Arturo was born above this bar, 52 years ago. He entered the world amid a flurry of Catholic wailing, rosary beads, and steams of hot water, on a sweltering night in July. Ideally for his father, this meant that there was no chance of the birth, or subsequent birthdays, interrupting a football match. Arturo loves the bar, Barca, Catalonia and Spain - strictly in that order.
Arturo is a perpetually lean, bespectacled, benevolent man. His world is within 100 metres of the bar, which gazes benignly onto a small square off the Avinguda Diagonal, in Barcelona's north east. Arturo lives above the bar in an apartment no-one has seen. It could be a large loft, bereft of furniture and personal details, in the modern minimalist style sweeping Barcelona, like every other European city. Or it could be a time capsule, filled with the memorabilia of his father's bitterness at the Civil War, and his mother's descent into madness. No-one knows for sure.
The bar is a stone's throw from the Camp Nou stadium. The floodlights illuminate its terracotta-tiled roof. For seventy years, the bar has shed slivers of powdery plaster as Barca fought to preserve the Catalonian soul through the simple, powerful geometry of football. The square has echoed to car horns, and the Catalonian anthem, screamed out in support of the team, and in defiance of General Franco. Above the bar counter is Arturo's prized possession – a signed photo from Cruyff himself.
Arturo is single, and always has been. He claims to be wedded to the bar, and few could contradict him about that. He never seems to leave. At 7am, he is putting out the shiny metal chairs onto the courtyard, waving to his neighbours in the clean morning light. He is already wearing his trademark waistcoat and bow tie, his glasses glinting and sending tiny shards of light into the apartments around the plaza. He is providing churros and tostadas for those weary teenagers staggering out of the all-night clubs in the area, diplomatically avoiding a look at their exposed midriffs and glistening, tanned thighs. And at 3am, he is the one wishing the last regular to leave a courteous "hasta luego", as he fastens the metal bolts on the doors, switches off the lights, and climbs the stairs. Rain or shine, every day.
Discrete. Yes, that is the word for him, always the soul of discretion. Softly spoken, quiet and dignified, he runs the bar that his drunken father won in a poker game. Always a good word for everyone, always there. And yet, especially by the ebullient characteristics of his countrymen, he is a reserved man. Everything with Arturo is sotto voce, a deliberate counterpoint to those around him. It might be thought that this is simply his way of allowing his customers to take centre stage, as every wise bar owner does. But there is more.
Arturo is in love.
He first saw her ten years ago, when the Antilonez family moved in across the square, opening a jewellery shop. The daughter, Maria, had not been with them at first. She was studying Goya in Madrid, and then was a warden in a nature reserve near Cadiz. But one day - and yes, he does remember the exact day – she came into the bar. Barca was playing Real Madrid, and the bar was suffocating under the weight of people, passion, and the expectations of a city. All eyes strained to see a television high in one corner. Hands held high in exhortation, and holding heads as Barca struck the crossbar. With five minutes to go, and the teams deadlocked, no-one noticed Maria come in. Except, that is, for Arturo.
The defining moment of one's life can be a shattering explosion of knowledge, ripping into one's heart and burying itself deep inside. Or it can be a simple non-event, unnoticed by all concerned – a seemingly casual incident that grows in magnitude and significance only later. For Arturo, it was the former. He had simply never seen a woman like Maria before. Lovely women, beautiful women, they had entered the bar down the years. But nothing like Maria.
She carried herself like no-one he had ever seen. She had a simple, quiet dignity that spoke of boundless self-knowledge. Not haughty, not distant, just beguiling, as mesmerising as a sunset. She slid effortlessly between the watching customers towards the bar. Arturo's heart was electrified. Her rich, liquid-brown eyes swept across the bottles behind him, and then she looked him in the eye.
There was a softening in her look that even he, modest and unassuming, could not mistake. She dropped her eyes in a strangely demure moment, before she selected her wine. He inclined his head slightly and turned to fetch the bottle, sneaking a glance at her in the mirrored tiles behind the counter as he did so. She played absent-mindedly with a pendant around her neck, and he felt a longing to touch her throat, just to caress the honeyed skin for a single second.
As Arturo went to speak to her, a young customer turned around and decided she was worth deserting Barca for. With an arrogance of youth, he moved towards her and they started chatting. Arturo laid the glass of wine quietly on the counter, and eased away into a corner. The young customer used the noise of the watching patrons as an excuse to move closer still, to touch her arm as he spoke, and Arturo felt his chance slipping away. He stood, cleaning a glass with a white cloth, half-watching the football, and sneaking glances at Maria. He watched her fingers sliding around the glass, and her hair as she moved her head. And felt helpless, bereft, and lonelier than anyone in a crowded room should feel.
After a while Maria left – alone. Some of the regulars had noticed his stolen glances, and began ribbing him. No-one had seen Arturo display anything less than old-fashioned, if stilted, courtesy towards any female customer. He felt somehow powerless to take this joking without embarrassment, and found himself overly-occupied with the pressure of the barrels in the cellar. There, he took deep breaths of the cool, musty air, but could not clear his mind.
One might suspect that, having experienced this cataclysmic change, Arturo would have done something about it. But he did not. Arturo is a creature of habit. All his life has been centred on this plaza. He is an intelligent and well-read man but his knowledge of the rest of the city, let alone the rest of Spain, is sketchy and second-hand. His understanding of current events stems largely from snatches of television news in the quieter hours, and the one-eyed rants of his louder customers. People – suppliers, his accountant – come to him. He is the spider in the web and, like all spiders, cursed with infinite patience. So, after that first meeting, he simply waited for Maria to return.
It was four years. Maria's mother died and, as he always did for the citizens of the square, Arturo used his bar as a free venue for the post-ceremony tapas, condolences and polite conversation. All was provided, and nothing asked for by way of payment. Arturo had the integrity to carry this off, without offending the bereaved family's dignity. Maria was shrouded in a veil, but he did not see her cry. She greeted friends and family alike with a closed, distant kiss on both cheeks. As guests drifted away, she spoke briefly to him to thank him for his generosity. He expressed his sympathy at her loss, and shook her hand. He felt a rush of heat swarm across his body as he touched her for the first time. She said that she would now be moving to the city from Zaragoza, to take over the jewellery shop. He inclined his head again, and said that he would be proud to help in any way that he could. As she left, he found himself staring, but in his naïve way, he had not noticed that he was the only person for whom she had lifted the veil, and for whom her eyes sparkled.
Months and years seemed to drift by. The world revolved around Arturo's bar but the bar, and Arturo, did not seem to move. He eschewed modern touches, and the bar continued to be filled with ill-informed debate, loud regrets of love affairs undertaken or allowed to slip away, football and laughter. Each morning, he saw Maria lifting the shutters over the shop's windows, and carefully setting out sparkling brooches on black velvet. His nod of greeting, across the hustling swarms of morning commuters, became over the years a lifted hand of recognition, and then a wave. He noticed that she always wore something black, whether it was a skirt, a blouse, or just a scarf. She noticed that he always wore a waistcoat, and a bow tie.
Today, she comes into the bar.
It is quiet, and Arturo is placing some more tapas onto plates on the counter top. He hears the doorbell chime as she enters, but does not look up. It is raining heavily outside, and he can hear the roar of the rain on the cobbles, and the clatter of people running for cover as the hot spell breaks. Thunder wrenches the humid air. And suddenly, she is standing before him. Drops of water glisten and cling to her jet-black hair. Her mouth is open from the exertion of rushing across the plaza. He is too much of a gentleman to look at her blouse, which clings to her skin in all the right places, and leaves the other customers open-mouthed.
