The Woman in Valencia Read online

  KILOMETRE 11

  … I’m not the type to commune with a city while I’m running, the monuments elude me, the trees blend into the background, I forge ahead along straight lines and around bends, from time to time picking out a face, a waving hand, a child’s smile, a vista of a park or a boulevard, a bridge up ahead, it’s like I’m running through Valencia without actually seeing anything, blankly scanning everything in my path—buildings and intersections, people walking, striding, standing still, pavement and scraps of sky the odd time I decide to look up—I focus on nothing except moving forward and my determination to not quit, not slow down, not quit, not end up on a stretcher, I know what it is I don’t want to find in Valencia, but I’m not exactly sure what it is I came looking for,

  maybe I’ll figure it out tomorrow, when my muscles are tired and aching, maybe I’ll feel defenceless and exposed the day after this marathon and maybe that’s what it’ll take for me to fully absorb Valencia; I’ve felt tense and nervous ever since I got here, I blamed the marathon and my fear of missing the start time or my legs giving out on me or my stomach acting up, I put it down to my fear of failing and getting injured and disappointing everyone back home in Montreal glued to their screens, tracking my progress, watching the clock and the kilometre markers tick by, but I also know that my stiffness stems from something more insidious, a deep-seated fear—I don’t want to come back from Valencia with a belly full of my mother’s misery…

  KILOMETRE 12

  … at first, I’d talk to you non-stop in my head, a secret dialogue, a daydream in which you were very much alive, I’d become hopelessly tangled up in sentences that I’d analyze endlessly to myself, I was somewhere else entirely, I have no idea now why I had so much to say to you, at an age when the last person kids want to talk to is their mother, but not me, I was constantly drawn back to that conversation in my brain, I’d fill you in on my days at school or what I ate, but other times our talks were more serious, about my disappointments, my heartbreaks, my unrequited loves, then, as time went by, the exchanges fizzled out, that was no way to spend my teen years…

  … our conversation struck up again when I took up running, I started talking to the runner you once were, to the woman I’d have liked at my side, for all those kilometres that we couldn’t run together; it’s a more resigned sort of conversation now, I’d have liked to have a mother who was bright and present, a mother without any cracks, not an unreal mother floating in a ray of light, set for all eternity against an autumn backdrop, face frozen in a mysterious expression…

  KILOMETRE 13

  … almost one-quarter, no, one-third down, and each step brings me closer to the finish line, I run straight ahead, no zigzagging, following the white line painted on the ground, so far, so good, relax your shoulders, I think I need to pee, but I don’t want to stop, don’t think about it, it’ll pass…

  … this too shall pass, you used to say to me, Mama, when I was upset as a kid, and then there was that verse by Rilke that you’d pinned up over your desk: “Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”

  … beauty and terror, that moose on the deserted, snow-covered highway, blood flowing from its flank, majestic, eyes moist, an enormous creature materialized from the forest, the screeching of the brakes, the violent lurch of our bodies and the miracle, the car skidding and coming to a stop mere inches from the animal, which took off at a gallop, leaving a trail of blood behind it in the snow, its antlers wider than a child lying on its side, and you, screaming in terror, pounding your forehead against the steering wheel, and me, so small in my car seat, reassuring you: But he’s not dead, Mama, we’re not dead, it’s okay, you didn’t kill him…

  KILOMETRE 14

  … when I’m running, I allow myself to surrender to the movement, to my linear progression through space, like now, everything’s on track, I’m experiencing a moment of lightness, a momentum that carries me over the border between within and without, between my head and the street, my radar is attuned to all the bumps in the road, to the puddles and the cracks, the broken glass and the dog shit, I let my mind wander, from my love of running to the aches and pains in my joints and everything in between, my worries have been pushed to the back of my mind, a sense of calm settles in, bit by bit, step by step, I refocus on the scenery, on the trees and the storefronts, on what’s going on around me, then on what’s going on inside me, I turn inwards, to the burning in my lungs, the beating of my heart, the wandering thoughts, and the air that’s travelling in and out, in and out, my breathing becoming increasingly laboured as I pick up the pace, maintain the rhythm, give in to the fatigue,

  I bend the surfaces to my will, my feet are used to the snow and the mud, the hardness of the concrete that jars my legs, but I’m wary of the paving stones here, the ancient and uneven slabs, I talk myself through it, never losing focus, the excitement in the city is intoxicating, the sound of drums pounding here, people crowding into the intersection further along, I duck into the shadow of a building, on the shady side of the street, I slip into the sensible horizon…

  KILOMETRE 15

  Love me, love me, love me, say you do

  … I can’t believe my mother would run to such a slow song…

  Let me fly away with you

  … I’ve been running past it for almost a kilometre now, but I can’t remember the name of this park, the one with the museum of nature, the green lungs of Valencia…

  Run, sweetheart, run! You can do it!

  … I’m running, Mama, I’m running, see how I’m running, I’m not thinking about love, I’m just running, and there’s no one waiting for me at the finish line…

  GETTING ORIENTED IN VALENCIA

  In Valencia, Claire Halde doesn’t recognize the train station. It’s like she’s never been to the city before, she can’t get her bearings, she has no idea where she is in relation to the hotel. She has to ask directions from a transit company employee, an irascible man with a bushy moustache who eventually hands her a map of the system.

  The instant she steps off the N3 bus with her rolling suitcase, her gaze is drawn to the spot where the woman jumped from. The Valencia Palace Hotel is right there, looming large in front of her. The bushes are fuller, and the plants on the rooftop terrace around the pool have grown taller. She walks toward the building, locking eyes on the fourth floor, then on the sidewalk below, mentally calculating the drop between the two. She feels numb—a combination of exhaustion from the trip, the heat and hunger pangs. It’s almost 2 p.m., and the mercury reads thirty-five degrees, she’s had barely anything to eat, her dress is sticking to her back, and her hair is frizzing at the nape of her neck. She squares her shoulders and walks into the Valencia Palace.

  STAYING IN VALENCIA:

  THE VALENCIA PALACE HOTEL

  At the front desk, she’s given a key card for room 1402, where she sets down her case, draws back the curtains, looks out the window at everything happening below: cars driving through the roundabout, taxis pulling up, doors opening and closing, smoke rising from a distant chimney, and a Leroy Merlin warehouse store, rectangular and white, sitting next to a highway.

  Claire ventures out to pick up some ham and manchego, yellow-fleshed plums, mineral water and a hazelnut chocolate bar. After the grocery store, she walks over to Benicalap Park, quiet this early in the afternoon. Next to a dry fountain streaked with pigeon droppings, which stand out in stark contrast to the absinthe-green cast iron and rusty spouts, she eats alone, feeling a little unsettled, glancing over her shoulder repeatedly like someone might be spying on her. She doesn’t linger, she scoffs down her meal, eager to be finished.

  OFF THE BEATEN PATH: BENICALAP PARK

  Skirting the edge of Benicalap Park, she has no trouble finding the overgrown lot again. The abandoned building is still standing, but it’s in shambles. Probably squatter central. She notices two officers—a man and a woman—i
nspecting the premises. They’re dressed in uniform with fluorescent stripes on their arms, most likely cops walking the beat. The female officer is waving her hand in front of her nose, as though trying to shoo away a stubborn fly, a lingering stench or the smell of death. Maybe they’ve found a body. Or a dead animal, at the very least. Or maybe someone took a shit right out in the open and now it’s baking in the sun. She should have just gone back to the hotel, grabbed her stuff and headed out to the tourist area, where geraniums bloom prettily in pots on window ledges. Claire has no desire to be asked what she’s doing here, spying on the cops at work. And to think she walked through here with her kids, barely an hour after the suicide.

  GETTING AROUND VALENCIA

  With her index finger, Claire Halde traces the canary yellow line to a transfer station, where it turns into a red line that runs to the Xàtiva stop. She stuffs the tourist map into the side pocket of her bag, which already contains a tattered map of the Barcelona metro system, a pamphlet for an exhibition on the avant-gardists, and a jumble of fortune cookie sayings collected over the span of months. It was a terrible obsession, hoarding all those scraps of paper—brochures, free itineraries and maps from tourist offices, hotel receipts, metro tickets, train tickets, boarding passes—which she’d cart home from her travels and then couldn’t bring herself to part with. She’d developed the habit back when she was writing travel guides for the Discovery series. Whenever she’d get home from another trip, she’d tuck the pile of papers, crumpled from being haphazardly folded, unfolded and refolded, into plastic sleeves, which she’d label in marker “Spain 2009,” for example. She told herself she’d go through them one day, the evidence of her travels and all the time she’d spent abroad. But she never touched them again.

  KILOMETRE 16

  … already fifteen kilometres down, feeling great, we’re near the Río again, I know that white bridge over there, the La Peineta Bridge over the Turia gardens, the one designed by Calatrava, it reminds me of the one near the Guggenheim in Bilbao, of that picture of me and my mother, the one where I’m crouched at her feet, utterly fascinated by the glass tiles under us, I’d thought about carrying a picture of you, but I was worried it would get all crumpled and faded, which would only end up depressing me, so instead I fastened the safety pins from the race bib you wore during your last marathon against my breast, that’s all I could find in the way of a good luck charm, a few rusty pins…

  KILOMETRE 17

  … for the past little while, I’ve felt light, like a sixty-kilogram gust of air, bodiless but at the same time deeply rooted, I glide, skin against wind, leaping, landing, taking off again, like nothing can stop me, not pain or exhaustion, the city is my oyster, I’m not intimidated by the distance, I’m no longer afraid, momentum is a powerful thing, I’m a body in motion, in my mind’s eye I’m seeing a slideshow of all the pictures I’ve looked at so often: my mother, looking cool in her apple-green sweater, one elbow resting on the handle of my stroller, striking a pose next to a fountain in Grenada, legs crossed, hip cocked, stray locks framing her face, she’s holding my hand and smiling down at me, my dad took the picture; my mother, hugely pregnant in the garden, a few days before my brother was born, a magnolia tree in full bloom behind her, I’m kissing her belly, chubby in my ruffled dress, dimple in my cheek, nose pressed up against the taut skin of her stomach, she’s wearing sunglasses and her pink lips are formed into a mysterious half-smile…

  KILOMETRE 18

  Watch your posture, Laure. Stand up straight, Laure.

  … I straighten up, an imaginary steel wire pulling my head straight up toward the sky, I picture my mother cracking her neck, my mother and her migraines, her neck muscles so often pinched, when I was little she’d ask me to massage her temples and I’d oblige with my tiny hands, she’d often lie on her stomach and tell me to write something on her back, I remember spending hours on the couch, long winter afternoons sliding my fingers under her cashmere sweaters, into her warmth, she was always so good at figuring out what I was spelling on her skin, often guessing the word after the second or third letter, yelling out Cat! Flower! I love you! Poop!

  … when it was my turn to guess, you’d write long, complicated words and I’d ask you to start over again and again, just so I could savour the feeling of you tickling my back for a little while longer…

  KILOMETRE 19

  … we’re doubling back now on the Blasco Ibáñez stretch from earlier, passing the last runners headed the other way, they’re only on kilometre 9, there’s that determined lady who already looks like she’s in trouble, and that skinny old man still shuffling along, he must be about eighty…

  Stay strong, Laure. Don’t slow down, keep going, you can do it.

  KILOMETRE 20

  I was looking for you, are you gone gone?

  Called you on the phone, another dimension.

  Well, you never returned, oh you know what I mean.

  I went looking for you, are you gone gone?

  … huge apartment buildings, so much boring, brown stucco, they seriously need to plant some trees around here…

  Down by the ocean it was so dismal,

  Women all standing with a shock on their faces.

  Sad description, oh I was looking for you.

  … I think the beach is at the end of this street where the tram goes, we’re running toward the sea, but we never actually see it, the sweat is trickling down my temples, I’m trying not to think about how hot it’ll be at noon, now that the sun’s out…

  Picked up my key, didn’t reply.

  Went to my room, started to cry.

  You were small, an angel, are you gone gone?

  … the air is heavy and suffocating, not at all fresh, grey and scorching hot, and that annoying sun, melting my resolve, down by the ocean it was so dismal, I wonder what dismal means…

  You’ll never return into my arms ’cause you were gone gone.

  Never return into my arms ’cause you were gone gone.

  Gone gone, gone gone, goodbye.

  NOT TO BE MISSED:

  PUERTA DE SERRANOS

  Cutting through the back streets of Ciutat Vella, trailing other pedestrians who seem to have a better idea of where they’re going, Claire ambles toward the Puerta de Serranos. She walks in without paying and climbs to the top of the tower that she wasn’t brave enough to visit six years earlier. At the top, she tries to pick out the Valencia Palace Hotel in the distance but can’t find it. Suddenly, her head starts spinning. Her legs go weak; looking down at the street below, she thinks: The woman could have jumped from here. There’s nothing stopping anyone from straddling the thick wall punctuated with crenellations and arrow slits. It would be so easy to throw yourself off the top of this tower, if you felt so inclined. She imagines the splintering sound the bones would make, the dizzying free-fall followed by the impact with the pavement, the screams of the tourists. It’s a mental image that she’s powerless to resist. Like an itchy scab that’s not quite healed, she thinks, and the satisfaction you get from scratching around the edges, lifting it up with a fingernail, then ripping it off completely.

  She descends the stairs on legs as nebulous as smoke, picking her way down the five-hundred-year-old steps like she was walking through water, haunted by the terrifying, stomach-lurching vision of the fall the whole way down. Her attraction to the void is just one of the obsessions she’s been battling since childhood, on top of her bizarre impulse to stick a needle in her eye and her disturbing compulsion to jump onto the metro tracks or throw herself out of a speeding car while riding shotgun down a highway.

  WHERE TO SLEEP?

  She’d booked a room at the Valencia Palace for the first three nights. For the rest of her stay, she’d created an account on couchsurfing.com at the last minute, to prove to herself that she was still capable of handling the unknown, of travelling like she did in her twenties, of going with the flow, of sl
eeping anywhere. For her profile, she’d picked a Slavic-sounding first name, chosen a good picture of herself—sparkling eyes and mysterious half-smile—filled out the questionnaire conservatively, emphasizing her extensive travels, areas of interest and flawless Spanish.

  During her travels, Claire had let many a toothless old man take her in his arms. Mothers had pinched her cheeks with squeals of delight, handing over their bare-bottomed babies for her to dandle on her knee during interminable and inconvenient connections. In the capital cities of southeast Asia, in two-dollar-a-night guest houses—windowless rooms, mattresses on the floor reeking of pest repellant, ceiling fans spinning lazily—she’d shared quarters with heroin addicts and prostitutes, smiling at them without making eye contact. At nineteen, she’d promised herself she’d never end up like them, even as she feared she’d never be able to keep that promise.

  She sometimes thinks about other travellers she’s crossed paths with over the years. Some had come on to her, inviting her to cross North America with them on the back of their motorbike, others had made love to her under the sky, taught her the ropes of stargazing, sent her postcards, sung her sad songs, bought her beers and trinkets. Strangers had taken her into their homes, held her hand while crossing Stalin-era boulevards in bleak Eastern European cities, keeping her safe as they would a child. All the while she’d been a prideful young woman in her twenties, carried along by her sense of freedom and wanderlust, by her curiosity and cravings, wanting much more from the world than it had to offer.