Shall I go down this street? The Mora family live just around the corner. No. I’ll go this way today and pop round some other time to see what’s what.
If someone had told me I was going to live this life of doorbells and stairways, of brisk commerce and a briefcase full of froth, of playing the friendly pedlar from nine to five, I would never have believed them. Never. When I was a boy, I used to go bird’s-nesting and I had scabby knees. I used to smoke on the sly. Now I never smoke. I used to own a pellet gun. I have big hands, like cowboys in the Wild West. And by “I”, I mean this person who is me. This weary fellow who walks home bent beneath the weight of his briefcase, which, one day, grabbed hold of his hand like a dog and feels equally weary.
I think I must be slightly feverish. My mouth is dry. Probably from talking all that time with Señora Cobos or else from the heat. After something sweet, after honey, you need a drink of water.
“Afternoon, old girl! Give me three of those sweets, will you?”
Will they ever finish mending this road?
When I think about it, I haven’t bought any sweets in ages. They’re expensive though. Three sweets, one peseta fifty. A bit pricey, I reckon. Kids these days have money though. Or maybe these atomic-age children don’t eat sweets. Hmm. I expect that, proportionally, boys now have more money than us men. Most boys would have fifty centavos to buy themselves a sweet. And yet how hard a grown man has to work to accumulate forty times those fifty centavos. That’s all some men earn in a day. Twenty pesetas and a wife and children to support, because children are inevitable when all you have is a wife and no money. I have it pretty easy, really.
Yes, I must be feverish. I’m so hot. That’s all we need, for me to get ill as well. The two of us in bed. I’ve probably caught a chill. I’ll drink a glass of milk and brandy. A good glassful. But I’d better not say anything to Pili. No, I’m just tired; that’s all.
I’m really pleased I bought those sweets, though. Once you’re a grown-up, you tend not to buy them any more, as if they were for children only, and so we never again gaze with greedy wonder at the green or pink or yellow or red of a big boiled sweet. To boys, a sweet is like a temptation from their little inner devil, just as a neighbour’s beautiful, virtuous wife is for men. The old lady who sold them to me was very neat and well turned out, and she wore a white oversleeve on her right arm, like those women who sell curd cheese. Or like a confectioner. Not that the sleeve will be of much use to her. She probably assumed I was buying the sweets for my kids. But no, there are no kids, Señora. They’re all for me. I said: “Afternoon, old girl! Give me three of those sweets, will you?” And I struck lucky, just as if I’d won the lucky dip, a cherry one, a strawberry one and a lemon one. Each in its own paper wrapper bearing a picture of the corresponding fruit, juicy, ripe and scented. Now that’s what I call a sweet, the sort that fills your cheek and does battle with your teeth and floods your mouth with juice. Not the silent, sticky sort, that lingers on your molars like a slow fox trot, a sickly sweet nightmare, a friend to tooth decay. This strawberry one’s really good. And it’s cheaper than a beer. My daily beer at the Florida is in grave danger, I fear. I’m travelling back now into the old world of boiled sweets. They contain sugar and carbohydrates, which are, apparently, essential to a healthy diet, or so I read in the Reader’s Digest. My daily glass of beer is getting to be something of an extravagance. I mean, before you know it, the money’s gone.
“Good afternoon!”
I’ve no idea who that gentleman is. Neither has Pili. I asked her once and she said she didn’t know. He’s obviously confused me with someone else, but we always say hello. Still, it’s nice to know people. One day, he’ll stop greeting me. When he meets the other man, the one he thinks he’s saying hello to, the one he really does know. Or perhaps he’s just one of those friendly types who says hello to everyone. And why not? It’s not a bad way to get through life.
“Hi, Julia!”
Now I do know who she is. She’s the concierge. She rushes out, goes up the steps and opens the lift door for me. As she always does. It’s a modest house, but at least we have a lift. And gas on every floor. The lift is slow, of course. It’s a fairly rickety affair and noisy too. The buttons for the different floors are red. You can tell at once that it would have preferred to serve a different class of person and that it’s not happy here. Passing, as it does, people’s kitchen windows, it smells of fried food, and, on the roof, there are sometimes even discarded fish bones coated in dust and the ignominious curls of potato peelings. It’s a sad lift, going up and down all day, with no velvet walls and no seat.
I wonder if Pili’s feeling better. It’s the usual problem: pains around the waist, something to do with her ovaries. And she said her throat felt tight today too. Yes, this morning, when I looked, I thought I could see a small white mark on the left side. A spot. She’s probably been up dusting and cleaning the whole apartment. I sometimes think she’s a bit obsessive about housework. Often, when I come home, she makes me walk on the newspapers she’s put down in the corridor so that I don’t dirty the floor. At first, I tried to convince her that a corridor isn’t a paten or a mirror or a plate, but a path, the path you find in all apartments, one that you have to walk down in order to go from room to room. That was in the early days. I’ve long since given up trying.
Ah, I forgot to press the button to send the lift back down. There she is, yes, there she is, the nosy parker opposite, peering through the spyhole in her front door. It’s an odd thing, education. An educated person living in a world not his own — as is my case — is a person without hope. Unless, one day, I simply crack.
Right, have you had a good look at me? May I close my door now? If you haven’t had your fill, I can wait a little longer. Right, I’m sorry, that’s enough. If you’ll excuse me. Dreadful woman!
“Pili!”
The poor thing doesn’t look at all well.
“Do you want some water? Wait a moment.”
I go into the kitchen. There are four dirty pots in the sink. She must be feeling bad.
“Pilar! Piluca! Pilarín! You’re not well. You look really tired. Go to sleep. Don’t you worry about me. Of course, I know, but don’t worry. I know where everything is. I can sort myself out. I’ll find it. Yes, I know, first the fish and then the meat. And the salad. It’s so hot outside. You’re fine here in the bedroom, though, with the window open a bit; it’s much cooler.”
It’s going to be like last time. She really is in a bad way.
The fish! Let’s eat something. Here it is. It doesn’t look too fresh. It has a bit of a whiff about it, a smell that’s too penetrating, maternal somehow, almost sour. I can’t find the bread, but it doesn’t matter. No, it doesn’t matter, but finding the bread is, in fact, crucial. If Pili knew I was eating a meal without bread, she’d be out of that bed like a shot. I’ll have a snack later, around seven.
Now for the meat. And the salad. The meat tastes of nothing. It’s like chewing a piece of gum. It’s an exhausted piece of meat that’s left all its juice and colour and savour on the butcher’s marble slab. A piece of meat that deserves to be left in peace and given a decent burial. Chewing it actually leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I don’t know why, and I’m surprised really, but it does. And I don’t like the salad either. It’s green and bitter and sad. Too much brilliantine on its curls, I reckon. What a shame! It’s brought tears to my eyes. Must be the sight of all that greenery.