Authors: Josep Pla
The philologist looked at Formiguera who shrugged his shoulders. Then he looked at me. I sat there like a stuffed owl, my face unflinching. When
the lady placed her butt back on her chair, she drawled, “
Voglio tanto bene al signor Darsonval!
”
Darsonval was the
nom de guerre
of the dancer from Granollers, the one he used in the cabarets on Kurfürstendamm and Leipzigstrasse. It was a petulant, rather Gascon name he’d adopted in Montmartre that had shown itself to be useful in a number of different German localities.
The lady, introduced to me as Ada Piccioni, was a tall, mature middle-aged woman with luminous black hair, a dumpy, downbeat face, dark, smoldering eyes, moist lips, warm yellow skin and plump flesh. Her legs were rather the worse for wear, but she was still in good shape in terms of the taste of the day. She had a fluent, engaging way of talking, but – as shown by the scene over the pipe – her temper could get the better of her and then strident fury drove her words.
I was shocked by Tintorer’s obedient, submissive reaction to Sra Piccioni’s silly nonsense. In the course of my life I’ve had the opportunity to meet lots of subtenants, almost all the older ones I’ve known have shocked me with the canine docility they displayed towards their landladies. The philologist was still relatively young – I don’t think he could be over thirty-three – and that led me to grant him a certain independence of spirit as a subtenant. However, when I saw how speedily he extinguished his match and stuffed his pipe in his pocket, I realized he was a typical subtenant. I’ll go further: the ban Sra Piccioni had formulated so crudely would have infuriated most people, but he merely winced and smirked complaisantly in her direction, as if trying to highlight how quickly he had fallen into line.
The philologist was rather small and short in the leg, with an inchoate, egg-shaped paunch and a tiny, vigorous head. His face was almost hairless and his baldpate incipient but inevitable, his yellowish skin veering from mauve to the color of brown stew. His beady eyes sparkled, and his pencil
mustache sat above thin lips and a dearth of teeth while his ears flapped like two large vine-leaves. He dressed negligently, in shabby garments that contrasted with the ironed collar he always wore and the tie with a pearl pin. His shoes were big and heavy. His was that mixture of the lurid and eccentric that expressed the general indifference towards dress that set in after the First World War.
Although Tintorer was a man very marked by the studies he’d devoted years to – philological studies in which, as he himself admitted, he’d introduced not a single original idea, but several interesting critical perspectives – he had more or less picturesque, eccentric value. In the first place, he was clever at lots of things: he boasted that he was an excellent photographer despite the poor quality camera he owned. He was able to repair the electrical breakdowns that occasionally took place. He’d been a subtenant for long enough to know how to patch clothing and darn well – the invisible darn. He was generous and well-disposed, with a special talent for doing favors for the person under whose roof he was lodged. It was obvious that Sra Piccioni could get him to do everything she suggested, and that was why his friends from the café had often seen him with a shopping bag, going from the baker’s to the butcher’s or buying canned fish, potatoes, or a bottle of wine. He was reputed to be a good cook, but never of the dishes of the countries where he had lived in turn. His culinary skills were limited to offerings from our country, but, as cuisine isn’t for export and it’s practically impossible to cook good paella in Berlin, whenever he tried to practice them abroad everyone departed waving their hands in the air, feeling deeply skeptical. He was also fond of commonplaces, catchphrases gifted with the power to end an observation or close down a conversation lock, stock, and barrel. The ones he preferred were: it’s one big show; don’t fiddle while Rome burns; once bitten twice shy; less haste, more speed; in for a penny, in for a pound. That
meant that for almost instinctive reasons, in every exchange characterized by the philologist’s presence he inevitably had the last word. On first impression, his peculiar strategy seemed effective, suggesting as it did a depth of insight on the part of the person employing the commonplace. But when people saw through bitter experience that it was simply a reflex action, the philologist’s ready-made clichés simply exasperated.
The delight that contrasts always bring meant that the philologist’s phrase ‘Don’t fiddle while Rome burns’ is always linked in my imagination to the remark Sra Piccioni came out with in relation to Formiguera, or Darsonval, if you prefer. If Tintorer knows Italian – I told myself – he should possibly think about that unexpectedly tender ‘
voglio tanto bene
…’ she uttered. The possibility always exists (I thought) that Ada Piccioni harbors a soft spot for the infirm, even if she barely knows them, as is the case here. One sees all kinds of behavior under the sun and some (even though it’s one big show) are particularly unpleasant. What did the good lady really mean by that obsequious comment? Could it perhaps mean that she’ll throw out the philologist and replace him with Formiguera, alias Darsonval? I thought it was such an amusing prospect, especially considering my presence there, that if I didn’t burst out laughing, it was only because I didn’t want to risk having to launch into lengthy explanations.
I’ve just mentioned the chill that seemed to settle in on our arrival. We had to find a conversation topic, and we settled on the particularly harsh, unpleasant winter we were suffering. Sra Piccioni regaled us with stories of her long experience of the Berlin climate and wearisome winters in the German capital. What she said was interesting enough. Formiguera listened, intrigued; Tintorer was overawed, like most modest folk, in the presence of people they think are important. Serafí slept on. He sighed now and then, sighs probably triggered as much by his dream-life as by a deep sense of
well-being. As I felt Sra Piccioni still had a lot left to say, was still gushing, I decided to make an effort to sum up the situation in which I found myself.
“You bumped into Tintorer in the café, I told myself, and the first thing he said was that he’d been looking for me. As Formiguera had been invited to leave his lodgings and was refusing to go to hospital, the philologist had taken him to his rented room. Of course, that was a temporary measure, until he finds an adequate solution. To find one he asked me to accompany him, and we’ve been here some twenty minutes and nobody has yet said a word about the apparently urgent matter to be resolved. In fact, the only words uttered – the
li voglio tan bene
– show that the issue has
already
been resolved. Sra Piccioni uttered that sentence with such tender warmth, imbued it with such cloying emotion, that it is quite clear she wants the dancer to stay. This lady is experienced enough to know how to sort things out in the manner that best suits her. The fact is Formiguera will stay on here, and if he’s in the mood, rests, and looks after himself, he could be back dancing in the Kursaal within less than three weeks, at so much per dance – with mature ladies who might be fat or thin, though are more likely to be fat. If that’s how things are – I told myself – and it all points necessarily that way, what on earth is my role in this curious affair? What did Tintorer have in mind when he invited me here? Does he not have a clue or is he a total moron?”
Sra Piccioni interrupted her monologue and left the room. I made the most of her departure to ask Tintorer whether he didn’t think it time to mention the problem, because in any case I should be thinking about returning home. I said that employing the euphemisms imposed by the sick man’s presence. The philologist seemed overwhelmed by my insistence, and started replying but had said very little by the time Sra Piccioni returned carrying a large tray she set down on the table next to the chair where she
was sitting, flashing her sad teeth at the listless dancer. A magnificent dish of spaghetti was steaming on the tray, the thinnest angel-hair kind that brought to mind memorable restaurants in Rome. The pasta had been seasoned
alla bolognese
, with meat sauce and indispensable Parmesan cheese. A magnificent flask of Chianti, set alongside the horizontal dish, provided the admirable counterpoint of a vertical presence. Sra Piccioni offered Formiguera the splendors from her dish with such an effusion of sentiment that I don’t think she could have invented a more deliberate gesture to indicate that our presence was entirely
de trop
– and if I speak of
our
presence, it’s, naturally, because I’m including Tintorer. The dancer greeted the tray halfheartedly but as soon as he saw how expertly Sra Piccioni prepared the ingredients for his helping, all hesitancy seemed to abandon his weary head.
“It looks really tasty …!” I told the dancer.
“Bah … I suppose I’ve got to eat something or other,” he said with the lethargy the fug in clubs tends to nurture.
“And don’t they look tasty!” I heard the philologist whisper in my ear in a quivering voice discretion barely concealed.
Once he had tucked in, Formiguera had to make a real effort to show he was still so indifferent. Nonetheless, everybody observed his quickening fork movements. Sra Piccioni anxiously followed the parabola of every single one. When she saw everything was going exactly to plan, her face relaxed and she resumed her fascinating monologue on Berlin’s winter climate – ensuring that his glass of wine always received its requisite minimal top up.
I looked at Tintorer, and pitied him. His beady eyes moved alternately from Sra Piccioni to the pasta the dancer was devouring with increasing ardor. It was obvious – though he perhaps didn’t see it as yet – that his situation was becoming more fragile by the second. He’d brought me there to help
resolve the deplorable state of insecurity in which our compatriot found himself and in a few hours the situation had developed in such a way that everything suggested that the well-meaning philologist would soon be the one in a state of total flux. This turnabout was palpable. At least it was the conclusion I drew – a conclusion I’d equally have drawn before the spaghetti made its appearance, but the dish of pasta and half liter of Chianti with its almighty burden of emotion had brought final confirmation.
Sra Piccioni left the room with a tray that was considerably lighter. In her absence, the philologist turned to Formiguera and declared that Sra Piccioni was a fascinating woman; his statement provoked such an attack of hilarity in the dancer he had to stuff a handkerchief in his mouth, to avoid letting on how stupid he thought the individual who’d prompted it was, and to avoid over-emphasizing the excellent impact that small dinner party was having on his general state of health. Sra Piccioni soon reappeared with a magnificent apple pie – one of the excellent creations of German pastry-makers – with a perfect base and a magnificently tasty covering of preserved fruit. The dancer attacked that delicious concoction with relish while his Italian hostess resumed her description of the dramatic snowfalls over Berlin and Eastern Prussia in February 1921.
The situation of Tintorer – the situation in which I suspected the philologist would find himself very shortly, a hypothesis the appearance of the magnificent apple pie had only confirmed – was highly unpleasant: apart from a need to look for another room, something a veteran subtenant always feels will be an uphill struggle – nobody being more fixed in his ways than a subtenant – other more serious issues were at stake: he could easily lose two good friends. It was obvious that the philologist had fitted into Sra Piccioni’s household but hadn’t taken advantage of his situation. I mean advantage in the most general sense of that word, in the sense only our friend could
have explained as a subtenant. The lives of mature ladies with subtenants, the relationships between these recalcitrant loners and the mature ladies giving them shelter, are mysterious and full of constant surprises. Depending on the dancer’s reactions to the situation now unraveling, the philologist might be forced to cut free so as not to look a complete fool. In any case, it would be fatal blow, because his friends knew that when Formiguera was in the money he was an important lifeline for the philologist. The latter was poor. That much was unquestionable. He was poor, and, what’s more, was involved in a pursuit that might give lots of satisfaction, but was of little help in shedding the poverty that goes with academic pursuits. Besides, Tintorer was a man with appetites, with a hunger for the fine things in life – indeed, some said that was his downfall. I’ve never understood why such palpable, earthly desires always accompany the dire poverty, the inevitable poverty of intellectuals, that financial pauperisation brought about by the activity people call intellectual.
In this sense, Tintorer was a typical intellectual and that’s why the generous companionship of the dancer from Granollers was so helpful, a man who was very generous when he had money that he liked to share with his friends, one of the closest being the philologist. They were two people who complimented each other, especially when a good lunch or supper were involved, because, as they had nothing else in common, no topics of conversation, no possible source of dialogue, no mental or aesthetic affinities, they could only generate a flow of warm emotion via the chance appearance of a bottle of wine, a plate of jugged hare or a goose or duck leg, the tastiest of items in German cuisine. The legs of our web-footed friends the man from Granollers’ dance floor skills had allowed the philologist to savor enhanced his life, boosted his morale, and allowed him to make real advances in his study of subjects that were rather dry and dusty. The danger did now exist
that their friendship might be severed, or at least that the mutual attraction might go cold, and for the philologist, whose lack of income was renowned, it would be an outright disaster.
When I reached this point in my inner monologue, Sra Piccioni brought the dancer a cup of scented coffee. I decided it was time to leave. I stood up and said goodbye to my hostess; I wished my friend Formiguera a rapid recovery and, clearly glutted, he responded with a gloomy smile. Serafí was still curled up on the fluffy eiderdown, and I thought it best to let him be. Tintorer observed my movements with a deal of surprise and resigned to the inevitable, accompanied me to the front door. We crossed the passage into the hallway with small curtains that looked like a slightly extended puppet-theater stage.