The Woman in Valencia Read online

  Annie Perreault

  THE WOMAN IN VALENCIA

  Translated from the French by Ann Marie Boulanger

  Qc fiction

  Revision: Peter McCambridge

  Proofreading: David Warriner, Elizabeth West

  Book design: Folio infographie

  Cover & logo: Maison 1608 by Solisco

  Cover art: Spirit Level by Jordan Sullivan, jordan-sullivan.com

  Fiction editor: Peter McCambridge

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

  Copyright © 2018 Les Éditions Alto

  Originally published under the title La femme de Valence

  by Les Éditions Alto, 2018 (Québec City, Québec)

  Translation copyright © Ann Marie Boulanger

  ISBN 978-1-77186-237-0 pbk; 978-1-77186-238-7 epub; 978-1-77186-239-4 pdf

  Legal Deposit, 1st quarter 2021

  Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec

  Library and Archives Canada

  Published by QC Fiction, an imprint of Baraka Books

  Printed and bound in Québec

  TRADE DISTRIBUTION & RETURNS

  Canada - UTP Distribution: UTPdistribution.com

  United States & World - Independent Publishers Group: IPGbook.com

  We acknowledge the financial support for translation and promotion of the Société de développement des entreprises culturelles (SODEC), the Government of Québec tax credit for book publishing administered by SODEC, the Government of Canada, and the Canada Council for the Arts.

  Contents

  I

  THREE DAYS IN VALENCIA

  (THE ARBITRARY COLOUR OF THE SKY) THE WOMAN IN VALENCIA

  MONTREAL, SUMMER 2009 BARCELONA

  LEAVING BARCELONA

  AT THE TRAIN STATION

  ON THE TRAIN

  DISCOVERING VALENCIA

  STAYING IN VALENCIA: THE VALENCIA PALACE HOTEL

  GETTING AROUND VALENCIA

  DAY 2 ITINERARY: THE MAIN ATTRACTIONS

  WE MIGHT AS WELL FLY

  THREATS AND EMERGENCIES

  THE HOTEL AT NIGHT

  ROOM 714

  DAY 3 ITINERARY

  WORTH THE DETOUR: THE VALENCIA INSTITUTE OF MODERN ART

  PUERTA DE SERRANOS

  THE TRAIN RIDE

  BACK IN BARCELONA

  SITGES

  MONTREAL AIRPORT

  II

  RETURN TO VALENCIA

  (THE HOSTILE POINT ON THE HORIZON) THINGS TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE

  THE WEATHER OUTSIDE

  2025 VALENCIA MARATHON: STARTING LINE KILOMETRE 1

  KILOMETRE 2

  KILOMETRE 3

  KILOMETRE 4

  KILOMETRE 5

  TRAVELLING LIGHT WHEN TO LEAVE?

  AT THE AIRPORT

  TRAVELLING FOR A LIVING

  LANDING IN SPAIN

  THINGS SEEN AND DONE

  GETTING AROUND BARCELONA

  WHERE TO SLEEP?

  WHERE TO EAT?

  NOT TO BE MISSED: CULINARY DELICACIES

  BARCELONA ON A SHOESTRING

  KILOMETRE 6 KILOMETRE 7

  KILOMETRE 8

  KILOMETRE 9

  KILOMETRE 10

  THE TIME DIFFERENCE LEAVING BARCELONA

  TRAVEL BY TRAIN

  ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

  KILOMETRE 11 KILOMETRE 12

  KILOMETRE 13

  KILOMETRE 14

  KILOMETRE 15

  GETTING ORIENTED IN VALENCIA STAYING IN VALENCIA: THE VALENCIA PALACE HOTEL

  OFF THE BEATEN PATH: BENICALAP PARK

  GETTING AROUND VALENCIA

  KILOMETRE 16 KILOMETRE 17

  KILOMETRE 18

  KILOMETRE 19

  KILOMETRE 20

  NOT TO BE MISSED: PUERTA DE SERRANOS WHERE TO SLEEP?

  KILOMETRE 21.1 KILOMETRE 22

  KILOMETRE 23

  KILOMETRE 24

  KILOMETRE 25

  DAY 2 ITINERARY: THE MAIN ATTRACTIONS THE CATHEDRAL

  BLOCKING THE VIEW

  KILOMETRE 26 KILOMETRE 27

  KILOMETRE 28

  KILOMETRE 29

  KILOMETRE 30

  THREATS AND EMERGENCIES UNFORESEEN EVENTS

  KILOMETRE 31 KILOMETRE 32

  KILOMETRE 33

  KILOMETRE 34

  KILOMETRE 35

  HAIR CARE VALENCIA PALACE HOTEL

  THE LOCALS

  WORTH THE DETOUR: THE VALENCIA INSTITUTE OF MODERN ART

  NOT TO BE MISSED: MERCADO DE COLÓN

  IN THE CAR

  GETTING ORIENTED

  EL PERELLÓ

  KILOMETRE 36 KILOMETRE 37

  THE PRETTIEST BEACHES IN VALENCIA

  KILOMETRE 38 KILOMETRE 39

  THE SEA AT NIGHT

  KILOMETRE 40

  LEAVING VALENCIA

  KILOMETRE 41

  LEAVING

  42.2 KILOMETRES

  Points de repère

  Epigraphe

  Page de Titre

  “Indifference is the paralysis of the soul; it is premature death.”

  — Anton Chekhov, “A Boring Story”

  (translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky)

  “How to avoid going back? Get lost. I don’t know how. You’ll learn. I need some signpost to lead me astray. Make your mind a blank. Refuse to recognize familiar landmarks. Turn your steps towards the most hostile point on the horizon, towards the vast marshlands, bewilderingly criss-crossed by a thousand causeways.”

  — Marguerite Duras, The Vice-Consul (translated by Eileen Ellenbogen

  A terrible chill runs through your body when you think back to Valencia.

  And yet, it was August in a city by the sea, almost the end of summer vacation, the tail end of a suffocatingly hot summer. It happened next to the pool, when the light was at its peak.

  You were stretched out in what little shade there was to be had on a rooftop, your mind elsewhere. Not one for swanky hotels and bikinis, you were wearing a suit that you’d bought the day before, strings knotted tightly over your hipbones and around your neck. You were lazing on a deck chair, an open book resting on your stomach like a delicate paper tent. You had absolutely no expectations, other than soaking up the sun, getting a little rest, lazing in the tropical heat. Lying there limply, you were completely worry free, untroubled by any thoughts of the past, wanting nothing other than to be left alone. Through heavy eyelids, your gaze travelled idly between the sky, the perfectly straight row of empty lounge chairs, and the smattering of moles on your thigh like tiny black pinheads embedded in your flesh.

  You must’ve spent a good hour lounging like that, killing time, when you noticed something moving out of the corner of your eye, to your left. A woman was walking toward you. You turned to look over your shoulder and at that precise second, Valencia became—and would forever remain—a city of ice. The sky turned to grey, to concrete.

  You were the last person to speak to her. On the roof of the Valencia Palace Hotel, you did nothing to stop the withered blonde woman. You didn’t lay a hand on her shoulder, didn’t suggest that she sit or lie down, didn’t offer her a glass of water. You didn’t even light her cigarette when she fumbled with her lighter, wrist trembling as the blood dripped slowly from the large white dressing, which you stared at like it was the most ordinary thing in the world—a sweatband or a Band-Aid on an insect bite. You didn’t come up with the right thing to say, the righ
t thing to do, the right way to look at her. A loving mother though you were, a considerate person whose heart was normally in the right place, at that moment, you were completely unmoved. Uncaring. You were pure ice. An indifferent witness to the stranger’s distress, watching the events unfold in an inexplicable fog.

  It’s that fog that you returned to Spain to try to dispel, alone, six years after the fact. You booked a plane ticket to Barcelona, a train ticket to Valencia, and a room for three nights at the Valencia Palace Hotel.

  And now, here I am in Valencia, retracing your steps.

  I

  THREE DAYS IN VALENCIA

  (THE ARBITRARY COLOUR OF THE SKY)

  THE WOMAN IN VALENCIA

  That day, like every other day, the fish had glided back and forth overhead. With their necks craned backward and their mouths gaped open, the thousands of visitors to the Oceanogràfic aquarium had stood for an eternity watching them through the walls of a glass tunnel.

  For Claire Halde and the other tourists, the memory of these wriggling fish would eventually fade. So would the mental images of the orca and dolphin shows, despite the applause they’d earned. The penguinarium and its gentoos would also be forgotten, like the names and faces of so many of the people who come and go in our lives: classmates, neighbours, teachers, colleagues, one-night stands, travel companions.

  Most of the carefree schoolmates whose hands Claire had held in the schoolyard as a child, the smiles of the old ladies she’d greeted politely on the sidewalk, the voices of the many teachers who’d spent a hundred and eighty days a year screeching chalk across the blackboard, the bored co-workers she’d sat next to, pecking away at a yellowed QWERTY keyboard to pay for her tuition, and even some of the men she’d kissed hungrily in the dead of night: All will end up evaporating from her thoughts.

  But Claire Halde will never forget the woman in Valencia, the strange blonde who’d approached her that afternoon by the pool at the Valencia Palace Hotel. Claire clings stubbornly to her memory—her skin, face, voice, hair, expression—even though they’d co-existed for all of ten minutes, the time it had taken to exchange five sentences, to stare at one another in silence. Claire had never introduced herself or so much as asked the woman her name. She will forever remain “the woman in Valencia,” a fleeting ghost.

  *

  The woman’s skin tells the story of her life, a tale spun from the tremors that run through her body in places. The story, one of profound despair, is written plainly on her forehead, in deep horizontal lines that arch down to meet the ends of her eyebrows. The anguish is inscribed in the corners of her mouth, furrows cultivated by bitterness, fine lines etched by roughness and worry. Her flesh sags in places where more comfortable circumstances make for skin that is firmer and healthier, scrupulously cleansed and moisturized daily in front of gleaming mirrors, at spotless vanities. There’s never really anything alarming to be found on the surfaces disinfected and polished by foreign cleaning ladies, who pick up little pots of cream and shaving accessories without resentment. These bright, spacious bathrooms are worlds away from the sinks that reek of mildew, caulking eroded by colonies of black pinpricks that look like gnats, surrounded by cracked, peeling tiles splattered with blood, semen, urine and shit that no one ever bothers to clean. For the woman from the pool, in Valencia, sinks like these are par for the course: rust-streaked porcelain, bright orange stains blossoming from wet razors left lying on the counter. All that filth turns her stomach as she bends over to splash water on her face, pick her teeth with a fingernail, stare at herself in the mirror and assess the damage.

  *

  The woman makes her way toward the pool. First in a straight line, hips swaying in her skintight pencil skirt, long, gangly legs propelling her forward in fits and starts, then in a zigzagging pattern around the patio furniture. She looks like she’s searching for a particular spot, or a particular someone; her intention isn’t quite clear. The stiff fabric of her steel-grey skirt, a perma-press polyester vise gleaming in the sun, compresses her body into dejected folds. Against the bright sunlight, her silhouette is shockingly frail and bony. There’s tension in her hips, a tightness to her jaw. She’s wearing rather conservative heels and a tasteful blouse that’s partially unbuttoned, revealing a hint of waxy-looking skin underneath. Her hair is a faded blonde. At first glance, she looks like she might be foreign, Eastern European maybe. On her face, there’s a look of profound melancholy, and her eyes are bleak and lifeless. Her arms hang limply, and a large leather purse hooked over her wrist swings back and forth in the void, in time with her advancing steps.

  A trick of the eye makes the purse appear disproportionately heavy and awkward. The mauve tote bag, neither shiny nor matte, is broken in as only leather and hides can be after a certain amount of time. Aged and cracked, worn and dull, dried out in the creases—a fair representation of the woman herself. The woman who is now advancing on Claire Halde across the roof of the Valencia Palace Hotel.

  *

  In a corner set back slightly from the pool, a couple of vacationers are stretched out on fully extended lounge chairs, heads lolling, feet splayed out, bellies slack under layers of fat and skin bronzing in the sun. They could be dozing or simply daydreaming behind their dark glasses. They could be mannequins in a shop window.

  Claire watches her children float like starfish with their father in the pool. They’re having a ball. Jean was right: An afternoon swim is doing them good. It’s precisely the kind of treat they enjoy on holiday, but it wasn’t exactly how she’d pictured her trip to Valencia, forfeiting the charming streets of the Old Town, sacrificing an ocean view—all for a pool. And now the woman with the dead eyes has appeared and she’s speaking to Claire in a foreign language she doesn’t recognize. Claire answers her in Spanish, then in English, but she’s having trouble understanding her; the woman’s voice is hoarse, garbled, confused.

  “Can you help me? My bag, take my bag.”

  The woman puts the purse down at her feet, revealing a square of gauze taped over the veins on her right wrist.

  The dressing is white and carefully applied, like a nurse would do. Claire casts a sidelong glance at the pristine square covering the woman’s injury and her throat contracts.

  Blood is trickling from either side of the folded piece of white cotton, running in red rivulets down her alarmingly pale arm. The stranger ignores it, caught up in trying to unzip her bag. Her hands are shaking, and her movements are clumsy. Claire looks away, back to the pool and her children. She feels numb and everything sounds muffled, as though someone were holding her head underwater, blocking out all the noise on the surface. The flow of oxygen to her brain has slowed to a crawl. Claire has never seen anyone bleeding like that, from a self-inflicted wound. But she’s seen the scars before, once on a man at a party and another time on a young woman she’d worked with as a camp counsellor. Claire no longer remembers the names of these people who’d discreetly shown her the inside of their wrist, like a shared secret. Time had marched on over their skin. The cuts had closed, healed, faded.

  It dawns on Claire that the woman must’ve just come from a doctor’s office or been discharged from the psychiatric ward of a nearby hospital. But the blood is still flowing, streaming from her wrist onto her palm and down her fingers.

  Her eyes riveted to the dressing, Claire asks the woman if she needs help, suggests they call someone, summon an ambulance, drive her to a clinic. This seems to spook the woman.

  “No, no, no, no! No help, just the bag.”

  Claire backs off. She considers the possibility that the woman might be in the country illegally, that she has her reasons for not wanting to involve the authorities, just as she has her reasons for trying to take her life. The blood continues to run down the woman’s wrist, but she pays it no attention, rummaging frantically through her purse. Claire is seized with fright, imagining a gun, a knife, her children witnessing what’s abo
ut to happen. She’s paralyzed by the force of the premonition: This woman is going to shoot herself in the head, right here in front of me, in front of my son and daughter. The scenario is immediately replaced by the thought of the woman pulling a knife from her bag and threatening to slash Claire’s throat with it.

  Then, nothing. In Claire’s mind, thoughts and fears mingle with silence, then turn to hunks of glass and metal that collide, cracking and shattering into pieces. Time seems to be splintering in slow motion, like when someone drowns or a ship flounders in a storm. At that moment, nothing else exists but the purse, a gaping black hole that’s swallowing up the rooftop terrace, the pool, the kids floating like starfish on the water’s surface, the Valencian sky, the fifteen floors of the Valencia Palace, the lounge chair that Claire shrinks even further into.

  Finally, the woman pulls out a pack of Lucky Strikes. She offers one to Claire, who waves it away. With trembling fingers, the stranger lights a cigarette. She hands her bag to Claire and moves to a corner of the terrace to smoke. Claire sets the bag down on the end of her chaise longue and eyes it nervously, as though a rat might suddenly crawl out of it. She inspects a cut on her finger and checks her hands for blood.

  Claire doesn’t immediately grasp what’s happening. She watches her children playing in the pool. They’re laughing, clinging to their dad’s neck, splashing each other. They’re happy.

  She can’t have them see what’s going on with this woman. All her attention is focused on them: Protect the children, don’t scare the children.