Free Barcelona Shadows by Marc Pastor Page B

honourable business, and keeps us afloat.”
    “It’s like we’re begging for alms, with the few bits of lemon verbena we sell each week.”
    “Don’t look at it that way, woman.”
    I think Enriqueta lost respect for me the day I stopped calling her Miss.
    “And how do you want me to look at it? I used to have enough to live on and I could even allow myself a few indulgences. Look at me now, in these rags.”
    “But that was no way to live, my love.”
    “Don’t say such stupid things, it’s as if you’re an actor in a comedy, you’re pathetic.”
    She was cruel. She is cruel. Enriqueta knows how to cut you to the quick. I found it entirely unfair, because I had rescued her from a world where, day after day without fail, they beat her, humiliated her and took advantage of her. I know that she wasn’t happy, because Enriqueta doesn’t like… well, she likes to fuck but not like a man, you know? You know what I mean: we could spend all day in the honeypot, but women are different, and Enriqueta even more than most. I don’t mean she’s some nun, and she’s certainly not delicate or fragile, not by a long shot. I told you before, she’s a real animal in bed. But she doesn’t need it. Or she doesn’t need it physically, I don’t think. I discovered before long that she’d returned to some flat on the sly, and was back on the game. She’s not wanton, believe me, but it’s as ifthe money she made with me wasn’t enough. And I don’t earn a bad living. Have you seen my paintings? Later I’ll take you to my studio so you can see them, I’m sure you’ll buy one off me. Some say I make Ramon Casas look like an amateur, and that’s why he’s embarrassed even to brush past me—ha, ha, ha. Brush past me, you get it?
    The thing was I had to get her out of that world, and I took her to Majorca.

    Blackmouth and Enriqueta enter Àngel’s, a pub on Balmes Street that was so full of people so early that morning that anyone would have thought that they’d abolished the working day in Barcelona. Around the large barrels that serve as tables there are circles of men chatting, with a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other, and the waiter bustling about, serving Ratafias and conversation to whoever stops him first. Everything about Àngel is big: his head, his eyes, his hands, his heart and his dishes of soused anchovies, and when he walks it seems the place moves around him. He greets the woman and the boy who’ve just come in and he continues busily serving up breakfasts. Enriqueta points to a corner and Blackmouth looks over there.
    “Do you see them?”
    “See what?”
    “The children.”
    Blackmouth glances and counts three children of about eight years old.
    “But this place is packed.”
    “That means nobody’s looking at us.”
    “Ma’am, I… how can we?—”
    “Shut up. Talking will only draw attention. Act as if nothing’s going on.”
    Àngel passes in front of her and questions them with his gaze.
    “Bread and cheese,” she says, “and water.”
    Àngel pulls a face. Water? In this cold?
    They remain still, not chatting, contemplating the customers like someone at the picture show, distant, until after a bit Enriqueta elbows Blackmouth in the ribs. A man leads a boy by the hand (the same curls, the same nose; his son, obviously) to a door in the back, beside boxes filled with eggs. They go inside, and after a few seconds the man comes out alone.
    “Go there now.”
    “To the urinals?”
    “Don’t waste time.”
    “But the father is—” Blackmouth sees the woman’s decisive look, he gets up and walks towards the urinals.
    “If you can’t do it, you’re of no use to me,” she murmurs, almost imperceptibly.
    In the urinals there is, besides the boy, another man, and Blackmouth stays still as a wicker man. The boy is distracted, picking his nose with his finger, and his father reappears at the door.
    “Aren’t you supposed to be peeing?”
    The father enters and starts