The South Read Free Page B

in agreement.
    “I must go,” I said.
    In the week that followed I thought I saw him several times on the street. Yet when I did see the painter one day as I was walking towards the market I was startled. He was coming out of a doorway on Puertaferrisa. His lip curled up as though he were amused to meet me by accident in such a way.
    “Bonjour,” he said.
    “Good morning.”
    He said something I did not understand. He laughed for a moment and then he pointed at my face and waved an imaginary brush in the air. He kept saying “si” and nodding his head. He held my hand for a second in the street.
    “I must go. Je dois aller ,” I said.
    “Non, non,” he said.
    He was insistent, and I wanted to get away. He wanted to know where I lived. I pointed to the pensión on the corner. If he called there or disturbed me I could move. There was a pensión on every corner.
    Yet I became worried that he would call and create a fuss and was relieved when he did not. He simply arrived one day with Rosa and they asked me to come and see their studio.They were eager and friendly. The landlady’s face darkened when Rosa spoke in English. I said I would go with them some other day.
    “Tomorrow?” she said.
    “Yes, that’s fine.”
    They come again the next day and I went with them around the corner to Calle Puertaferissa. It sounds funny but I did not feel nervous about going up the stairs of a house I had never been in before, the same house from which I had seen him coming the other day. After a few flights of stairs he pushed open a door and we went into a huge long room with large windows at either end and a glass roof. There were easels and paints everywhere. A few people, mostly young women, were sitting on stools, painting from a photograph of a street. The man I had noticed in the café on Sunday was standing behind the easels demonstrating something to one of the students. He looked at us for a minute and then continued what he was doing. The other man looked at me and pointed to himself.
    “Yo, Miguel,” he said. “Miguel,” he repeated it.
    “Y tú?” he asked, pointing at me.
    “Katherine,” I said.
    “Katherine,” he tried to repeat it.
    “Me Tarzan,” I said and he wanted me to say it again but I did not feel able to explain.
    “Is this a school?” I asked Rosa.
    “Yes, it is a college for painters.”
    “I paint,” I said. “Can I join the college?”
    “You must ask Ramon,” she said. She pointed at the sallow man who had been in the café.
    “You ask him for me,” I said.
    I watched her walk up to where he was standing. The man who had introduced himself as Miguel approached me andwhen the sallow man glanced down again he could see us both standing together. Eventually, Rosa came over to me.
    “Can you come back in a week? He will talk to you then.”
    “Will he take me then?” I asked. “Tell him I can draw.”
    “I am not sure,” she said. “He does not know. You must return next week.”
    The cathedral has just rung midnight and there are no more shutters to be pulled down. The day is over. Tomorrow I will go back to the grammar book I bought. Tomorrow I will learn more verbs. But tonight there is no place for me in this city except here in this dingy bedroom in this small hotel. Until the morning no grammar will be of any use to me. Sleep my husband, sleep easy. I will not be back. My son is asleep in Ireland and I will not be back. I will settle into bed. I will sleep. I will not be back. I will think about the future until I fall asleep.

BARCELONA
    She had forgotten about them now, they came in dreams sometimes and melted into other dreams. She was away. She opened the small window in the bedroom and looked down on Berga. A cold spring morning in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Dead silence. She lit a cigarette and rested her elbows on the window ledge. Mist was still clinging over the town and there was a faint hint of ice in the air.
    She was naked and she was aware that if he