And, propelled by uninhibited laughter and barely noticeable drunkenness, they took a few more faltering steps toward the Olímpia. Maurici vaguely remembered that his Aldabò grandparents had gone there at one time or another, when it had been an outdoor dance hall. The sign over the entrance promised a thrill “never seen before.” A crowd of the curious—from unshaven men with homemade cigarettes between their lips to ladies in silk—swarmed in front of the ticket window.
“This will be good,” Albert forecast enthusiastically. “They say Czech theater is a sight to see.”
“If it’s a tearjerker, count me out,” Sebastià grumbled. “I don’t go for heavy stuff.”
“Nothing like that,” Albert persisted. “This is experimental. It won’t be like anything you’ve ever seen.”
“You’ve got to be up-to-date,” Jaume cut in, hoping to dazzle those who were unfamiliar with the new sensation. “Maurici, you’re not paying attention. Do you vote for or against?”
“For, of course. Novelty’s always welcome.”
Maurici, who had never heard of Czech theater, offered to get the tickets. The other three stepped into the tavern next door. A few minutes later, he joined them with the intention of killing time till eight o’clock. More absinthe, more anisette, more cognac. More catcalls to the girls and gibes at their escorts, more off-color jokes, more guffaws and rowdiness. Maurici lit a Cuban cigar to smother the stink of cheap cigarettes. Jaume, eyes ablaze, zigzagged toward the miniature train on display in the middle of the tavern and made a clumsy effort to climb on it.
“Albert, aren’t you s’posed to take the early train tomorrow? Might as well take it now. Come on, man, all aboard! Toot, toooot!”
Only a few people turned their heads; the rest, deafened by the general din, didn’t even take notice. Sebastià asked Maurici, “Listen, how long will this act or whatever it is we’re going to see last?”
“Why d’you ask? Are you in a hurry?”
“How’d you like to top off the day at La Criolla or El Chalet?”
“La Criolla’s full of transvestites. Besides, look at Jaume. Do you think in his condition he can satisfy any of the sirens at the Chalet? We’re all smashed. D’you want to make a fool of yourself?”
“Nonsense! What’s wrong with you?”
He didn’t want to admit to queasiness in his stomach that would disarm him in combat with any female, whatever her mythical attributes. Finally, they pulled Jaume off the train and made their way into the theater. The audience was as diverse as before, but strictly designated rows of seats drew social lines.
The stage was bare. The lights went out and silence fell on the theater. The first notes of Brahms’s “Lullaby” rang in the air. Maurici mentally pressed the keys: “mi, mi, so . . .” Suddenly a powerful light encircled a girl in fine lingerie lying on her side in a metal bed. She had gleaming white skin, brown hair, and the rhythmic breathing of deep sleep. The sheets and her clothes were also white. On the right side of the stage the dark profile of a faucet stood out against the background. The “Lullaby” swelled to fill the empty spaces.
The shape of a man’s large hand appeared above the faucet and began to turn it slowly, repeatedly, until water trickled down onto the floor and gradually made a spreading puddle. When it rose to the level of the bed, the audience drew a muffled exclamation. Then the bed, with the girl in it, lifted and began to float to the surface. Shortly after, out of the faucet slipped a multi-colored transparent fish that was received with wonderment. Others of different species, big and small, followed: flying fish, swordfish, baby sharks. Octopus, slick jellyfish, and miniature sea horses joined in the dance, revolving from end to end of the aquatic stage. Soon the water pushed the bed up until the headboard touched the ceiling. The girl, cradled by Brahms’s music, remained asleep. The audience brimmed with excitement.
The fantastic fauna kept moving gently, majestically. The stage was bathed in a pale blue tinge, except for a strip at the top the water hadn’t yet reached. With a low gurgle, the water suddenly swallowed the bed and filled the entire stage. A cry rose from the pit but the girl, breathing in the liquid environment like another fish, didn’t wake up. The bed, somewhat tilted, was suspended at center stage. The aquatic ballet revolved around it.
It was hard to keep track of time. After a while, the man’s gigantic hand reappeared and started to turn the faucet slowly, repeatedly, just as it had before, but now to the right. The first fish that had entered the stage gracefully swished its way back and disappeared up the faucet. Others followed it in a solemn, orderly march. The water began its descent, leaving a dry strip once again at the top. Once the last fish vanished into the faucet, the octopus, jellyfish, and sea horses swam across the stage. The faucet devoured them one by one in the twinkling of an eye.
As the level of water sank, so the bed levitated downward, swinging hypnotically to and fro, till its legs rested delicately on the floor. Sleeping beauty, gently shaken by the landing, still didn’t wake up. Little by little the water flowed back up the faucet, leaving the stage dry and bright under the limelights. At the last turn of the handle, bed and girl collapsed and were sucked into the small circular abyss. The lights went out, and there was total darkness and silence. When they came on a few moments later, they shone on a stage as bare as it had been at the beginning.
Applause exploded like a bomb. Some people rose from their seats shouting, “Bravo!” at the top of their lungs. Others remained fastened to their chairs, too astonished to clap; a few, unsure how to react, cast glances at the delirious crowd around them. The girl and three men, probably the director and the choreographers, came out onto the stage and took a bow.
Albert, Jaume, and Sebastià, faces flushed and eyes glazed over, stood up to applaud. Maurici took his handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe off the cold sweat that trickled down his face. The lump in his stomach tightened up. He didn’t know what was happening to him. He couldn’t figure out why the girl’s disappearing act had upset him so, why those shadows had distressed him more than any real experience. He’d seen it with his own eyes. What couldn’t be, had been. The impossible had happened. Logic was not foolproof. He’d been sitting there, watching the girl, and the girl had vanished. A dizzy spell frustrated his efforts to stand.
His cousin, noticing he was as pale as a ghost, helped him up and elbowed his way among the crowd that blocked the hallways. Outside, night had fallen and countless stars punctured the sky. With Albert’s assistance, Maurici braced himself against a tree and threw up all the alcohol of the afternoon. His whole body ached as if he’d just been carrying a heavy weight.
“How awful to make a scene in front of so many people!” he, who always boasted of how well he held his liquor, lamented.
Albert scolded him: “I’ve told you before, absinthe’s poison.”
Maurici inhaled deeply with his eyes closed. “It wasn’t the absinthe.”
“What else, then?”
He helplessly waved away the question. Sebastià and Jaume watched him with concern. They’d never seen him in such a humiliating situation before, and their own drunkenness prevented them from responding to it. When he finally regained his composure and his cheeks regained their color, Albert threw his arm around his shoulder.
“You’ll be fine now, let’s go. Let’s take a cab and go home.”
Maurici didn’t know it yet, but after that day he’d never be the same.
* * *
Next morning he woke up late, drifting like the survivor of an overnight shipwreck, thick-tongued and fuzzy-headed. He took a long bath to see if soap and water would also cleanse his brain, dressed, and asked the maid to bring him only coffee. He eluded his mother’s questions—“What’s the matter? You don’t feel well?”—and on shaky legs rushed down the stairs and out to the street. He had no intention of going to the factory.
The avenue teemed with morning activity: women out shopping, wet nurses pushing perambulators, carts filled with merchandise f
or the central market. Everything except a free carriage, so, after waiting in vain for five minutes, he set off walking in long strides that grew steadier as he approached the old city.
The boardinghouse had a white sign hanging from a balcony that said “Lola” written in red letters. It was in a narrow busy street, next to a public laundry that occupied the cloister of a former convent. In a corner of the lobby a watchmaker, pinned between the wall and a counter no more than five feet long, dissected a timepiece. The stairway was dark, the steps high. On the first floor, Maurici knocked on a door. A few seconds later he knocked again and heard a tired voice: “Comi-i-i-ing!”
The door squeaked open to reveal a middle-aged woman in a large, tattered apron, a skirt frayed at the edges, and wool slippers. A few strands of gray hair peeked under the shawl that covered her head.
“What can I do for you?” she said with an accent from the south.
“I’m looking for Miss Morera. Rita Morera.”
“Who wants to know?”
“I’m a friend, . . . an old friend.”
The woman ran her eyes all over him, from head to toe.
“They always have friends, . . . they’re all friends.”
His expression hardened.
“I hope you’re not referring to Rita . . . Frankly . . .”
“No, I’m not referring to Rita. I’m referring to all of them. They all have friends and they all disappear at the end of the month, and their friends, well, they’re never around when they need them.”
Unaccustomed to meeting resistance to his wishes, he grew impatient with the brazen woman who, after all, must be just a maid.
“Listen, I’m asking for Rita Morera. Kindly let me know if she’s in or not and stay out of other people’s business.”
“Not so fast, sonny boy. You may be a very fine gentleman, yes siree, but I’ve been around longer. Step inside; I’ve got to mind the stove.”
He realized the woman he’d taken for the maid was actually the owner and so it would be unwise to aggravate her. A poorly lit, narrow hallway led to the kitchen. Since it had no windows or any other outlet, the acrid smell of burning coal and boiled cabbage stopped Maurici in his tracks. He stood at a safe distance from what he mentally classified as slop, next to a portable zinc tub in which a naked child was soaking.
The woman, stirring the contents of the pot with a wooden spoon, cast another glance at Maurici’s frame, languidly propped against a lame sideboard.
“I’ve got a pretty good notion who you are,” she mumbled.
“Has Rita talked to you about me?”
“She never told me your name, but she made a big deal of this well-to-do young man she was seeing. It’s plain as daylight you’re young and rich.”
“Is that all she told you?”
“That and that he was the son of a factory owner who lives uptown.”
The child splashed soapy water all over, including on the cuffs of Maurici’s trousers.
“Does she still live here?”
“I haven’t seen her in weeks. Like she’s been wiped off the face of the earth! What’s got me puzzled is that she left her stuff here.”
“She left without packing?”
“Didn’t take no clothes, no trinkets, nothing. Not even her Saint Rita medal.”
Before he could recover from the surprise, the woman stopped stirring the pot and added, “She took off like a thief, without paying the rent. You wouldn’t, by any chance, you couldn’t . . .”
He hesitated while a man in a robe scurried through the kitchen and into an adjoining room. Then he fished his wallet out of his pocket and offered the woman a few bills. “Will that do?”
She smiled for the first time. “Yes, sir, I should say so. How nice, to have it always ready.”
“If you tell me where I can find Rita, I’ll give you more.”
“God forbid! I don’t want anything that ain’t rightly mine. And even if I wanted to tell you, I couldn’t. No one in this house knows what’s become of her. So pretty and proper: too proper for a working girl, if you ask me . . . I saw it coming. But what am I gonna do with her things if she don’t come back for them? Who can I send notice to?”
“Rita has no family.”
The woman wiped her hand with the apron before taking the card Maurici handed to her.
“If you find out anything, let me know.”
“Yes, sir, you can bet on it.”
Maurici fled from the stuffy kitchen and from the odor of poverty and made his way to the door. Downstairs the watchmaker let loose a “So lo-o-o-ong!” that sounded ironic and ominous to his ear.
Maybe she’s gone back to her hometown, he told himself as he went down the street toward The Ramblas. If that’s it, I’m not going after her. Or maybe she’s found another position. In any case, clearly there’s no baby. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have run away from me. Rita’s calculating, she knows what’s good for her. If she was pregnant, she wouldn’t have given up my protection so easily. She’d have stuck by me, or gone to Father to see what she could get. But why did she leave the boardinghouse? To save one month’s rent? Because she has a job in another part of the city? Because she doesn’t want me to find her? This business of leaving without packing looks like she made a rushed decision. On the other hand, she still may send somebody to get her things. Or stop by herself at the end of the month to pay the rent and collect her stuff. Meanwhile, where can she go with no shoes and no clothes? Is it possible she didn’t leave the house of her own free will? Did Sleeping Beauty want to be sucked into the faucet? Or was it the hand that turned it on and off that decided her fate? Where did she go inside the faucet?
Realizing his thoughts were taking a convoluted path, he chided himself. This is crazy! Maybe Albert’s right about the effects of absinthe. It all comes down to finding out where Rita is and be done with it once and for all. It will be a relief to have this matter behind me. That’s all. He checked his watch: eleven thirty. He was at the top of The Ramblas, by the fountain, and had enough time for a drink at the Equestrian before going to La Perla d’Orient.
Monday morning the Equestrian was almost deserted, except for a group of old timers who played cards or read the papers. Maurici picked up The Catalan People and sat at a bar table by the window to catch the light. Sipping his vermouth and sampling tapas, these clams aren’t what they used to be, I’ll let Evarist know, he killed half an hour. Then he moved to a corner of the game room and passed some more time playing solitaire and smoking a cigar until the grandfather clock struck a quarter to two. As usual, he charged the bill to his father’s account, to be promptly paid at the end of the month. Paying at the bar was considered passé.
When he arrived at La Perla d’Orient he pulled his hat—normally tilted at the perfect angle—down to his eyebrows. It was essential not to be recognized by anyone. He stood in front of the window and carefully stuck his head into the lobby to throw a quick glance inside. Behind the counter, the same woman as the last time wrapped a package for two customers who looked like mother and daughter. He couldn’t make out whether Jaumet was present.
Moving away from the window, he pressed his back against the façade of the building. It was only a few minutes before closing time. If on their way out the woman and Jaumet headed toward The Ramblas, he’d be safe, but, if they took the opposite direction, they were certain to see him. It was too risky. A false move now would tie his hands and make it impossible to pursue the matter any further. He moved away from the window and climbed the doorstep of the next building. From there, half hidden by the shadows, he could see and, hopefully, not be seen. For several slow minutes, he stared at the critical spot, hardly blinking. Perhaps no one ever came out of La Perla d’Orient, perhaps everybody in it vanished as Rita had, in which case he’d be sentenced to keep guard at his observation post for an eternity. Let’s not get carried away again into metaphysical dead ends, he told himself;let’s get down to work.
As soon as he made his reso
lution, the two customers came out holding packages and walked past him talking and gesturing animatedly. The younger one threw an appraising glance at the stranger’s face, shadowed by the brim of the hat. Ordinarily he’d have reciprocated, but under the circumstances he kept his eyes on the threshold of La Perla d’Orient.
A few minutes went by. Finally, the sight of a small foot on the doorstep of the store announced the woman’s exit. She and Jaumet stood on the sidewalk while she dropped the keys inside her purse. Maurici retreated back into the darkness of the lobby from where he saw the woman, with Jaumet hanging on her arm, walk down the sidewalk. Shortly after he stepped out into the light to follow in their footsteps, his eyes fixed on the woman’s brown dress and hat in case he became separated from them in a crowd. He adjusted his stride to the couple’s rhythm, marked by Jaumet’s jerky gait and oscillating motion that reminded him of a foundering boat. The possibility of running into an acquaintance was a constant anxiety, although he was prepared to be rude and ignore them.
They left the main street to enter a maze of side alleys. To Maurici, such places had no name and wove together a strange, labyrinthine world infinitely remote from his own. He did identify Ferran Street just because he’d gone there once or twice as a customer of the Palais de Cristal. At one point, as the woman and Jaumet crossed to the other side, a cabriolet rode by and momentarily blocked his view, but he caught up with them before they turned into a humid, dark alley that made a slight bend. It was too narrow to have sidewalks or to let carriages through. The only traffic there was a swarm of flies and a stench of stagnant sewers.
He stopped on the corner. The risk of being spotted increased considerably in such a lonely, constricted spot. The odd couple walked a few more yards and disappeared into an apartment building. He waited half a minute and then took a few strides, which resounded on the cobblestones, toward the building, where he hoped to find out something. There was no doorkeeper in the narrow, dingy lobby. Crouching in the nook under the staircase, he heard muffled women’s voices coming from a landing. He stuck his head out with extreme caution and caught a glimmer of light two floors above. A door slammed shut and the building became as quiet as a grave. He waited a few more minutes, in case somebody should come down. At last, inferring that the sphinx and her dim-witted escort lived there, he liberated his body from the fetal position it had been forced to assume, stepped outside, and stood in the middle of the alley to look at the façade. Should the woman have a sudden impulse to stick her nose out of the balcony, he’d be done for. Luckily, the doors on the minuscule balconies of the three floors were closed. He made a mental note of the street number and proceeded up the alley, wondering where it would lead.
The Street of the Three Beds Page 5
