Behind the Scenes at the Sewerage Museum by Dorothy Alexander
It was summer 1999 and I was in Barcelona for a week’s holiday with my husband, Lawrence. This was our first time in the city and we were loving it. We were staying in a hostal just off the Ramblas in a lovely old street, opposite a communist cafe that was famous from Civil War days.
The day in the question was later in the week, Friday I think, and we were running out of ‘must see’s’. We had done Picasso and Gaudi. We had swung across the harbour in a cable car, despite my fear of heights. We had climbed Montjuic and been wowed by Miro. (We have photographs of ourselves investigating brightly coloured, playfully lewd sculptures out on the gallery roof with the cityscape and a bright blue sky behind us. Inside, I had been spellbound by three huge white canvasses each with a diagonal black line slithered variously across and titled, The hopes of a condemned man.) So that afternoon, we went to an exhibition by the Australian artist, Kathy Smith. All I can remember is watching a film of an Aboriginal girl looking out over a wide, dry landscape from a wooden porch. Afterwards, we were looking for a bar when we came across the Museu del Clavegueram: the Sewerage Museum. It was a stark rectangular building made of dark marble and glass. Our friend, Graeme, worked at the local sewage works. We had to go in!
The history of sewerage in Barcelona was displayed on a series of hoardings, and I have a vague memory of models and examples of pumps and drains, grilles and manhole covers. It was interesting, but we didn’t linger. On our way out we shouted thanks to the man and woman in the ticket kiosk. Lawrence said that it had been fascinating and that we had a friend back in Scotland who worked in a sewage works. At this, the man behind the counter jumped up off his seat: we were from Scotland, hey, that was great, Glasgow Rangers! Celtic!
Inspired by his friendliness, Lawrence gave a thumbs up sign.
‘Catalunya! Escocia!’ he said, implying the closeness of the two would-be nations by crossing his fingers.
‘Si, si,’ the man’s voice was more serious.
We were heading for the door when he shouted,
‘Hey, you want to see the sewers, tell your friend?’
Not sure exactly what he meant, but willing to take the chance, we agreed that we would. He had already grabbed a big bunch of keys and a torch and was motioning us towards him.
‘Come, come. I show you!’
So we followed him through a door at the back of the displays and found ourselves in a huge stairwell with bare walls and a metal staircase. The only way was down, so down we went, the big bunch of keys jangling as our footsteps echoed in the stark space.
‘I hope you no scared of rats,’ he said over his shoulder as we rattled down the stairs.
We weren’t. We had three as pets at home. I’d helped my daughter rear two of them from birth. I loved the feel of their dainty feet on my skin.
At the foot of the stairs he unlocked a door and ushered us through, we were in a sewer! He pointed his torch along a ledge and told us to stay still while he locked the door. He was so friendly and enthusiastic that I put any thoughts that we were locked in underground with a complete stranger to the back of my mind. We had to crouch down to follow him. I was last in line. Funnily enough, I can’t remember much about the smell. I think it smelled like I expected it to, like the sewage outlets on the beaches of my childhood. I remember more the feeling of disbelief that I was in a sewer under the streets of Barcelona, and the awareness, in the pale torchlight, of the curve of the tunnel, of the dull glint on the surface of the liquid flowing quietly along the channel beside us, of the walls, of them looking grey-damp and slimy, and that I wouldn’t want to touch them or have anything drip off them onto me.
Then our guide stopped dead. He turned round and said, ‘Rats,’ in an excited voice as he shone his torch up an incoming tributary. And there they were on the ledges, blinking in the light, twitching their whiskers.
‘And there, look!’
He flashed the torch further back up our tunnel. He had a look of triumph on his face.
‘Now, come see this.’
We walked on a bit, aware of the growing sound of rushing water. Then he stopped and shone the torch onto a huge grille that blocked the way ahead. Above the noise, he shouted,
‘Here, here. Look!’
He budged along to let us peer through. Below us, a brown river hurtled along a wide channel.
‘Barcelona main sewer!’
He was so proud. Our faces lit up in amazement.
‘This level most days,’ he said, pointing to the brown river, his voice carried above its roar.
‘When Barca play at home,’ he pointed to a spot about an inch below the grille and three feet above the current, ‘up to here!’
Lawrence and I looked shocked, and we all laughed as our guide mimed drinking beer and then urinating. Lawrence shouted,
‘In Scotland we too, Rangers, Celtic, Glasgow,’ and did the drinking and urinating mime.
There was a bit of back slapping and more thumbs up as, in the glow of our newly reinforced camaraderie, we all gazed for a last moment at the rushing effluent before we made our way back along the ledge (spotlighting a few surprised rats as we went), through the locked door and into the stairwell which now seemed very dry and quiet, the line of the metal stairs zigzagging up to the museum.
