Gaudi Afternoon Read Online Free PDF Page B

ventilators, which looked like enormous chess pieces. Stairs led all over the roof, up and down, up and down, and then there were those incredible tiled shapes, some with crowns, others with crosses, others like knights with visors lowered over their faces.
    It was a soft spring afternoon, even if my neck felt too exposed now to the breezes, and I leaned out over the roof thinking that this must be one of the most beautiful cities on earth.
    And then I saw something very odd. Strolling down the Passeig de Gràcia, as comfortably as if it were Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, was a woman whom I was positive had once given me a foot massage after a big march in San Francisco. It had been a couple of years ago when I’d been passing through on my way to a conference on Latin American women writers in Mexico City. I’d stopped to check my mail at Lucy’s, renew my driver’s license and get a pap smear, and Lucy had dragged me along with her to the march, where we strolled under the banner of her women’s health clinic. At the end of the march we came to a park full of stands with political and fun things for sale, and there, sitting on a large quilt, with a velvet pillow and various creams and unguents around her, was a woman doing foot massage.
    I couldn’t resist; something about her drew me. Maybe it was her name and title—April Schauer, Foot Therapist—lettered in gold and indigo on a card, maybe it was the soulful expression in her midnight eyes. At any rate I sat myself down in front of her and put my foot on her well-upholstered lap, and let her look intensely into my eyes as she established instant intimacy with first my right foot and then my left. She was all velvet and fire, with kinky black hair, a large nose and a gorgeous full mouth, and she taught me what delicious feelings accrue in the soles once they are unshod.
    â€œYou have experienced feet,” she told me and then I paid her seven dollars and we parted. Just one of life’s many brief fascinating encounters. But here she was, I was sure it was her, walking down the Passeig de Gràcia, wearing a red velvet smock, a black shawl and Birkenstock sandals, and eating an ice cream cone. With amazement I watched her cross the street and disappear somewhere below me into the Provença entrance of La Pedrera.
    It couldn’t be anything but an odd coincidence, but still, the fact of the matter was that April had made an impression on me then and she still did. I suspected she was one of those holistic, earthy, goddess-types who probably liked to spend a lot of time in bed.
    She couldn’t—couldn’t?—have any connection with Ben.
    Frankie was in a much better mood when I met her at the Café de l’Opera on the Ramblas at seven-thirty. She noticed my haircut at once and demanded the name of my hairdresser. “Very chic,” she said approvingly. “Much better than that awful turban.”
    â€œI’m not sure,” I said. “I feel a little bit like a potted plant, with vines snaking over the sides of the pot.”
    She was looking pretty chic herself, in a neon green sheath dress with a tight black jacket. The dress was short enough to show her well-shaped, strong-looking legs in their black high heels. Her reddish curls were all over the place and her hazel eyes cheerfully outlined in green, black and a little silver. She was finishing a glass of red wine and munching on olives and looking quite at home in the old-fashioned café with its dark walnut tables and art nouveau wall panels.
    I ordered a fino and gave her my report. I’d dropped the film off to be developed overnight, but described all the people I’d seen coming and going from La Pedrera. Nobody who looked anything like Ben.
    â€œHe couldn’t be in disguise, could he?” I asked.
    â€œI’ll only know that when I see the photographs,” she said noncommittally. “Do you think anyone noticed