Benvinguts to the Catalan Games!

By PICO IYER BARCELONA

Imagine a proud, serious old man, not without some gruffness. Imagine that he is a prosperous merchant, having made enough money, on his own terms, to indulge himself in moments of whimsy, flashes of dandy vanity. Imagine further that he has seen empires and invaders come and go. Now, having dusted the furniture and repainted the house, he throws open the doors to his elegant old home to reveal . . . a dazzle of tropi-colored tricks.

That was a little how it felt as Barcelona, the often unshaven but designer- crazy capital of Catalonia, set flame to the Games of the 25th Olympiad. The occasion was a golden opportunity for presenting the city as a shiny new capital of a postnational world. It was also a quadrilingual glimpse into a multicultural future. Music at the celebrations that opened the Games came from an atlas of names -- Ryuichi Sakamoto, Angelo Badalamenti (of Twin Peaks fame), Andrew Lloyd Webber; Placido Domingo was followed by a sea of "living sculptures" designed by a man from the West Indies. And some of the grandest cheers of all came as the unfamiliar Lithuanian flag hung over costumes fashioned by Issey Miyake.

As soon as the opening ceremonies began, moreover, records began falling like tenpins: the most nations competing (172), the most athletes in attendance (almost 11,000, or five times as many as in the Winter Games), the highest number of television viewers (a projected 3.5 billion). But numbers did scant justice to emotions: to the sense of quiet pleasure as one of the first teams to enter was South Africa, here after a 32-year absence; to the shiver of unease as Iran alone paraded behind a man, not a woman, bearing its name; to the bewilderment that met the Unified Team, amid its cacophony of 12 republics' flags. And when Bosnia-Herzegovina appeared, after an eleventh-hour entry, people rose spontaneously around the stands to cheer.

The most prominent country in the early going, however, had been one that did not march but made its presence felt at every turn: independent-minded Catalonia, which is determined to cast these as the Catalan, not the Spanish, Games. A longtime enemy of Castile, delighting in a language that Franco had banned, Barcelona was eager not just to show off its faster, higher, stronger ^ self -- reconstruction is almost as trendy as deconstruction here -- but to emphasize its distance from the Spain of myth, and of Madrid. FREEDOM FOR CATALONIA signs (in English) were draped from balconies and shoulders, and buttons and stickers proclaiming Catalonian independence were handed out even to kids from California. The Catalan flag, four bloodred fingers on a field of yellow, seemed to be fluttering from every window -- 28 of them on a single building! -- and not one Spanish banner was in sight. As the opening arrow approached, every other shop seemed to be saying benvinguts -- "welcome" in the new Olympic language of Catalan -- to what was locally known as the Jocs Olimpics.

In a deeper sense, though, the weathered, down-to-earth city seemed too rooted and too various to be greatly transformed by pervasive Cobi (as the Olympic mascot is called). Barcelona appeared ready to take over the world, and not the other way round. In Seville, when the Olympic torch arrived on its way to the opening ceremonies, crowds flocked into the Plaza de San Francisco to snap up Cobi dolls, key rings and T shirts, and catch a flash of history. In Barcelona, by contrast, life continued as usual. It flows and crests from dawn to dawn here: sunny Sunday mornings watching the albino gorilla in the zoo; early evenings in the stained-glass quiet of Santa Maria del Mar; late, late evenings with thrashing guitars at the penumbral nightclub KGB. Old women dance stately sardanes in front of the cathedral, and men in silk ties ride scooters to the office. Smiling pickpockets filch bank notes from the wallets of sightseers while placing roses in their hair.

In the balmy beach-front Olympic Village, as the teams began arriving, 50 or more Iranians could be seen sitting in rows in dull beige uniforms, like nothing so much as condemned POWS, fending off questions about why their team consisted of 40 men and zero women ("Their records are not strong." "Women are not interested in sports"). On the other side of the room, Enos Mafokate, the lone black member of South Africa's equestrian contingent, was red-eyed with exhaustion and excitement. "For 30 years," he said, "I have dreamed of this. When they told me I was going to the Games, I could not open my mouth for three hours. I could not even move my jaw. This is something I will never forget!"

Around him, other athletes were pounding away at a Super Monaco GP video game, driving through a simulated Monte Carlo, even as the stars of the U.S. basketball team were in the real Monaco, driving the lane. Their performances were eagerly anticipated. Along the main promenade of town, the tree-lined Ramblas, sidewalk artists had already added Magic Johnson's face to the standard repertoire of Marilyn Monroe and Emperor Hirohito, and copies of Magic's biography were piling up next to canine pianists, peep shows and Ecuadorian panpipers.

Meanwhile, more and more newcomers could be seen trying to figure out a city where pijamas are desserts and streets have periods in the middle of their names (Paral.Lel). Journalists were struggling to work out why three different coins were worth a peseta (less than a cent) and whether the regal Placa de Catalunya really was enhanced by an enormous inflatable M & M. More than a half-century ago, Barcelona, the city of seasoned oppositionists, had been all set to hold the "People's Games," to counter the Hitler Olympics of Berlin. But civil war interceded. Now, as fireworks lighted up the sky above the pulsing stadium and competitors consulted Video Tarot screens in the glittering subway stations, prospects all round seemed bright enough to bring a confident smile even to the face of a grizzled old man.