Money
Manuel de Pedrolo
1951
Half of the buildings in the city –almost two million inhabitants– were banks. In reaching this situation, there was a long hiatus during which a lot of people asked themselves, with anxiety, how would that issue end. Until then there had not been any example of any bank closing. The shops and other trades, however, suffered repeated defeats. At that moment there hardly were any coffee shops –only a sort of small caves where, with such little space, customers had to go in one at a time– or cinemas –only a few rooms, for the use of poor couples, which showed the same films all night and all day, without a stop. Other shows like theatres had been long gone out of sight and memory. The shops coped with a precarious life, practically vegetative, and it was not difficult to guess that they would eventually give up. And so it was.
One day, the number of banks in the city surpassed by one half the total number of open establishments. From that moment on, the race was frantic. The traders cleared their existences through sales and quit. The following day there were bars where there once had been shop windows. After a few months, only a few willful –perhaps two or three bad counted dozens– continued selling perfumes and clothes, toys and books, groceries and drinks. The streets offered an unusual pungent aspect. It could have been said that it was an imprisoned city, and nobody knew for certain if prisoners were the ones inside or outside. But still, it was not enough.
With every sort of well-flourished excuses, the banks, which detained by now the absolute majority, gained an order from the municipal authorities that made the shops install bars on their windows as well. According to the decree, there was a need of giving the city a uniform aspect, a severity of features suitable to the character and habits acquired by the inhabitants of the city. The traders leaned their heads and obeyed. There was nothing else they could do. Therefore, the scarce shop windows left disappeared then, and in their place, bars were installed.