“Yes, no problem, Kim. I’ll be at my desk.” Laia beamed her most winning smile at the pair and walked briskly off toward the stairs.
Out in the street, Dídac felt numb. No sooner had he come off stage and was walking quickly up the aisle to make his getaway—in his present state he couldn’t face trying to speak to Kim or any other reporters—than he saw Isard Muntaner lurking by the theater doors. They each flashed a smile at the other as one instinctively does in the theater—a sort of battle armor you wielded against friends and rivals alike—and Dídac managed a hurried “so good to see you, Isard!” as he barreled on past. Then he was in the foyer and heading for the street.
Outside he stopped to pull himself together. Whipping out his sunglasses he shielded himself from the world. So that bastard Delatour was going ahead with his plan to replace him! What other reason could there be for Isard Muntaner showing up at the theater, and at the press conference no less! It made Dídac feel doubly foolish to have unleashed that emotional drivel about Kim Delatour being decisive in his choice to become an actor. How could he have been so stupid! And now Delatour could play him, replace him whilst offering some kindwords of support, and feeling gratified to have been such a source of inspiration to the young Dídac Amat, but the play perhaps required a different sort of energy, blah, blah… However, he, Kim Delatour would always be there to offer his sound professional advice to such inspirational and aspiring young actors as Dídac Amat, blah… blah… blah-de-ha-ha! How could Dídac have been such an idiot! Why hadn’t he kept his intervention to some smarmy drivel aboutThe Swanand how he was looking forward to working with such a prestigious director as the famous Delatour. And that was it—that was all that was needed. Now he was going to get the sack and the press would have a field day with his confessions up there on stage.
He began walking toward the Rambla, not having a clear idea of where he was headed or what he wanted to do. Home, he thought. If ever there was a moment when he needed Dragon’s caresses, it was now. But he wasn’t ready to hail a ride just yet. He needed to walk for a while.
His phone buzzed: Laia. He had a good idea what she’d be calling about.
“Hi. If you’re calling about what I think, yeah, I saw him.”
“Didi, what you said was beautiful today. I can’t believe Kim would be going through with that. Your work in rehearsal’s been deep, some of the best work I’ve seen you do.”
“So maybe Isard just called in today, just when all the press happened to be assembled, to sell him some fortune cookies?”
“We don’t know. He certainly hasn’t said anything to me.”
“He wouldn’t, would he? He knows you’re my friend.”
“I’m also his assistant. If he was going through with something like that, he would need me to help set it up.”
“I’m sure Isard’s English was up to it.”
“It isn’t just a case of talking to the actor. He would need to get it signed off with both Jordi and Santi. Santi controls the purse strings and I can’t see him saying yes to replacing an experienced and box-office friendly actor with a relative unknown.”
“Isard isn’t that unknown now. SinceRelentlesscame out last year, everybody’s talking about him.”
“I still don’t think it’s going to happen. We’re already two days into what is a nearly impossibly short rehearsal season. Replacing an actor at this point would be adding another big problem to an already difficult production.”
“Better sooner than later.”
There was silence for a few moments. Dídac could hear Laia breathing, deciding what to say.
“Listen, Didi, you may be right, but I don’t think so. I’ve been getting to know him a little—he isn’t a monster. What I do know is this: Whether or not he has a plan, from now on you have to make it as difficult as humanly possible for him to sack you. No more late starts, or nights out—you have to be razor-focused. Show up early; do your prep. Make this production your religion. Live it, breathe it. Show him that you and no other actor are the real Anton. Then if he does sack you, so be it. At least you’ll have given it your best shot, and you can move on with your head held high… Damn, he’s coming upstairs… I have to go. Think about what I said, and give it your all. Love you heaps.”
After Laia rang off, Dídac kept walking, thinking about her words. Yes, she was right, and not just because of Isard. Anton was his part. Whether or not you considered the devotional aspect of what he had said back there to the press, about working with Kim Delatour being somehow a sort of sacred pilgrimage to his adolescent Mecca, the part itself was absolutely made for him as an actor. He needed to fit into it sowell that Kim Delatour would also come to see him as inseparable from that part. He took out his phone again and hailed a ride. Right now he needed a ginger-chai tea and the tender, sharp-clawed ministrations of Dragon. And then to work.
As Kim studied the comely oval face of the young man sitting opposite him in the theater café, concentrate as he might, a single thought kept popping unbidden into his mind. Isard’s large, almond-shaped, low-hooded eyes, with their deep chocolate irises reminded him of some Italian painter from last century—one he liked. Was it Modigliani? He thought so. The boy had a presence that drew you deep down into those mysterious wells, and he tried to pay attention to what the young actor was saying. But that persistent unrelated thought kept rising unprompted every time he took a sip from his cup: Why was Barcelona’s coffee so bad?
Kim was a Melbourne boy, born and bred in the largest Greek city in the world outside of Athens, and also home to a sizable Italian diaspora: they took their coffee seriously down under. After days trying to find a decent flat white, he had almost given up hope. The coffee itself wasn’t the problem—it was the milk, he thought. Every café in the city used cartons of preserved long-life milk needing no refrigeration, but it tainted the coffee with its own particular, chemical flavor. Plead as he might for fresh milk, they just assumed he meant cold, unheated. Even here in the holy shrine of the Teatre Romea, the milk was kept in cartons out in the storeroom, instead of in the fridge to be used while fresh.
“Sorry, can you repeat that? I didn’t quite get it.”
“Yes, of course, Mr. Delatour, no problem at all. I was saying…”
Why had Dídac disappeared so abruptly? He had made that moving impassioned speech and then vanished. Had he really been in the audience of theirBoomerangtour? He must have been a stunning youth—no, don’t go there: that way be dragons. But was it true or was that just some fictitious actorly tale Dídac had invented so as to wow the press? To wow him as well, could it be? He’d certainly done that. The press had been eating out of his hand by the time the actor sat down. Kim had looked over at him afterwards. At that moment, he seemed painfully vulnerable, almost on the point of tears. Kim had never quite appreciated how delicate his eyes and lashes were, like a girl’s. The actor’s gaze remained fixed on the stage before him, but two bright spots of color burned on his cheeks. Was he blushing? An actor of his caliber blushing on stage? Kim couldn’t credit it. Like himself, Kim recognized the signs of an actor who felt so comfortable in his own skin when performing that, while stage nerves are a fact of professional life, once you’re on the boards, the muse takes over. Embarrassment? That was alien to a performer like Dídac. Unless it was in a situation where he knew he hadn’t produced his absolute best work. Then, yes, any actor worth their salt would be embarrassed not to have given two hundred percent of themselves. But that didn’t feel like it was the situation here. Whether true or not, Dídac had given one of the most sincere and heart-warming confidences Kim could remember having witnessed. It had seemed so authentic. But was it? At that point applause for Felipa Gómez, who was speaking, had washed over the theater, taking him back to the press conference, and he’d had to pay attention again.
Isard was looking at him with those large eyes.
“Sorry, what were you saying?”
Isard huffed angrily.
“I’m sorry to have taken up your time, Mr. Delatour. You’re clearly a very busy man, with the rehearsals forThe Swanjust getting underway. Here, it’s all in this dossier. I hope you’ll have time to look at it in the next few days and get back to me if you’re interested in supporting us.”
Then Isard Muntaner was rising and shaking his hand, he had the guy’s folder tucked under one arm, and they were walking together toward the street entrance. There, they shook hands again and Isard left, while Kim wandered slowly upstairs to the offices. And he couldn’t for the life of him remember what Isard had been talking about.
10
