THE FIRST TIME I THOUGHT I saw Frankie in the Barri Xines was early on, when we’d barely had anything to drink and I was still trying nervously to find ways for Carmen and Ana to get beyond their language differences.
It was the hour when the barrio began to turn itself inside out, like an ordinary shabby cloth raincoat with a garishly dyed rabbit-fur lining. It was the hour when there was still some overlap, when a conscientious girl of twelve, dressed in a simple cotton skirt and blouse and carrying a mesh bag filled with a long loaf, a bottle of mineral water and several carefully wrapped eggs bought from the tiny corner shop, could pass on a narrow sidewalk a dumpy, beaming Filipino sailor in his best whites with his arm protectively around a lanky hooker, probably a transvestite, in shimmering red sequins and gold lamé.
The three of us were in a simple, open-to-the-street bar on Carrer la Unió, between a skimpy lingerie shop and a bridal salon. The bar was packed with olive-skinned men in dark suits, all smoking furiously and watching a soccer game on the television overhead. We stood at the long linoleum bar, which was covered with unappetizing plates of oily gray octopus and greasy yellow “salads” of peas, carrots and mayonnaise.
“It’s very simple,” said Carmen, flashing her gold tooth wickedly. “A Catalan word is a Castilian word cut in half.”
“Catalan is an older language than Castilian, with far more of a history,” Ana countered. “It comes from medieval Provençal. It’s the language of courtship and poetry.”
“It has a very harsh sound,” said Carmen. “Not a pure sound at all. Not poetic or romantic.”
“It has power and beauty,” said Ana. “I know. Because I speak both languages and I have a chance to compare.”
“I think we’d better switch to English,” I suggested. “After all, it’s fast becoming the universal language.”
“Coca-Cola,” said Ana in disgust. “That’s a real contribution to world culture.”
“Hello, I am very happy to meet you,” Carmen said in English. “What is your name? My name is Carmen.”
“My name is Ana. I am so glad to make your acquaintance. How do you like London?”
“It is very rainy here.”
They were mocking me. But I guessed it was better than them mocking each other.
“Would you like a drink of something?” Ana asked Carmen.
“Thank you. I would like a Coca-Cola.”
“The drink of Yankee imperialism. What a good choice.”
“Thank you. I like it.”
They nudged each other and laughed. I glanced out the open bar door and across the street I saw her.
She didn’t have auburn curls and she didn’t have a faded brown pageboy. She was platinum blond and her wig cascaded down her back.
“It’s her,” I said. “I recognize the shoes, the way she walks.”
I grabbed their arms and Ana tossed down a thousand-peseta note. We dashed out of the bar. But the sidewalks were jostlingly full, and cars travelling slowly made it impossible to run in the street. She was a block ahead of us and I saw her turn into a side street. By the time we got there she was gone.
“She was probably just a whore,” said Carmen, teetering on her high heels.
“She probably saw us,” I said.
“Of course she ran,” said Ana, leaning against a wall. “Wouldn’t you if you saw three women tearing after you?”
We went into a nearby bar. The customers were workers in worn blue cloth jackets and we were the only women.
“Sí, señores?” the man behind the counter said to me and Ana. Maybe Carmen was the only woman.
Ana and I each had a beer and Carmen another Coke, and Carmen described Frankie to the bartender.
“A man wearing women’s clothes?” he said. “There are lots of them here in the barrio.”
“She’s not a man anymore,” I put in. “She’s a woman now.”
The bartender, hearing my voice, took me in. “Like you?” he said. “You were a woman and became a man?”
Up to now it had been a joke. “I’m a woman and I’ve always been a woman,” I said sharply. “The only thing I’ve ever been besides a woman is little Catholic girl with pigtails.”
The bartender eyed me curiously. “Oh, you’re American,” he said, as if that explained something.
Ana and Carmen dragged me to a table.
“You let yourself in for this, Cassandra,” said Carmen. “Before you cut your hair you looked fine.”
Ana settled her fedora more firmly on her head. “I’m enjoying looking like a man tonight. I feel much safer somehow in the streets. And I like the idea of playing with my male side.”
“I have no desire to be a man,” sniffed Carmen. “Smelly big creatures.” She lit a cigarette and crossed her silky legs so her skirt rode up.
“When I was young I used to want to be a boy,” I said. “Not now. Of course the perks are nice. Statues in all the public squares, legislation with your name on it, 42 seconds in the toilet instead of 76. But the guilt. The shame. And don’t forget baldness.”
“I don’t understand it,” Carmen brooded. “My nephew Pablo says he doesn’t want to be a woman, he just likes to wear women’s clothing. He says he finds it erotic. And so does his girlfriend.”
“His girlfriend!” said Ana. “What’s she like?”
“She’s Catalan,” said Carmen gloomily.
“I don’t think people change their sex for erotic reasons,” I said. “It must be something deeper, more existential. Otherwise why would you go through surgery and everything?”
“There’s sexual play, and then there’s necessity,” said Ana. “How can we understand another’s necessity?”
I looked at her. She didn’t appear at all like a man to me. A woman in a fedora and a suit jacket, that was all.
“My name is Carmen,” Carmen said in English. “I am woman. Please, what are you? Woman or man?”
“Neither,” I said, in English, then in Spanish, “I’m a translator.”
The next time I thought I saw Frankie was two or three hours later. We had been rigorously patrolling the streets and alleyways of the barrio with frequent stops for refreshment. We had come, at the time when the night began to grow eerier, to a sinister neighborhood of blasted streets with barricaded buildings and empty lots. A few tenements had been half demolished; high above, their rooms had a shocked, broken-in look. A few people scavenged in the lots and along Carrer de les Tàpies some older prostitutes sat on chairs outside a derelict bar and a nameless hotel.
“Look,” I hissed. I grabbed Carmen’s and Ana’s arms, and pulled them close to a wall. Crossing in front of us was a woman with curly red hair.
“I thought you said she was blond,” Ana complained.
“I must have made a mistake earlier. This has got to be her. The wig’s the same, and that walk. Unmistakable.”
“All prostitutes walk like that,” Carmen complained.
“The wide shoulders, the narrow hips,” I said. “I’m sure it’s Frankie. The mini-skirt, those big feet.”
We were creeping along the side of the wall. The red-haired figure had turned down a street where hookers and customers stood in the middle of the sidewalk and discussed activities and prices. She walked casually, holding her big purse at her side, and glancing around with evident interest.
“Come on,” I said.
Ana giggled. “I’m drunk,” she said.
“Get a grip,” I told her. “You’ve only had a couple of beers.”
Carmen took Ana’s arm. “Pretend you’re my man,” she said. She wiggled her behind.
“I thought I was your man,” I protested.
“No, you walk more quickly. Catch up with her. See if you’re right.”
“All right.” I shot forward while trying to look inconspicuous. I hunched my shoulders together and pulled my neck down into my bomber jacket. The crowd increased. At the next corner were a police wagon and an ambulance; medics were bringing a man out from a doorway on a stretcher. His face was covered with a white cloth and he had lost a shoe. Neon lights rained down on us like blood. The gutters were choked with garbage, there was a rank sweaty smell in the air. The police told us to move along, but the crowd heaved intractably. I got pushed up against a building. A hooker said, “How about it?,” then saw my eyes and backed away. At the edge of the crowd I saw Ana and Carmen looking worried. The red-haired woman was nowhere in sight.
The last time I thought I saw Frankie was much much later, at a barnlike gay bar in a residential district that was the last place we visited that night. It was so thick with smoke that it was hard to breathe, and there were two big bouncers outside the door and two inside who only let Carmen in because she was with two men.
We had heard that there was a “show” of female impersonators there, but it wasn’t on that night. Instead platoons of men, working men, not the trendies of the upscale bars, danced disco and smoked and stood around.
“Most of them live with their mothers,” Carmen said tenderly. “They come here to relax once or twice a week.”
We had given up on finding Frankie and were in the dulled but open state of mind that comes with a late evening and too much to drink. We had another beer each and discussed all manner of things in a corner of the big smoky room. Carmen, filled with Andalucían duende, recited lines from Lorca poems and sang snatches of cante jondo, while Ana, with a somber depth of feeling, told us stories of her late mother’s life in exile in France after the fall of Barcelona.
I was holding forth on the subject of translation.
“Every author has a vocabulary and once you understand that half your job is done. The last writer I translated had a very mechanical way of phrasing ideas; his book was full of pistons and levers and drills and pumps and so on. Gloria’s vocabulary is romantic: heart, jungle, loin, flaming, river, lust—I could make a list of a hundred words and that would be her novel, the same words over and over.”
I had a sip of beer and a potato chip. “Architecture has a vocabulary too. And hairstyling.”
“Poof, frizz, tease, sculpt, trim,” said Ana brightly.
“Curve, buttress, tower, skyscraper, gargoyle,” said Carmen, not to be outdone.
The disco music blared loud and violent, until suddenly it shifted into the familiar notes of the Sevillana. As the three of us watched, transported, two long lines of men arranged themselves opposite each other and lifted their arms in the classic curve of that graceful, ubiquitous Spanish dance. They twisted their wrists, flourished their palms, snapped their fingers, moved forward and back and around each other, caught each other by the waist and twirled each other quickly around and around. Those who weren’t dancing gathered together and clapped their hands in a regular beat.
That’s when I thought I saw Frankie again. Across the smoky room, her brown hair tied back in a ponytail, dressed in a suit but looking like a man rather than a woman, I thought I saw her triangular face and bright hazel eyes, her hands lifted, clapping. But it was so cloudy in that room, so crowded, so hectic that I couldn’t be sure. I thought our eyes met, I took a step towards her, and then I lost her again.
“What is it, Cassandra?” Carmen said, catching me as I stumbled. “Are you trying to dance?”
I was drunker than I should have been, or more confused. For a second I had lost the sense of who I was—what sex, what gender, what age, what city and what country. In the instant I saw the man or woman who may or may not have been Frankie I had one of those odd, powerful, and probably alcohol-induced revelations that seem to last forever and wind backwards and forwards into history and infinity.
Afterwards I could never say what it was I experienced just then. But it was as if I were at a masquerade ball and everyone, at the very same moment, lifted their masks, and I saw gender for what it was, something that stood between us and our true selves. Something that we could take off and put on at will. Something that was, strangely, like a game.
Behind me I heard Carmen and Ana conferring worriedly.
“Is she sick, is she going to be sick?”
I wanted to reassure them that I was fine, but I couldn’t remember what language we’d been speaking and which one they understood.
“We’d better get her out of here,” they decided and dragged me away from my epiphany, and from the person who I later decided could never have been Frankie.
The taxi dropped us off at three in the morning, at a time when the streets were still ablaze but there was little traffic and only a few people walking along the enormous boulevards. There was a message on the answering machine.
“It’s for you,” said Ana, and we ran it through again.
“Sorry about the misunderstanding, Cassandra,” said Frankie in that cheerful, throaty voice. “I can explain everything tomorrow. Meet me at that big Gaudí cathedral around one o’clock.”