Authors: Josep Pla
Today I spoke to Roby, the young lame boy I thought must be Frau Berends’ nephew. He told me forcefully, absolutely sure of himself, that it’s fiddlesticks to think he is anyone’s nephew. I was astonished.
Roby is pitiful. Mystery surrounds that boy and he must know the truth, though he’s only ten years old. With his huge black shoe and woeful expression I can’t look at him without feeling moved. I know of no other child’s face with more anguished eyes and mouth. He has large, still blue eyes with
a touch of gray, wide-open and full of melancholy. His usual look is that of a simple soul – half-gawping mouth, hands in pockets, gangling body. Roby spends his days out of the house. I don’t know if he even eats with Frau Berends. He often comes back at ridiculous times of the day or night and when he does, he always plays with the kitten first. Roby lies in the passage and teases the cat with a paper ball or a piece of string or by making shadows on the wall with his fingers. The cat jumps, hits the wall, knocks his head against the bar in the chair and meows in pain. However, he knows Roby well, climbs onto his shoulder and wraps his back around his ear and his tail around the nape of his neck. The boy rewards him with somersaults and all kinds of games. You sometimes hear a loud noise in the middle of the night: it’s Roby’s wooden shoe that’s clumsily hit the floor while he’s clowning with the cat. This shoe is the only noise you hear in the house at night: it sometimes sounds more muffled, when Roby, who apparently doesn’t take his shoes off very often, hits the slats in his bed with the big one. On my first days there I found that noise acutely distressing. Now I’m used to it.
The big cat, on the other hand, can’t stand the boy. She’s an animal that can’t bear poorly dressed people. She tolerates Roby to an extent; her loathing isn’t so loud or offensive; in any case, the boy’s ripped elbows, the holes in his trousers, and stiff, messily cut hair don’t bring out the best in her.
She has other features that make her a cat for a lordlier establishment. She is fat, with fluffy, painfully flaccid legs and an eye veiled in blood like an arthritic burgher. And, for example, she won’t tolerate whistling in the house. If somebody does, she meows two or three times by way of a warning, then sidles treacherously up and bites the ankle of the offending individual. Like all intelligent beings, this cat recognizes the proper importance of heating. She’s fussy in matters of food: her stomach is as sensitive and demanding as an old
bon viveur’s
. She only likes one particular brand of Frankfurter, in
the evening only accepts fish. Frau Berends maintains that she likes to chew typewriter carbon paper – a must – and tobacco. Frau Berends is naturally inclined to emphasize the qualities and traits of the beast. Naturally, she exaggerates. That cat is hardly different from any other living being in this world. Though it’s hopeless! Pet owners will always believe that theirs is the most intelligent or sensible around.
In this household, Frau Berends and the cat represent the past, tradition, and order; Roby and the kitten, the future, revolution and instability. As a matter of taste I’d prefer to be on Roby’s side, but I recognize, albeit reluctantly, that I have one leg in the other camp. Roby’s still eyes and sorrowful air have stolen my heart but I respect the cat’s stomach and Frau Berends’ rude spirit. One must be objective in this world and accept it as it is – to echo the words uttered by that elegant gentleman when acknowledging that someone had trampled on a recalcitrant corn and made him see stars.
In my previous letter I said I was the only subtenant in the house. However, another gentleman moved in recently: Herr Brandt. He is middle-aged, shy, law-abiding, and unobtrusive. He is a draftsman. There’s sometimes a light on in his room at night. Otherwise he often arrives back very late and seems to grope his way along the passage. His is the sad, ravaged face of a man who has spent his entire life in lodgings and is perhaps fated to continue there forever.
You may be wondering why I’ve embarked on such detailed explanations, and what I have in mind. I expect it’s rather futile an excuse but now and then I find self-justification heartening. If I have succeeded in giving you an idea of where I am and of the society surrounding me, I feel I won’t have wasted my time – apart from the fact that I am much more relaxed after writing this letter to you. Yours put the fear of God into me. I now think I’m less of an unknown quantity than I was at four o’clock. Keyserling the
writer – who is currently on everyone’s lips here – had no choice but to go round the world to discover himself. I’ve been once round this neighborhood and house and feel much better.
Remember me and write to me.
Adéu
.
I’ve completely recovered from influenza and today, Sunday, 14 December, Berlin, venture into the street. It’s two o’clock. The city is covered in snow, but the air is dry. The snow in the street is frozen, dirty, trampled underfoot, and yellowish. The snow on the trees, in sheltered spots, on cornices and roofs is soft and white. Is it white? I wonder why sometimes when observing a snow-swept city or landscape, I’ve sometimes thought it was black. It’s a distilled kind of cold. My face must still look quite poorly. What’s more, I’ve had several sleepless nights. Feverish hallucinations, delirium prompted by being so bedridden, and complete inertia have tired me out. I feel frail, and shriveled in the head. My body reacts to the cold in the street by seeming drained and weary. The freezing cold of my leather hatband stings my forehead. The hard, icy snow makes my legs buckle. It’s sunny, but the hard, dull sunlight gives out no heat. The sky is a pale, diluted blue and fading quickly. Men and women look like big black balls in their thick greatcoats. Silence hangs heavily in the air. The sunlight reflected from a house’s windows dazzles me as does the ubiquitous frozen pumpkin hue. My God, what a winter! The temperature changes so abruptly, with rapid lows and highs of cold. When the icy cold starts to freeze, the air stiffens, your skin stretches like rubber and turns sallow with bloody blotches; everything shrinks and withers. When a thaw sets in, and a short, mellow spring surges in the air, the blood rushes back to your skin and turns you into a daring, voluptuous cat. Perhaps the erotic belongs to countries that freeze. These warmer spells are pleasing but in my view they don’t compensate for the
searing pain inflicted by the deep lows. All in all Barcelona must have the best of temperatures. At this time of day – I think – there will be butterflies on Tibidabo. Seen from here those butterflies seem ordered specially, but so what? I come to a street corner. Three lengthy, identical streets extend before me. I can go straight on, take a right or left turn.
Which will I choose?
I wonder ingenuously. In the end I give up on my stroll.
Now
, I think,
it’s about finding a café that’s not too gloomy
.
I spot a tavern on Berlinerstrasse. A neighborhood tavern, the milk of human kindness. As I walk in, the warmth seems putrid. I sit down at a table where a middle-aged man is already seated; he’s wearing a bowler hat, a black suit, and his eyes are a watery blue. The café is in the half dark, the electric light doesn’t meet the challenge. Even so, at first glance, I think the man opposite is Herr Brandt, who rents Frau Berends’ other room. He’s staring at a bottle of ersatz curaçao. I can see he is knocking it back. I take another glance. I’ve seen him only two or three times in the three months he’s been lodging in our household. There’s no doubt about it: it
is
Herr Brandt. He’s a potato purée color; his delicate hands are white, a corrosive chloride white, with swollen webs of veins. He smokes a cigarette in a holder; his eyes look glazed and doltish; he’s now eyeing the bottle in disgust. An incoherent word emerges between puffs, as if from between his teeth. The waiter’s eyes imply: “He’s pathetic, but a good soul …”
It’s quite obvious Herr Brandt doesn’t have the slightest notion that an acquaintance – a fellow lodger – is sitting at his table. Nothing indicates that he has recognized me. He’s sozzled. Sweet liqueur – how dreadful! I don’t know what to do: whether to forget it or introduce myself.
In the meantime, I survey the café. There’s a table where a card school is solemnly studying every card as if they were important industrialists or bankers. Here and there, a handful of blind drunkards are irrevocably losing
it. There’s a family that looks as if they’ve just been to a funeral; father in tailcoat, top hat and stiff, protruding starched shirt; mother a blonde, with pale radish colored skin under a posh, vertical hat, all just so, a genuine throwback to the Kaiser and the Kiel regattas. Their children seem out of a bazaar. It’s obvious their presence in the café is the result of long deliberations. They want to enjoy themselves but don’t know how. They want to be happy but don’t know where to begin. In the end, seeing that their efforts are in vain they wearily pose as if for a photograph. Local folk at the bar: drivers, tram workers, passersby and two or three sallow men, clearly postmen, with caps without peaks, a red button in the middle of a white circle. A German colossus stands behind the counter, with a gleaming, shaven head – a giant from the lakes or forests. His ear lobes are particularly striking. The lobes of a prehistoric man from the forests of Germany.
All of a sudden, the man at my table – Herr Brandt – lurches towards me, stretches his arm threateningly over the wood – his face sagging into a scowl that would rather be a grin – and tries to grip a button of my overcoat between his trembling fingertips. However, before he articulates the first word, I take the initiative: “How are you, Herr Brandt …?”
He stares at me almost steadily for a time, wipes his brow and blurts confusedly: “Oh, it’s you? What a coincidence! Though it makes no difference … Right now I’m not really myself … I don’t know who I am … We are just two ordinary fellows … I’ve drunk too much.… That’s blindingly obvious. When I drink, I feel like talking …”
“Go on, Herr Brandt …”
“Herr Brandt, Herr Brandt …! No matter, it makes no odds …”
After uttering that last sentence he looked pensive and fell silent. He wanted to say something but didn’t know where to start. I acted as if I couldn’t care less, given that nothing is more ridiculous than trying to
galvanize the mental processes of a drunkard. He downed another shot, lit another cigarette and shut up again. After a while, making a real effort, he asked much more politely: “Are you a bachelor?”
“Of course …” I answered smiling pleasantly.
“A subtenant and bachelor like me.”
“Nothing much we can do about that.”
“What it is to be a subtenant!”
“Why?”
“Because we are evil beasts …”
“Most likely! But that’s not so strange …”
“What’s that?”
“I was saying it’s not so strange …”
“That’s odd! Did you say that? I tell you it
is
very peculiar. I share your ideas about subtenants. No, it’s not so strange that we subtenants are such evil beasts.”
“Perhaps we lack something …” I responded offhandedly.
“Something, do you say? More like the lot! Don’t you think? I, for example, would love to be married. I’d like … I imagine it must feel so nice. A man marries and people listen to him. That’s highly important.”
When he said that, I couldn’t tell whether he was being ironic. What I did see was that he said it with immense conviction. In any case, I did think his head was clearing and the glazed doltish expression fading from his face.
“So, if you like the idea,” I asked, “why don’t you? Some women are truly angelic …”
“Oh really?” he responded quickly, perking up, his eyes popping at my fantastic suggestion.
“Of course! They are like angels. You’d be more relaxed, you’d eat better, your ill temper would go. Why don’t you? You wouldn’t find it so hard …”
“There’s no cure now …” he declared after a short pause, looking at the end of his tether.
“It’s too late. When I should have done it, it was impossible to date. And now it’s surely impossible.”
“It’s never impossible.”
“Forgive me! It is!” he rasped bringing his eyes within an inch of my face. “It’s totally impossible.”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“And do you know why?” he asked benignly. “It’s simple enough. Ten years ago I was one man. Now I’m another. Now I have two faces. We subtenants are people with two faces. Don’t you believe me? We don’t know what we want. We are violent and weak.”
“Weak, do you say?”
“Yes, that’s right. Don’t doubt it for one minute. We can’t live without being dominated and find domination intolerable. We are suspicious yet irresistibly attracted to what is obscure. Isn’t it strange? And yet, do you see? This kind of attitude spoils everything. Generous, well-disposed people make advances … and we don’t notice. We lock and bar ourselves in. We mistake black for white. So there’s no cure in this life, it is a wretched, intolerable situation …”
He seemed to have relaxed a little. He wearily removed his hat. A bald, starkly white head appeared with the consistency and color of lard: slightly pointed at the top, tiny droplets of sweat on its flaky skin. Then he sat straight.
“Do have a glass of curaçao …” he suggested.
“No thank you.”
“Are you in a hurry? Some days everybody is in a hurry!”
“No, but no thanks. I’m a beer drinker.”
“Obviously, I don’t mind what it is, as long as it’s a sweet liqueur. Don’t
think I’m a drunkard. I’ve only just started. The fact is I couldn’t get used to hard liquor. I started drinking,” he continued as if in a daydream, when I lodged at Frau Dening’s. I started cold. One day I went into a café and rather than asking for tea with lemon I ordered a kümmel. I really took to it. But perhaps that in and of itself wouldn’t have mattered. It’s got much worse since I moved into this Frau Berends’ house. There are days when I’d kill for a drink.”
A moment of calm followed. Then I suddenly saw him look up rather crazily and stare at me, half ironic and half delirious.
Where are we at?
I wondered.
Is this guy seeing the light or sinking into the mire?
Evidently he was increasingly anxious to communicate his inner feelings and perhaps what was holding him back was the knowledge that I lived in the same house. His was a coherent if rather fractured story.