicky told him that they were museums, one called Cau Ferrat and the other Maricel, and suggested that he choose one or the other for a visit that afternoon, after lunch. Lunch was copious, a huge salad and mixed seafood with fries, washed down with Penedés wine. They sat at an outdoor table, a springlike breeze blowing on them from the sea. Vicky described the museums to him, and he chose Cau Ferrat because of the El Grecos to be seen there. He found the building itself and the collection of works by various modernista artists – including Santiago Rusiñol, the designer and original owner of the palace – quite enjoyable. “One museum is enough for today,” Vicky said, “but tomorrow there’ll be more.” Afterwards they walked along the waterfront, continuing the trilingual banter of the morning, and returned through the town center, where yet another mansion-cum-museum – Casa Llopis – was pointed out to him. “When we come here tomorrow,” Vicky said, “I’m going to vote. We’re having elections for the Parliament of Catalonia, and it’s my first chance to vote out Jordi Pujol.” “Who’s he?” “He’s our glorious leader. He’s called the president of the Generalitat of Catalonia, but he’s like a Canadian premier.” Daniel thought that he would delve into the details of Vicky’s politics at another time. “Is this the first time you’re voting?” he asked. “No, I voted in the general elections in eighty-nine. Socialist, of course,” she added with a laugh. So he didn’t have to delve. And this Jordi Pujol, then, must be some sort of rightist. “I was too young to vote in the European Parliament elections that year,” she said further. If she turned eighteen in 1989, Daniel calculated, then she must be very close to his age. He became uncomfortably aware that, probably because Vicky had persisted in speaking English, Mauricio, whom he remembered as quite voluble from the phone call, had been quiet, except for a few noncommittal comments during lunch. At seven-thirty he found himself hungry again. They went to a nearby bar for tapas and beer, but soon John Renshaw and a number of other neighbors and friends joined them. The television was turned on, and the match between FC Barcelona and Atlético Madrid came on. Barça, the obvious favorite of the local fans, played pathetically; its superstars, like Stoichkov, Koeman, Laudrup and Bakero (who, it seemed, had earlier in the year scored the goal that kept his team in the European Cup competition), seemed helpless. By halftime Atlético was ahead 2-0. But something happened in the second half. The Atlético players, especially Schuster who had been brilliant in the first half, seemed tired, though they still played well. But the Madrid public began to jeer the enemy, as personified by Stoichkov (who got red-carded) and the goalie Zubizarreta, and the jeering made Barça play harder. Nadal scored a goal, Zubizarreta made a fabulous save, and Bakero, the hero, scored to tie the score. “¡Te quiero, Bakero!,” Vicky shouted at the television screen. She was not the only woman in the bar, but the only one who seemed to follow the game passionately. Wow, Daniel said to himself, a lovely girl who’s a soccer fan! By the final whistle Daniel was spent. Another game was to follow – between Real Madrid and Logroñés – but he knew that he would barely be able to keep his eyes open. He said Buenas noches to everyone and went back to the hotel, taking the stairs to his room. In the course of his short walk it struck him that the animated conversation in the bar had moved fluidly between Catalan (which was the language of the television play-by-play) and Spanish. Often the same person would switch between one and the other, for no apparent reason. This would never happen in Quebec, he thought. The thought of Quebec reminded him to call his mother. He dialed her number from his room, using his calling card, but got Mireille’s answering machine with its bilingual outgoing message. He left her a brief message in French, telling her that he was fine but very tired. By Sunday morning his jet lag seemed to be gone. At breakfast he found out that Logroñés had defeated Real Madrid, and Barcelona and Madrid were now tied for the First Division lead. The day’s activity included not only visits to the other two museums but also a mass at the baroque church on the hill, whose old organ had recently been rebuilt and sounded splendid. It was the first Lenten Sunday, and there was a procession of the Way of the Cross. This particular mass was said in Catalan, but Daniel noticed a sign announcing that masses alternated between català and castellano. Not like Quebec, he thought once again, where Catholic churches are either English or French, unless they are Croatian or Ukrainian or Lithuanian… After another copious lunch Mauricio took them for a drive along the coast and turned inland for a visit to the ruins of the Romanesque Castle of Olèrdola. The only other visitors were a middle-aged French couple, green Michelin guide in hand. On the way back Vicky announced that the next morning she and Daniel would be going to Barcelona, where, between classes, she would continue to be his tour guide. Early Wednesday morning they would return to Sitges, and then Mauricio would drive them to Valencia for the Fallas.   On the train from Sitges to Barcelona Daniel noticed the same kind of bilingual conversations as in the bar on Saturday night. The people of Catalonia, he realized, were not divided into catalanophones and hispanophones. Some time would ask Vicky about the language situation, he thought. But at the moment she was busy outlining the day’s activities for him, though without the enthusiasm she had shown the previous day. She didn’t seem to be in a good mood. The train arrived at Barcelona-Sants, and he began to get up. “Not yet,” Vicky said. Scores of people got off, and scores more got on. Three minutes later they were at Passeig de Gràcia, a much quieter station. “Here,” Vicky said. The room that she had found for him was in a guesthouse occupying one story of the building where she lived, sharing an apartment with two other students. It was nominally the first floor (primera planta), except that it was really the fourth, since there were stories labeled entresuelo and principal between it and the planta baja or ground floor. The place was equidistant between the Passeig de Gràcia station and the University, about a seven-minute walk in each direction. No breakfast was served, but on the ground floor there was a café that, as a blackboard in front announced, served both desayunos and almuerzos until noon. It appeared that an almuerzo in Barcelona was something like a brunch, the same as he had found in Mexico, and not lunch, as the Hispanics of New York use the word. While a desayuno consisted of a piece of pastry and coffee or chocolate, an almuerzo would be a sandwich washed down with a glass of wine or beer. After accompanying him to the reception desk and saying something in Catalan to the clerk – a red-haired young woman in her twenties – Vicky told Daniel that he was on his own till noon, as she had a class to go to. “I’ll come back to give you phase one of a whirlwind tour of Barcelona. Ciao!” she said, exchanging kisses on both cheeks. “Español, français o English?” the young woman asked as she looked up from her book. Her face suddenly changed from serious to smiling. “Español,” Daniel said. “Tu pasaporte, por favor.” After getting set up in his room – which was better than he had expected, with a private bathroom, television, telephone and freshly painted walls – he went down to the café for an almuerzo. He had pan con tomate y jamón serrano, a prosciutto sandwich on a roll that had tomato rubbed into it before being spread with olive oil, with una caña, a glass of draft beer. At first he sat down at a sidewalk table, but the noise of at least three construction projects – Barcelona was in a turmoil of renovation and construction in preparation for the Summer Olympics – drove him to look for one inside, and he managed to find one that was two tables away from the nearest smoker. At a nearby table someone had left a copy of El País, and Daniel picked it up and began to read it. At least a dozen articles dealt with the Catalonian elections, and in the course of reading them he learned more about Spanish politics, past and present, than he would have in a semester-long course at Columbia. Even some of the questions about language policy in Catalonia that he had meant to ask Vicky were answered. He learned, for example, that Spanish-speaking newcomers to Catalonia were called New Catalans and were encouraged to learn Catalan. It turned out that Jordi Pujol’s party, with the strange name Convergència i Unió (it was actually an alliance of two parties, both moderately conservative but strongly Catalan Nationalist) had won in a landslide, for the fourth consecutive time. Perhaps that result explained Vicky’s desultory mood. He was still reading the paper at his table – he had just finished with the earthquake in Turkey and was getting to the siege of Dubrovnik – when Vicky came back from class. She seemed in a much better mood. She flashed a big smile when she noticed him and joined him at the table. After she had a quick cup of coffee – she asked for un tallat, which seemed to be the same as what in Spanish was called cortado – they were ready to go.   Daniel Wilner had never been in a physical whirlwind, but if he were to imagine the experience it would not be at all like the orderly, carefully planned tour of Barcelona on which Vicky Renshaw (alias Victoria Renshaw [pronounced Rencho] Vidal) guided him. The first phase, on Monday, was an intricate itinerary, negotiated on foot, by bus and by cable car (both rail and suspended), around the architectural landmarks of Barcelona – first the works of the modernista architects (Gaudí and others) in the Eixample district, and then – after a late lunch and another break for class by Vicky – various structures on and around Montjuïc, from the old hilltop fortress to the brand-new sports arena. In the evening, after a dinner of tapas, she left him in his room in order to go out with a friend. The next day they concentrated on the Old City – the Ramblas with their sea of colorful humanity, the Gothic Quarter with its churches and museums, and, finally, the marvelous century-old – but recently remodeled – concert hall called Palau de la Música Catalana, where they heard a concert by a chamber choir singing Renaissance madrigals and more recent pieces by Catalan composers. As they walked back across the Plaça de Catalunya it suddenly began to rain. They had not prepared for it, and when they got to their building they were drenched. She bade him good night, with the customary double kiss on the cheek, as he got out of the elevator on the primera planta. He had barely spent five minutes in his room, drying himself, when his telephone rang. It was Vicky. “I just talked with Mauricio,” she said. “He’s got a sort of emergency with a patient, and he won’t be able to go to Valencia with us.” Daniel couldn’t think of what to say. But Vicky went on after a pause. “We can go by train,” she said. “It’s only three and a half hours on the Talgo. If we leave at nine we can be there at half twelve, in time for the last mascletà and the floral offering. I’ll tell you the rest of the program on the train. Then Friday morning I’ll take the train back to Barcelona – I’ve got to go to lectures that day – and you can change in Tarragona and go on to Sitges to spend the afternoon with Mauricio. The two of you will finally get to know each other,” she said with a laugh. “On second thought, I’ll change in Tarragona with you, because you’ll have to make another change. I’ll tell you where. I can still make my eleven o’clock class.” “You really are quite the tour guide,” he said. “Thank you,” she said matter-of-factly. “Try to check out by eight. We can have breakfast together and then go to the station.   The ride on the Talgo was the most comfortable train journey Daniel had ever been on. The Adirondack, by comparison, made him think of bumper cars (again!). The train’s route followed the Sitges line, but it roared past Sitges and did not stop until Tarragona. A good part of the route was right along the long line of beaches, which Vicky said was called the Costa Daurada. Then came a mountain range that stretched along the seaward side of the tracks; this was the Sierra de Irta. Then more coastline, and the stops became more frequent. They were in the Kingdom of Valencia. Between sips of bottled water, Vicky outlined their program for the next two days. They would drop their bags at Alberto’s flat, have lunch and go to the Town Hall Square – Plaça de l’Ajuntament – for the mascletà, a huge shooting-off of firecrackers. Then they would go to the Basilica of la Mare de Déu dels Desemparats, Our Lady of the Forsaken, next to the Cathedral (which they would also visit) to see the floral offering – ofrena floral – in which an image of the Virgin would be made with huge bouquets of flowers. “In the evening,” she went on, “we’ll get a paella to take away and take it to the flat, to watch some more football on the telly. Barcelona’s playing Dynamo Kiev in the European Cup.” Then it would back outside for la Nit del Foc, the biggest fireworks display, which would start at 1:30. “Couldn’t we watch the game in a bar, the way we did in Sitges?” Daniel asked. “That was fun.” “It wouldn’t be in Valencia,” Vicky said with a chuckle. “Valencians don’t much fancy Barcelona. It goes back to the Middle Ages. I’ll tell you about it some time.” “I see. What about the fallas themselves?” he asked, meaning the ‘huge ornate cardboard figures’ that he had learned about from the dictionary. “We’ll see them tomorrow. We’ll walk around the town to look at them, and then from midnight on we’ll see them burnt.”