Free Gaudi Afternoon by Barbara Wilson Page A

had used when talking yesterday. When they’d talked about being worried they’d said “he,” hadn’t they? But when Ben had joined them they’d talked about a “she.” Ben had said “she” in the restaurant.
    I set off along the Passeig de las Palmeras, up the road that wound itself around the hillside. Unlike the Doric columns that supported the plaza, the columns underneath me now were a forest of wildly tilted trees, encrusted with dusty brown stones. The crazy thing about Gaudí was that his structures were so absolutely sound, perfect parabolas capable of bearing enormous weight, and yet his surfaces were so irregular. They gave the appearance of being natural, of having been part of the planet for millennia, and at the same time looked completely new, completely unlike anything you’d seen before.
    Above the parabolic brown forest the road progressed in a stately, if precipitous, fashion around the curve of the spring green hill. At regular intervals were vast columns that held up nothing but the sky, rocks bleached a pinkish brown, great columns that resembled women marching slowly upwards with gargantuan baskets of fruits and vegetables on their heads, or a religious procession. The Festival of the Cacti, one could almost call it, for from the planters balanced on the columns spewed blades and spears, green-gray, desert-dry.
    There were grandmothers in black with children, resting on the benches set into the railing along the edge of the road, the railing airily pieced together from sharp rocks; there were tourists sweating with cameras and guidebooks, in sturdy shoes and sleeveless shirts. Finally I reached the top of the hill and, turning a corner, saw the three of them. April, High Tops and Delilah were seated on a bench in the shade. Even from a distance I could see that High Tops looked shaken, April serene and Delilah merely apathetic and tired. I was wondering whether to go up to them and say something (could I possibly remind April that she’d once rubbed my soles?), when I heard the sound of running behind me.
    â€œYou!” said Ben, astonished. Then he saw them ahead of us off the road.
    â€œHamilton,” said April dramatically. “You’ll never guess what almost happened!”
    â€œWhere have you been, Hamilton?” asked High Tops. “He never would have tried anything if you had been here.”
    Hamilton shook his head irritably.
    â€œThis is Brigid O’Shaughnessy,” he said. “And I think she knows more than she’s let on.”
    â€œWell, actually,” I said, “I think I’m more in the dark than any of you.”
    â€œLet’s begin at the beginning,” April said. “I’m April Schauer.”
    â€œI know,” I said. “You massaged my feet once.”
    â€œI did?” She seemed pleased. “You remembered me from that?”
    â€œApril,” High Tops said. “This woman’s name is not Brigid O’Shaughnessy. Not unless mine is Sam Spade.”
    â€œI’m Cassandra Reilly,” I admitted. “And who are you?”
    â€œMe?” she said, as if surprised I had to ask. “I’m Ben.”

7
    D ELILAH WAS NOT A PARTICULARLY attractive child, but small and spindly, with fair fine hair through which you could see her scalp, as fresh as a melon. Her ears were too large and when she grew up she would probably try to hide them, just as she would most likely adopt bangs to disguise the tall slant of her forehead. She wore her glasses as a child wears glasses, warily and resignedly. At six years old she already had the look of a child who has learned to be adaptable.
    Unlike the young children of my friends in London who sported six earrings in each ear and tee-shirts that said “Save the Rainforest,” Delilah was in a dress and sneakers. She wasn’t wearing any jewelry at all, nor did she have a slogan on her skinny little chest, and