On my very first visit to Café Bagatelle, clutching a beaten copy of Homage to Catalonia and a notebook in my right hand, the heavy door resisted my feeble tugs. My clumsy attempts attracted the attention of the mid-afternoon habitués, their heads turned in unison. They eyed me with a mixture of mockery and suspicion.
The monotone hum of the television above the bar clashed with the triumphant bells of the slot machines and the animated roar of conversation in a mundane cacophony. Cigarette smoke and hot oil clouded the warm air.
Today, my entry went unnoticed. Juan, the bartender, greeted me with an impatient friendliness and pointed to my usual corner table.
Nestled amidst the tangled alleyways below my new home, Bagatelle was a much more desirable haunt than the tourist bars on the hectic Rambla nearby. In here, I could avoid the lazy comforting crutch of other English speakers, who rarely strayed this far. It was 1986; a lot of people were fleeing the grey strictures of Britain, looking for an Iberian antidote, arriving in pairs and groups with instant access to a familiar web. For me, only real immersion would do. I didn’t want to hear a familiar language or stumble across a memory of my old life.
On only my second day in the city, I found the crumpled newspaper on the red chequered cloth near the bar, stunned by my early rush of good luck. The bold letters in the job advert were a sign of hope, almost an invitation.
Brushing away the coffee-soaked croissant crumbs, I scrutinised the street map, marvelling at the mysterious labyrinthine network of narrow, unexplored streets and alleys.
The proofreader’s office was only three blocks away. Fifteen minutes early for my appointment with Mr Carvallo, I lingered in the alley drinking the combined lunchtime aromas drifting out of the open café doors.
In the narrow space between the elevator and his office door, a wiry dark-haired man wearing a loud Hawaiian shirt and brown corduroy trousers peered unsmilingly at me through small gold glasses.
Pepe Carvallo didn’t usher me into the office; the interview was a terse exchange. He brusquely barked the questions and responded to my slow, considered responses with an impatient grimace.
“Monday at ten, then, Louisa,” he said.
With that scant information, I fled the building, irrationally optimistic that in my daily navigations between my apartment, Café Bagatelle and the Proof Readers Office, I would stamp my imprint on the barrio patchwork till I was one of theirs.
There hadn’t been space for reflection in the perpetual activity of the last months, only the somnolent neutrality of the flight. Suspended at the edge of an unexpected lull, the mid-afternoon emptiness in the cigarette-strewed bar transformed my exultation into melancholy.
Cine Melies was the ideal choice for a solitary Friday afternoon jaunt, a bright white square slightly hidden behind the grand old apartments with elaborate wrought-iron balconies.
My solid resolve concerning the past crumbled in front of the blackboard with the plastic letters, and I purchased a ticket for my favourite Hitchcock film, ‘Rear Window.’
There were only five people in the auditorium, scattered widely across the musty velvet seats, four women and one man. A familiar statuesque figure sat alone in the middle of the front row. She was wearing square red-rimmed glasses, her glossy, sleek, symmetrical hair cut into a perfect square
A tasselled shawl draped over one shoulder.
Was she sitting in a cafe, waiting on a metro platform or strolling down a Rambla? The lights dimmed, and I still hadn’t worked it out.
The shapes on the surface were no more than a vivid backdrop for my tangled morass of recollections, the voices a distant melange of sound; I wallowed in the memory of the time before; raspberry ripple ice cream melting onto the fresh fawn seats, snow splattered boots stumbling along the icy city streets, running breathlessly through the barriers for the last tube home to my inner-city flat.
I cursed my pathetic self-indulgence at succumbing so eagerly to the lure of last time squinting into the bright glare of early evening Iberian sunshine.
The new Spanish film would have been an excellent boost for my inadequate language skills.
Down in the whitewashed basement: tequila and salt, the relief of an unfamiliar beat, moving forward in the smoky darkness, which threw a welcome veil around my drunken dancing.
My night out ended with the approach of the British couple, cheerfully dodging their advances, I tottered towards the exit, crashing into a new arrival near the door—my head banging hard into the tall woman’s chest bone.
A familiar face peered down at me with imperious disinterest, her eyes remote brown pebbles flickering behind the red plastic squares. She was overdressed very elegantly in a blue linen boiler suit.
“So sorry, didn’t see you coming,” she shouted above the music.
An aroma of fried onions and roast chicken wafted through the entrance of the bustling Saturday market, a buzzing self-contained pod sheltered under its high glass roof. Bright purple bougainvillaea draped their blossoms over the sides of the mosaic pots, exuding a slight honeyish scent, but I chose the crimson roses for my empty, bright white apartment.
Lingering by a stall heaped with shiny green, red, and yellow peppers, I carefully selected the best ones, half-listening to the animated conversation by the fish stall. Looking up from the dome of peppers glimpsed her for the third time, noticing the red glasses first, and then her glossy hair and chic weekend attire, which hinted at moneyed bohemianism.
There was nothing metaphysical about this coincidence, I thought, contrasting my uncertain demeanour with her effortless grandeur. Maybe my instincts were good—seeing her again was reassuring; it just meant that I was going to all the best places of my own volition.
Awoken at dawn by the loud clatter of gas canister deliveries, Monday morning began bleakly: the exchange in the corridor didn’t augur anything promising, and the office was a grand description for the small attic room Pepe ushered me into.
“Call me Pepe,” he said curtly, pointing to my workspace: a heavy teak desk in front of a dusty sashed window that only opened slightly.
“You can work from ten to three,” Pepe shouted, distracted by the loud European buzz of his phone.
“Si si si.” He growled.
Stuffing a wad of papers into the leather suitcase he left, bidding me a hasty farewell.
My day’s work was stacked in a haphazard pile at the edge of the desk. Glitteringly awake after the strong black coffee, I ruthlessly trimmed the rambling, verbose articles, captivated by vivid glimpses into the tumultuous history of the city: its passionate political upheavals, architectural wonders and artistic triumphs, an education and re-education, everything was here.
I stood up shakily light-headed from the missed lunch, my day’s work finished.
A sign had appeared on the shiny brown door next to mine, a square gold plaque engraved boldly and poetically with the words.
CLINICA DE NOSTALGIA.
I lingered outside the door, head tilted, mesmerised by the dull rhythmic bang, bang, bang.
The door opened very slowly. Holding a claw hammer in her right hand with an air of casual insouciance, peering throughh her square red glasses, she eyed me impassively for a few seconds before speaking.
“Ah, hello, I’m Pepe’s sister Marta, and you must be the new employee,” she drawled, extending her hand languidly.
With a muttered goodbye, I scuttled towards the elevator with the pleasure of finishing work punctured by the sinister coincidence.
Pen in hand, I sipped my coffee, not sure what to scrawl on the postcard with the Gaudi building. With a dizzying flash of realisation, it came to me. It was here in Bagatelle I’d first glimpsed Marta, a local tourist from a more upmarket zone who’d dropped in briefly for anthropological purposes.
It was the day I found the newspaper.
Slowly savouring the last square of my tortilla slice, I clambered down from the high stool, wincing at the aggravatingly insistent demand for attention.
“Let’s talk.” Marta implored, tugging at my arm.
“Tomorrow would be better, my lunch breaks over,” I replied, hastening purposefully out of the café door.
A sudden heavy deluge of summer rain pinged on the awning of the café, and I craned my head uncomfortably to hear Marta’s muttered monologue, a mixture of confrontation and confession.
I raced obliviously through the waterlogged alleys, passing the snooker bar where I stopped for a few seconds and gazed distractedly through the tinted glass at the nonchalant groups of people propping up the bar, leaning over the pool table. The very British tableau wasn’t at all consoling.
Comforted by the smooth heat of my brandy coffee glass, I re-ran the brief revelatory encounter, imbuing it with an extra layer of sinister mystery, my mood seesawing from exhilaration to panic.
“You ok?” Juan, the bartender, asked.
“Yes, fine,” I said, touched by his unexpected solicitousness.
I’d found my perfect job, the thought that it was just bait wasn’t alarming at all if I could negotiate a way of continuing. All those articles did need editing … eventually.
Marta’s second request was an impossible demand. Was Marta’s stealthy pursuit threatening, or had I been shadowed by a mysterious guardian angel? It wasn’t a dilemma I could share with Juan; I didn’t want him to doubt my sanity just as he was beginning to treat me with familiar respect.
Emboldened by the warm kick of the brandy, I lifted the phone. Marta had been asleep.
“I’d like to continue my work if possible. I’m enjoying it very much,” I muttered emphatically.
“And the other matter?” Marta gruffly enquired.
“I’m sorry I can’t find any more patients that really wouldn’t be possible.”
The loud buzz of the dead tone echoed in my ear. Nothing had been resolved.
I dreamt about the Nostalgia Clinic on Sunday night. The plaque on the door was hugely magnified, and an air of sterility permeated the freshly painted room. Marta appeared shorter, paler and less substantial in the dream, her face a taut, white, expressionless mask.
“I have to find my patients; they wouldn’t find me,” Marta had stated matter-of-factly, her authoritative academic tones infusing the words with deadpan logic.
The spidery hands on the crooked wall clock scraped towards three, and my heart thumped faster. I’d been hopeful of a short respite before the experiment commenced.
A sharp rap on the door summoned me to the other room. One foot on the threshold of the Clinica de Nostalgia I surveyed the freshly painted room, which was nothing like the clinic in my dreams or my ramshackle office next door: a marine blue, gentle and sumptuous oasis ordered but not clinical.
There were only three objects on Marta’s uncluttered desk: a Moleskine notebook, a red glass paperweight and a photo of a smiling teenage boy on a beach. A subtle, soapy scent drifted from the jar of red roses in the corner.
“Sit down Sit down,” Marta exclaimed impatiently.
Reluctantly, I dragged my feet from the warm, yielding deep pile of the scarlet rug and sank into the deep cushions of the black swivel chair.
“Choose a memory, a pleasant memory “Marta commanded gently pressing my eyes shut with her fingertips, thrusting me instantly into the unknown vortex without any reassuring preamble.
Later on, I couldn’t understand why the Brighton memory had surfaced from the rich trove of memorable and cataclysmic days: it was simply a day at the seaside, a rare rendezvous with an old friend. We’d said goodbye in the small Georgian Square near the station, and she’d thrust a punnet of autumn blackberries into my hand, grown on her allotment.
“Happy travels!” she’d shouted at my retreating back as I entered the bustle of the train station, soporific from the sun and wind, my hair heavy with sea salt.
I floated in slow motion away from the rhythmic clickety-clack of the train speeding back into the airless city, transported gently back down in an invisible vessel into the peaceful stillness of the Nostalgia Clinic.
Gradually, my eyes adjusted to the contours of the room. Blurred shapes came into sharp focus. Marta’s sentinel form emerged slowly from the drifting haze.
I couldn’t tell how long I’d been away, felt the heavy exhaustion of awakening from a night of hectic dreams, though I hadn’t moved from my chair.
“Well, how was that?” Marta snapped.
“Fantastic,” I whispered hoarsely.
“Same time next week, then,” Marta said sternly, hastily ushering me out.
I strolled through the early evening clamour and clatter of the alleyways, hyper-alert to the vibrant cacophony, finally free of the impenetrable past-present conundrum.
“I’ve arrived,” I muttered at the blurred reflection in the elegant shoe shop window, calm in my new awareness; the past wasn’t a hostile adversary to be battled with: it didn’t need the total obliteration I’d sought. My memories were friendly allies savouring their textures, sounds and sensations briefly but fully ensured my smooth passage forward.
“Ah, happier today, Louisa,” Juan greeted me in the doorway of Bagatelle.
I sketched the lucky triangle in red felt tip on the thick white napkin: Bagatelle at the top, the proofreader’s office on the left and The Nostalgia Clinic on the right, amateurish beginnings of a personal map of the city.
I handed it to him, smiling.
“Bravo for your new life,” he said, pinning the napkin to the scrambled collage above the bar.
