The Skating Rink Read Online Free PDF Page B

private pool and sauna. The palace was partly designed by a famous architect
of the time, López i Porta, one of Gaudi’s epigones, and partly by Benvingut
himself, which explains the labyrinthine, chaotic, indecisive layout of every
storey in the building. And how many stories are there? Not many people know for
sure. Viewed from the sea, there seem to be two, and the palace looks as if it
were sinking, as if it were built on shifting sands and not on solid rock.
Seeing the building from the main entrance, or from the path through the
grounds, a visitor would swear there are three stories. In fact there are four.
The illusion is created by the arrangement of the windows and the slope of the
land. From the sea, the third and fourth stories are visible. From the entrance,
the first, the second and the fourth. Oh, the pleasant afternoons I spent there
with Nuria, when my plans for the Palacio Benvingut were still simply plans,
still possibilities filling my spirit with the poetry and devotion that seemed,
at the time, synonymous with love. Oh, the joy of wandering from room to room,
opening shutters and wardrobes, discovering quiet interior courtyards and stone
statues hidden by weeds! And then, at the end of the tour, when we were tired,
it was so lovely to sit by the sea and polish off the sandwiches that Nuria had
brought. (A can of beer for me and a bottle of mineral water for her!) Lying
awake at night of late, I have often wondered what prompted me to take her to
the Palacio Benvingut for the first time. As well as love—whose attempts to
please generally come to grief—
The Blue
Lagoon
is to blame. Yes, I’m referring to the film, that old movie
starring Brooke Shields. To be thoroughly honest, and to indulge your curiosity,
I should disclose that the whole Martí family loved
The Blue Lagoon
: Nuria, her mother and
her sister Laia simply couldn’t get enough of Brooke and Nick’s adventures in
Paradise. Have you seen
The Blue
Lagoon
? Even after sitting through the video five times, in the
little lounge of Nuria’s apartment, I couldn’t find any cinematic merit in it.
The joy it gave me initially, not the movie itself but the sight of Nuria’s
profile as she watched those teenagers in the wild, was gradually replaced by
anxiety and fear as we wore out the videotape. Nuria wanted to live on Brooke’s
island, at least while she was watching that damned film! With her angelic
beauty and her perfect, athletic body, she was ideally suited to the change of
scene, and would not have suffered by comparison with Brooke. I was the one who
was going to suffer, if we persisted with the extrapolation. If Nuria deserved
to live on that island, she also deserved a slim, strong, handsome, not to
mention young companion, like the boy in the film. The only member of the cast
to whom I could claim any resemblance was, sad to say, Peter Ustinov. (Referring
to Ustinov, Laia once said that he was a good fat guy although he seemed like a
bad fat guy. I felt the remark was meant for me. I blushed.) How could my
fatness, my charmless rotundity, bear comparison with Nick’s hard biceps? How
could my lower-than-average height match the blond’s six-foot-plus stature? The
mere thought was, objectively, ridiculous. Anyone else would have turned that
anxiety into a joke. But I suffered as never before. Clothes and the mirror
became benign or malevolent deities. I started trying to run in the mornings and
do weights at the gym; I went on diets. People at work began to notice something
odd about me, as if I were getting younger. I have excellent teeth! I still have
all my hair! I said to myself in front of the mirror: the sort of consolation an
analyst might offer. I have an impressive salary! A promising career! But I
would have given it all to be with Nuria and to be like Nick. Then it struck me
that the Palacio Benvingut was an island of a sort, and I took Nuria there. I
took her to my island. A large part of the façade is covered with