Chapter 15
The restaurant was imposing in the Modernista style, resembling a fantasy castle, built on a high spur of the mountain they called Tibidabo.
It had several turrets, including one boasting a broad terrace.
As they wound up the steep road that climbed the mountain, where clanging, old-style trams still rattled and slid around the metal curves of their rails, Dídac made another phone call.
No sooner were they inside the fake castle’s heavy oak doors, than a waiter appeared, whisking Dídac and Kim up a wide marble staircase with wrought-iron railings shaped like elegant flamingos, to where a single table had been prepared on the terrace under the moon.
Its heavy white linen, polished silverware, and sparkling glassware gleamed in the moonlight, augmented only by a couple of warm, strategically focused spotlights.
As they sat down, Dídac finally removed his sunglasses.
“This is on me and don’t worry about the cost.”
“It’s stunning,” Kim breathed.
The terrace’s parapet was crenellated in a medieval style, while from a trellis above them hung Spanish jasmine, permeating the air with its seductive perfume.
Barcelona lay spread out below. They were even higher up than they had been at the Mount Carmel Bunker.
However, it was now full night. The reddish-orange glow of the city’s streetlights resembled a massive grid of criss-crossing lines running down to the sea, with other, white and gold lights twinkling in between.
The full moon hung over the scene, painting a silver trail onto the dark Mediterranean.
A waiter came to place a first offering before them, while another filled two tumblers with sparkling water.
As they were admiring and about to taste the amuse-bouche—shavings of acorn-fed Iberian ham on a small square of toast daubed with a raw-tomato and garlic coulis—the ma?tre d’, an effusive, elegant man in his sixties, brought their menus.
“Benvingut, Dídac, és un absolut plaer tenir-te entre nosaltres de nou.”
“Hello, Josep,” Dídac replied, speaking in English, “it’s been too long, I know. I’ve really missed this place. This is my friend, the director Kim Delatour. We’re working on the new production for Teatre Romea.”
“Ah, The Swan? It is an honor to meet you, Mr. Delatour. Not many, but a few old thespians like myself still remember Boomerang. It was a powerful show.”
“Thank you, Josep, it’s a pleasure to meet you. And I must say, it’s wonderful to be in a city that treasures its theater so much.”
“We do, we do. But here we also love our food. Here, we will offer you the best cuisine that Catalonia has to offer, our traditional dishes presented in what we hope is a fresh, innovative style. Now if I can make a few suggestions…”
Josep rattled on in such a sincere, welcoming patter that Kim was left feeling he had just made a new best friend.
As they discussed the dishes and what they would have, Dídac and the ma?tre d’ slipped back into Catalan, but Kim did not feel left out.
Having weathered a couple of weeks of hearing his very own play—the words he himself had put onto paper—being enunciated in this little-known tongue, the experience, rather than feeling alienating, had rather increased his appreciation of the foreign sounds.
He couldn’t decide whether the language sounded more like Italian or French, with the occasional guttural utterance erupting perhaps from some Arabic or German source.
However, after a few minutes, Josep took his leave and Dídac settled comfortably back into his seat.
“Now if after tonight you don’t appreciate Catalan cuisine, there’ll be no saving you.”
“I’m sure it’ll be delicious,” Kim said.
Dídac gestured at the amuse-bouche sitting before them, still untouched.
“So this is a take on perhaps our most famous contribution to Iberian culture, pa amb tomaquet. It’s basically bread or toast, rubbed with garlic, daubed with the flesh of slow-ripened tomatoes, salt, pepper, and olive oil to taste, and voilà!
On top of it you can add cheese, ham, sardines or even omelet.
A peasant’s fare that’s virtually become our national dish. ”
At that moment a waiter arrived and filled their wine glasses with a chilled white. They raised them.
“To Catalonia,” Kim said diplomatically.
“OK, I’ll stop the hard sell,” Dídac chuckled. Then he paused, becoming serious. “Here’s to… Here’s to us creating something… together… that will change the world for the better for years to come.”
Kim clinked glasses with him and nodded, though he was unsure whether Dídac was talking about the theater, or something else.
“So tell me about your family,” he asked. “Did you grow up with all this?”
Dídac laughed.
“No way! I grew up in Sants, which was a fairly working-class Barcelona neighborhood back then. Our apartment was maybe fifty square meters? I shared a small room with my older brother, bunk beds—you know the set-up.”
“Really?” Kim laughed. “Me too, though there were three of us, my brothers and I, all cramped into a single room on a Footscray housing estate in West Melbourne. But I was the oldest, so I got the best pick. Only my sister had her own room.”
“It was just my brother and me, plus my parents, in a two-bedroom apartment. Perhaps that’s why I loved the theater—it was escape.”
“Yeah, I get you,” Kim nodded. “The only way to get out of there… was to become someone else.”
Then two waiters arrived and began placing dishes on the table. There was a cold dish of flame-roasted aubergine and capsicum with strips of salted anchovy laid over the top; another of small green peppers seared on the hotplate and seasoned with chunky salt crystals.
“Be careful,” Dídac warned. “Every seventh one or so can be very spicy.”
They also brought an array of seafood: razor clams; mussels steamed in white wine and garlic; deep-fried baby octopuses, and tiny sprat-like fish, also battered and fried.
As they ate, Kim watched Dídac, in awe of his poise and confidence.
Had he himself been so self-assured at twenty-five?
To be honest, he couldn’t remember. Since he left drama school he had been focused solely on the theater, becoming first a successful actor, then writing and directing his own plays.
On the social side, that meant showing up at opening nights, being witty and chatty with the important directors and casting agents who might be there—you never knew when you might be a good fit for an upcoming production, so being seen out meant you’d hopefully be uppermost in their mind when it came to casting.
It was a ghastly game and Kim hated playing it, but theater was a cut-throat industry; there were far too many underpaid actors chasing after far too few parts.
In his memory, the European tour of Boomerang, when he would have been Dídac’s age, had been a complete whirlwind of first nights in foreign cities, meeting gushing strangers, and receiving glowing accolades from people to whom he was told he should be nice.
There had also been parties. They were a largish troupe of twelve actors and dancers, tending to mix and interact like a family, since in each new city they themselves were often the only people they knew.
Yes, he supposed, looking at him from the outside, he would have looked equally composed and confident, whether he felt it or not. And he often hadn’t.
What he remembered most was the anxiety, about whether he would be able to come up with the goods for that night’s performance.
The nerves—night after night, playing in some of Europe’s most prestigious theaters, a different one every few days, knowing that the show depended on him, and being unsure whether he could dredge what he needed out of himself for another night running—eventually got to him.
Getting back to Australia was a relief. Looking at Dídac, he could sense a similar energy, like a tightly tuned string on a fine instrument which, when played masterfully, would produce the most beautiful sounds, but, if plucked too harshly, might break with a twang.
Taking a sip of his wine, he resolved to treat Dídac with care.
The younger man was far more vulnerable then he appeared to be.
“What are your thoughts?” Dídac asked then, breaking into his reverie.
“Here in this gorgeous environment, eating such delicious food, in such… attractive company… I’m thinking that it doesn’t get much better than this,” he said, not wanting to confess such vulnerable thoughts yet.
“Just attractive?” Dídac looked hurt in a playful way, pouting comically. “I was hoping after our kiss—two kisses—I rated better than that.
“Yes, infinitely better,” Kim admitted. “Maybe I was being too polite. What I wanted to say was sexy….” He paused. Did he dare? “To be honest, totally fuckable.”
“Uh huh.” Even in the dim lighting, Kim thought he saw Dídac blush. “That sounds… better.”
“Are you fishing for compliments? You want me to tell you how the first time ever I saw your ass, I thought it was the most fuckable thing I’d ever seen, like a peach. I want a bite of that. No, not just a bite: I want to eat it all.”
Dídac giggled. “OK…,” he said slowly. “That’s maybe a little too much for a first date, though you’re making me totally horny.” Then it was as if his words dried up and he was at a loss as to what to say next.
Maybe Kim had made Dídac feel both self-conscious and embarrassed, but he’d also struck home.
Dídac found the proposition hot. His foundering was at his own unexpected prudishness.
In bringing Kim to this exclusive restaurant, Dídac had shown himself to be a sophisticated man of the world, the self-assured actor.
Now, in a couple of short, dirty phrases, Kim had managed to reduce him to a blushing schoolboy.
But he could also see that Dídac liked where they were going.
For once people weren’t demanding that he be more sophisticated and grown-up than he was.
Kim was letting him know that he was in charge and would take the lead, meaning Dídac could relax and relish his role—that of a blushing peach.
“So, now we’ve got dessert sorted out,” Kim went on, “what’s for mains?”