Gaudi Afternoon (7 page)

Frankie yelped in pain. “Not—so—hard.
Por favor.
”

“Well, isn't he?” I demanded.

“Yes.” Frankie sighed.

I followed them back to the styling chair. Carmen looked grim, I supposed because we were talking in English and Frankie was treating her like a hairdresser. She hated that.

“And you met with Ben today, didn't you?”

Frankie pondered this while looking at her sallow complexion in the mirror. “Yes, briefly.”

“Well, you've gotten what you came for, haven't you?”

“Not exactly.” Her eyes followed Carmen's scissors closely. “You see, I couldn't get him to sign the papers. I'll have to do a little more persuading.”

“But my part in all this is finished.”

“I might need a little help persuading—”

“Absolutely not.”

“All I want you to do is sit near us at a restaurant tomorrow. When the time is right I'll introduce you.”

“Well…”

“And then I'll give you your check for two thousand plus today's and tomorrow's expenses and you can be on your way.”

“I'll think about it,” I said moodily. But we both knew I'd help her out yet again.

Carmen was blow-drying Frankie's hair. She hadn't done a bad job with the cutting—Carmen would never do a bad job— but neither had she thrown herself into it. Frankie seemed too distracted to notice.

“So you followed the two women, hmmm?” she asked. “Where did you say they went?”

“To the Parc Güell. It looks like they probably eat their lunch there regularly. And that's where Ben joined them.”

“I've heard of that park,” said Frankie. “I hope I can sightsee a little while I'm here.”

Carmen stood back and handed Frankie a mirror so she could check the back of her head. It was a nice style job, if you liked pageboys. I knew Carmen didn't.

“Thank you dear,” Frankie said indifferently as she got out her red purse.

“You pay the cashier,” I whispered, as Carmen's eyes smoldered at this final insult. She flicked the towel off Frankie's shoulders as if it were a bullfighter's cape.

I accompanied Frankie to the door.

“Cassandra,” Carmen called sternly after me. “Can we talk a minute?”

“I'm late to meet Ana,” I said, hoping to avoid another lecture, this time on American manners. “Can you call me tonight?”

She raised her eyebrows. “I suppose it's not
that
important.”

I've never lost my nerve when it really counted, but I'm a complete coward when it comes to facing an angry woman. As usual, I escaped.

I
T HAD ALL STARTED, ANA
said that evening after dinner, when a newly pregnant client came to her and requested a house for herself, so that she could lie in it and think maternal thoughts. Ana at first thought of it as something of a challenge, because she had never been pregnant. A thorough researcher, Ana went to the library and bookstores and obtained big tomes on pregnancy and childbirth, complete with full-color photographs.

She was fascinated by the thought of a house that grew, month by month, and at the beginning investigated pliable construction materials into which could be pumped air or water. There was even a point at which she envisioned the house as a giant amniotic sac in which the woman could float like a fish in an aquarium. However, like all architects, even of miniature houses, Ana had to reckon with the conservatism and impatience of her client.

She wasn't going to be pregnant forever, the woman reminded Ana.

So Ana had come up with a bright papier-mâché shell in the shape of a woman with a big belly and huge, wide-spread legs. The entrance was between the legs and the interior was fitted out with a foam mattress covered in rose velvet. There was a little skylight in the belly button, and a tape recorder in the head that played gentle pop music.

“But all that reading about pregnancy and childbirth had done something to me,” said Ana. “I'm thirty-five and I've been constructing children's houses for ten years. Am I never going to have a child of my own?”

“I thought you said you got what you needed from making children happy with their houses?”

“I
used
to,” said Ana, absently stroking her flat belly. “But all those books awakened deep-seated feelings. Strange maternal feelings. On the streets I sought out pregnant women and stared at them, I haunted maternity clothes shops, I even arranged with a doctor friend of mine to be present at a birth in the hospital.”

“I think you should just go ahead and have a child,” I said.

“I couldn't raise a child alone.”

“Of course you can. My mother raised us alone. Not that we turned out very well, but still.”

“I don't
want
to raise a child alone.”

“I don't like the way you're looking at me, Ana.”

“You'd be perfect, Cassandra. Intelligent, cultured, humorous and active.”

“You skipped warm, accepting and reliable. Probably because you know me.”

“The point is, I don't know anybody else I could possibly consider.”

“Well, at least that takes it out of the realm of the personal. I don't have to worry that it's only me who will do.”

Ana had one of her sudden fits of temper. They always came upon her like an allergic reaction. Her pale face turned blazing red, her dark eyes grew enormous and hard. “Yes, laugh at me, that's right. I'm trying to tell you something important, but just go ahead, laugh at me!”

“Ana, Ana, calm down. I just meant—”

“Yes, I know exactly what you meant. You don't want to have anything to do with me!” she wailed. “And you're my one hope.”

“Ana,” I said. “You're not even attracted to me.”

As suddenly as it had begun her temper tantrum abated. She got up and cleared off the table. “My god,” she said. “You know, that's true.”

She looked me over critically. “Especially with that haircut.”

I slept in the next morning and was awakened by an energetic-sounding Frankie, who told me that Ben had agreed to meet her at a restaurant in the Plaça Reial at one o'clock. If I could come then too and order myself lunch, Frankie would signal me when the time was right to join them. All she wanted was my presence at the table, she emphasized. Ben was always better behaved when there were other people around.

I supposed Frankie had chosen the Plaça Reial because it was such an obvious tourist spot. What the tourists rarely realized was that the formal plaza with its arcades and palms, its fountain of the Three Graces in the center, was a hang-out for drug dealers and pickpockets. There used to be a Thieves Market in the corner of the plaza but the police had put a stop to it by parking their own van there. Still, the square was still not a place to go by yourself at night.

During the day it was filled with tourists, who congregated especially at the outdoor bars and restaurants facing the sun. I didn't see either Ben or Frankie so I sat down at an empty table and took out my notebook and my copy of
La Grande y su hija.

I was pleased that I was making progress on Cristobel's adventures even in the midst of my own. At this rate I would be done with the translation before my deadline and out of London, with my three thousand dollars from Frankie, before the end of May. I had in mind to visit friends in Eastern Europe and see how they were surviving the political changes of recent years. It was time to brush up on my Romanian, which I hadn't had much use for since a rather uncomfortable incident in Bucharest with a black marketeer and a member of the secret police.

Thus occupied with dreamy thoughts I almost didn't notice Ben cross the plaza and take a table right next to me. Bugger. Would this be too close? Frankie could hardly remark, Oh look, there's my friend Cassandra, about a woman seated right next to them. But there was nothing to be done about it. I buried my face behind the jungle green nakedness of the novel and hoped for the best.

Ben looked as out of place as I felt. He was wearing jeans again and a striped Oxford shirt, but somehow he looked less American than he had yesterday at the Parc Güell. Perhaps it was just the proximity to real Americans. Perhaps it was the gold hoop in his ear or the blue ostrich leather boots. If Frankie had chosen this place because she thought we'd blend in, she was mistaken.

The waiter came over. “
Señor
?”

I looked around and realized he was talking to me. I quickly ordered the menu of the day. I began with an
ensalada de tomates
, followed by a
tortilla español
and then roast chicken. Afterwards I'd have a flan perhaps, and coffee. I thought I might need all three courses if Frankie didn't show up soon.

Even though we were outside, the noise among the tables was deafening. Maybe there was a tour group here enjoying a taste of the real Barcelona. Women in pantsuits with strong midwestern accents and pink and blue hair talked about how they just loved this Gaudy architecture, while their husbands discussed bullfights and how many miles they'd covered that day. Young couples carrying
The Rough Guide to Europe
or Frommer's
Spain on $40 a Day
(hadn't it once been five dollars a day?) argued about whether they could fit in Seville before Madrid or whether two days in Granada was too much.

I read a few pages of
La Grande
but I couldn't help eavesdropping on the conversation of two college-aged women nearby. They had obviously just met and were trading horror stories about the French.

“They might as well have put their hands over their ears when I asked them a question. It was that blatant!”

“You'd think they thought of French as some kind of sacred holy language. It's just a
language,
for pete's sake.”

“Boy, I never was so glad to get out of a country in my
life.
I like Barcelona. The Spanish seem really friendly.”

“Oh, I think so too. I met the cutest guy at my hotel. He
wanted
to talk English with me.”

Then a most awkward thing happened.

“Isn't that a great novel?”

I jumped. It was Ben, smiling disarmingly and pointing to the book in my hand.

I put on my best Irish accent. “Well and it's certainly a vivid picture of life in South America today. From a woman's point of view of course.”

“That's what I thought,” Ben said, leaning closer. “I mean, we've been hearing from Garcia Márquez and Donoso and Vargas Llosa for years. But what about the women?”

Oh god, he was a feminist type of guy. And he knew about South American writers.

“May I join you?” he said, convinced that we had a lot in common. “I'm waiting for a friend, but she hasn't shown up yet. I can't stand eating by myself, it really makes me lose my appetite, especially in a place like this.”

Curiosity has always been my downfall. I invited Ben to sit down with a wave of my hand. Frankie would just have to lump it.

“I'm Hamilton Kincaid,” he said, holding out a firm brown hand. “Originally from New York, but I've been living in Barcelona for the last few years.” He had blue eyes and a couple of days' growth of blond beard.

If he wanted to bluff it so could I. “Brigid O'Shaughnessy,” I said. “From Dublin.”

“That name sounds familiar somehow,” he said.

“I'm a journalist.”

“I don't read newspapers much,” he apologized. “I try to keep up with contemporary fiction—Eco, Kundera, the Latin Americans, naturally—but I always feel I'm behind. Of course I try to read literature in the original and that takes a bit longer.”

“What do you do?” I asked him. Besides try to impress girls like me?

“Oh, I play a little music. Saxophone.”

Dilettante. I smiled charmingly. “So you think you've been stood up?”

“She said one and it's one-thirty. But then my friend is— how shall I put it?—something of a free spirit.”

Strange that Frankie had said the same about him. Just a couple of free spirits with hidden agendas.

“Is she Spanish?”

“No, she's another American. It's her first visit to Spain.”

“Oh dear, and you've been cajoled into playing tour guide.”

“Not exactly,” Ben sighed, and broke off a piece of bread. “I just met her yesterday. I never would have guessed.”

“Guessed what?”

“That she was transsexual…. Do you know any transsexuals?”

Now that you mention it, I guess I did. A dozen details about Frankie flashed through my head and reorganized themselves.

Ben went on quickly. “Not that I'm judgmental. People are different. I'm gay for instance.”

He misinterpreted my stunned silence and apologized. “I'm sorry. Being from Ireland, you're probably not used to talking about homosexuals, much less transsexuals.”

“You'd be surprised,” I managed with a wan smile. “We Catholics love to dress up.”

The waiter brought our salads over and I had another surprise. Ben spoke to him in quite credible Catalan. There was something I didn't understand going on here. If Ben had only recently arrived from San Francisco, how on earth could he have picked up Catalan? Spanish he might have studied at school. But Catalan?

“So, Brigid,” he said, pouring me a glass of wine from the carafe. “What brings you to Barcelona?”

I told him that I was doing a piece for the
Irish Times
on how Barcelona was preparing for the 1992 Olympic Games, while all the time my mind was reeling in confusion.

If Frankie was a transsexual then Ben could hardly be her ex-husband.

Unless Ben had married Frankie thinking she was a woman.

Perhaps Frankie was blackmailing Ben, threatening to tell his family that he'd been married to a transsexual.

But if Ben were gay why would he have married Frankie in the first place?