CHAPTER 1
1980
Sometimes we feel an attraction toward certain people, a fondness that seems to be based on instinct rather than concrete reasons. The customers who came to her shop knew her as Beatrice. For her family and friends, the people who loved her, she was Bea. I met her in midsummer of 1980 and we quickly became inseparable. I was very young, my marriage was in trouble, and I was desperate to find a job. I didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted to do with my life. I was pulled this way and that by my dreams—perhaps from reading Octavio Paz and Emily Dickinson, or maybe Cortázar’s short stories. By the confused jumble of possible future lives that filled my head.
At that time, both of us had returned to our childhood homes in the Sarriá district of Barcelona. It was a tranquil, homey place. We’d come back for different reasons, though: I had left my husband after three years of marriage, whereas she’d returned from Canada to take over the running of the shop and the care of her mother, who had cancer.
In spite of the fact that Sarriá is part of a much larger city, its residents have known each other all their lives. When I was a little girl, I played jump rope on the sidewalks with the other children. There was almost no traffic, and on Saturdays, we kids ruled the streets on our bicycles, challenging each other to wild races and playing whatever games we could think up while at the same time running the errands the adults sent us on. During hide-and-seek we would take advantage of a momentary lapse in attention on the part of whoever was “it” to run and pick up a bottle of milk at the corner store, or go for a loaf of bread when it was someone else’s turn at hopscotch. But the best part of all was stopping at the newsstand before going home to buy the daily paper, my Tom Thumb comic books, and those paper dolls with the dresses you could cut out.
In those days, a hundred-peseta bill in my pocket made me feel almost wealthy. Those were different times, and Bea’s shop belonged to that period and that reality. It was a comfortable gathering place where sooner or later all the animals in the neighborhood and their owners turned up.
It was during that June, which promised to be sweltering, that the first crisis of my married life drove me to my parents’ house. The fact that neither my father nor my mother understood my reasons was annoying, though, truth be told, the reasons weren’t that clear. There was no one else, no infidelity. I’d simply gotten tired of marriage, and since I had no other place to live, I was forced to return to my childhood home in Barcelona. Despite its narrow lanes and old buildings, the neighborhood was a good one.
For the moment I didn’t want to go back to my husband Jorge. I needed time. I didn’t know if I should continue being married to him. Though I liked Jorge, I liked being in control of my own life more—end of story. That was just how it was.
My father was the founding partner of a small law firm on Avenida Diagonal and Rambla Catalunya that specialized in fiscal and mercantile law, but I refused to work for him. I was progressive in my thinking, so my ideas didn’t jive with his bourgeois lifestyle.
He focused on his lawsuits and making money, while my mother devoted herself to taking care of the house and devouring Spanish celebrity magazines like Hola. I, on the other hand, read Rosa Luxemburg, smoked weed, and hung out with intellectual friends of dubious reputation. I was at that stage of life where I thought I could be whatever I wanted and there was enough time to try everything. I thought the world belonged to me. As a demonstration of my rebellion and my independence, I looked for a job as a sales clerk when I left Jorge—a McJob, as the Americans would call it—that had nothing to do with the family business or my major. I fled from responsibility. My father had always dreamed I would take over his business, since I was an only child and he hoped I would continue his legacy. Of course I was well aware that working as a sales clerk wasn’t a promising beginning, but all I wanted was to make a living without having to use my brain too much.
I found a job for July in an establishment on the Sarriá town square, the Foix bakery. The person in charge had only to hear my name to hire me: I was from the neighborhood, from a good family. These criteria were enough to assure her I was trustworthy. I was replacing a clerk who had left. The job introduced me to the world of pastry: sponge cakes, puff pastry, croissants, custard and cream pastries . . .
The bakery was like my own sweet little planet. I rang up the customers dressed in a white uniform that gave off the intense aroma of chocolate. I’ll never forget the spongy texture of the buns I consumed daily. It was during that time that I began to see Beatrice every day.
With her mother Carmen, Beatrice ran a dog grooming salon near the bakery. It was on the same street—Mayor de Sarriá—as all the other businesses in the neighborhood. I didn’t know her personally, but I’d learned from my mother that she had studied in Paris and that just over a year ago she’d come home from Canada, where she’d worked as a professor.
When my grandmother died, my mother began to take Luck, our cocker spaniel, to Carmen’s grooming salon once a month. Both my father and I knew that these visits were not made solely for Luck’s benefit. The dog was merely a pretext that allowed her to speak to beings on the other side, since Carmen worked as a medium during the afternoons. My mother told us that both mother and daughter possessed extrasensory powers and communed with the dead, and that she went there to talk to my grandparents. Her visits seemed harmless enough to us—after all, neither Carmen nor Beatrice sold talismans or offered elixirs or love potions—so we left her in peace to attend her sessions. The truth was we found her fanciful stories entertaining and—why deny it?—I began to be intrigued.
In addition to functioning as a dog grooming salon and a gathering place for séances, Beatrice’s shop sold products for animals. The sign was simple but eye-catching: Keiko. At night, the large neon letters glowed and winked on and off on Mayor Street. According to my parents, the shop had been given that name in honor of a female Irish wolfhound that was always with Carmen and who had once saved her life. From that moment on, all the family dogs, whether male or female, cocker spaniels or German shepherds, had been called Keiko. A long time afterwards, I learned that keiko was a Japanese word that meant luck.
Meeting Beatrice became a personal challenge for me. I recall that I thought up a strategy to approach her since I didn’t dare enter her shop. One day when I was on my way home for the midday meal, I waited for her outside the shop while pretending to be loitering. Beatrice came out and closed the door, then immediately lit a cigarette, shielding the match with her hand. My intuition told me it was a good moment to speak to her, so I walked toward her. It was two in the afternoon and the street was quiet, the usual bustle of business hours over. I pretended to be reading the sign that had been taped up inside the window: Palms read and fortunes told. I stepped into the shade thrown by the balcony that protruded from the building’s façade.
“Is there something I can do for you?” she asked me. “We’re closed.”
“Actually, I was just reading your sign,” I answered.
As I spoke to Beatrice, the penetrating scent of her cologne mixed with the menthol smoke from the Chesterfield she had just lit enveloped me. Much later I was able to put a name to that fragrance: Eau Sauvage.
Despite my usual timidity, I told her rather boldly that I had come for a tarot reading. She gave me a long look before saying she was sorry, perhaps another time.
“Do you live near here?” she asked.
“Yes, just a couple hundred yards down the street,” I said, pointing.
“I’ll keep you company while I finish my cigarette and walk the dog. What’s your name?”
“Mónica. And you?” I said, using the formal form of address.
“Beatrice. I’m from Canada, but I’ve settled in Barcelona,” she answered with a smile.
She didn’t invite me to use the familiar form of address, from which I gathered that she wished to keep her distance; she clearly didn’t see me as her equal. People like Beatrice rub shoulders with the glitterati. They appear to be superior beings, and I have no doubt they are.
That encounter marked the beginning of a wonderful friendship. I’m sure my life wouldn’t have been the same if I hadn’t met her. Truth be told, I’m a dreamer. When I met her I sensed a strange connection between us. An invisible thread, intense and exciting. Something thrilled in my heart. Beatrice guessed that I was twenty-five. She could also tell I wasn’t entirely happy.
I think she liked me from the first moment. Her dog jumped up on me and licked me and instead of reacting in fear, I caressed its head affectionately. My friendly attitude toward the animal seemed to please her.
The next day I appeared at the shop at the same time as if by coincidence, and again we walked Keiko together. I got the impression she was happy to see me.
Mayor Street was the main thoroughfare that led to the Sarriá town square. Its sidewalks were narrow, so we took side streets that paralleled it. These streets had no restaurants or stores, but instead were lined with small old houses of one or two stories. At that hour of the day they seemed deserted, alien to the traffic passing by. We continued along Cornet I Mas and crossed the small Saint Vicenç square where I lived with my parents. When we reached the square we paused under the statue of the saint, sheltered from the blazing sun in his small recess in the chamfered façade.
Our walk took almost the same route we’d followed the day before, except that this time the conversation flowed easily and pleasantly. Despite its length, the walk seemed short to me. I enjoyed talking with her. Beatrice told amusing stories. She explained that her dog was lazy: when it rained he didn’t want to go out and would hang back in the doorway, refusing to budge because he didn’t like getting wet. She told me he was in love with a little neighborhood dog named Daisy with blond fur and a superior attitude. Whenever Keiko caught sight of her walking by with her owner, he would whine and sigh as if he were a person. Every afternoon around four o’clock, he would station himself by the window to wait for her. When Beatrice saw the disbelief on my face, she asked, “Are you surprised by love?”
Beatrice had tremendous personal magnetism. I wasn’t unaware of the talk around the neighborhood—it was rumored that she practiced hypnosis and enabled her “patients” to remember past lives. I’d heard things, and though I said nothing to her, I knew about her prestige as a magician from the comments of the neighbors and my mother.
Who was she? I wanted to earn her friendship no matter what it took, but I didn’t even know why. Or at least I didn’t know at first. Answering that question was like wondering why we like some people and dislike others even before we get to know them.
Working in the bakery, in the heart of the neighborhood, allowed me to see Beatrice daily, since she was a regular customer. She always came by around eleven in the morning and ate half a puff pastry and half a croissant. As if it were a carefully contemplated ritual, she would leave the other half of each pastry on the edge of her plate. She drank strong coffee with her pastries, and once she had finished, she would ask us to wrap up the two uneaten halves in aluminum foil, after which she would put the packet in her purse. Since the customers began to thin out by that time, I managed to find ways to chat with her. One morning, as if I knew all about it and it were the most normal question in the world, I asked her casually, “When could you hypnotize me?”
“Not yet,” she answered quite naturally, as if she’d expected the question. “Maybe later.”
“Does it cost a lot?”
“I never charge for it,” she said, bestowing a broad smile on me.
My mother had already told me she did it for free. What I’d really wanted was to get her talking about reincarnation, but her answers were always evasive and further attempts on my part were not successful.
Once, when I brought her her coffee, she said, “Don’t bring me sugar. Sugar is for special occasions, when matters of the heart are going well. Coffee should be taken bitter, like sorrow.” Her words surprised me, but with time, I understood that Beatrice had chosen them with a very specific purpose in mind.
Beatrice’s main virtue was her ability to root out sadness from people’s hearts. “Do you know why people are sad?” she asked me out of the blue one time. My imagination was too limited to know how to respond to questions like that. They always left me unnerved, paralyzed by the impossibility of putting my feelings into words. Perhaps I still lacked the ability to think critically, the necessary capacity for introspection.
One morning she came in with two other women. The older of the two paid for Beatrice’s order and explained, in a friendly way, “I’m Carmen, Beatrice’s mother, and this is her friend Patricia. Today there won’t be any halves left over because we ate them here. When she takes them with her, they’re for us.” She spoke in a heavy French accent.
At first I didn’t understand what she meant, but then I realized she was referring to the halves of puff pastry and croissant that I wrapped up for Beatrice in aluminum foil. The French way Carmen pronounced her R’s, even more evident at the beginning of a word, charmed me, and I smiled. She appeared to be in delicate health; her gestures were careful and she moved slowly.
Though I’d never seen her before, I had the feeling I knew her. I was careful not to mention that my mother had met them—I didn’t want them to associate me with her. I merely smiled when they introduced themselves. I must admit gossip really bores me, but meeting them made my need to know what they did in their shop even keener. When they said goodbye and left the bakery, a sudden blast from the air conditioner lifted several paper napkins into the air. I took it as a sign. Just then, the large display window of the bakery framed the central square of Sarriá under the dazzling sun. If I’d had some binoculars, I was sure I would have seen the three of them floating along the sidewalks of the square surrounded by a mystifying magnetic aura.
Thanks to the informal talks we had every morning, Beatrice and I began to know each other. We talked about many things, with the exception of hypnosis, which seemed to be a forbidden topic. She told me she’d studied literature and philosophy at the Sorbonne, that she’d worked in Canada as a professor and had had to return to Barcelona a little over a year ago because of her mother’s illness. Apparently she had family in Quebec. She asked me if I liked to read. When I answered in the affirmative, she wanted to know which books I’d read. I said I read whatever fell into my hands.
“And why do you read?” she asked.
“Because I enjoy it. It’s entertaining.”
“You just said you read whatever falls into your hands. That shows you’re an avid reader. When one does things avidly, one isn’t looking for mere entertainment. You’re looking for something more. I’ll ask you again: Why do you read, Mónica?” Beatrice’s attitude was solemn.
“I agree. You’re right,” I said, as if she’d caught me in an unpardonable lie. “I read because I like to observe human behavior. I like to analyze it, draw conclusions about it. I read because someday I’d like to . . .” I left the sentence unfinished.
“So you want to be a writer. You read because you want to write. You shouldn’t be afraid to express your desires,” she stated, then added, “Have you written anything?”
“Yes. Stories, a few poems— It’s not easy for me. I’ve had to fit writing in first with law school and now with this job. Writing requires a lot of time. Besides, I don’t even know if I have the talent for it.”
“One day you’ll understand, Mónica, that talent is a decision. When that moment arrives, nothing will be able to hold you back. Right now you’re in a state of crisis. You’re wondering if you should continue with your husband or not, and you want an immediate answer. Everything happens in its own time, Mónica. Don’t be afraid to take all the time you need,” she said, confident of her correct interpretation of the facts.
How did she know I was married? I hadn’t said anything to her about my matrimonial problems. The last thing I wanted was for my mother to get wind of them. I feared the barrage of questions that would follow. In my heart of hearts I wanted to believe I was simply in limbo about the situation, but I hadn’t counted on Beatrice being able to read my mind.
I blushed and she realized that talking to me about my husband threw me into a panic. Sensing that I preferred not to talk about my life, she desisted. Both of us enjoyed discussing literature and unraveling the secrets of the characters we liked. But Beatrice eventually conquered my shyness. She knew the classics and would talk to me about how those authors wrote. In an attempt to explain to me what Dostoevsky himself considered “fantastic realism,” she told me he devoured newspapers. “Don’t be afraid to experiment with formulas and techniques when you write. You may make mistakes, but you must be brave. At the end of a chapter, Dostoevsky would give a preview of the beginning of the next one, sometimes with good results, other times with bad.”
Beatrice talked to me many times about her childhood and I would tell her, in my own way, about that part of my life. I remember one day I explained to her that the first years of my life were special.
“Special? Why do you believe they were special?” she asked.
Sometimes her questions would hang in the air—I couldn’t find easy or immediate answers. Unfortunately, my childhood was nothing like the stories from Huckleberry Finn that I loved so much as a small child. In the first place, I belong to the female sex, and that, like it or not, defines one’s way of venturing upon life. Second, I tend to be a coward. Since I didn’t have a “widow’s house” to escape from, nor a Tom Sawyer to climb trees with—my little girlfriends were quite tame—my adventuring had to take place in the only places I had to hand: those in my imagination. Even now, in my bed, before sleep overtakes me, I daydream about traveling to unknown places.
I have fond memories of my natural sciences teacher at school, Mrs. Clavería. Apparently even then, when I was ten or so, my inventive abilities would land me in hot water. One time in class I made up a story, claiming I’d found a reddish stone on the beach at Comarruga that was from Mars.
“This stone is a piece of a meteorite full of good luck particles. The Martians brought it to me in their spaceship,” I recited glibly to the teacher in a completely serious voice.
The whole class burst out laughing at me. The teacher, a kindhearted older lady who enjoyed my fantasies, hushed the other students and asked me sweetly, “Do you know where Mars is?”
“Oh, yes,” I answered confidently. “When I’m traveling through the solar system, Mars is the fourth planet from the sun. It’s usually called the red planet. The rocks and ground and sky all have a reddish or rose-colored tint. Its name is taken from the Roman god of war. It’s a fabulous planet and we’re going to be able to live there in about two thousand years. My stone came from there. I come from that star. I’m made of stardust. Of that I’m sure.”
At my house I often heard stories of space told in a casual way. One of my father’s best friends, Joan Oró, worked at NASA and sent us pamphlets with prototypes of spaceships and satellite photos of the moon. I explained this to my teacher, but I don’t think it helped. She must have thought it was just another story I’d made up, because she only said in a pensive tone, “Of course, honey. Of course.”
I remember the wooden boxes that contained all sorts of natural stones and dissected insects, lined up in perfect rows, their names written below them in cursive script. I remember Mrs. Clavería with affection even though she scolded me because I spent my time in her class reading Lorca instead of listening to her explanations. She would say, “Mónica, pay attention! You’re always off in the clouds somewhere!”
Telling Beatrice these stories, I was unable to repress a few nostalgic tears. To me those memories are a gift that allows me to relive the best times of my life.
Beatrice had wonderful memories of her own school days. She had a great sense of humor. I would say she was “trained” to be happy, because her happiness had been obtained after much effort. She was one of those people who achieve the goals they’ve set for themselves because they pursue them tenaciously. Beatrice was very determined, a trait she was proud of. “The difficult part isn’t achieving your goal,” she would often say to me, “it’s sticking to it and maintaining it once you’ve achieved it.”
Her voice was seductive, perhaps because of the faint French accent that at times gave her away. I would watch her from behind the counter as she sipped her coffee. I examined her appearance, the way she gathered her hair back in a small bun, the way her eyes scrutinized everything with an intensity it was easy to perceive even behind the glasses she wore for nearsightedness.
At the end of July, by way of saying goodbye, I said to her as I wrapped up her puff pastry and croissant, “This will probably be my last week working here. I’ve finished filling in for the other employee.” All she said was, “Oh,” but when I held her gaze I could sense what she was thinking: The difficult part isn’t achieving your goal, it’s sticking to it and maintaining what you’ve achieved. I suppose she wanted to prepare me—she always anticipated events. At that moment I didn’t know if we would see each other again.
Actually, I was feeling quite nervous that day because I hadn’t been told by the bakery whether they would be renewing my contract. I could already hear my father: Didn’t I tell you? I don’t know what I have a business for, blah, blah, blah. The worst part was that I had no plans for August. I would have to endure his stormy sermons all summer. To add insult to injury, I’d lost my only chance to get away. A childhood friend with whom I’d planned a trip in case I couldn’t find a job had left me stranded and gone away with another group of friends. Since she’d preferred to go without me, I had no alternatives left. At the time, this was a real crisis for me. My supposed friend sent me an odd note, saying tersely, I’m going to Mallorca with some friends from the university. At first I thought her actions were motivated by what we could call feminine duplicity. I suppose that her manipulative nature made her believe that, since I’d separated from my husband, I was now “on the market” again and would therefore try to pick up the boy she liked. Women often do compete for men. “For every man there are two women ready to seduce him and make him their husband,” my mother used to tell me.
Those days I was a very attractive woman, but I didn’t take advantage of my looks because I wasn’t entirely convinced of my own appeal. I’ve never been very sure of myself. I didn’t know how to fix myself up and as a result I became insecure about my physical attractiveness. I had a hard time recognizing how successful I was with members of the opposite sex, which was why I couldn’t understand my friend’s jealousy. Besides, Jorge, my husband, hadn’t called me once during all those weeks. I thought he’d at least call me on my birthday, but he didn’t. When a marriage breaks up, it’s as though one has finished a job, I thought when I went to bed that night. At the same moment, the Sant Vicençs de Sarriá church bells rang out loudly, startling me.
The morning of my last day at work the sun was beating down and the manager of the bakery asked me to unroll the awning over the display window. The thermometer in the Caixa Catalunya office in the building across the street registered eighty-six degrees and the bright sunlight blinded me. The square was deserted. From outside, I saw Beatrice watching me from inside the bakery. When I went back inside, she said, “I’m going to give you a piece of advice, Mónica. Go with whoever is good. Goodness is soft and welcoming, like a teddy bear. The experience you’re going through right now should help you reflect and decide to surround yourself with people who exude goodness.”
How can we know if someone is good or bad? At that moment I didn’t ask her that question. If I think about the answer now, all I can say is that good and evil are never absolute in human beings. I suppose that good people find ways to make their lives worthwhile. At the time, however, I didn’t puzzle over such dilemmas. All I knew was that I was married, unhappy, and bored to death.
From the beginning, like an attentive observer, Beatrice was able to read my emotions. She was so subtle that, without saying anything directly to me, she intimated that all she had to do was look at me to know if I felt happy or sad. If my heartbeat was accelerated, she knew the reason. She wasn’t a normal woman. Nonetheless, my youth hindered me from seeing beyond the odd colors she dressed in, her quirky way of lighting her menthol cigarettes, the hats she wore to keep her curly hair under control, and her charming, intense, nearsighted gaze. These details fascinated me. She tended to wear simple, form-fitting, strapless dresses with no sleeves. Her legs were slender and, even with the flat sandals she wore, she was taller than I was. Our conversations overflowed with life. Her touching stories awakened in me a love for dogs and cats.
The restlessness of my character had caused me some problems in the past, and if luck hadn’t been on my side, those problems could have turned into serious situations. Four years earlier, when I was still at the university, I’d been a bit reckless: I drank too much and flirted with drugs. Jorge came into my life by sheer chance when I was almost finished with law school. He was the one who’d straightened me out somewhat. Even so, I found it extremely difficult to change my habits, and navigating the orderly world of marriage frayed my nerves. I couldn’t accustom myself to my new life. I was looking for something that had no name. My impulsive character pushed me to live life on fast forward. I felt like those ill-fated writers Anne Sexton or Sylvia Plath, constantly driven to extremes. When I married, I put my freedom on hold, which didn’t bode well for my marriage. I took frivolity to new levels. And naturally, what begins badly . . .
Even my reading revealed a certain inner chaos. I went from Hegel to Hola without a second thought. If I’d been able to recognize it, I would have realized my father was right. I was overwhelmed by the unstoppable energy of youth and though, as I’ve said, I was a bit of a coward by nature, that inner chaos pushed me to live life to the limit, one step away from danger. The contradiction between my character and my behavior fed my emotional instability.
When I talked to her about these things, Beatrice laughed at me. “You’re filling up entire closets with your memories,” she told me one morning, her Indian shawl tossed carelessly over her shoulders. “It’s just that those memories aren’t like clothes you can toss out. Memories weigh more.”
“I like the analogy,” I responded and, in an attempt at wit, added, “Now that you mention it, I think it would be better to dress only in my memories. My present is several sizes too small for me.”
Now I understand what I didn’t then. I didn’t see the light that shone from her eyes. Beatrice possessed the sort of madness found only in wise men, a madness relegated to silence while it burns brightly within. Nothing of what she said to me was idle talk and however much I longed to be subtle in my responses and worthy of her reflections, I inevitably ended up with more questions than answers. Her words, precisely measured, remained etched in some corner of my brain, awaiting the right moment, the moment when I would be able to fully comprehend them.
The morning I said goodbye to her, Beatrice gave me the best gift in the world: she invited me in to see her basement.
“I know you’re intrigued by the room in the basement. Come over tonight when I close the shop. You can have dinner with us and I’ll show it to you.”
“Perfect. I’m curious to learn some of your little secrets, Bea,” I answered in a casual tone, as if we’d been talking about a new dress she’d just bought herself. The truth was I was both moved and grateful. Such a gesture of intimacy on her part flustered me. I knew something was happening in that basement room that was going to impress me, and the mix of fear and anticipation I felt led me to downplay the invitation. Confronted with my obvious nervousness, Bea regaled me with a sweet, almost indulgent, smile and gave me a kiss on the cheek that calmed me, a kiss that told me to relax, that everything was fine.
That day many things changed between us. It was the first time I used the familiar form of address with her and I believe our friendship really began at that precise instant. I never called her Beatrice again. And it was undeniable that that very night I discovered the place that within only a few months would change my life, a peaceful space where a thousand and one spells were cast. In my mind, I began to refer to them as “works of magic.”
Beatrice lived with her friend Patricia and her mother in the same building where they’d opened the shop. From the moment she’d introduced me to them in the bakery, I’d liked both her mother and Patricia. Though we’d only exchanged a few words, they seemed interesting and I’d been left with the desire to see them again.
The house, halfway between the Sarriá square and Plaza Artós, was three stories high. The ground floor was the shop. It was where they sold every item imaginable for pets : diving goggles for dogs, collars, crates, combs, food dishes, treats, raincoats, what I think were baskets for pets to sleep in, medications, flea collars, leashes, balls, scales . . . There was a spacious mezzanine with a large window facing onto the street that was used as a grooming salon. It had two large tubs for bathing pets along with dryers, brushes, shampoos, colognes, scissors, an industrial vacuum cleaner, a few muzzles, etc.
The basement held a huge living room, accessible by a narrow passageway at the bottom of a steep stairway. The space that would change my way of understanding the world, and above all, of understanding Bea, was a perfect circle whose curved walls were lined with books.
When I entered the room, dozens of flickering candles in different colors were projecting shadows in the shape of animals. Adding the final touch to the ambience were satin draperies that hung from the ceiling. Two cozy sofas and two easy chairs with their corresponding ottomans created an elegant atmosphere at the center of the room. In one shadowy corner was a small round table where I imagined that Bea must have her crystal ball, hidden under a white cloth. This was merely an assumption on my part, because I couldn’t see it. Actually, I couldn’t bring myself to ask Bea to show it to me. I still felt insecure, as if Bea and her world weren’t completely within my reach.
The living room gave onto an enormous back garden, accessed through sliding glass doors. There was a small vegetable plot, a hundred-year-old fig tree, and a small shed with a wooden roof that might have been a greenhouse or a storage shed. It didn’t look as if it was used much. Through an open window on one side of the shed I glimpsed gardening implements, a few empty clay pots, some sacks of potting soil, and a metal shovel leaning against an old stove. Living room and garden formed a space that radiated serenity and peace.
That place was where Carmen and Bea exercised their fortune-telling arts: they read palms, the tarot, and according to some of the neighbors, communicated with spirits from the other side, using the crystal ball that in addition, had the power to cure spiritual ills. That was the place where they practiced hypnosis. In reality, the shop seemed like a space added on to a house that had been designed for living, a home. The decor of the upper rooms, the second floor and the attic, was also cozy, with comfortable armchairs, English colonial furniture, book-lined walls, and screens to separate the various spaces.
We had a lively dinner with Bea’s mother and her friend Patricia. The meal consisted of a cold supper of bread with tomatoes, ham, and cheese, and for dessert, homemade ice cream made from the wild strawberries that grew in a flowerbed at one end of the garden. Over dinner I told them of my plans for August. I’d decided at the last minute to join some of my old university friends on a trip they’d organized to New York.
“What will you do when you come home from your vacation?” one of them asked me.
“Look for work at some magazine or newspaper, I suppose. I’d like to spend all my time writing, but I’m not sure my father will approve. He wants me to work at his business, help him with paperwork. He thinks I’m lazy. I don’t really know what to do. What would you do in my place?”
Instead of answering my question, Bea said to me, “Come, let’s go up to the roof.” There she invited me to contemplate the moon. The fondness I felt for her made me confuse her sentimental intentions at that moment with a manifest lack of common sense. I thought Bea spent more time in the clouds than solidly planted on the earth, those same clouds that now obscured the moon. Its diffuse light shone faintly along the horizon. With my gaze I retraced the rows of houses with their terraces and the long street. I felt that I loved her as a real friend, that she was already part of me.
“It’s going to rain. Look, Keiko smells it. Besides, he’s wagging his tail in a different way than when he’s happy,” she said. Her face grew serious and she added, “Why don’t you try to mend your marriage?”
Fearing she was going to lecture me, I became defensive and, as I did with my parents, changed the subject. “The heat makes the crickets chirp. Can you hear them from the garden across the street? There’s not even a breath of air; everything’s so still up here. Do you come up to the roof often?”
A flash of disapproval showed on her face and she said in a low voice, “Don’t hide yourself from me. I’m a woman just like you, Mónica. I know love’s disappointments.”
With that simple phrase, it was as if she’d suddenly unlocked the prison cell in my heart where I kept a flood of repressed feelings locked up. We began to exchange confidences. Somewhere far away in the city, we could hear heavy metal music. The monotonous pounding sound made us smile.
Holding tightly to the railing around the rooftop, I looked down at the street and began to speak. “Jorge and I are taking some time apart to think about things. Maybe if I go to New York I can get some clarity. With my husband, everyday life is easy. Whatever money can buy is within my reach: expensive clothes, dinners out in the best restaurants, parties, concerts, theater, tennis, ski trips. But I’m tired of such a regimented life, all the dead time . . . Basically, I’m bored.”
“You’re taking the situation too much to heart,” Bea scolded me affably. “You need to learn to get some distance, to laugh at yourself. Don’t forget, half the world laughs at the other half. If you can achieve that skill, life will be better for you.”
I couldn’t understand how she could give such a superficial response to something that affected me so deeply. How was it possible she was daring to judge me? I stood there, paralyzed. It seemed she was sermonizing me. I felt confused, hurt by her words, and the blood rose to my face.
After a few seconds, Bea saw my expression and said, “Wait! I’ve upset you. Forgive me!” But I had taken her comments to heart.
Was I really in love with Jorge? Why couldn’t I just turn the page and move on? Analyzing something to death is stupid. Maybe there are no emotions that last a lifetime. Maybe I’d just gotten tired of him. As my father says, the problem is when there are children—and we didn’t have children. There was no reason to be so dramatic about it. The worst thing about a separation isn’t the pain and grief that grips your stomach for months afterwards, it’s the utterly gobsmacked look you wander around with when someone leaves you. I didn’t want to think about that too much because I felt guilty about leaving Jorge. I wanted to think about pleasant things. I was on Bea’s roof, in my own neighborhood. Night was falling over the rooftops and tiny points of light were beginning to shine forth from the houses. A pair of sparrows winged their way energetically overhead, frightened by the blare of a car horn.
“A vacation will do you good. It’s late; we should say goodnight,” she said kindly.
When we reached the landing, she pulled a little gold box out of her pocket. It contained a small red stone. My eyes opened wide.
“This is for you. If you ever feel sad, rub your fingers over it, Mónica. It will be your distress signal, your way of letting me know you need my help. It’s from Mars. Don’t give it away to anyone and always keep it with you because it will have a beneficial effect on you. Its power will always be with you. Magician’s honor!”
