The Skating Rink

If I must live then let it be

rudderless, in delirium

Mario Santiago

Remo Morán:

The first time I saw him, it was in the Calle Bucareli

The first time I saw him, it was in the Calle Bucareli, in
Mexico City, that is, back in the vague shifty territory of our adolescence,
the province of hardened poets, on a night of heavy fog, which slowed the
traffic and prompted conversations about that odd phenomenon, so rare in
Mexico City at night, at least as far as I can remember. Before he was
introduced to me, at the door of the Café La Habana, I heard his deep
velvety voice, the one thing that hasn’t changed over the years. He said:
This is just the night for Jack. He was referring to Jack the Ripper, but
his voice seemed to be conjuring lawless territories, where anything was
possible. We were adolescents, all of us, but seasoned already, and poets,
so we laughed. The stranger’s name was Gaspar Heredia, Gasparín to his
casual friends and enemies. I can still remember the fog seeping in under
the revolving doors and the wisecracks flying back and forth. Faces and
lamps barely emerged from the gloom, and, wrapped in that cloak, everyone
seemed enthusiastic and ignorant, fragmentary and innocent, as in fact we
were. Now we’re thousands of miles from the Café La Habana, and the fog is
thicker than it was back then, better still for Jack the Ripper. From the
Calle Bucareli, in Mexico City, to murder, you must be
thinking . . . But it’s not like that at all, which is why
I’m telling you this story . . .

Gaspar Heredia:

I came to Z, from Barcelona, halfway through the spring

I came to Z, from Barcelona, halfway through the spring. I had hardly
any money left, but wasn’t too worried, because there was a job waiting for me
in Z. Remo Morán, who I hadn’t seen for many years, although I was always
hearing about him, except for a while there when he disappeared off the radar,
had offered me a season’s work, from May to September; the offer came through a
mutual friend. I should point out that I didn’t ask for the job; I hadn’t been
in touch with Morán, and never intended to come and live in Z. It’s true we’d
been friends, but a long time before, and I’m not the sort to ask for charity.
Until then I’d been sharing an apartment with three other people in the Chinese
quarter, and things weren’t going as badly as you might think. After a few
months, my legal situation in Spain became, however, to put it mildly,
precarious: without residency or a work permit, I was, and am, living
indefinitely in a kind of purgatory until I can scrape up enough money to
get out of the country or hire a lawyer to sort out my papers. And of
course that’s a dream, for a foreigner like me with little or nothing to call
his own. But anyway, things weren’t going too badly. I had a long series of
casual jobs, from manning a newspaper stand on the Ramblas to sewing up leather
bags in a sweatshop with a rickety old Singer, and that was how I earned enough
to eat, go to the movies and pay for my room. One day I met Mónica, a Chilean
girl who had a stall in the Ramblas; we got talking and it turned out that both
of us had been friends with Remo Morán, at different times in our lives: I’d met
him years before, while she’d gotten to know him more recently in Europe and
seen him pretty often. She told me he was living in Z (I knew he was somewhere
in Spain) and said it would be crazy, given my situation, not to visit him or at
least give him a call. And ask for help? Naturally I did nothing of the sort.
Remo and I had drifted too far apart, and I didn’t want to bother him. So I went
on living or surviving, it depended, until one day Mónica told me that she’d
seen Remo Morán in a bar in Barcelona, and when she’d explained my situation,
he’d said I should go straight to Z, where he could find me a place to live and
a job for the summer at least. Morán remembered me! I have to admit I didn’t
have any better offers, and up until then my prospects had been as black as a
bucket of motor oil. The idea of it appealed to me too. There was nothing to
keep me in Barcelona; I was just getting over the worst flu of my life (I still
had a fever when I got to Z), and the mere thought of spending five months by
the sea made me smile like an idiot. All I had to do was jump on the train that
runs up the coast. No sooner said than done: I filled my backpack with books and
clothes, and cleared off. I gave away everything I couldn’t carry. As the train
drew out of the Estación de Francia, I thought: I’m never living in Barcelona
again. Get thee behind me! No regrets! By the time I reached Mataró I had begun
to forget the faces I was leaving behind . . . But that’s just a
figure of speech, of course, you never really forget . . .

Enric Rosquelles:

Until a few years ago I was a typical mild-mannered guy

Until a few years ago I was a typical mild-mannered guy; ask my
family, my friends, my junior colleagues, anyone who came into contact with me.
They’ll all tell you I’m the last person you’d expect to be involved in a crime.
My life is orderly and even rather austere. I don’t smoke or drink much; I
hardly go out at night. I’m known as a hard worker: if I have to, I can work a
sixteen-hour day without flagging. I was awarded my psychology degree at the age
of twenty-two, and it would be false modesty not to mention that I was one of
the top students in my class. At the moment I’m studying law; in fact, I should
have finished the degree already, but I decided to take things easy. I’m in no
hurry. To tell you the truth I often think it was a mistake to enroll in law
school. Why am I putting myself through this? It’s more and more of a drag as
the years go by. Which doesn’t mean I’m going to give up. I never give up.
Sometimes I’m slow and sometimes I’m quick—part tortoise, part Achilles—but I
never give up. It has to be admitted, however, that it’s not easy to work and
study at the same time, and as I was saying, my job is generally intense and
demanding. Of course it’s my own fault. I’m the one who set the pace. Which
makes me wonder, if you’ll allow me a digression, why I took on so much in the
first place. I don’t know. Sometimes things get away from me. Sometimes I think
my behavior was inexcusable. But then, other times, I think: I was walking
around in a daze, mostly. Lying awake all night, as I have done recently, hasn’t
helped me find any answers. Nor have the abuse and insults to which I have,
apparently, been subjected. All I know for sure is that I took on too much
responsibility too soon. For a brief, happy period of my life I worked as a
psychologist with a group of maladjusted children. I should have stuck to that,
but there are things you can only understand years later, with the benefit of
hindsight. And anyway I think it’s normal for a young man to want to improve
himself, to have ambitions and goals. I did, anyway. That was what brought me to
Z, not long after the socialists won the municipal elections for the first time.
Pilar needed someone to manage the Social Services Department, and they chose
me. My CV wasn’t monumental, but there was enough in it to qualify me for the
job, which was complicated and, as in many socialist municipalities, almost
experimental. Naturally, I’m a paid-up party member (unless, that is, they’ve
already made an example of me by publicly revoking my membership) but that had
nothing to do with their final decision: they went through my application with a
fine-tooth comb, and those first six months were exhausting, not to mention
turbulent. I’d like to take this opportunity to speak out against those who are
trying to claim that Pilar was somehow implicated in this shameful affair. She
didn’t give me the job as a personal favor, although in the course of her two
terms in office (say what you like, the citizens of Z love their mayor!) we did,
I am proud to say, become friends, companions in hardship and in hope, and, for
me, that friendship extended to her husband Enric Gibert i Vilamajó, whose first
name I am honored to share. The vultures with press passess can print what they
like. If Pilar ever erred, it was in granting me her trust, more and more fully
as time went by. If you examine the state of the various departments before my
arrival and, say, two years afterward, it’s immediately clear that I was the
driving force behind the Z city council, its muscles and its brain. It didn’t
matter how tired I was, I always got on with my work, and often took on the work
of others. I also provoked resentment and envy, even within my own team. I know
that many of my junior colleagues secretly hated me. Gradually, I became
irritable and bitter. I confess that I never imagined spending the rest of my
life in Z: a professional should always aspire to greater things. In my case I
would have been delighted to undertake a similar job in Barcelona or at least in
Gerona. I’m not ashamed to admit that I often dreamed of being summoned by the
mayor of a great capital to manage a bold project for the prevention of
delinquency or drug abuse. I had already done all I could do in Z. Pilar
wasn’t going to be mayor forever, and what would become of me when she was gone,
what sort of politicians would I have to bow and scrape to? Such were the fears
I tried to assuage as I drove home each night. Alone and exhausted each and
every night. When I think of all the things I had to do, everything I had to
swallow and stomach, all on my own! Until I met Nuria and the plan for the
Palacio Benvingut came to me . . .

Remo Morán:

It’s true: in May I found a job for Gaspar Heredia

It’s true: in May I found a job for Gaspar Heredia, Gasparín to his
friends, a Mexican, a poet, and flat broke at the time. I’d never have admitted
it, but I was in a state of nervous agitation as I anticipated his arrival. And
yet when he appeared at the door of the Cartago, I hardly recognized him. The
years had taken their toll. We gave each other a hug, and that was it. I often
think that if we’d got talking or gone for a walk along the beach, and then
drunk a bottle of cognac and broken down crying or laughed until dawn, I’d be
telling a different story now. But after we hugged, a mask of ice clamped itself
over my face, preventing the slightest expression of friendship. I knew he was
helpless, small and alone, perched on his stool at the bar, but I did nothing.
Was I ashamed? Had his presence in Z released some kind of monster? I don’t
know. Maybe I thought I’d seen a ghost, and in those days I found ghosts
extremely unpleasant. Not any more. Now, on the contrary, they brighten up my
afternoons. It was after midnight when we left the Cartago, and I couldn’t even
bring myself to try to make conversation. Still, although he was silent too, I
sensed he was happy. At the campground’s office, El Carajillo (“coffee with a
dash”), as he was known, had the television on and didn’t notice us. We kept on
going. The tent that was to be Gaspar’s home had been pitched off to one side,
next to the tool shed. It had to be in a relatively quiet place, since he would
be sleeping during the day. Gasparín was perfectly content; in his deep voice he
said it would be like living out in the country. As far as I know, he’s lived in
cities all his life. On one side of the tent there was a tiny pine, more like a
Christmas tree than the sort of pine you normally find in a campground. (Because
the spot had been chosen by Alex, and he was always playing some
incomprehensible mind game, I couldn’t help trying to guess at its arcane
significance. Was Gasparín like a Christmas present?) After that I took him to
the washrooms and showed him how the showers worked, and then we went back to
reception. That was it. I didn’t see him again until a week later, or something
like that. Gasparín and El Carajillo became good friends. It’s hard not to be
friends with El Carajillo. Gasparín worked the standard hours for a night
watchman, from ten at night till eight in the morning. Night watchmen sleep on
the job, that’s par for the course. The pay was good, better than the other
campgrounds, and there wasn’t too much work, although Gasparín had to do most of
it. El Carajillo is very old and almost always too drunk to go out and do the
rounds at four in the morning. Meals were provided by the company: that is, me.
Gasparín could have breakfast, lunch and dinner at the Cartago, and he didn’t
have to pay a peseta. Sometimes I checked with the waiters: Did the night
watchman come for lunch? Does he usually have dinner here? How long since he’s
been in? And sometimes, though less often, I would ask: Have you seen him
writing? Scribbling in the margins of a book? Or staring at the moon like a
wolf? I didn’t persist, though, mainly because I didn’t have
time. . . . Or rather, I was busy with things that had nothing to
do with the distant shrunken figure of Gaspar Heredia, who seemed to be turning
his back on the world, giving nothing away, hiding who he was and what he was
made of, and the courage it had taken to keep on walking (or running, more like
it!) toward the darkness, toward the heights . . .