great fictional films appeared, that I enjoyed myself; which led me to feel somewhat disconcerted and to distance myself from Debord, at least as a filmmaker, although I didn’t renounce his religion and remained his follower, I didn’t want to be just a vulgar anti-Francoist. Everything about Spain began to feel very far away, apart from my friends Javier Grandes and Adolfo Arrieta, who I saw as two
pure
artists and, moreover, they seemed brilliant to me — and I don’t think I was wrong. Everything Spanish was gradually fading away, but to be honest I have to admit there were nights when this disciple of Guy Debord returned to his garret alone and sad and somewhat drunk and started reading Luis Cernuda aloud and suddenly felt very Republican and emotional and ending up crying at the lines: “
soy español sin ganas / que vive como puede bien lejos de su tierra / sin pesar ni nostalgia
.”
That was how I lived in those days and perhaps that’s why I cried: I lived as best I could, far away from my country, and I didn’t know — how could I? — that I was protagonizing my novel about the years of my literary apprenticeship; I didn’t know much, at times I knew only that I was a Spaniard with two pairs of fake glasses and a pipe, a young Catalan who didn’t really know what to do with his life, a writer who turned into a young Republican if he read Cernuda, an unenthusiastic young Spaniard who lived as well as he could, far from his country, in a Paris that was not exactly a moveable feast.
25
Anyone who wants the island of Key West — coastal and tropical, a little decrepit, hot and humid — can have it as far as I’m concerned. It’s just as horrible today as when Hemingway set himself up in that old stone house, a belated wedding present from his second wife Pauline’s uncle. Although not an ideal spot, it didn’t totally disappoint Hemingway, it was a good place to come home to after tarpon fishing in the Tortugas waters or bear hunting in Wyoming. Even so, no matter how you look at it, Key West has little going for it; if anything, it might be that, as in Hemingway’s day, sailors still fight bare-knuckled in rumba bars.
Apart from these bars, I was so bored in Key West (I guess being disqualified didn’t help), I spent many hours imagining in great detail the story of my friendship with a “thingamajig” called Scott, who in a previous life had been a Parisian demon, the demon Vauvert.
I say thingamajig and, maybe to be more precise, I should say
odradek
, that Kafkaesque creature in the shape of a spool with old, broken-off bits of thread of various sorts and colors wound around it. No more than a wooden object, but also an animate creature, with a real and eternal life, who, in the case at hand, will outlive all the customers of his place of residence, La Closerie des Lilas, Paris: that’s where he resides, unobserved by everyone except me. I’ve talked to him whenever I’ve been to this café over the last thirty years.
“So, what’s your name? I asked the first time I saw him. “It used to be Vauvert, now it’s Scott,” he said in a voice that sounded like the rustling of fallen leaves. “And where do you live?” I asked. “Always here, on this site, which is called La Closerie these days, always between the door and the bar; a while ago I was in the cellar of an abandoned house here.” He laughed a strange laugh, the laugh of someone with no lungs.
I did some investigating, asked who the devil Vauvert had been.
“What ever happened to the
Monstre Vert
, to the devil Vauvert? No one ever found out and now no one ever will,” the lunatic Gérard de Nerval wrote at the end of an intense, romantic text dedicated to the legend of this ancient Parisian monster and devil. Today it’s taken for granted that no one ever knew and no one ever will find out what became of the devil Vauvert since the moment, sometime back in the 1820s, when a police sergeant saw him for the last
pure
artists and, moreover, they seemed brilliant to me — and I don’t think I was wrong. Everything Spanish was gradually fading away, but to be honest I have to admit there were nights when this disciple of Guy Debord returned to his garret alone and sad and somewhat drunk and started reading Luis Cernuda aloud and suddenly felt very Republican and emotional and ending up crying at the lines: “
soy español sin ganas / que vive como puede bien lejos de su tierra / sin pesar ni nostalgia
.”
That was how I lived in those days and perhaps that’s why I cried: I lived as best I could, far away from my country, and I didn’t know — how could I? — that I was protagonizing my novel about the years of my literary apprenticeship; I didn’t know much, at times I knew only that I was a Spaniard with two pairs of fake glasses and a pipe, a young Catalan who didn’t really know what to do with his life, a writer who turned into a young Republican if he read Cernuda, an unenthusiastic young Spaniard who lived as well as he could, far from his country, in a Paris that was not exactly a moveable feast.
25
Anyone who wants the island of Key West — coastal and tropical, a little decrepit, hot and humid — can have it as far as I’m concerned. It’s just as horrible today as when Hemingway set himself up in that old stone house, a belated wedding present from his second wife Pauline’s uncle. Although not an ideal spot, it didn’t totally disappoint Hemingway, it was a good place to come home to after tarpon fishing in the Tortugas waters or bear hunting in Wyoming. Even so, no matter how you look at it, Key West has little going for it; if anything, it might be that, as in Hemingway’s day, sailors still fight bare-knuckled in rumba bars.
Apart from these bars, I was so bored in Key West (I guess being disqualified didn’t help), I spent many hours imagining in great detail the story of my friendship with a “thingamajig” called Scott, who in a previous life had been a Parisian demon, the demon Vauvert.
I say thingamajig and, maybe to be more precise, I should say
odradek
, that Kafkaesque creature in the shape of a spool with old, broken-off bits of thread of various sorts and colors wound around it. No more than a wooden object, but also an animate creature, with a real and eternal life, who, in the case at hand, will outlive all the customers of his place of residence, La Closerie des Lilas, Paris: that’s where he resides, unobserved by everyone except me. I’ve talked to him whenever I’ve been to this café over the last thirty years.
“So, what’s your name? I asked the first time I saw him. “It used to be Vauvert, now it’s Scott,” he said in a voice that sounded like the rustling of fallen leaves. “And where do you live?” I asked. “Always here, on this site, which is called La Closerie these days, always between the door and the bar; a while ago I was in the cellar of an abandoned house here.” He laughed a strange laugh, the laugh of someone with no lungs.
I did some investigating, asked who the devil Vauvert had been.
“What ever happened to the
Monstre Vert
, to the devil Vauvert? No one ever found out and now no one ever will,” the lunatic Gérard de Nerval wrote at the end of an intense, romantic text dedicated to the legend of this ancient Parisian monster and devil. Today it’s taken for granted that no one ever knew and no one ever will find out what became of the devil Vauvert since the moment, sometime back in the 1820s, when a police sergeant saw him for the last
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