One Day in the Life of Catalonia By eleven o’clock in the morning of a deep autumn day of 1952, I was sitting comfortably at my table in this lovely restaurant. Positioned strategically I could easily spy through the big glass wall the shop on the corner where the woman who would join me in a few minutes was still unsure of what purse to buy. She looked as beautiful as ever, clad in a white lace dress that delineated her outstanding body divinely. We just met. Maybe one and a half hour ago, but I fell in love with her rapidly when she smiled at me and said that her name was Pilar. Pilar Bou. Pilar was at the most close to twenty-three. Her voice was that of a nightingale praising a clear blue sky of spring. “Would you have lunch with me?” I ventured to ask not realizing that she was as hungry as I. “Enchanted,” she replied. My brown eyes turned green with excitement. Catalonia, being Catalonia, is full of surprises, and this exceptional street in Barcelona offered plenty of them. The quaint corner store where I met Pilar; this unavoidable restaurant; the fabulous bookstore across; the upper residences on both sides of the narrow Carrer…. When I saw Pilar, accompanied by the owner of the store, walking towards where I was dying of love at first sight my heart and my eyes betrayed me. The former skipped not one but two beats and my eyes could not see but her and only her. “Here, she is all yours.” The shop owner announced. After I kissed Pilar on her cheek and assisted her in removing her overcoat, my voice barely audible uttered “Red wine, and Paella for two, please. On second thought, bring just the wine, and an assortment of tapas.” “Very well, sir.” The pleasant waiter replied. Pilar and I exchanged smiles and I was quick to use words that helped me know her better. “So you are born and raised in this terrific soil. For how long has your family been in the area?” “Several generations, I guess.” She replied. “Is this your first visit? Josep, am I right?” Pilar added. “No, Inside I feel as if I just belong here.” I answered. “Yours is a Catalan name.” “Totally, my grandparents were peasants from Mollet Del Vallès and futilely killed during the civil war. Dad is from Andorra and Mother from Toulouse, France. I became an author and moved here.” “Are you looking for a dona?” Pilar dressed the question with a Catalonian smile. “Eventually, I think I’m near that point.” I answered with a ferocious grin. “Moi, I spent some years studying in Paris.” She said. “I came back with a PHD. That’s a city that really captivates me.” Pilar disclosed with words of certain pride. “Parlez-moi de toi, de ton rêves, et sur le choses que tu faites quand tu ne dormez pas.” I tested her French. “Puc provar la teva habilitat en Català?” Pilar avenged my indiscretion. “We understand each other very well. Try more wine, please.” With a broad smile I burried the hatchet. “”Tell me, Pilar. You, being so beautiful, must be fighting back an army of suitors daily. Correct?” “Not really.” Pilar promptly answered. “Even women get impressed by my looks. Nevertheless, that’s it. I’m an one-man woman. I have yet to find him.” She couldn’t have been more serious. Although the waiter did not mean to disturb us, I’m sure, he kept looking at Pilar” I did not like it. However, gawking eyes also sprang from most of the tables around. Is it a sin for a woman to be that beautiful? Somehow, I enjoyed their being jealous of me. Then she spoke of her childhood in the company of her beloved family. She walked me down the lane of their many years together and how her father encouraged her to pursue a career in her greatest desire: the arts. “I started painting at a very young age. I believe I was around five, of course, I do not consider my achievements then real paintings. We never framed them. May I have more wine? Please. My parents were heavy collectors of works of art and I am eternally happy to still live in a house that in a certain sense is a small museum; one piece at a time.” In her brief speech, Pilar told me of many wondrous things that touched me deeply and right away, I started dreaming of a life with her by mi side. It was too soon to pop the question though. After a while, the restaurant was with all its tables taken and ‘la barra’ busy with nice looking couples some of them having hot xocolata amb xurros. Everybody so elegantly dressed as if celebrating their joy of living. Pilar did not evince toward me any form of resistance, on the contrary, she looked, as if she had known me since childhood. “I would like to get to know your family.” I advanced. “Sure,” she answered. “Why don’t I arrange a visit for tonight? It would be lovely. Allow me to go and use the phone to call home.” She said as she got up. I jumped and ran my right arm around her waist. “I’ll accompany you.” Eyes of all colors followed Pilar and me to the phone booth. “Dad? Surprise! I got a friend I’m taking home for dinner. I know that both you and mother will shine in the kitchen. We’ll be arriving by seven. Love.” I beheld Pilar’s beauty as we walked back to the table with my arm still around that waist which gave her the shape of an hourglass. Pilar gave the impression of ignoring material attractions of any kind and her words always conveyed a spiritual sense that was easy to grasp. When she spoke she would fall into self-oblivion and concentrate all her attention on lucky me. I felt more and more that she was mine and I was not going to allow the world prevent that. She was already my own never-composed first symphony. Pilar smiled and whispered in my ear: “All set, Josep.” Back at our table, the dimmed light coming from the chandelier right above bathed Pilar’s loveliness in incandescent hues of undefined colors that transported me to celestial gardens. I, wanting to record the hour I visited Heaven, peeked at in my watch discreetly; Noon: the hour of the angels. Time walked at a moderate pace and I saw us like two souls formalizing a rendezvous on a strange planet full of gorgeous flowers. In a few hours, I’d be meeting her parents and that would push me very close to her. In a few hours I’d hear her say ‘yes.’ Romance took shelter in my heart. Pilar broke my spell, “I know you write, but I hope you enjoy reading as much as I do.” “I constantly read.” I let her know. “Is it not fabulous to immerse yourself in the world of written words?” Pilar asked with a fascinating spark in her hazel eyes. “I sometimes wonder if, as some authors claim, dead people come back to kill, or, just to feed on the flesh of the living.” My statement surprised her. “I guess that is possible while you are reading, but, once you close the book, reality says otherwise.” Pilar lectured nicely. I straightened my posture and commented on my view of literary characters. “Some characters in good fiction works lack the real stuff that defines humans. For instance, I believe that if there is such a thing as false prophets then there must be false humans.” “I do not get you.” Pilar looked inquisitive. “I Mean, some characters are given attributes that do not correspond to the definition of ‘person.’” Pilar’s eyes moved to the sides and back as if to check that nobody else had heard such view. “You never heard something like that?” I asked her, grabbing her tender hand. “Personhood, as defined today, conveys the idea of being conscious of being part of, and functioning in society according to standards willfully chosen or figured out by an individual. Personhood in the contemporary parlance suffers from extrapolations, alien invasions from the worlds of fantasy. Verb ‘to be’ has switched places with verb ‘to do.” “I agree with what you’re saying. People today seem determined to waste their lives according to deranged ideas they call their own.” Pilar stared at me, and then at the grandiose fresco on the ceiling. Then, at me again. “Even my friends,” she mentioned, they just pretend. They pretend heavily.” “That’s what I see, a generation who has no answers to anything but who pretends to know it all. Masters at complaining about what they do not see as part of that lethal world where they worship their goddess of ugliness. They become alive—barely—when death inhabits their bodies. Could it be that they just came back from the dead?” Pilar and I laughed and enjoyed more of the well-prepared excabetx de sardines, croquetes de pollastre I pernil, escalivada, and truita amb suc, and closed with granissat de cava. “We’re ready to go, Jordi. Bring my check, please.” “Yes, mister Josep; It’ll be ready in a jiffy for you to sign. It’s always a pleasure to have you back here.” Jordi, check in hand, approached our table, a few steps from the cash register. Suddenly, he froze in fear. Opening the main door of the restaurant, accompanied by the owner of the shop at the corner was a replica of the one sitting in front of me: Pilar. I rose to help Jordi with comforting words: “Be not afraid, Jordi. That’s just Candela. Pilar’s identical twin sister. Where one goes so does the other. Pilar got up to meet her sister and they exchanged sisterly kisses. “Now,” she said, “we can continue our shopping on our way home for a late dinner.” “Thanks for accompanying my sister, Mr. Llobet.” “It’s an honor.” “Let me sign, Jordi. Here! Your tip is included.” “You are always so generous. Thanks, Mr. Josep.” “It is a pleasure, Jordi. Good luck to you.” “Good rest of the day to all of you.” Pilar, Candela, and I, with my arm around Pilar, made a stop at the bookstore to collect some books that I had ordered. “One of them, How Not to Die, has not arrived. It will be here in about an hour. I’ll make sure it’ll be in your house before dinnertime tonight, Mr. Josep.” The bookseller promised. This narrow street loved obeying desires and Pilar had the desire to visit an old church. Erected in medieval times, and not far from where we were strolling stood proudly Sant Pau del Camp. “I must see the painted wooden carvings of saints.” Pilar demanded. “Here we go!” I echoed, with my arm around her waist. By six thirty-nine the three of us were boarding a taxi and at one minute to seven in front of Pilar’s home with both Mr. and Mrs. Bou running to meet us. Mr. Bou advanced, “Josep. welcome, Josep.” “You couldn’t have lovelier daughters.” I reciprocated. “I hope you’re really hungry.” Mrs. Bou almost sang. Once inside the house I sat Pilar in a chair prepared for the occasion. Her twin sister, Candela, observed patiently. “She must be so happy.” Candela whispered. The curtains were all drawn. Pilar, cataleptic, admired the flames sent forth by the hearth fire. She retained the same paradisiacal face she had had all day. No wonder she was the loveliest wood mannequin I ever bought. Mr. and Mrs. Bou, eager to show their love, said: “We are ready to become her parents. We can’t wait.” Candela and Pilar looked at each other with eyes of approval. Following an ancient ritual used for the first time in 1883 and which turned Pinocchio into a real boy, Candela, the lovely fairy after which Pilar was carved, said: “We are ready, master.” Pilar’s future parents joined their hands together around her and a majestic figure emerged from the flames. “By the fullness of your virtue and joie de vivre, I command you rise from your chair and become fully human.” These are the words spoken by Carlo Collodi, during this, his only visit to Catalunya. Candela kissed Pilar goodbye and slowly dematerialized returning to her home in the hearth. “My dream came true. I am a real woman.” Pilar recited with tears of happiness. Thirty days after, back at home from our honeymoon in Paris, Pilar, with her head resting on my lap, slept placidly. “Book in hand, I told myself. “I’ll start to read my copy of How Not to Die.” Gabriel M Alexander
Posted on: Wed, 04 Dec 2013 07:52:16 +0000
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