Duende Chapter 2

          The words of the priest were ominous and Nayo’s fear of giving in to what he wanted most led to a period of lonely solitude. Jose searched for Nayo’s eyes across the class but only saw the back of his head as Nayo stared down at his desk so fiercely he could’ve burnt holes in the wood.

Friday afternoon and Jose left school early. Nayo saw him immediately he turned into the street leading to his home.

‘Please, Nayo, please,’ said Jose.

No words passed between them as they headed towards the place where they’d first kissed. Nayo’s guilt dissipated as soon as he let Jose’s mouth find his again. The impossibility of resistance made him question what kind of God he was dealing with. If God was omniscient then he’d see the desire which lay within the very fabric of Nayo’s being. If God was all-forgiving then surely Nayo was allowed to kneel and pray.

            That summer, the fact school was no longer a natural meeting point wasn’t the problem as the boys had been accepted into each other’s families nearly a year ago. Jose’s family were going on holiday to Madrid for six weeks on the eighteenth of July. Horacio’s brother had lived there most of his life which meant it had been all too easy for him to become a stranger and that summer was an attempt to remedy this. But the impending sense of separation hung over the boys’ heads during all the days before. Having committed to the unforeseen expense of the suit, Nayo’s family were remaining in Barcelona throughout the summer, a situation Carlos excused on his need to work.

            Jose and Nayo must’ve walked up and down Las Ramblas a hundred times before the day came when they were forced to say goodbye. Nothing could make this easy. They held hands whenever they could, snatched at each other’s mouths at every available opportunity, stared into each other’s eyes in hushed corners until Jose gently brushed Nayo’s dark hair away from his forehead in order to see him more clearly.

            The night before Jose’s departure and they found themselves, without any reason, on the beach. They’d no intention of revisiting their previous experience and, while not a subject they dared discuss with each other, both individually wrestled with the priest’s talk of damnation. In their own heads, the experience of bliss didn’t equate with purgatory but neither could be certain they hadn’t transgressed, that what they’d perceived as vital wasn’t simply the shameful demands of the flesh, something base and uncivilized, some demonic carnal desire. Shortly after Nayo rejected Jose’s affection, the resulting emptiness became impossible to contend with. Bringing their lips together was the only means Nayo could find to make him feel complete even if this confirmed the hideousness of who he really was.

That evening, they ended up on the beach after paying homage to various monuments which had appeared mysteriously during their lifetime, most of them by Gaudi. La Pedrera was worthy of a gasp but then so was La Casa Terrades, with its incredible towers and designed by someone, he was called, his name was…they’d remember in the morning. By which time it would be too late. Jose would already be on his way to Madrid.

            They spent an hour or so in the Parque Guell which really was a new adventure. Completed only a year before, this place was a children’s dream and Jose and Nayo giggled as they slithered into seats shaped perfectly around their bodies. For them, it was a playground and they twisted their shapes through every colourful form of comfort they could find.

            Much later and it was the statue of Columbus which made them smile. The earth was round, the earth was flat, the earth was back to front or inside out and spinning far beyond their own control. Who cares about America when your own frontiers are blurred and unsure?

            But the beach was a known and certain destination even if they hadn’t planned to reach it. They soaked in the sound and security of the vast dark sea.

            ‘Six weeks isn’t such a long time,’ said Jose. ‘It’ll pass just like that.’

He snapped his fingers to reinforce the point.

            ‘Six weeks is only the blink of an eye,’ said Nayo as if wishing himself to believe it.

            ‘A year ago and we didn’t even know each other,’ said Jose confidently. ‘Six weeks is nothing compared to that.’

            Nayo clutched Jose’s hand as he reluctantly agreed.

            ‘Hey,’ whispered Jose as he pressed Nayo’s unhappy body towards his own. ‘We can do this. We can get through this. I promise.’

            Jose’s promises were never given lightly and Nayo began to feel a little stronger as he felt Jose’s courage seep into him. He wanted to believe and he could believe. Feeling Jose’s breath against him, there was nothing to fear. But when he couldn’t feel the breath, didn’t hear the reassurances, he had no-one there to dispel the doubts in his head.

            Carlos attributed Nayo’s mood to the fact they were stuck in Barcelona for the whole of the summer. Although he knew Nayo had played a part in this financially, there was no way he’d ever shift the blame to his son.

            ‘Maybe you could try finding a little part-time job,’ he suggested over dinner, thinking this might be a way to alleviate his boredom.

            Nayo stared down at his food while acknowledging that a part-time job might at least provide a way of filling the days.

            ‘You could help me, too,’ added Angelita. Since leaving school, she’d been keen to sustain her education but sometimes self-motivation wasn’t enough. Nayo could monitor her progress. 

All the family were encouraging him and he’d never let them down. Carlos had words with a friend of a friend and three days later, Nayo started work at the post office, leaving him the evenings free to quiz Angelita on matters of history, geography, biology, maths or whatever else took her fancy. Her last years at school had left her bored by the focus on cooking, hygiene, embroidery. University education was the remotest of options but she’d persuaded their older cousin, Gael, to part with his school books before he left to study law in Granada, securing the means to cultivate her own sources of knowledge.

Funnily enough, Nayo quite liked the post office job, sifting through letters and wondering what lay inside. Words of love, farewell messages, letters of revenge and recrimination, paper bearing bad news or unpleasant omens. At the very least, it fuelled his imagination and he wondered, if Jose were to write from Madrid, what the sentiments would be.

            Nayo had envisaged this period apart as an ordeal of endurance. A matter of survival. But his family unwittingly cushioned the blow. Even Angelita in the evening felt like a gift. He had no time to sit isolated in his bedroom remembering the many times he and Jose had embraced there, clutching each other as if their very lives depended on it.

            And Nayo learnt through Angelita’s learning. He discovered more about the history of his own country as his sister described the lengthy social and economic process through which attempts were made to transfer the wealth of the Church to the hands of the people. He was equally fascinated by Angelita’s stories about Spain’s struggle not just to take control of America but also other parts of the world. Although none of this information was new, Angelita brought the past to life in a way that none of his teachers had managed to do. When she outlined the process of osmosis, Nayo began to grasp this more clearly whereas quadratic equations forever eluded him and he was relieved when Angelita gave up on her attempts. Perhaps the most significant improvement Nayo made was his increasing ability to hold a reasonable conversation in French. 

            Somehow, and by whatever means of measuring this, the thirtieth of August eventually arrived. There was a knock on the door but no-one in the family stirred. Nayo was discretely left to his own devices. He’d suffered long enough.

            The smiles on the two boy’s faces couldn’t be captured by a painter nor a photographer. The rush of relief could only be expressed through its actuality. This was a homecoming like no other and the two of them gasped to stand face to face again.

            No-one was looking and no-one, it seemed, would dare to pry. Their privacy was an open door in a sigh of arms held wide to hold the other tight.

            The separation had confirmed their friendship, not diminished it. Their time apart had taught them of their need to be together and reinforced that this was right. Even if it’d entailed a certain amount of suffering, the outcome was a victory. They’d won and crossed the winning line together. They recognized a truth that some, many years older, might never know. They’d found their own answer and, as they clasped their bodies back together, they knew they’d passed this first test with flying colours.

            ‘You have to go to Madrid,’ said Jose when they were alone in Nayo’s bedroom. ‘Barcelona’s full of artists but Madrid…Madrid is made for you Nayo…I can’t explain but you have to go there.’

            Jose was literally dripping from all he’d seen in this new city, so different to their own. Barcelona was his home but in Madrid there was a sense of excitement – Jose used the word vibrant – because this sounded as vivid as the experience he was trying to convey. He wanted to give all this to Nayo.

            ‘We didn’t just stay in Madrid,’ said Jose, ‘although I’d have been quite happy if we had. Not just because I fell in love with the city but spending so much time with my uncle…I don’t get enough chance to see him and this summer, I really got to know him again. And he knows Madrid like the back of his hand. It’s an incredible city, Nayo, and it’s a city made for you. When I walked down the Gran Via, I kept thinking of you. And the Puerta del Sol…I couldn’t stop staring up at the buildings. It’s breathtaking. And the Teatro Espanol…I stood in front of it and could almost feel your hand in mine.’

            ‘I sat in the Parque Guell one day,’ smiled Nayo. ‘I thought it might bring you back to me.’

            ‘All the time I was walking through the streets of Madrid, I just kept wishing you were there,’ said Jose. ‘It didn’t stop me loving every minute but you have to go to Madrid and then you’ll know what I’m talking about.’

            The closest Nayo had got to Madrid that summer was via some of the handwritten envelopes bound for Calle de Goya, Paseo de las Delicias and, confusing Nayo at the time, Avenida Cuidad de Barcelona. But now Jose’s detailed account began to open up another world for him, conjuring up unimagined shapes, textures and curves.

Three years later, when Nayo’s teacher encouraged him to submit his portfolio to the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, it seemed like the natural choice. Jose had already been accepted at the Complutense University of Madrid when Nayo was asked to attend an interview at the art school. His parents were surprised, aware of their son’s talents but not yet convinced his abilities were any different to others his age.

This would be the first time Nayo would travel alone and to an unknown city. Neither Carlos nor Manuela had ventured to the capital and outside events were only intensifying their fears. The nightmare that was shaking so much of Europe hadn’t really touched Spain but the knowledge that the Germans were so close to Paris was deeply unsettling.

‘It was actually us who suggested Jose apply to the University of Madrid,’ said Horacio. ‘It’ll cripple us financially but Rosalyn thinks he might be safer there. At least it’s further away from France.’

‘Manuela’s worried about Nayo travelling such a long way on his own,’ said Carlos. ‘That concerns me, too, but I’m also thinking ahead in terms of the money involved. If he does get accepted, and that’s by no means certain, he’ll have to apply for a scholarship.’

            ‘I can go with him if you want,’ said Jose, trying to reassure Manuela. ‘Gives me a chance to look round my university so it would suit me, too. Madrid is such a beautiful city. And we can stay with my uncle. Nayo will be totally safe, I promise.’

            Jose had long become a second son to Nayo’s parents and although he was a month younger than Nayo, he always felt like the older brother because of the element of protection he seemed to provide. Carlos and Manuela knew the war being fought in neighbouring countries inevitably affected their sense of security but they couldn’t and wouldn’t let this impact on their son’s future.

            ‘I feel better knowing Jose’s going with him,’ said Manuela that evening. ‘I know we can trust Nayo but he’s still a little boy in certain ways.’

            Carlos hugged her and kissed her gently on the forehead.

            ‘He might always be your little boy, Manuela,’ he smiled, ‘but you also have to let him grow into a man.’

            It was the fifth of June when Nayo and Jose boarded the train for Madrid. Both families came to the station to say their goodbyes and when the train disappeared from view, the parents consoled each other quietly while the two boys, now young men, locked themselves in a long and fierce embrace.

            The journey took many hours but each minute was more significant than the last. This was the longest time, in all four years together, that they’d truly been alone. Even their desperate and urgent escape to the beach after Nuria’s wedding had been curtailed by the fact they had to return to the party, blend in unnoticed with the guests and the dancing and the laughter, restore themselves to a normality – albeit heightened - when their bodies had so recently discovered an intensity they hadn’t believed possible. So the endless length of the train journey was nothing other than luxury and the fact it occurred in public did nothing to detract from this. Their fingers still found ways to interlock. Their persistent gaze could be construed as studious interest. And, when all else failed, the unglamourous toilet provided a haven whenever their mouths missed each other so much that it hurt.

            Salvador, Jose’s uncle, was there to meet them when the train pulled in. Unlike Horacio, Salvador had remained resolutely single and he regarded the boys’ visit as welcome company. He never felt lonely but enjoyed people around him and was extremely fond of his nephew. He’d watched Jose grow from a serious little boy to a young man who took life just as earnestly but with a sense of humour that Salvador admired. In many ways, Jose reminded him of himself at that age although it was now three years since he’d actually seen him.

            Nayo liked Salvador as soon as they shook hands. Salvador’s handshake was firm and true. There was no pretence and now he understood why Jose spoke about him with such admiration. Salvador welcomed him to Madrid with genuine warmth so Nayo felt at home immediately, a feeling which increased as the car guided them through streets which seemed busy compared to Barcelona. Nayo felt completely in his element just as Jose always said he would.

            Salvador’s apartment was in a street just off Calle de Juan Bravo and Nayo wondered who exactly Juan was and what he’d done to mark him out as brave. Claiming not to be an expert on Spanish history, Salvador filled in the missing information with a lot of detail.

            ‘Juan Bravo was a rebel,’ he said. ‘When Queen Isabella died – we’re talking about the beginning of the sixteenth century – her daughter’s son, Charles, was eventually proclaimed King of Castile and Aragon. This led to an uprising by the citizens of Castile, the Revolt of the Comuneros. There was a huge resistance to the feudal system so support was given to peasant rebellions. Any opposition to the landed nobility had to be a good thing. Juan Bravo was instrumental in all of this. He was one of the leaders.’

            Nayo’s initial respect grew as Salvador spoke.

            ‘The rebellion was rooted in ideals of democracy and freedom,’ said Salvador. ‘But everything came to a head on the twenty third of April fifteen twenty one.’

            ‘My birthday,’ said Nayo.

            ‘Don’t be alarmed,’ smiled Salvador. ‘It’s not a premonition. Simply a matter of historical fact and I don’t even know why I remember the date so precisely. It must’ve been drilled into me at school at some point.’

            Many things had been uncomfortably drilled into Nayo’s head during school but at that moment, he only wanted to remember the good that had come of it. His education had brought him here, to Madrid.

            ‘On the twenty third of April fifteen twenty one,’ said Salvador, ‘there was a battle and the rebels were defeated by the supporters of Charles, the incumbent King. Juan Bravo was one of the rebel leaders so he was captured and executed the following day.’

            Nayo stood in awe at the number of books he encountered as soon as he walked into Salvador’s apartment. His home was like a library or an encyclopedia or a shrine to the venerable art of learning. Maybe, he thought, this is the best dowry you can want. If you devote yourself to living alone then these are the presents you receive in return.

            Calderon’s La vida es sueno sat snugly between a book of Shakespeare’s poetry and something in French about somebody called Voltaire. To a young mind eager to fill itself with everything new and unknown, Salvador’s apartment was heaven and his sigh was audible as he dropped his suitcase to the floor.

            ‘A drink, my friends?’ smiled Salvador, aware they were eighteen and could be treated as men. His brother might disapprove but they were away from home and the strict regime could become more flexible. He also knew his own parameters and would abide by them. These boys, young men, whatever you want to call them, were in his trust and he would look after them in every way he could. So he allowed them one glass of wine that night and only one. He might be the friendly genial uncle figure but he was no fool. He knew what it felt like to be let out of sight of parents for the first time so he played by the rules.

            He also sensed, when it was time to sleep, that the two boys – he needed to remind himself they were young men but it was difficult when one was known to him before his birth –were reluctant to separate. He put this down to nervousness on Nayo’s part at being so far away from home. Although he felt some sympathy, he was conscious of his responsibilities so showed Nayo to his bed before guiding Jose to his room. They might escape during the night but Salvador had a feeling they wouldn’t, remembering himself again at their age.

            He was right of course. Nayo respected Salvador, his hospitality and his trust. He yearned to wake beside Jose but knew when certain boundaries had to be observed. Jose felt the same. Nothing could tarnish his uncle’s unconditional love.

            The following morning, all three of them set off into the centre of Madrid. Salvador had chosen the location of his apartment quite deliberately. He’d bought it when his legal business had successfully taken off as he needed to be near his office. But it also meant that when he had the time, he could walk into the centre, the most pleasurable source of exercise he’d ever discovered.

Salvador dropped the boys in front of the Academia with clear instructions about how to find their way around. He’d pick them up from Puerta del Sol at five and they knew how to get to his office in case of any problems.

            The building was impressive and the doors felt heavy as they made their way inside. A receptionist gave them directions and Jose asked if he could wait downstairs while Nayo was being interviewed.

            On the advice of his teacher, Nayo had taken some of his recent sketches, completed after he’d submitted his original portfolio.

‘They’re quite different to your usual style, Nayo,’ the teacher had said. ‘Maybe it’s the effect of the charcoal but there’s something bleak about these for some reason. Not sad, not even pessimistic. But bleak.’

            The sketches were of architectural features he’d stumbled across while walking around Barcelona. Just things that caught his eye, he explained in the interview when the men in suits asked him to elaborate on the intentions behind his work.

            ‘And what’s your favourite medium to work in, Ignacio?’

            It was strange to be called by his formal name but this would be the one he’d have to use, at least at the start of his artistic career.

            Nayo paused for a moment.

‘Paint,’ he said. ‘Oil…But then it depends, for example, on the subject matter. Some things demand paint but others, they tell you to use charcoal or maybe even ink. It’s the subject matter, I think…Yes, that’s the starting point. Not necessarily the medium.’

            ‘You seem to listen very carefully to your subject matter, Ignacio,’ said the same man who’d asked the question. ‘We’ve all been extremely impressed by your work. Obviously you’re still young but already we got a sense of originality coming through in some of the pieces and that’s quite rare for someone still at school.’

            Nayo thanked him politely but breathed a sigh of relief when he was eventually allowed to leave.

            ‘How did you get on?’ asked Jose, standing up as soon as Nayo reappeared.

 ‘It’s over,’ Nayo smiled. ‘They either want me or they don’t but at least that part’s over.’

            For Nayo, the best bit was yet to come. Madrid with Jose in the sunshine. The interview was finished and now they could enjoy the day. Even though there were many museums in Madrid, Nayo didn’t want to look at sculptures and paintings.

            They stared at the sweep and vastness of the Gran Via, watching the trams as they slid elegantly and proudly along this unending avenue, some of which, as they later discovered, was still under the process of construction. Already Nayo felt an energy about this city that distinguished it from Barcelona. Of course he had enormous pride and love for his home town but breathing in the length and swell of the Gran Via made him feel alive in a whole new different way.

Jose grinned at him.

‘I knew you’d love it,’ he said.

            Their first destination was the Puerta del Sol to give themselves a reference point. Nayo gasped as they arrived. Its size, its shape, the way it forced you to look upwards at the buildings and the feeling it gave him of entering a warm embrace.

            The Puerta del Sol and the sun shone every single inch of the way. This was the heart of Madrid and even though Jose had been there before, the three year gap meant all this felt just as new to him. When he was last there, he’d longed for Nayo to be beside him. Now his wish had materialised. This, for him, was the true Madrid, a city which cradled the two of them. A city which, without even asking, accepted them.

            They wove their way around the surrounding streets which, for novices, were easy to navigate. Everything made sense, especially the Plaza del Angel which became the main thread for their travels in and between the city centre. It was like the heart of all the streets they wandered through. How could they get lost when an angel was watching over their each and every move? How could they ever wander off the chosen path?

            The Teatro Espanol beckoned both the boys and they wandered inside to look. They read through some literature about a play that had been performed there recently. It was called Los intereses creados by Jacinto Benavente, a name both of them had heard of even though they weren’t familiar with his drama.

            Later, they wandered down to the Museo del Prado but chose to sit in the surrounding meadow rather than peek at the work of the Grand Masters. To go inside would be too much like tempting fate so they decided this would be a reward if they both ended up in Madrid. Their hands intertwined as they lay in the sunshine hidden by the grass.

            Salvador arrived at their meeting point thirty minutes late, full of apologies and muttering about paperwork that should’ve been dealt with days ago but you can never trust anyone to do a job properly.  

‘Never mind,’ he said, ‘I’m here now and I’m starving.’

            They ended up in a busy little bar and Salvador asked Nayo how his interview had gone.

            ‘God,’ said Nayo, ‘that feels like a lifetime ago. But it went fine, I think. The people were nice and they even gave me some compliments about my work.’

            ‘Well, I should hope so,’ said Salvador. ‘I liked the sketches you showed me and just to get an interview at the Academia is an achievement so they must’ve recognized some kind of talent already.’

            As it turned out, Salvador was right. Nayo received his letter of acceptance two weeks after they returned from Madrid.

            ‘I know you’ll be fine, Nayo,’ said Manuela, a few days before his eventual departure. ‘But you have to let me feel sad. I wouldn’t be your mother otherwise.’

            Nayo put his arms around her and held her tight.

‘I’m going to miss you, Mama,’ he said but refused to let the tears show. It would only make Manuela cry even more and that would do neither of them any good. Even his father had allowed himself a little weep the previous evening when he’d made a toast in honour of his son.

            ‘You can’t imagine how proud we are of you,’ he’d said, raising his glass of red wine.

‘This house won’t feel the same without you though. Luckily, we still have our beautiful Angelita,’ he said and turned to his daughter before smiling and suggesting that Nayo do his best to find her a husband somewhere in Madrid.

            ‘But what if I’m not the marrying kind, Papa?’ she asked, teasing him slightly. ‘Will I have to stay at home till the wrinkles start creasing my face? Could you really put up with me for all that time?’

            Everybody laughed. Now twenty two, Angelita still had much more mischief up her sleeve. And that was why the family loved her. You could never be too certain when she was around and that gave a pleasant edge to everything. Like a book which keeps you turning the page because you’ve no idea what will happen next.

            Two and a half glasses of wine later and Carlos was full to the brim of reminiscence, each memory being a trigger for the next. He spoke of Nayo’s first attempt at swimming and how he’d carried his son from the sea as the boy spluttered out enough salt to keep a factory in business. He talked of his failure to interest Nayo in football. No matter how many times he’d produced the ball – bounced it, kicked it, balanced it on his knee – Nayo only joined in out of duty. When Carlos tackled him, he conceded the ball immediately. Didn’t even feign resistance. And there was no point putting him in goal because you’d never catch him making any serious effort to stop the ball going into the net. His son’s lack of enthusiasm spoilt the spirit of competition which Carlos craved so one day, he put the ball back in the cupboard and took out tennis rackets instead. Although, to begin with, Nayo halfheartedly batted the ball back and forth, Carlos remembered his persistent coaching had paid off and by the end of that particular summer, Nayo’s serve was strong and accurate. So much so that on the twenty first of August 1913, Nayo scored a victory over his father in straight sets, including one particularly impressive ace.

            Then there was the proud moment when his son had first appeared on stage, at which point Nayo began to think he might be at his own funeral, shrouded within his father’s effervescent eulogies. Nobody could forget that production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Not if his father had anything do with it anyway, thought Nayo, gritting his teeth in preparation for the next recollection.

            Even though, in true Shakespearean style, all the parts were played by boys, Nayo had been cast as a male character in the shape of the most important fairy, Puck. A pity that an attendant character, clad in wings and tutu, had stumbled over the pronunciation and referred to him as ‘Fuck’, a slip that caused a number of the adults in the audience with a basic grasp of English to clutch the arm of their chairs to stop themselves shaking. But when Oberon and Titania entered the stage, right at the end, poor Nayo was trembling in case he forgot his lines, knowing the importance of being the very last person to speak in the play. He needn’t have worried. Oberon and Titania appeared in all gloriousness but their moment was destroyed instantaneously. It was all the fault of the history teacher who’d taken responsibility for the costumes. He’d gone for aesthetics rather than practicality and cobbled together a spectacular gown for the queen of the fairies, way beyond the capacity of the adolescent actor who felt quite out of place in a dress. The length of the train was his undoing and as the triumphant fairies strutted proudly on to the stage, the elegant Titania fell heavily and abruptly on his acne-ridden face. This brought the house down and spared Nayo the worry of fumbling through his final half-remembered speech.

            As Nayo folded his clothes neatly before packing them in his suitcase, he thought of all the many things he was leaving behind.

            ‘If there’s anything you’ve forgotten,’ said Manuela, ‘then me and your father will bring it.’

            The care and concentration that had gone into this move made Nayo think her concern was unfounded but he was glad of it anyway and imagined they’d find some excuse or other to make the trip.

            In this respect, he knew his parents well. Two months after he and Jose had settled into Salvador’s apartment, Carlos and Manuela decided it was time to taste the capital and booked themselves into a hotel just off Plaza de Alonso Martinez. Salvador promised to show them round the city while the boys were immersed in their studies.

            The decaying still lives of Nayo’s school had suddenly been replaced by living breathing montages, designed to provoke not annul. His teachers spoke of Giotto, Rembrandt, Bosch as if they were close friends not distant cousins. Goya became a man with a life, not words on a page.

            Likewise, Jose’s take on the world had changed. The words of Aristotle may have been ancient but some of them began to make a new kind of sense and Plato’s quest for truth opened a path he thought he too might go down. Voltaire and Rousseau weren’t the easiest to grapple with but he tried because he wanted to connect with their democratic ideas and concepts. Rationalism was suddenly grounded in a knowable context and not chastised as it had been by his school teachers for its unadulterated blasphemy. At the same time, so many new ideas thrown together and all at once left him, like all his peers, a little flustered.

            Poor Carlos and Manuela had no idea what they were letting themselves in for. Travellers with no other purpose than to safeguard their son, they found themselves in a universe over which they had no control. Salvador was the one who kept them on the straight and narrow, especially when the narrow road was the one they preferred to take.

            Their hotel was extremely comfortable and Manuela was pleased to discover soap was provided. She’d packed for all eventualities and the free provision of soap was not one she’d anticipated.

‘It smells of roses, Carlos,’ she sighed and lifted the bar to his nose.

            He wanted to remove her clothes and strip her naked but instead he kept his manners in check and simply breathed in the scent.

            ‘Some things are meant to be exactly as they are,’ he said, allowing the fragrance of the roses to carry him through and beyond the hotel room in which they stood.

            Salvador looked after them as if they were his own family. Heads myopically bent on studying, Nayo and Jose were never going to be the ones to provide the entertainment. They’d come home in the evening, exhausted from the sheer joy of learning, and at least join everyone for a meal if not a conversation. Their minds had been in debate all day so found it difficult to settle into the trivia of passing comments across the dinner table.

After two such evenings, Salvador took matters into his own hands. Nayo didn’t mean to ignore his parents but he was an eighteen year old living a life he’d never imagined could exist. Amazement, not selfishness, made him oblivious to their needs. So Salvador invented evening trips for Carlos and Manuela, escorting them to unfamiliar places far away from his apartment and a million miles from the Puerta del Sol. These gentle people needed to experience Madrid in all its unique and varied colours.

            ‘He seems settled,’ said Manuela as they snuggled safely beside each other on the train back home.

            Carlos kissed her head, wanting suddenly to smooth his hands across her breasts.

‘Our son is finding his place in the world.’

            That night, he felt her tremble as he kissed her and she let his fingers slip quietly inside her as they use to do. She gave into his temptations and felt all the better for that.

            Nayo and Jose found their own way to each other and Salvador didn’t seem to notice. They were staying with him permanently and he needed his sleep. It’d only been their tenth day in Madrid when the thought of Nayo’s soft warm body first led Jose to his room. He crept across the hall so quietly, aware he must be trespassing but unable to stop himself. His uncle was to be respected but his uncle was asleep. Jose had turned from one side to the other and now he simply needed Nayo.

            He didn’t have to wake him as Nayo had been struggling in the self-same way, wrapping himself around his sheet to try and pacify his desires. Jose slipped in and between his friend so swiftly and so softly, as if the two had never parted since the day of Nuria’s wedding. A moment so stark, so simple and so real. After that very first intensity, several months passed before they’d dared tiptoe towards ecstasy again. In Salvador’s home, Jose used his bare feet to cover his compulsion but Nayo’s expectant eyes when he entered the room justified his actions and they placed hands over each other’s mouth to stifle the cries.

            ‘I love you, Jose,’ whispered Nayo as their bodies relaxed.

            ‘I love you, Nayo,’ said Jose confidentially, cradling Nayo’s body gently as if it might break.

            Nayo’s sketches were becoming more abstract as he experimented with new ways of seeing and responding. Jose was juggling with so many different ways of thinking that he was beginning to doubt his own beliefs. Salvador was getting used to sharing his bachelor apartment with two excited young men who opened up a whole new world in him. Night after night, they brought home new ideas, making him realize that youth has a perception all of its own. He felt honoured to be part of it, privileged to glimpse something he thought was long forgotten.

            Three days after Carlos and Manuela returned to Barcelona and rediscovered something they thought they’d lost, the pain that had blighted so much of Europe was suddenly eased. Peace was declared and Spain breathed a sigh of relief that it’d been spared the suffering experienced elsewhere while proud it’d managed to provide solace and comfort where it was needed. Nayo’s parents spent that evening with Jose’s family, celebrating together while finding an excuse to discuss the welfare of their sons.

            Salvador spent that same night with the boys who he now found it easier to refer to as men. They reflected on the horrors and the deaths and the brutalities and, at some point, Nayo made reference to Goya’s etchings, The Disasters of War. One of his tutors had talked about it recently and Nayo understood its relevance all too precisely. Goya hadn’t taken sides during the Napoleonic Wars although he’d needed to play clever in order to retain his position as first court painter. However, his paintings revealed his genuine feelings. He’d seen atrocious acts committed by his own people and he couldn’t shy away from that however much he wanted to. The French were brutes but the Spanish were also culpable and his series of etchings categorically emphasized that. People could behave like bastards no matter what side of the fence they were on.

            That night was passed with all three learning from each other. Salvador’s wisdom was mixed with an education way beyond the confines of repressive law. Jose spoke of the Enlightenment and how little progress had been made since then.

‘The men of ideas aren’t the ones who start the wars,’ he said.

            ‘And the artists just paint what they see,’ said Nayo, sadly. He hoped his paintings embodied some kind of truth but was still too young to be sure.

            Their youth made them appear idealistic and overly pious but Salvador remained impressed by their genuine sensitivity. Yes, he thought, they’re very much men in the making.

            Nayo’s tutor was also conscious of this, being supportive while necessarily critical. He admired the nerve of the bold brush strokes and the indecision over content but it was still his job to keep things in check. You don’t unleash free spirits until their liberty has a purpose or trajectory. At the minute, Nayo was floundering in colours not of his own making and his tutor’s role was to advocate structure amidst chaos if he could.

            He understood this young man exceptionally well because he remembered himself at the same age, head full of paint and nowhere to aim. A wealth of unrestrained emotions resisting order in fear this would undermine the feeling.

            He suggested Nayo turned to Goya, Velasquez and Rembrandt for a sense of form, particularly the sculptural, and to increase his intuition for chiaroscuro.

            Dutifully, Nayo poured over their paintings and inspiration was coupled with a sense of awe.

            ‘How can I compete with them?’ he asked Jose, shaking his head. ‘How the hell can I ever compete with them?’

            Jose felt exactly the same about philosophy. Some of these people had thoughts that’d never even entered his brain. Their theories were complex and difficult and he felt as if he didn’t have a clue. He was being force-fed new ideas and expected to digest them when he couldn’t. He was a boy from Barcelona at the end of the day. Simply another boy from Catalonia.

            They shared their doubts and uncertainties and this made them feel better when, after a long and intellectually demanding day, they could confess to their ignorance, gaining reassurance from mutual stupidity.

            Salvador persevered in trying to sustain their egos. He encouraged them just as he nourished them with nightly meals.

            ‘You two talk of things I’ve never even heard of,’ he laughed. ‘You put me to shame and back.’

            Neither of them fully believed him and so returned to their worries, filled with an anxiety which, for a while, kept the two of them firmly apart. No more creeping into bedrooms in the middle of the night. No more silencing the tiptoes or stifling the screams as these were now muffled by a strange blanket that didn’t speak their language. Flesh no longer entered into the equation when reality had so clearly deserted them. Salvador no longer had anything to worry about, not that he ever did.

It was when Jose stumbled into the realms of epistemology that things began to completely trip him up. The world of relativity became far too insecure for his liking. The illusory became both tangible and elusive at the same time and he longed for a stick that didn’t bend when dropped into water, wanting knowledge to be a solid benchmark for his thoughts.

Nayo, on the other hand, found Jose’s discoveries invaluable. It gave his experiments a new validity and purpose. If the theorists couldn’t discern the real from perception then his own particular way of seeing the world acquired an intellectual status and purpose. There was room for the unpredictable and motiveless because truth, emanating from the senses, is forever open to doubt. Jose had understood much more than he realized as Nayo grasped each troubled word he said.

Nayo’s tutor felt another struggle pending as his pupil allowed impulse to govern reason, using this, almost paradoxically, to justify his acts. That being said, some of the paintings which he produced after Christmas demonstrated an unnerving force – sometimes an inexplicable clarity – which had not emerged before. His tutor had lengthy talks with his professor and was finally persuaded that Nayo could be given free reign for a while.

‘He’s finding his path,’ said the Professor, ‘and he’ll make his own mistakes along the way. Don’t impose too many rules at this point. Maybe he’s an artist who needs to grapple with form in order to truly understand it. Sure, sit him in front of a few pre-given scenes from time to time to focus on his technical skills but don’t make him think he’s painting in a cage. Just let him breathe for a while.’

So Nayo’s second term was a glimpse of freedom. The paint ran wild and in so many different directions while Jose felt bewildered by ideas which settled briefly before floating far beyond his reach. He wished he had Nayo’s talents. He wished he had something other than theory to capture what he felt. He longed for some kind of poetry, not always precise yet embodying an essence, however ambiguous that might be.

It was a whole year later, when both of them were even more fully immersed in their studies, that this poetry arrived in the form of a play. The work of an unknown writer, Federico Garcia Lorca, was being performed at the Teatro Eslava and word got round that it might be worth a look. The author was only two years older than Jose and Nayo which only deepened their latent insecurities. They were meeting up with other friends, both from the Academia and the university, the plan being to make an evening out of it.

The theatre was huge and the relatively small size of the audience meant human presence shrank in comparison. Those who’d come to watch the performance looked like a microcosm of Madrid. An assortment of sizes, shapes and undefined sexes, some wore clothes so flamboyant that they more than compensated for the formally attired. Nayo, Jose and their friends seemed to occupy some middle ground and, as they made their way to their seats, they grinned at each other confidentially having caught sight of a man whose colour scheme and haphazard garments made him look like an oversized puppet who’d unwittingly plodded into the human arena on the wrong cue.

El maleficio de la mariposa told the unlikely story of the doomed love between a cockroach and a butterfly, an idea which, when the play began, Nayo felt a little reluctant to take seriously. Jose’s later interpretation changed his mind but he still wasn’t wholly convinced. Neither was the audience and their boos and hisses threw the actors completely off their guard.

‘To be honest,’ said Pedro, an art student, ‘I felt embarrassed. Especially when everybody started laughing. I’ve seen quite a lot of plays but I’ve never seen people behave like that.’

‘Do you think the playwright was in the audience?’ asked Juan, a man for whom Kant had acquired a godlike status.

They all sighed and hoped he wasn’t because that kind of public humiliation could never be deserved.

‘Strange though,’ said Pedro. ‘The cockroach was played by a woman and the butterfly by a man. I would’ve thought it would be the other round.’

‘I know what you mean,’ said Jose, ‘but I thought there was something beautiful about it all. About the whole thing. Something magical. I can’t explain why but that was how it made me feel, that’s all.’

Later that night, Jose remembered lines from the play and whispered them aloud:

My kisses are warm sweetness

Fire in living my passion rare

And to take me to the grave

Will beat for you

This heart

            When Jose proceeded to plant kisses on every section of Nayo’s body, Nayo felt his nerves being set alight.

            Not long after and Nayo celebrated his twentieth birthday. The twenty third of April, timed nicely to coincide with Lovers Day. While Nayo was aware of his immense heritage, he could never align himself with Sant Jordi, the patron saint of Catalonia whose feast day fell on the same day but who he was far too humble to try and emulate.

            Jose presented him with a book from which a rose, red as red, appeared. The flower was placed within poems by Gustavo Adolfo Becquer, full of love, disillusionment, loneliness and ache. Immediately, Nayo’s lips felt their way towards Jose’s. Just turned twenty and he was kissing his lover as if giving thanks for life.

            Salvador prepared a special breakfast in Nayo’s honour with a generous selection of meat and cheese. Carlos and Manuela sent money and a card full of love and warm wishes. As Nayo read the words, he felt a sharp tug at his heart. Jose’s parents also sent a card and promised to take him out for dinner when he came home in the summer.

            Nayo showed Salvador the book Jose had given him and Salvador looked through some of the poems. He found one he particularly liked and read it aloud:

                        Sighs are air and go into the air.

                        Tears are wet and go into the sea.

                        Tell me, woman, when love is forgotten,

                        Do you know where it goes?

            There was a silence as the impact of the words took their full effect. No-one said a word as there was nothing to be said.

            Becquer’s poetry, its images and its simplicity, had a positive influence on Nayo’s paintings and his tutor noted changes in his approach.

            ‘There’s much more detail in your work,’ he said, giving his annual evaluation shortly before the summer break. ‘And you’re getting a real feel for textural nuances. Even the colours you’re choosing are different, maybe because they need to be to capture the subjects you’re trying to explore.’

            Nayo still wasn’t clear about what these subjects were. His paintings remained fairly abstract even if they emanated from more specific content. He wanted to weave emotions into everything and it was this emotional impulse that drove every aspect of his art. Whether he turned to oil, ink or charcoal, it was a journey which involved the whole of his body and whenever he set out in a new direction, he had no idea where he might end up.