Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
for himself, if he still writes, that is, or as an academic. Anyway, why<br />
would he remember me at all? It seems to be so easy for him to change<br />
countries, and lives and women. If he thinks of me sometimes, I am<br />
probably that “dumb Aussie blonde” who rejected him, or maybe, if he<br />
is slightly more generous, or still nourishes this kind of delusion about<br />
me: that crazy artist who could not live south of the bridge. Let me<br />
laugh. One thing I can imagine is his face the day he discovered not one<br />
but two jacarandas in bloom in Barcelona: a small, thin one on Plaza<br />
Urquinaona, and the other one right in the midd<strong>le</strong> of one of his favourite<br />
places, the courtyard of the National Library of Catalonya. He must<br />
have thought, or at <strong>le</strong>ast vaguely felt that there was something amiss<br />
in Barcelona, that is, in his life, because the jacarandas were too much,<br />
—“en plus”, “en trop?”—, they did not belong there any more than he<br />
did, they just pretended, they rather belonged somewhere else, they were<br />
drawing Barcelona away from him, or drawing him away from Barcelona,<br />
they were drawing him and Barcelona apart, yes, un<strong>le</strong>ss he consented<br />
to that other longing, that other belonging, to Barcelona not belonging<br />
to itself but to a fabulous origin, a belated rebirth in Sydney. I have<br />
never been to Barcelona, I have no other visual hints but photographs of<br />
Gaudi’s gaudy bawdy architecture. I have no idea whatsoever of what<br />
the courtyard of the National Library may look like, and nobody has<br />
ever told me about the jacarandas, but they are there, and so was Jacques<br />
on the day their blue slapped him in the face, his dear face. This is all I<br />
know about Jacques’ life, the poor thing, and it’s already a lot more than<br />
I can cope with. You can take a lot, he has taken a lot, I mean he has lost<br />
so much. But who could be so cruel as to plant these trees in the first<br />
place, the only place <strong>le</strong>ft him, who could hate him so much? Who could<br />
be so care<strong>le</strong>ss? Because it was bound to happen, Barcelona was the only<br />
town where my lover could think of living after Sydney, after me, it was<br />
the only town where he could believe he would find healing, or different<br />
wounds, another death. But not that, p<strong>le</strong>ase, not that grotesque, blaring<br />
encounter with two unwanted jacarandas in the midd<strong>le</strong> of the Olympic<br />
Games havoc.<br />
—Still dreaming? said Jane, when she entered the narrow living<br />
room of Matilda’s flat after knocking –unheard– on the dark brown open<br />
door that faintly ref<strong>le</strong>cts the mid-afternoon light, with a large golden<br />
plastic number 9 stuck on it.<br />
—Oh, I am sorry, Jane; I was waiting for you, I got lost in my<br />
memories, and suddenly I was transported to some remote place overseas.<br />
Maybe I was falling as<strong>le</strong>ep in the heat of the afternoon. Crazy thoughts...<br />
Do you want a cup of tea? But tell me about Don : did he get the job?<br />
13
Change language