The Best Thing That Can Happen to a Croissant

by Pablo Tusset

  The girl worked the same accent I had heard over the phone. I told her I had just spoken with her and she acknowledged remembering me.

  ‘Are you a member, sir?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Your first visit?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Your identity card, please.’

  ‘I have to give you my identity card?’

  ‘It’s a formality we require.’

  Well, whatever – mine had expired a few years earlier, but I always carry it with me, along with my expired passport: a habit from my travel days. The girl didn’t notice the dates; all she did was enter the numbers into a keyboard. A few seconds later an already-laminated card came spitting out of the printer.

  ‘Let me explain a few things. You will need this, it’s a magnetic card. The staff will record all the services you solicit during your stay. The entrance fee is three hundred euros. If you’d like to consult prices, there are various price lists throughout the establishment.’

  It seemed to me that the old-fashioned fake-name routine was, in fact, a whole lot easier, but I nevertheless accepted the card with the tuberose logo along with my identification number and a bar code on the flip side. Something gave me the feeling that I was entering a theme park, but that thought was quickly dispelled when I spied a young gorilla with a black turtleneck and a Prince-of-Wales plaid jacket. He had partially emerged from a room beneath the staircase that led upstairs. From that same area I could hear the gentle murmur of conversation in English, which evoked, in my mind, a corps of guards in a military barracks. The man who had stepped out was at least six feet three, all shoulders and pecs – I almost wanted to stick a yogurt in his hand and snap a photo or two. He hesitated for a moment, as if waiting for the girl’s thumbs-up regarding my arrival and, seeing that all was well, returned to his cubicle with a movement that displayed a dark bulk underneath his blazer, around the level of his armpit, which meant that it wasn’t exactly a turtle dove. I wasn’t terrifically pleased at that little discovery, but now that I was here I decided, as per the receptionist’s suggestion, to go up the stairs and walk through the threshold of the upper floor that seemed to lead the way into the definitive entrance to Jenny G’s.

  No old ladies sitting before a fireplace in this joint: a slight bend in the corridor led me straight into a grand salon which looked like the main bar – even bigger than the vestibule at the entrance downstairs. That was when I thought of an old beer ad in which a young diplomat is sent to a remote country and, once there, finds himself in a most exotic setting that promises the most glamourous of worldly adventures. ‘Welcome, Mr Consul,’ was the ad’s catchphrase. I had been more or less expecting the glamorous bit, but the exotic aspect of the place came off as rather strange: perhaps it would seem exotic from the perspective of a foreigner in Barcelona, I don’t know. It was this very quintessentially British type of club even though it was physically located in the far reaches of Sarriá, and every corner of the place oozed that very subtle geographical difference, down to the very architectural style of the building, the sepia prints of the Paseo de Gracia at the turn of the century, the modernist chairs, the massive ceiling fans, the luminous blue of the wall-coverings and the immense, tropical and very un-Mediterranean kentia plants that finished off the colonial-style ambience. I liked it, though. Enough that I even felt like getting drunk again or, in the event I found an adequate companion, who knew – maybe I would land my second fuck of the night, what the hell. Sounds of jazz, playing very low, emerged from somewhere. I’ll never understand why jazz is always the background music in places that are supposedly elegant – I’d love to know what Charlie Parker would have to say about that. But anyway. In front of a massive picture window with tinted panes that looked out over the garden and the city I spotted a bar, and for the moment that was more than enough to keep me happy.

  I wasn’t too interested in complicating my life at that point, so I just ordered a simple Havana with a lemon twist from the waiter – a guy of mediumish age, in a black vest and the inevitable bow-tie, though this one didn’t speak in an English accent, at least. I passed him my card and once he had served me the drink I stood there observing him as he slid the card through the slot of a rather odd keyboard that was visible from where I was. Then I spun around on my bar stool to inspect the crowd.

  About fifteen or twenty people scattered about the immense room: two guys negotiating something at a table that was slightly separated from the rest of the action; a couple that you could somehow tell wasn’t a real couple; four people sitting on a bank of sofas in the middle of the room … It seemed like a perfectly fine, relaxing place to get wrecked, even though you could sense, in the middle of all that glamour and Barcelona a-la-Britannia, an enigmatic je ne sais quoi. The staff, either alone or in little groups, contributed to this atmosphere of intrigue by wafting in and out of the many entrances to the salon, which were actually corridors with conveniently placed corners that neatly hid from view whatever happened to be going on beyond the main room. The back room was definitely an intense little spot, I thought to myself, and figured it wouldn’t be long before I found a companion. I was not mistaken: no sooner had I polished off the Havana when I was approached by one of the sweet young things that had come in from the mysterious inner rooms. Elegant carriage, black dress that looked more like a negligée, thirtysomething, medium-length reddish Head & Shoulders hair. When she turned to greet me, I saw that she was unusually attractive – pretty face and big green dragon-lady eyes. She wasn’t exactly my type, but she did kind of make you want to try her out, even if just for a change of scenery. She placed her evening bag on the bar, a couple of seats away from where I was, and very politely said hello. I reciprocated, with the best diction I could muster, so as to give the impression that the Hawaiian number was merely an eccentricity, and I continued taking mini-sips of my rum. She turned to the bartender and ordered a Campari with an orange twist (odd coincidence, that one), and I took advantage of the opportunity to order another Havana with a lemon twist. Then I started planning my move.

  ‘May I take care of that for you?’ I offered.

  Meaningful look, smile, good vibes all around.

  ‘Thank you, much obliged.’

  Brief pause so as not to seem impatient. Back to business:

  ‘Lovely evening.’

  ‘Marvellous, yes.’

  ‘Summer solstice: a perfect moment for an evening drink. Sleeping, on the other hand, always proves a bit difficult on a night like this.’

  ‘Yes … sometimes I think sleeping should be done exclusively in wintertime.’

  ‘Well, the secret is to shift your sleeping hours toward the daytime.’

  I got up from my bar stool and found another one for her, at exactly the perfect distance from both me and the bar.

  ‘Excuse me, would you like a seat?’

  There was something about this girl – she couldn’t have been more than a few years older than me, but she made me want to talk to her in the formal. It was some kind of turn-on, don’t ask.

  ‘I don’t recall ever seeing you here before.’

  ‘This is my first time. I heard about the place from a friend who comes here quite often.’

  ‘Perhaps I know your friend, then.’

  ‘His name is Eusebio. I’m Pablo. Pablo Cabanillas. Pleased to make your acquaintance.’

  I extended my hand, and she accepted it as women often do, offering up only her fingers, bent at the knuckles.

  ‘Beatrice.’

  ‘Lovely name. May we speak informally, Beatrice?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘And you? Do you come here often?’

  ‘Two or three times a week, always on Saturday. What is your friend’s surname?’

  ‘Lozano. Eusebio Lozano.’

  ‘It doesn’t ring a bell. Of course, there are some people that don’t like to use their real names here. Some people like a bit of fantasy.’

  ‘Oh, really? For example
?’

  ‘I don’t know … invent a new name, pretend they’re someone else …’

  ‘Innocent entertainment.’

  ‘That depends on who it is, and who they’re pretending to be. Of course, it is possible I simply don’t know your friend. Lots of people come through here.’

  ‘I thought this was an exclusive sort of club.’

  ‘It is. Very possibly only one in ten thousand people can indulge in coming here. But even so, that’s over three hundred thousand candidates, if I’m not mistaken.’

  ‘Including Chinese men?’

  ‘I’ve met one or two here, yes.’

  I fully drained my Havana in one or two long gulps, so I ordered another one, plus a Campari with an orange twist for my lady friend. She demurred, however, saying that she had barely touched her first one. Clearly, Jenny G’s hookers didn’t score a commission off the bar.

  ‘Hey. You know what I’d like?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘For you to show me around. My friend has told me some incredible things, but I’m sure I’ll miss the boat if we stay here at the bar.’

  ‘Would you like a Cicero? Very well, bring your drink with you.’ She glanced over at the bartender. ‘Gerardo, we’re taking our drinks with us.’

  She seemed amused by the idea of showing me around the joint. She even took me by the hand and tugged me a little.

  ‘Well, now: what would you like to sample first, heaven or hell?’

  ‘There’s a choice?’

  ‘Of course. Didn’t you study your catechism?’

  ‘My head must be somewhere else … let’s go to hell first. I’d rather save the best for last.’

  ‘What makes you think Heaven will be better than Hell?’

  ‘Well, one supposes that the words carry with them certain connotations that give them a more complex meaning.’

  ‘Chomsky is such a cretin.’

  ‘I knew it.’

  ‘The Chomsky reference?’

  ‘No. That you’re a philologist.’

  ‘Wrong. I read History.’

  We were out of the main salon now, walking down a wide, well-lit (or better put, skilfully lit) corridor that was very similar to the corridor of an upstairs theatre balcony: all the salon exits converged here. Armoires, tapestries, paintings, rugs, doors, hallways, a variety of staircases, even a few lifts. There was also a small crowd milling about: a pair of cute-looking, impeccably-dressed young ladies, a couple whispering to one another, a fat man in shirtsleeves. The entire building had to be some kind of insane whorehouse, but we were still in the zone where everybody still behaved themselves.

  ‘Would you like something before we go downstairs?’

  At first I thought she meant something to drink and I raised my glass to show her it was almost full. She then pointed to her little purse. Ohhh. Well, yeah, a little whatever would be just fine, I thought. We turned around and went through an unremarkable door, behind which was a row of sinks and massive mirrors surrounded by naked light bulbs, like in a dressing room.

  ‘Have you got a bill?’

  I gave her a fifty and she rolled it up. She rolled it up even before taking the mirror and the little package out of her bag. Coke, probably, I thought. She prepared two very generous lines and offered me the mirror. I did half a line through each nostril – coke, indeed – and passed the paraphernalia back to her. She sniffed her ration and then stored everything back in her purse, including the fifty I’d just given her.

  ‘How do you know I’m not a cop?’ I asked, trying to dig at her conscience a bit. No luck.

  ‘What would you prefer, to take the stairs and go floor by floor, or the lift?’

  ‘Floor by floor.’

  ‘I warn you, there are quite a few. Does the Divine Comedy ring a bell?’

  ‘Very much. But you can’t get satellite TV from where I live. Listen, I hope this isn’t going to be some big allegorical thing, because I’m in the mood for something else.’

  ‘Everything in this world is allegorical, darling, but if you’d prefer we can get straight to the point. Let’s see: do you like to eat, drink, watch, be watched, boys, girls, groups, suffer, make someone else suffer, lingerie, fetishes, some kind of picturesque philia – copro, zoo, geronto, necro – or do you prefer something a little more commonplace? The only limit is that it can’t be illegal. Everyone here is a legal adult, of sound mind, and has come here on their own initiative.’

  ‘I put myself in your hands. You’re the expert.’

  ‘Very well: third basement. I call it the department store window. It’s a good place to get acclimatised.’

  It was kind of more Corte Inglés than Dante’s Inferno: ‘Semi-basement level: lingerie and ménage à trois; look for our sodomy specials.’ I must admit, though, that it was all pretty impressive – I would never have imagined such a place existed a mere four or five steps away from the centre of Sarriá. Now, as we descended a second set of stairs that led us below ground, the windows disappeared and, with them, all outside references: first, to the city – a distant, but calming reference – and second, to the little hut with the guards that controlled the various domains of the mansion, and thirdly the tops of the trees in the garden, which were visible from the main salon. I wouldn’t say that I was scared – I was in the company of a very nice girl who walked with utmost confidence through the labyrinthine passageways, and the security of the clientele was ostensibly guaranteed by the elegant gorillas that one bumped into here and there in the hallways. And anyway, I was used to pretty heavy scenes, heavier than this at least – I was reminded, for example, of a kind of floating slum I once visited in the outskirts of Saigon, and after that you’ve pretty much seen it all. No, no, it wasn’t fear exactly, but I did feel an odd presence in the pit of my stomach, one that precluded me from being fully able to enjoy the Havana with the lemon twist. It’s funny how both fear and excessive sexual stimulation can have the very same effect. Anyway, coke always has a stimulating effect, and this particular batch definitely made its own statement.

  We soon arrived at the floor in question – the Department Store Window, as she called it, three stories below the salon bar where we had begun. In the access room, one of the gorillas swiped my card through another one of those keyboards with a slot on the side, and we entered a most complex daedalus. At first, as we went deeper and deeper, from one room to another – I somehow realised that we were going deeper inside even though my sense of orientation had been completely fucked by the twists and turns of that complex labyrinth – I still didn’t see anything that grabbed my attention. The decorating scheme was about the only thing that was at all entertaining. The orangey rug, the erotic drawings hanging on the walls, the chaise longues and the upholstered easy chairs were definitely an improvement over the kentias and the ceiling fans from before. Then, all of a sudden, when it seemed that we were approaching a kind of interior gallery, an old man came walking toward us – old, white as a sheet, bald, super-skinny, dressed in nothing but a white shirt that hung down mid-thigh, like a kind of tunic. When he saw us appear at the other end of the corridor, he stopped cold in front of us and raised the tails of his shirt up high, to show us his sexual organs – a very long, skinny penis that hung listlessly from a peach-fuzz mound of surprisingly dark pubic hair. His eyes implored Beatrice to look at it – he seemed to want her to look at him first, maybe because she was in front of me. I could tell she obliged, and as she lowered her head to look down at the old man’s genitals, I could see the glint of appreciation in his eyes. Then, once she was through checking him out, it was my turn to fulfil his request. Our eyes met, though only for a moment, because I found it much harder to stand there and stare into those beseeching eyes than to look down toward the spectacle he was so intent on showing off. I concentrated on that wrinkled little snake, whose length was accentuated by a bit of protruding foreskin, and I quickly looked back up at his face, to conclude the encounter right then and there. I don’t think I had
ever seen such an old man naked before, and I was taken aback by the smooth, transparent skin and the slack genitals that had endured such an excess of gravity. It was jarring to observe the effects of ageing on body parts that are normally hidden from view – the same effects that are nevertheless so familiar on a face, or a pair of hands. After we had passed him, I spun around and saw that he now had his back to us, though he had turned his neck about so that he could continue looking at us. Now it was his arse that was on display, a yellowish, wasted bum that he tried to frame with his hands, so that it would be eminently obvious what our new focal point should be.

  That was only the beginning. We arrived next at a giant, square-shaped atrium that cut through the entire building; each floor was flanked by a balcony, and from this vantage point we could look down and up onto the other floors. That was where we began to see even stranger things. To start off, the building itself was rather breathtaking: there was a full ten-story void between the mosaic-green pool that swished and bubbled down at the bottom floor of the basement, and the glass roof that let the night sky take over as the building’s ceiling. We began our journey around that open space in the centre, like a married couple at an automotive fair – the only difference being that the objects on display at this unique fairground were piles of people focused on fornicating in any and every which way they could. The first thing I saw, on a long bench just to our left, was a couple trying to achieve, without much success, an ad mode ferarum fuck. Our presence seemed to arouse them and they panted a bit harder, though I think it was more an attention-grabbing ploy than a real demonstration of self-stimulation. A bit further on we saw two very similar-looking men – both physically and fashion-wise – necking furiously, like a pair of incestuous twins. In another area where a long modular sofa snaked around the wall, I spied a long lineup of people piled against each other, forming one giant mass of human livestock, stroking each other with gusto. Other people simply walked around, ostentatiously revelling in their own nudity and their complicated and occasionally frantic solitary caresses. One man, less interested in his own exhibitionism and more interested in the people around him, walked about masturbating himself disinterestedly, as if testing out the arousal capacities of the other performers. Here and there you could also spot people like us, just taking a stroll through the premises, stopping before a particularly impressive scene, or sitting down for a smoke. As we walked, occasionally we had to scoot out of the way of people with their bums high up in the air, doing things like sticking magic markers up their anuses. Finally we completed the first side of the immense square atrium. It seemed quite clear that my companion’s intention was to guide me around the perimeter of the room until we arrived back where we started, so I just followed her lead. A bit further on, we reached a more intimate corner that was a kind of continuation of the nook where we had started our tour. Here, Beatrice stopped before a small group of ten or fifteen people. To tell the truth, so much action had whetted my curiosity that I followed her willingly. The centre of this little gathering, partially hidden by the observers, was an odd trio comprised of what looked like an older, perhaps married couple – both of them equally chubby, dressed like a well-heeled lawyer and his wife – and a delicate young girl with the most innocent blue eyes; she couldn’t have been more than eighteen years old. These three characters, unlike the others we had passed by, were focused exclusively on their complicated intertwined manoeuvrings and seemed utterly indifferent to the interest they had aroused among their observers. The wife, sitting on the rug and resting her shoulders on the bottom part of a sofa, had opened her varicose-veined legs as far as her constitution would allow, using her hands to create an open space in the soft triangle between her thighs. In the middle, you could see her wide-open vulva, like a fleshy flower with a bulbous white clitoris quivering from the stimulation provided by the ring-finger of her right hand, an instrument she also used for penetrating her vagina. The man was completely clothed, though the head of his cock peeked out from his unzipped trousers, purplish and smooth like an overfed slug jutting out from his spare-tyre belly. This is where the young girl got into the act. Seated on the sofa next to the man, she very gently clasped the tip of his prick between two fingers, and judging by the restrained vehemence of his instructions, she was attempting to strike just the right balance necessary to keep the cock’s proprietor teetering on the edge of ejaculation. The woman, revelling in a discreet bout of prolonged ecstasy from her own manipulation, stared straight at the man’s zipper; he, in turn, stared back at her nether regions in the exact same manner. The girl alternated between her manual responsibilities and the facial expressions of this respectable couple, while the spectators, whose complete and total silence was punctuated only by the man’s instructions – “faster”, “stop”, “that’s it” – and the wife’s light moans, observed this precision exercise as if it was a three-way pool game. Looking directly at the main action made me feel kind of funny, so I decided instead to observe the observers, some of whom had sat down on the two sofas, in the free spaces unoccupied by the lusty trio.