Anywhere else would be fine

In a neighbourhood with no main square, albeit boasting a large church, and devoid of visually pleasing monuments, Carretera de Sants, a fabulous string of home decoration shops, clothes boutiques, shoe shops and greasy bars, gives it a backbone. Still, the light prefers the neighbourhoods that grow like nests of streets at its edges.

© Elisenda Llonch

The headlights sliding over damp blue roads as the light of day grows, still invisible behind a curtain of smog, are the first to approach the octagonal-shaped fortress-like market, with its cargo of cold innards, chunks of animal carcasses. A pale light flickers over the first stalls that are beginning to open, amid the murmur of boxes and morning greetings, the ground being hosed down with strong jets of water and pink foam, the pungent odour of human sweat wafting over fresh vegetables.

On the way out you will come across the little square with its sandy surface that no longer exists, and if you cock your ear you will catch, once again, snatches of the stories your grandmother used to tell, so seemingly eternal then, now all but forgotten (who would try to recover them?). At the end lies the street that bends just before it is transformed into a staircase that once resembled the entrance to a magic warehouse, although it led only to a derelict piece of land strewn with cars.

The sun climbs in the sky as it crosses the playground of the Marist Brothers School, where a levy of kids grab their breakfast, play ball and get used to the sensory pleasures and their fear. Your mind wandered from your mentally slower classmates, concentrated on the afternoon’s match: there is nothing you love more than feeling your heart pumping, racing; and in the corridor with the photos of the graduating class from 10 years ago, which feels light years away, you shudder as your mind’s eye focuses on the year 1974 or 1975 when you were not yet even a twinkle in your parents’ longing eyes.

A burning yellow beats down on the pavements and the pedestrians on Carretera de Sants take refuge in air-conditioned shops. In a neighbourhood with no main square, albeit boasting a large church, and devoid of visually pleasing monuments, this fabulous string of shoe shops, clothes boutiques, home decoration shops and greasy bars gives it a backbone. Still, the light prefers the neighbourhoods that grow like nests of streets at its edges, meandering doodles whose curves spawn capricious squares too quiet and dark to become favourite walkways: Málaga, La Farga, Osca… names given to fleeting friendships, now dissolved, which had seemed to have been born of everlasting seeds.

And the rays that caress the lofty brick towers that sprout from the asphalt grow weaker, and from here they resemble proud totems of an industrial past: smoke, fire, glass, ash, neck injuries, economies so fragile you could crush them with your fingers: the nightmare of working and living on the breadline, of humble goals, of ends that never meet, of wanting everything but having nothing, and the resignation of children after the dream of sexual vigour: mysterious circles in which the lives of those who get trapped here roll and roll and roll.

The now-fading light still manages to muster some silvery flashes from the pond that covers Espanya Industrial like a homeless fantasy whence you can view the lacklustre streets with which the town of Sants was tacked onto the Eixample. If I listened closely, I could hear the expectations of a life more intense and fast, and the house where you were born (so small that your memories always place the five of you in the same room) is now all but a bubble of murky, sluggish time.

Under the cloak of night that grows outwards in all directions, the Sants train station shines like a launch pad into outer space. At a certain height we could see the railway lines imprinted on the land, but sitting here, I share the space with some nervous parents, little groups of beggars, girls who kiss their boyfriends in blue sports socks, and a policeman on the beat. Nobody notices your shape, ghost-like, as if your atoms were too loose. But if anyone miraculously asked you where you were headed, you would reply, your voice dripping with emotion: “Anywhere else, anywhere else would be fine.”

Gonzalo Torné

Writer

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *