Andres lives just north of the Gothic Quarter in the 19th Century district of Eixample, or enlargement, that surround the old city of Barcelona. The flat he shares with students from Chile and Argentina is on the roof or sixth floor, though because the numbering of levels in Spain begins with primero [before una, segundo etc] there are seven flights to climb, each twist of the staircase slightly tighter than the level below.
At ground level, in a tiny flat – not much larger than a single room – is the caretaker or puertadora, and old lady with tight blonde curls and an ever-present smile. She stops to gossip with whoever is on the stairs, and watches the street through the granite and marble lobby and heavy door.
From the roof terrace you look out over a courtyard formed by the spaces between the surrounding buildings and an old stone church. At the top of the spire is a collection of bells that chime the hours, quarters, halves, and three-quarters. The chiming of the hour is announced with a smaller bell rung four times, and then repeated a minute or two later, in case you had lost tally of the number of rings.
The bells ring day and night, not as loud as the muezzins call in the Middle East, but just as present a reminder of the civility of the city, its shared places and interconnected lives.
The sun bakes the terraces in summer and so neighbours on the floors below grow cacti and succulents in terracotta pots that match the colour of roof and tile. Two enormous cats sleep in the shade of an umbrella, occasionally staring up as I look down, and then across the chimney'd rooftops, where sparrows fly their energetic, darting flight, tracking paths across the sky not marked by wire or rope or map.
