Divorce Is in the Air: A Novel by Gonzalo Torné Page B

I didn’t even kid myself, I knew no good would come of it, I had to put my foot down and I didn’t, that’s all there is to it. That neck I could have wrung with my bare hands was propping up a head full of crazy ideas about Europe, but we were going to live according to its rules. Now that was cause for alarm.
    We boarded the plane, and my worries were swept away by that cloud-soaked sky. I’ve never been afraid of heights; I love to look out the window and see roads crossing the land while the distance rearranges the far-off horizon. I well knew the terrain beneath us on that journey: the grass-covered stands of an open-air basketball court, the slopes of rosy mud, and the forest of oaks with their treetops full of birds that took flight, frightened by the plane’s sound. That trip I noticed the concrete ovens of a power station, and a dry area where bulldozers’ teeth had broken the earth into clumps. Helen hung from my arm, and I smelled the minty scent of the candy she was sucking on, soaked in sweet saliva. The same saliva that, when she kissed me, so intoxicated me I thought I could see the ants moving in the open furrows of the ground below. Then we flew over a swampy river formed by several streams converging, and it was exciting to watch as the channel swelled and invaded the green expanse of the plain, dotted with yellow, blue, and ochre flowers.

    The afternoon sun was starting to wane by the time we reached the ocean. Helen’s elation was contagious. She pointed at the speedboats floating on the monotonous blue, and we flew over wild coves, far from any apartments, gray piers, or artificial beaches. The coast regained its old frontier power: the end of the road for men of dry land. Before discovering latitude, throughout all those numberless centuries, the ocean routes were invisible, unknowable. Who among our great-grandparents could ever have imagined we would make our way into the skies? I’m sorry that I’ll miss out on interstellar tourism. Just imagine having a drink while you watch the Earth shrink into a vivid blue ball suspended in profound blackness, all that life protected by a flimsy film of atmosphere.
    Since it was a clear day, I could point out to Helen the bulge of the coastal mountains rising like a limestone dream. We left behind little villages ensconced in the foothills, broad industrial belts, desert polygons, suburbs that spread like gray stains, and by seven o’clock I was pointing out the Torre Mapfre skyscraper that shone as clean as porcelain above the beige expanse of sand. I explained the grid-like layout of the Eixample, its cubic blocks, I named the thick furrow where the traffic flowed so slowly that each car’s flash of sunlight was visible; it reminded Helen of a water snake’s scales. She had her face pressed so hard against the window it wouldn’t have surprised me if the glass melded to her shape: her skin was hot, her lips damp, the love we gave off bathed the city in a welcoming light. Some days earlier, I’d been reading about the labyrinth of sewers and water lines that extended beneath the pavement and the pedestrians’ footsteps, like an inverse city designed for rats. Of course, I didn’t mention all that to Helen; after all, we’d be living aboveground.

    We were going to settle in Muntaner, between Via Augusta and Mitre, the area newcomers considered to be the rich neighborhood—a place that always smells like flowers, something like that. We were living up a hill on a street with four dirty lanes, like a filthy highway. It wasn’t even an apartment, although it had its charm. It was a kind of guard tower, seventy square meters, which the developer had built on the roof to live in while he completed the facade and applied the finishing touches, and they’d forgotten to tear it down when they were done. Two rooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom with a door that didn’t close properly. Parquet floors, low ceilings, and a half-finished round plaster