In the time of the afternoon when his brain was blank and his wrist was aching, Johnny Coma liked to walk over to the Ciutadella Park and rent a rowboat.
Down Passeig del Born, left on Rec to Princesa, up Princesa to Passeig Picasso, across to the iron gates into the park. At the edge of the pond, the shore was a miniature mayhem of tall tropical green. When he was away from Barcelona, he sometimes forgot how the city was lined with palm trees, how the entry at the airport was all palm trees, how lush it was. The Ciutadella Park was a green lung with pedestrian pathways through it.
At the edge of the pond, ducks in white and brown settled into their own feathers. Horizontal stripes – shadows – played across the ducks. The sun had come out in a blue blaze after the morning rain. The pond
