“In principle, I think …”
“He’s a good lad. I’ve known him for years. We have bumped into each other in different countries. He’s done me no end of favors. He has no side to him. He is generous, genuinely so, I mean I don’t need to flatter him for you to see that. But he has one terrible weakness, though he’s no side, he’s never his own man. He’s a plaything in the hands of the people he meets from day to day. When I met him in Paris in a small restaurant on the Rue Blanche that was packed out with fair-haired, jovial young toughs who lived well though they had neither a trade nor income, he was exactly the same as he is now. Don’t think that this doesn’t have its merit …”
“What merit might that be? If it’s a feature of elephants to have trunks and of squirrels to have long tails, are you of the opinion that a squirrel’s long tail earns it merit?”
“If you only knew the people Formiguera has had to suck up to, or entertain, you would be astonished!”
“But that’s no merit in itself. It’s in his nature. Was he dancing in Paris?”
“It’s all he did. He could earn as much money as he wanted. But it was a wretched life. I’d ask him, ‘Aren’t you ashamed? You’re a pleasant, nice young man. Any activity could earn you enough for a decent life. If you want maintenance without ever doing anything, a certain notion of marriage might be the solution.’ I brought him to tears, but all to no avail. Everything dragged him back to that way of life. He was vain, money ran through his fingers, and he’d come to take that world seriously. He was a rural lad intoxicated by patent leather shoes and gleaming white teeth. He liked being in that dazzling cesspit — the corrupt sentimentalism of late nights and catchy tunes. It’s a world where you laugh yourself to death. It made Formiguera cry and quiver with emotion. And strange to say he was from Granollers, from the rural-domestic hearth of the symphony that is Vallès. It’s beyond belief. Cabarets are the running sores of modern life. That a boy from Granollers should find himself in Berlin and giddy on cabaret at this particular moment in history is at once tragic and miserably grotesque.”
“That’s for sure.”
“You saw him yesterday. He looks in a bad state, the distilled pallor, the three- or four-day-old beard, his nose’s cold anguished lines, hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, blotting-paper ears … I’ve seen him like that a number of times, and I’ll tell you one thing: even when ill, his kind is lucky. Do you know what I’ve heard some ladies say about Formiguera? That he’s got lovely eyelashes …”
“Is Sra Piccioni of the same opinion?”
“I must confess I’ve reached a point when I understand nothing.”
“All the same, you must reach a decision in relation to her. The room you’re in now is not what you call comfortable.”
“Of course, but the poor have so little freedom of maneuver. I must do something or other, but so far I dread even to think about it. Perhaps it will be best …”
“What will be best?”
“Perhaps it will be best to wait for her coup de foudre to cool. Sometimes the stronger it starts, the quicker it fades. Formiguera is no caged bird. When he’s recovered, he’ll do whatever he feels like. He’s footloose and …”
“You’re prophesying now and prophecies don’t necessarily work out.”
“Agreed. But I’ve seen him do this so often. There’s nothing one can do. He’s a man who will die by his cannon, because only the artillery dies standing by its cannon.”
“Naturally …”
There was little more one could say; perhaps the most useful thing right then was to take his mind off that obsession he found so depressing. I suggested we dine in a restaurant. He agreed. It was a somewhat funereal dinner. Above all, it was a long one, because whenever he thought how he’d be returning to a room full of old junk and as cold as a dog’s snout — to use a German expression — his head filled with all manner of malevolence. However, in the end, we had no choice but to go our separate ways. Snow was still falling.
I lived in Berlin for a couple more months and the situation didn’t change one iota in all that time. Formiguera made a rapid recovery and returned to his normal routines: Toselli’s serenatas and pink pajamas. He was a man fated to alternate life and death in his natural stride. But, against every prediction, he didn’t decide to change the roof over his head. He stayed by Sra Piccioni’s side. If I’d been more experienced in life’s ways, I’d have given that magnificent dish of spaghetti a greater transcendence than I routinely had — that, though substantial, fell quite short.
Against all the assumptions of logic, Tintorer the philologist maintained what is known as the status quo in diplomatic parlance. He didn’t feel the need to migrate to more comfortable territory. As a young, but die-hard, subtenant he stayed in his cave. The weak point of this kind of man, to whom people generally attribute an almost unquenchable freedom of movement, is that they only smell the aromas coming from the kitchen. When the time comes to change aromas, their stomachs cave in. His situation improved slightly, objectively speaking. When Formiguera donned his tuxedo, returned to work and started to be generous with his space, Tintorer had the right to settle back in his old bedroom, pursue his studies, and fill in his filing cards. It was a positive gain, because if there was one thing he couldn’t do in his junk room, it was to engage in endeavors connected to his little gray cells. The drawback was that he had to take Serafí for a walk whenever Sra Piccioni deemed it was necessary. The dog had become totally indifferent to the philologist and acknowledged only the dancer and the Italian lady. When a limp Tintorer accompanied him to dingy street corners and the icy outskirts, the dog acted as if he were doing him a favor, as if he were reluctantly agreeing to being escorted by such a gray individual, such an obvious nonentity. However, Tintorer didn’t fiddle while Rome burned in this respect. He concluded that his gains made up for any recriminations from his self-esteem. One day he confessed that if he’d seen a crack in the ice in the canal from the Spree on one of those expeditions, he’d have thrown the dog down it, doing his utmost to ensure he was immediately covered by a solid slab of ice. But that winter was extremely harsh, and the canal didn’t shift one bit until the grassy banks showed the first fluff of spring.
Sra Piccioni went out of her way — always according to the philologist — to keep a hold on the lad from Granollers, but as soon as he began to feel fancy-free — to use current lingo — she decided he was beyond the pale, a fly-by-night, who flew little but never really landed. She showered him with her most positive, well-intentioned feelings, but was simply struck by a sense of Formiguera’s flightiness. She accepted that his departure was inevitable and tried to defer it as long as possible, using all kinds of flattery, and that was the state of play when I left Berlin.
It’s very likely this situation would have continued quite some time, if the inflation of the German mark had lasted. But everything in this world comes to an end: inflation yields to deflation, and Formiguera became unemployed. Certain easy ways of earning a living are linked to confidence in the currency, and morals depend on the price of money. The dancer decided Paris would be more favorable territory and he moved, despite the overtures Sra Piccioni alternated with lamentations.
When the philologist saw his bedroom was free once again, he tried to reinstate himself with his baggage and his piles of paper. The Italian lady refused him point-blank. She’d had a taste of the risqué and found anything else insipid. Faced by such an impasse Tintorer had no choice but to allege that he’d exhausted his research in Berlin and that it was vital to resume them in Paris.