Commission

In Barcelona’s Gracia –the Bobo neighbourhood– there is a Japanese style sushi bar. The white stone sign outside reads KIBUKA in squat black letters. Next to it, on a smaller black sign, is this: かぶき。This is hiragana for ‘kabuki’, by the way, as in the form of theatre. And indeed, once inside there are some huge prints of men with painted faces to be seen.

I can just imagine what happened there. The man commissioned to do the sign scribbled the word down on a piece of paper, then lost it somewhere along the way. Or maybe his wife washed his trousers with said piece of paper in them –but don’t try telling her that was her fault– and it emerged illegible. Look now what you did, mujer! He would have yelled at her. But she, practical no nonsense woman, would have been unfazed. No paso nada, hombre, she would have replied. I can read it, no problem: k-i-b-u-k-a. And he would have grumbled a little more under his breath, but swiftly got to work.

Three weeks later, sign delivered more or less punctually, he would have shrugged his shoulders at the consternation (and hyperventilation) of his employers. Granted, it was a little different from the word they kept repeating to him now, slowly, as if he was an idiot. But with this type of words, who will know the difference anyway? As far as he was concerned, they were making a mountain out of a molehill.

And true enough, when he passes by these days, he vaguely remembers there was another word somehow similar to the one gleaming on his sign. But, for the life of him, he can’t remember what it was.