28. Chapter 28
Kim stood in the center of the rehearsal room breathing heavily.
“Sir,” Laia coughed, and continued in a whisper. “Can I get you anything… a glass of water?”
“A whiskey?” Kim laughed recklessly.
It was just the two of them. The other actors had all departed to homes or bars where they could lick their wounds.
The last half of rehearsal had been a bloodbath.
Kim did not deserve to call himself a director.
The play was a wreck. Now even the puppeteers were scared of him—not just nervous, which was sometimes a good thing, but terrified.
Looking at Laia, he could see that she too wanted to be anywhere else but here, keeping company with this unhinged foreign director, who had just insulted the cream of Catalonia’s theater world.
But she was a professional, and let very little of her distaste show.
“I’m sorry, Laia. God, I’m… so sorry… I should apologize to everyone, the entire cast.”
Laia pressed her lips in a firm line, not disagreeing with him. For a few moments, she said nothing, then, “It really isn’t my call, but… if we’re going to save this production, we need to think strategically. An apology certainly couldn’t do any further harm.”
Kim pressed his face into his hands and bent over until his elbows were almost resting on his knees.
What started as a deep breath became a low groan rising in volume and pitch until, straightening up, Kim let out a huge roar, his hands flying up and out toward the ceiling, back arched, the sinews in his neck popping.
When he was finally silent, he dropped his hands to his sides, and opened his eyes.
Laia was silent throughout, waiting, but when he eventually turned toward her, she asked:
“Do you want to get that whiskey?”
Thank you, Laia, that would be grand.”
Out on the street, Kim began to turn toward the Rambla, but Laia pulled him to the left, up the street that branched perpendicular to Hospital Street.
In the small square to their left, opposite the theater, he spied a lone bronze statue.
While heavily abstracted, it was clearly a woman’s torso, with the hint of a snug dress hitched up mid-thigh below, and triangular horn-like forms above, suggesting arms raised in a dramatic gesture.
“What’s that?”
“The statue to Margarida Xirgu, Lorca’s actress.”
“The ghost?”
She smiled: “The ghost.”
“I like it.”
They continued walking up the street in a silence that was—at least from his side—companionable.
The day was as hot and stuffy as ever, but gray, billowing clouds overhead were pushing down onto the city and turning the atmosphere thick and sticky.
After navigating them through several narrow, winding streets, running more or less parallel to the Rambla, as far as Kim could tell, Laia stopped at a glass-fronted bar on a corner, Bar Centric.
Pushing inside the heavy doors, they were in a scruffy, homely space that had been carefully not redecorated since at least the nineteen-sixties.
Spindly bar stools clustered thirstily like tripods from Jules Verne’s The War of the Worlds close to a scuffed bar, while an upholstered red leather bench hugged the other wall, punctuated by round, marble-topped tables along its length.
“This is where Di and I used to come when we were students, before he got famous.”
“Di? Oh… Dídac? How is… Where… Have you seen him?”
“Let’s grab drinks first.”
They settled in a corner on the red bench, which was surprisingly comfy. When the waitress came, Kim ended up following Laia’s lead and rather than a whiskey, ordered a vermouth.
“So… How is Dídac? Is he—”
“Fine? No, he isn’t. I mean, he’s alive, breathing… if that’s what you mean. But he isn’t fine. I don’t think he’ll be fine for many years to come.”
“I’m… I feel terrible. I want to see him.”
“He’s left town for a while.”
“Where?”
“His family have a place.”
“I want you to know, Laia, I would have fought for him… to stay. I know we got off to a rocky start, but… he’s special, he—”
“He was quite clear about needing to be alone. His whole career has come crashing down. He needs to think things over for a while.”
“But all this over a kiss? It can’t be so conservative here. In Australia—”
“It wasn’t so much the kiss as the shock.
His fans feel like he’s deceived them. Of course there are openly gay actors here, but they don’t play straight leading men.
I’m sure his career will bounce back in the future, though he’ll probably find that the range of roles he’s offered will become more limited. ”
“Well, that’s good then, isn’t it? We can talk to Santi, and—”
“Santi’s clear about it—he’s not having him back in the production. The theater’s finances are too fragile. He won’t risk it. Maybe in a couple of years they’ll take him back… in a supporting part, a gay role or something.”
“That’s outrageous. Isn’t it time to break these prejudices, change attitudes?”
“That’s not the whole of what this is about.” Laia took a sip of her drink. “Obviously, the play, the situation with the theater, his fans… they’re all a part of this situation…. But his crisis is also personal.”
“Personal?”
“Come on, Kim… Sorry, Sir—”
“No! Call me Kim.”
“OK, Kim, then. You know what this is about.”
“Do I?”
“Dídac is my closest friend. I’ve watched the two of you over these days. There are some things friends can’t hide from each other. I don’t know how your relationship ended, or… what you feel. But I know what Dídac feels. I’ve never seen him like this, ever, for anyone.”
“I….” But hard as he forced himself, Kim couldn’t bring himself to say the words. “I… care for him. I—”
“Yeah,” Laia finished her drink and put the glass down with finality. “That’s not quite enough. Dídac needs someone to love him.” She stood up. “Please, if you care for him, do him a favor and stay away. Let him heal.”
“No, Laia, please—”
“Let’s just focus on the production for now, getting Isard up to speed, and trying to rally the rest of the cast. Then in a few weeks, you’ll head on to your next gig, Manchester, is it?
And when Di finally decides to come out from hiding in Ca n’Amat, I’ll take him under my wing and look after him. Are you getting the drinks, Sir?”
Kim nodded dumbly, and watched Laia leave, looking as cool and contained as ever, her bright red hair like a slick metallic helmet from which sticks and stones would glance ineffectually.
He felt devastated: Stay away? That was what he could do best for Dídac.
Doing that would feel like ripping out his own insides and splaying them on a thorn bush for the blackbirds to peck. Gutted—the true meaning of the word.
Idly he took out his phone and opened up the map application, Typing in “canamat”—was that what Laia had said?
—he quickly found “Ca n’Amat”, a dot at the end of a long squiggly twig of a road that extended into a lush expanse of mountainous woodlands.
They had a family place, and Dídac’s surname was “Amat”. That had to be the place, didn’t it?