The Woman in Valencia Page 8

  GETTING AROUND BARCELONA

  After arriving in the Catalan capital, Claire wades into the August heat; it’s early afternoon and the last patrons are making their way off the patios, restaurant owners are pulling down their steel grates, people are sluggish from too much meat, wine and dessert, full up with small talk. The sidewalks are sizzling, and the air is heavy with humidity. Claire’s feet are dragging, and her shoulder is aching from pulling her bag awkwardly behind her. Her fingers grip the sticky handle of the rolling suitcase, a medium-sized receptacle that holds everything she’ll need for her trip. Dresses and paperbacks, shampoo and sandals, a few running outfits, a bathing suit, sunscreen, a light sweater for the cool evenings. Every now and then, the case bumps over a stray pebble, a crack in the sidewalk or an uneven paving stone and teeters like a woman who’s had too much to drink.

  She has an appointment at three o’clock to pick up the keys for a tiny room she’s booked through Airbnb. She’s hungry and tired, already tired, and the trip is just getting started.

  WHERE TO SLEEP?

  Claire had laid the full weight of her eyelids on hundreds of pillows in her years as a traveller. Between sheets worn thin by other bodies, she’d woken up to the sound of the muezzin calling the believers to prayer, the cacophony of howler monkeys, the strident wake-up calls of roosters, the admonishments of mothers scolding their brood. Her memory had eventually dimmed on the string of nights and rooms, the exact moments of drifting off and waking up, and even the dreams—the succession of chills, nightmares and sweats in borrowed beds. Only vague impressions remained of laundromat smells, damp, creased cotton, springs creaking and insects scuttling about in cheap rooms, rough woollen blankets rasping in sleeper cars. But she clearly remembered the obese rats scurrying in the ceiling, the throat-clearing, coughing and spitting in the adjacent rooms, sometimes accompanied by shameless cries of ecstasy, and she could still see the white mice darting past her feet, their red eyes gleaming, gnawing at the walls and leaving piles of droppings behind in the dresser drawers.

  During her nights plagued by insomnia, she’d been hyper-aware of the slightest sounds: the gurgling of the radiator, the whirling of the fan, the creaking of a door in the hallway, the breathing of travel companions with whom she’d shared rooms, beds, or ships’ cabins on long ocean crossings. Yes, for years, Claire Halde had preferred changes of scenery to life in one place.

  WHERE TO EAT?

  The metal implements click against the porcelain, blade slicing back and forth, fork spearing a pea. Staring across the checkered tablecloth at the empty chair across from her, Claire spins the delicate teaspoon counterclockwise, an idle movement designed to kill time. Her neighbour to the left is doing the same thing, sawing away with knife and fork at a particularly sinewy bit—seems the stew on the menu of the day wasn’t such a great choice, after all. He dips his knife into the dainty butter dish, tears apart a roll in a shower of crumbs, and butters his bread meticulously. His chewing is ill-mannered, his bites man-sized, clearly the appetite of a guy who’s worked all his life, who earns a living from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., then again from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. He checks his watch often and looks at Claire only once, out of the corner of his eye; he smiles vaguely and turns his attention back to his flan, jabbing it repeatedly with his spoon, polishing it off in four bites. He raises his hand to call for a coffee, then to summon the bill. Claire is still stretching out her dessert, a berry sorbet, which she nibbles through pursed lips, like someone who’s not crazy about cold food or fruit. Time passes in a succession of tiny bites, and the sorbet melts. After all that, it’s almost 3 p.m.

  NOT TO BE MISSED: CULINARY DELICACIES

  During her travels, Claire Halde had sampled a variety of foods with either curiosity or indifference: exotic fruits; traditional dishes; bland, pasty gruels; local sweets; Turkish delights that had stuck to the roof of her mouth in the streets of Istanbul; assorted confections; Italian ices; and myriad varieties of rice, kasha, flatbreads, fried breads and soft breads. In the port city of one of the Maluku Islands, she’d savoured a pineapple that she’d never forget, its juices running down her wrist while she waited for a cargo ship that was taking its sweet time docking. On the Trans-Siberian Railway, she’d drunk countless cups of tea and eaten a pot of rhubarb jam (a gift for the train ride to the Urals) with a tiny spoon. In Warsaw, she’d downed her first-ever cup of coffee, a bitter Turkish brew, in one gulp. Somewhere in the middle of the Indian Ocean, she’d been laid flat by seasickness, puking up her meal over the railing: salty noodles in a greasy broth, the lone menu item on the Ambon-Surabaya crossing. And again, years later, head pounding and pinned to her bed in the middle of a storm on an expedition through the Patagonian fjords, she’d choked down her bile only to spew it up again into a coffee mug that had quickly overflowed, all the while trying to fix her eyes and plant her hands on something—anything—that wasn’t already pitching and heaving in the ship’s cabin, which wouldn’t stop spinning.

  She’d tied one on more than once on the road, relishing the burning sensation of the vodka, arak and rum, mixed with fresh juices and luscious fruits plucked straight from the tree: mangoes, rambutans, mangosteens and others whose names she’ll never know. Then there had been the warm milk, manioc, breakfasts of fish and boiled callaloo, seafood soups in the Valparaíso market at night and, in the markets of Asia, bowls of fragrant, steaming broth floating with chunks of mystery meat and strange-tasting balls that looked suspiciously like animal testicles. What else? Thali eaten off banana leaves, staining fingernails yellow with turmeric. Small packets of sticky rice wrapped up like trinkets bought from old ladies in train stations. Green almonds picked in a garden in Santiago. Curries and peppers hot enough to make her eyes water. The unforgettable flavours of her journeys, like a travelogue engraved on her taste buds.

  BARCELONA ON A SHOESTRING

  Her room is in a quaint building at the end of a sloped, flower-lined alley. Assorted cacti stand in pots next to the front door, which gives onto a gloomy stairwell. Claire hauls her suitcase up to the third floor.

  Her hosts greet her warmly, show her around the room, hand her a set of keys, give her the wi-fi password and explain how the gas stove and shower work.

  Claire sits down on the narrow bed, suddenly overwhelmed by an exhaustion that runs deeper than just the regular sluggishness of jet lag. The room is so cramped that the single bed barely fits into the space along the wall, to the left of the door. She has to slide her suitcase under the bed to make room to move around. A tiny window looks out onto the neighbours’ patio. The place is lacking in charm, but Claire tells herself that it’ll do. It’s only somewhere to sleep, to rest for a while before heading back to Valencia.

  She stretches out, smooths the wrinkles from her dress, searches for a pen in her bag. On the back of her boarding pass, she jots down a few reminders before they slip her mind:

  Buy train ticket

  Book room at Valencia Palace

  Run → Parc de les Aigües or beach

  (map out 25–30 km)

  Go back to Sagrada Família

  Find address of place they keep unclaimed bodies

  Buy postcards for kids

  Hairdresser?

  KILOMETRE 6

  … a slight incline, no sweat, the fastest marathon in Spain, I chose well for my first marathon, no hills, elevation that doesn’t aggravate my calf injury, the shooting pain that developed this summer after my hill sprint workouts, there’s the campus on my right, the road’s widening out here, finally some room to breathe, some people have already slowed down, quick glance at my watch,

  all good, five minutes thirty-eight seconds per kilometre, sidelong glance at the gardens planted down the middle of Avenida de Blasco Ibáñez: neatly trimmed shrubbery, hedges and gravel, leafy trees, a fountain,

  it’s November and everything’s still green, it’s pretty, I’d pictured the city as being shabbier,
dirtier, from reading your journals, I’d never have guessed that Valencia was so beautiful, back then you were living under what Dad called a “black cloud,” always seeing the glass as half empty, it took a while for your friends and family to realize, to admit that it wasn’t just a passing phase, you were never the same after Valencia, but what they couldn’t know is that after that trip to Spain, a part of you—the sweet, sunny part—would never quite make it back…

  KILOMETRE 7

  … I’m trailing behind a man, fortyish I’d say, the word Guide printed on his back, he’s attached at the wrist to a woman wearing an orange vest emblazoned with Blind in black letters, people are applauding her and cheering her on, a chill runs down my spine, I grin, see what you’re missing, Mama, we could be here together running in Valencia, together like these two, mother and daughter, side by side, crossing one of your fiftieth-birthday wishes off the list… I wonder what the point is of running without being able to see what’s in front of you, how it feels to depend so completely on someone else, to experience the movements, sounds and smells without any outside interference, to move about in the dark and match your pace to someone else’s, maybe they’re a couple, I speed up slightly to pass them, I need quiet so I can focus, I can’t stand shouting and displays of emotion, they make me uncomfortable, like hugs, I look at my watch, I’ve been running for about half an hour, not very long, but it went by fast, I do the math: one-sixth of the course, one-third of a half-marathon, still three hundred metres to go before kilometre seven, seven kilometres, that’s a round trip between my apartment and the architecture department, I’ve done that run hundreds of times…

  KILOMETRE 8

  … I’m entering my comfort zone now, forty minutes, that’s how long it takes to get to that state where I lose all sense of myself, a second wind, a different kind of effort, a mild floating sensation, like a cushion of air under my feet, I feel powerful and free, I notice smells, sounds and the quality of the light, for a second I register the faces of the people in the crowds, I high-five the kids, I finger the energy gel in my pocket, won’t be long now, can’t miss the next water station, must tear open the pouch before I reach the tables, that’s my biggest fear—collapsing because I miscalculated my fluids and carbs, I hate it when I can feel my body starting to weaken, when the little stars appear in front of my eyes and the back of my neck starts to tingle, I remember that day, not long after we got back from Spain, when you went for a run in the country, it was a Sunday and it was really hot out, it was the first time you’d gone for such a long run, three hours just a few weeks out from your first marathon, we’d waited to have supper with you, the noodles had all clumped together in the strainer, Dad was getting impatient and was about to go looking for you in the car, Léon had started crying because he was hungry and scared that you’d been attacked by a bear that had wandered out of the forest, we’d just sat down at the table and started eating without you when you staggered in, dripping with sweat, I remember Dad yelling: Where were you? We’ve been waiting an hour for you. The pasta’s cold.

  … you’d run out of water, started to feel sick, sunstroke or mild dehydration had forced you to stop a number of times, you’d mumbled an apology, then shut yourself in the bathroom, we could hear you crying, we couldn’t ignore your sobs as we chewed and swallowed our spaghetti, clutching onto the door frame, you’d screamed: I just ran for three hours! I just ran for three hours and all you can say is, the pasta is cold?

  … I don’t have many memories of you and Dad together, but I’ve never forgotten that one, I can still picture you: you’re wearing a turquoise tank top and your face is crumpled with exhaustion, your hair is soaked with sweat and your forehead is flushed with anger and resentment, you’re sitting on the edge of the bathtub crying, and there’s Dad, walking away from you, into the kitchen to put away the dishes, clattering the plates together…

  KILOMETRE 9

  … I push my earbuds further into my ears, I didn’t want music at first, but now that I’ve hit my stride, I press shuffle:

  One way or another, I’m gonna find ya

  … I’m starting to wonder if this sappiness was such a good idea, I’d thought it was only fitting to add a few of your favourites to my playlist, to include the music that had kept you moving during your marathons, I’d thought it might make you feel a little closer, but suddenly, I’m not so sure, I’m afraid it’ll bum me out and slow me down instead, when Dad gave me your journals, he’d said: they’ll help you understand a few things about your mother, and about me too, things you might wish you’d never known, but actually they don’t explain anything, some things simply defy explanation: one day, people are there with you and you love each other, and then something breaks and they’re not there anymore, they’re somewhere else, it’s cruel and you don’t know why, but that’s just the way it is, and the sooner you understand that, the better off you are…

  KILOMETRE 10

  … I shove two gumdrops in my mouth, lemonade flavour, chew, chew, chew, my mouth is a little dry, the sweet jelly sticks to my teeth, I’d kill for a glass of water, I notice a woman with brown hair leaning against a barrier on the side of the road, she smiles at me warmly, nods her head and gives me two thumbs up,

  It was me on that road

  But you couldn’t see me

  Too many lights out, but nowhere near here

  It was me on that road

  Still you couldn’t see me

  … for a second, I wonder if I’d recognize my mother if she were actually there, hidden among the crowd, watching the runners go by as though nothing were out of the ordinary…

  Road’s end getting nearer

  We cover distance but not together

  … I speed up as I run through the ten-kilometre arch, I watch the numbers scroll by, hear the drums, see the banners, for a brief moment my lungs feel like they’re on fire…

  It’s about you and the sun

  A morning run

  … fifty-six minutes thirty-four seconds, I’m on pace…

  THE TIME DIFFERENCE

  The morning after a sleepless night in the Central European Time zone (UTC+1), Claire has trouble getting out of bed, but she’s intent on getting in a run before the midday heat, determined to stick to her Sunday schedule: two hours and thirty minutes, almost three hours of basic endurance training through the city streets. Just before 10 a.m., she sets out along Avinguda Diagonal, toward the sea, her legs on autopilot, her mind momentarily blank, her only ailment some mild stiffness around her collarbones, and already the sun is beating down.

  LEAVING BARCELONA

  Claire Halde spends a restless last night in her narrow bed in Barcelona. Her leg muscles are aching, and the room is sticky, a combination of the mercury topping out at over thirty degrees Celsius and the total lack of ventilation. The humidity is brutal; nothing she does takes her mind off it. She dreams about the woman in Valencia, hears her hoarse voice in her nightmare. She wakes up often. Still suffering from jet lag, she’s worried she’ll oversleep and miss her train to Valencia.

  But she doesn’t. A few hours later, Tarragona flashes past the window of compartment 5. Claire gazes at the passing landscape absently: green hills, huge oil refineries like the ones on the outskirts of all big cities, parched fields, unkempt grass, a layer of dust floating above the brown earth. She registers it all through a narrow slit, eyelids drooping heavily in a state of half-sleep.

  TRAVEL BY TRAIN

  When she wakes up, nothing about the view has changed; it’s still the same monotonous, forward progression, the same flat, white sky and tall, yellow grass, the same stiff blue seats and paper headrest covers with the Renfe logo, the same hypnotic rolling motion along the railroad tracks, and the same passengers roaming up and down the aisles. It’s early afternoon in August, six years after the encounter on the roof, and the train will be pulling into the station momentarily.

  ARTS
AND ENTERTAINMENT

  When it comes to the sea and the beach in Valencia, Claire Halde remembers them as being completely grey, a remarkably dreary landscape scoured by a wind that numbs all feeling. Valencia is blanketed by a thick layer of fog. Claire can’t help but be reminded of the scene in the Antonioni film Red Desert, where the ship is quarantined in the misty port, and the characters are all standing some distance apart from each other, silent and still, as the fog rolls in between them on the dock, gradually engulfing them until they are swallowed up completely. Even though she knows full well that the movie is set in Italy, Claire overlaps the two different moods and lights, jumbles the sets, confuses the halftones. In her memories of Valencia, her hair is thick and lush, and it’s plastered to her face exactly like the actress in the movie when the wind blows. And there’s the same sadness in her eyes, the same sombre expression; her face is etched with a heavy weariness. In her mind’s eye, she’s Monica Vitti, staring off into the sky, gazing out over the sea in Valencia on a day that’s windy and grey, utterly grey, the light too weak to penetrate the dense fog that hangs over the shore. For Claire Halde, the Valencian seaside will forever be enveloped in a cinematic mist.