The Boarding House, Toni Castillo Girona [best ereader for comics .TXT] 📗

Despair is the source of all life
SelfDestruction the only way.
I choose death to live!

Dark Fortress, Stab Wounds.

Beyond a certain age, a journey across the city becomes
uncomfortably reflective.
The addresses of the dead pile up.

Ian McEwan, Atonement.

1

I

t is late at night; some people wander around quite drunk, avoiding explicitly to come close to the canal: they don't want to fall down, probably. It is a nice night, though: from time to time one can feel the warm wind slight touch right on the face; here and there friends go in bunches, laughing, passing by the boarding house doors, not even noticing it, just another house amidst the old medieval streets of the city. And besides, it is pitch black in there; no lights in the boarding house: just darkness and silence through its walls. Thus, how could anyone pay attention to it? All that can be seen is mere shadows, abstract forms projected on old walls made of concrete; no-one wants to see those monstrously unaccepted shapes; no-one wants to be looking intently at that old medieval boarding house blackened walls; no-one dares to do so: thus, people pass by, just as the clouds do in an October cloudy day; for no apparent reason. Not so far from the house, what appears to be an old man is laying down, barely covered in rugs, upon the dirty pavement. This is not the first night he has to stay outdoors, completely alone if it was not for all those drunk crowds trudging back home. But tonight he decided to lay there

, close enough to the boarding house, for some unknown reason. People just avoid him disgusted, as if there was not another human being, deep down all that dirty face and rugs, laying there. He is taking a nap; an old bottle of red wine resting beside him; his breath going slow now, because he is dreaming: of a better life, where people do

care about him. Every now and again one can see him smile; it is a warm night after all, and despite the sadness in his tortured life, he still smiles though only in dreams. Some sort of sweet thoughts are being rendered only for his eyes; he keeps smiling now whilst that warm wind caresses his dirty black hair smoothly: back then, there was a wife

and a daughter

; foggy images trying to shape themselves just for him. The alcohol makes all disappear, but not quite yet: there are still those blurred images he can summon whilst dreaming. He thinks: That's not fair!

But still, he keeps seeing those images coming from the past, where love and happiness used to shake hands almost every day; no-one gives a damn but if they did, they would see an old sad man quivering all over, tears rolling down his cheeks, brushing some of the glued filth on his face away; Don't leave me!

, he cries all of a sudden, lifting his left hand, reaching out; Stay!

, he begs. Then, he awakes and opens his eyes, looking around, disoriented. Once again, he does not know where he is exactly. That's why he has to guess. Ah

, he recalls, I decided to have a nap over here! I was on my way to...

Where? It does not matter, not really, not now; he stands up, rubbing his eyes, putting some dirt back on his face in doing so. He intends to go find another place to sleep. He feels something is not exactly right over there. Probably the alcohol, that may be. No much luggage to pack; merely some stolen bedlinen among old newspapers and that bottle of red wine, now completely empty, but still useful for further uses. Now that he is packed, he is free to go: it is a warm night after all, and he feels like walking for a while. Behind him, not so far away, there's a dim light visible from the outside by the boarding house front door. He does not notice it because he is now leaving the other way. There it is, that light, as if someone had decided to turn it on. The old man is starting to get further, further, from the house, and now one who could be standing by the same slightly illuminated front door looking at him, wouldn’t see much of that old drunk and sad man; just a small dark figure mingling with the night.
In a flash, there is no figure at all. Just the murmurs of the crowds laughing and bottles and cups clinking against each other from afar. There's no-one close enough to the boarding house now, and the place where the old man laid down looks like an immense gap; a thunder seems to scream fiercely up there, and the warm wind has decided to find a replacement in the form of a suddenly brutal and cold one blowing spuriously; sweet night no more. And there, right by the front door, the light starts flickering briefly, until there is no light at all. The entire household now remains silent and dark once again; just a sombre structure, another old medieval house no-one pays attention to; surrounded by two lovely canals, settled in a tranquil street quite far from the tourist attractions of the city.

2

H

e was standing by the front door; it was difficult to ring the door whilst carrying the city map on his left hand and grabbing hold of his huge bag with his right; travelling didn't suite him at all, but there he was; waiting for someone to come out and greet him from that old boarding house guts. At least it was cool out there; the flight from Barcelona turned out to be a burden, but surely not on purpose: the airline he flew with had had some awful delays on almost all its flights, so instead of arriving in the city by daylight, it was almost dark. Some cold wind was jerking his map violently, but he didn't care: all he wanted was to get in the house, where he would be fairly protected from that cold wind and any other dangers that unknown foreign city had in store for him. He was about to ring a second time when the front door opened. A good-looking woman in her sixties appeared, smiling:
“Welcome! You must be the guest from Barcelona!”
“I am, indeed.”, he said, smiling back at her.
“Let me help you with your luggage; there's a narrow staircase here.”
She got out of the house in order to get his bag, and in doing so, allowed him to catch a glimpse of the boarding house interior. As she said, he could see part of a steep narrow staircase, with a white wooden rail, starting almost by the front door and leading to the other three house storeys. He came in, followed by his landlady, who was lifting his huge bag exclaiming:
“Wow, it's heavy!”
She rested the bag upon the doormat, turning her back on him briefly to shut the front door. He looked around, but he couldn't see much more than the staircase and the front door; he was standing in some sort of a corridor, with two white closed doors on his left, that very staircase on his right, and nothing else in front of him.
“If you don't mind, I'll call my husband to help me out with your bag.”, said she, smiling.
He nodded. It was a huge bag, very huge indeed, so he felt a bit guilty for not even trying to handle it himself. But looking carefully at that staircase, he was sure he would not be able to achieve such a thing without either harming himself or breaking something. That white wooden rail, for instance.
“Hello, welcome to our home!”, said a cheerful voice on his left; he turned back to face it. A tall thin man wearing glasses passed him quickly, smiling, scratching a patch on his head. After studying the huge bag for a moment, he said: “Okay, there we go!” He grabbed the bag with his right hand and, in no time, was headed for the second floor. “It's not that

heavy, after all.”, he said , “I dare say it is not as heavy as it is huge.” With that, the bag was resting right in the second floor of the boarding house, and he could go upstairs now, walking behind his landlady. They ended up in another corridor, with three wooden white doors, only one of them opened. They entered the room; he could see a number painted black over the wooden door: one

, it said.
“Well, this is it!”, said his landlady. Her husband was going downstairs again, excusing himself.
“Oh, this is lovely!”, he said, looking at every single detail in that bedroom. Fresh yellow dahlias greeted him with such a sweet fragrance; the bed was covered in white and clean bedlinen; he could discern a huge window behind a curtain. Upon the bed table, a lamp with a ceramic-base was scarcely illuminating the entire bedroom.
“Thank you, you are so kind. Before I leave you, ” said she, “breakfast's at 7:30.”
He nodded. She started her way out when she seemed to remember something quite out of the blue, and turning back added:
“If you want a cup of tea, or even a coffee, you've got plenty of that in your room.” Then, she pointed at a table beside the bed. Upon it rested a nespresso

machine and a kettle, both surrounded by capsules, an obscene variety of teas and infusions, sugar lumps, silver teaspoons and lots of lots of other things he did not know of.
“Great!”, he said, smiling. “I love having tea and coffee!”
“Now, I'll leave you. See you tomorrow, have a good night sleep.”, she was getting out of the bedroom, so he said quickly before seeing her disappear downstairs:
“I know I will!”

3

T

he running water woke him up.
According to the boarding house's website, there were two guest rooms. The room where he was staying was one-numbered, so it was fairly evident to think the second one being upstairs, right on the second floor. Obviously, his landlady would explain a lot of new things to him during the breakfast, and maybe some of this new information would be related to the second room as well. After all, it was a bit naïve to think himself the only guest lodging there. Thus, he guessed the other guest was taking a shower. He had a look at his wristwatch, which was by then resting on the bed table, facing him. It was obscenely late to have a shower: 3:30 am. Bloody hell, when one was staying in a boarding house surely one was supposed to behave quite in a different way, no wonder why. But maybe that other guest upstairs was not aware of such a thing. “Leave it by now,”

he said to himself, “ maybe it's just tonight.”

That perfectly could be.
However, he was sleepy no more. He got up from the bed and went close to the table supporting that huge amount of teas and coffees. Beside the kettle, there was an aquafina

bottle of still water. He poured some of it in the kettle, turning it on. Opposite the table was a comfortable settee; he had a seat there whilst waiting for the water to boil. Had it not been for that water running all the pipes down from the second guest room, that would have been a peaceful night, very peaceful indeed. The