Twin Souls. Raimon Samsó
gave in. A few days after arriving to Samburu, after an extenuating excursion, devastating fevers attacked her. A parasite invaded her organism, poisoning her blood. The fevers, shivers, vertigo nauseas, vomits and headaches didn’t abandon her until the end. Quinine was not enough. The doctors were unable to save her, and then, my life heeled in a wreck in-land.
I cursed heaven for giving me Clara, and for ripping her away later. I could not understand how a bug from the marshes, so insignificant, could end with Clara’s life, and with a love as big as ours.
From that moment, everything in my life has been a blunder.
I talk to Clara from that moment on, and I wish to believe she listens and understands me. Sometimes we talk, in my imagination, about minor stuff:
-Who takes care of the rosebush? – said Clara’s voice as an omen in my interior.
-Which rosebush?
-The one showing through the balcony.
-Nothing grows there anymore. The roses are dead and the rosebush vanished.
-Well I perceived their scent, and when I walked nest to it I pinched with one of its stems.
-That can´t happen Clara, could it be because you are… -I was about to say: dead. But I didn’t say anything, and stopped talking alone.
Often I continued with these conversations through the whole night, until early in the morning. In a dozing altered her soul’s rest and my conscience’s until I asked her to sleep; soon after, I’d fall defeated by sleep. Sometimes I thought I heard her through my dreams, during the night, as well as when I was awake.
I walked down to drink a caffé latte at the coffee shop. Early in the morning- the first hour of the year- the street resembled the table cloth from the eve: flooded by silence and the first sun’s rays. At my feet a bunch of confetti and streamers, empty bottles, deaf laughter remains spread here and there; a disaster similar to the one reigning my studio and life- in my life after Clara-. Before coming down, I connected my laptop, and opened my e mail. Only one message, from my friend Javier. I printed it, and saved it in my jacket’s pocket to read it next to the bar, while I soaked a croissant.
Javier announced his imminent trip to Barcelona from Los Angeles, via London. He was going to exhibit, for two months, a retrospective of his painting in the MACBA museum. Then: Paris, Berlin, Copenhagen. The itinerant sample would be back in Los Angeles in six months, where Javier works and lives since a few years ago.
Javier is one of those friends whose friendship grows with time, it doesn’t matter how-long-since-last-time, and we always retake it as if it were from last eve. We used to talk about everything, except emotions. It wasn’t that he didn’t have them just that he didn’t feel like manifesting them. He was always like that, reserved, and I accepted it. I knew that under that apparent disaffection beat a sensitive heart.
Years back we studied art and plastic expression together. And after we graduated, he went for abstract painting, and I for dreamlike hyperrealism, like Dalí.
A few weeks later he called:
-Víctor, what time is it in Barcelona? I hope I didn’t wake you.
-Close to midnight. But don’t worry; I had not yet started counting sheep. I am not even in bed. Tell me, when do you come?
-The twentieth, at nine. I’ll let you know the flight number. You have no idea how bad I want to get back to Europe.
-Well, now you seem to be living a second youth… Okay, I wrote it down. Don’t make any hotel reservations; you’ll stay here, in my apartment. I have more than enough space. I’ll come pick you up at the airport. It will be awesome to have you here.
-Víctor, listen to me. I’ve been thinking that maybe you need to take, let’s say, half a sabbatical year. So I’ve thought to cede you my studio, here in Santa Monica. You can enjoy it while I am away. I believe you need to reacquaint with your painting, get away from Barcelona and mostly from the memories. Your last e mails are filled with melancholy and you can’t live that way, so tormented.
-Javier, thank you so much, but this is my place. Whatever I must do, I must do it here. Running away won’t make anything better. I don’t think that a ten thousand kilometers stride will leave memories behind- I replied.
-It is decided. You come here, and I go there. You will love Los Angeles. It is a city full of energy, ideas, creativity. You may paint in my studio; you will find every material you may requisite. You need it Victor. Californian sun will change your spirit. You’ll meet my artistic agent, Jeff, phenomenal person, you’ll see. I’ll leave my studio keys and my old convertible with my neighbor Sam so you pick them up, ok?
-Javier, just wait a second...
-Byeeeee…!
He had hung up before giving me half a chance to reply.
At that time, through the window, I could see how Barcelona began to sleep. Here we go to bed and there, on the west coast, the day began. Then thousand kilometers maybe not, but nine hours of difference did seem enough as to disorient the memory and avoid bumping against my past.
I remember that night I dreamt.
My wife stepped into my dreams again. Then, from the other side, she crossed half the world and sat in my bed to tell me to accept Javier’s invitation. Accept it, anything else. I know it was her because an intense rose perfume invaded my room, and the air smelled like the summer evenings when she looked after the rosebush in the balcony. And from that day on I could not stop smelling the roses, even when I left the windows opened and the studio at the mercy of air currents.
The next morning, because I always gave in to Clara’s desire, I sent Javier an email: «Ok, you win, I accept the invitation. I’ll pick up a few things and fly to the West Coast».
I added a virtual smile. It wasn’t even real, but it was the first one I allowed myself in a long time.
Chapter Two
My name is Victor Bruguera, and I came to Barcelona to paint the ocean. After this, I didn’t want to leave this city anymore, because its blue ocean gets way inside when you contemplate it. I was born a little bit more than thirty five years ago. I am a Virgo, with Leo ascendance, rainy evenings bewitch me, and jazz, and I regret not learning to play piano. I believe I would not be able to spend a long time without living close to the sea, to an open space, so my ideas can develop without boundaries.
I know that I still must grow because my contradictions give me anxiety. Since Clara’s death I hide behind a parenthesis from which I don’t come out. But beyond this weight, I consider myself very vital. Clara admired my sensibility, my kindness, and my capability for tenderness. That, she said, made her fall in love. And she would add: «…Also those green and shining eyes, your abundant curly hair, your not excessive thinness and your enough strength». That is how she saw me, shaded by love’s indulgence. The mirror shows me an image of a man appearing a few years younger. A good man. No, well maybe not, a comprehensive man. Someone who uses objects to communicate silences to refine, in a face softened by the avalanche of kisses he received in his teen years.
I studied artistic expression, but now I’ve learned that the important things can’t be taught. The important things in life you learn on your own. When I started painting, I abused certain technical resources, it is normal, because I wanted to use what I had learned. After this, not anymore. I discovered that at no school they prepare you to make profitable the mistakes that will certainly come. But, I believe that we all need to get through them to think, because they are excellent teachers.
Some may think that creativity is a matter of inspiration a hundred percent… and the artist wishes for the piece to flow naturally. But I must say that not one thing or the other is like this. To me, creation is more transpiration than creation; it requires consistency and determination. Many look at a painting for just a few seconds and give a quick opinion, but the painter spent a long time working for that