Barcelona’s a fine town if you got a fat purse. Fat town, fine purse. Right on the next corner. I’m s-sick, sick of this street split-splitting all the time. Why do they keep movin’ it? Who d’you take me for? Scum, thieves. There was a time you could walk, ‘round here. There was people and lights. Them streets didn’t sp-split. They stayed in place. Yes, sir, yes, siree. There were bars to fill your bottle. If only somebody’d fill up my bottle, . . . the name of the street would come to me. That’s the trouble. Lazy scum’s what they are. Never do no work. Thieves. Oh, I’m sorry for the missus. The missus’s worried. Comin’, Ra-ramona, comin’! Hey! What’s that, over there? A rat. Two rats. Eleven, twelve, thirteen rats . . . The street’s full of rats. Mew! Mew! Whe-where did the cat go? Good for nothin’, jist like the rest, never come when you need them. Off with you, big rat, off! It’s the gin you’re after, hey? You want my gin. Thieves, scum. Off with you!
Barcelona’s . . . They’re leaving. They’re gone. So long, rats! Now I’ll find the street. It’s called . . . number . . . Comin’, sweet Ramona, comin’! If I see someone, I’ll ask. This neighborhood ain’t what it used to be. Not even close. Ain’t what it used to be. Barcelona’s got a hangover. Fat purse or no fat purse. These cobblestones ain’t flat. Th-they go up and down. Hard to walk. Why don’t the city fix it? Bums, just a bunch of lazy bums. Can’t walk the streets anymore. This street sp-splits. Enough of it, I say. Keeps running into the square. More palm trees. Enough! I’m sick of them. Ramona, any time now! Almost there. Hang-hangover . . . Hey, how come nobody fills my bottle? Gin, I said. I said filler up with gin. Don’t remember where I live. So what? Ain’t nobody’s business where I live. Don’t you worry, sweet Ra . . . mona, I’m right here. If I don’t get service, I’ll go to another bar. Yes, sir! To another neighborhood. Take it or leave it. Barcelona’s a fine town. Full purse. What ‘bout the bottle? Empty, bottle’s empty. Soon as I find the street, up I go. Sleep it off with the m-m-missus. Comin’, Ramona, comin’!
Wait, wait . . . This’s different. This street m-makes a bend. It don’t sp . . . Jist bends. Let’s go ‘round the bend, ha, ha! Steady! Round the bend. That’s it, I’m on my way now. I’ll find you, Ramona, here I come! Not a drop. Not a drop left. Thieves, lazy bums. Shame on you. Hey! Filler up, I said. Let the city fix it. The ci . . . Barcelona’s a fine town. Fat purse or no fat purse. How come it ain’t fat? Lazy bums, th-thieves. The street makes a bend. March forward! Street goes up, down . . . Be still! Steady. My bottle. Fill up my bottle. Not a dr-drop. At the end of the street, I’ll go right. No, left. R-right. Right, left . . .
Wait a minute. Stop! What’s that over there? A bundle at the end of the street. I got to a d-dead end. Ha, ha! Hey, bundle, out of my way. Out of my way, bundle. Let me through. Let me through, I said. Fill up my bottle. Out of my way, I said. You deaf, bundle? Let me through, Ramona’s waiting. Comin,’ Ramona. Golly gee, ‘tis a big bundle. Everything’s dark ‘xcept this here bundle. White bundle . . . in the middle of the street. Out of my way! White . . . all-all of it. Let’s see . . . all white. Wrong, ha, ha, wrong! Red. Big, long bundle. Mr. Bundle. Oh! Ha, ha! Sorry, Mi-Mistress bundle. It’s Mistress Bundle, ha, ha! Or is it miss, eh? White, red, red, red, r-r-red . . . Bundle . . . Oh, my God! Holy Mary! Help! Someone! Over here, help! Watchman! Watchman! Watchman!
* * *
Maurici whistled absentmindedly as he walked into the Equestrian. No idea where he’d picked up the silly tune that hadn’t left his lips since he’d got up that morning, not exactly with the birds. As he breezed through the bar he greeted Evarist, who was washing glasses in the sink, and a few regulars. Then his long, flexible legs climbed the carpeted stairs at a clipped pace, two steps at a time in the last flight. At the barbershop, Albert was waiting for him. Since they were both very young they’d religiously adhered to the habit of having their haircuts together. They never missed the weekly appointment, always on the same day and at the same time, except on those rare occasions when one of them was sick. Albert needed extra time to have his beard trimmed; his cousin, on the other hand, followed the dictates of the latest fashion in keeping his face clean-shaven.
Physically they both bore the stamp of the Palaus, which was simply stronger in Maurici’s case. They shared their classical features—patrician nose, almond-shaped eyes, sensuous mouth—but Albert’s were less sharply drawn and his black hair was of a shade lighter. Although he wasn’t short or heavy, he didn’t reach his cousin’s height or share his lankiness.
While he worked on Albert, Eladi, the barber, commented profusely on the performance of the latest tenor sensation.
“When he’s got a good day, which is to say when he’s not drunk, he sings like an angel. Mother of God, he’s got volume! But if he doesn’t hit the right notes from the beginning, then we’re in trouble. He had to come in three times before he got started. They say he only knows one opera and his teacher’s given up trying to teach him any other. He’ll only take lessons if someone puts a glass of wine in front of him: no wine, no lesson. I’ll be damned! Pity too, he’s got the voice but not the brains!”
The rapid clipping of the scissors and the customers’ laughter punctuated the monologue. Once the topic of the unruly tenor petered out, Maurici browsed through the paper until he had to surrender his face to the foamy cream. His stubble was so dark that under a certain light it took on a bluish hue women found attractive.
Eladi, on his part, stated, “You’re one of those who need to shave at least twice a day, am I wrong?”
“When it comes to hair and beards, Eladi, you’re an expert. Never wrong.”
Once the ephemeral softness was restored to his cheeks, he picked up the paper again. Meanwhile Eladi cut his hair and at the same time talked to Albert, who waited for Maurici to go horseback riding afterwards. The most recent development of the Mexican Revolution and the national news didn’t particularly interest him, but he paused briefly on the stock market page.
Eladi handled the scissors with his usual precision. “What are we going to do with this lock, Mr. Aldabò? All the wax in the world won’t keep it in place . . .”
He didn’t wait for an answer. Maurici, as always, dwelled on the sports section. The sunlight streaming through the window, the scent of lotion rising from his skin, and the monotonous clipping of the scissors lulled him into the usual lethargy of afternoons at the barbershop. He turned the page and suddenly felt completely alert. His eyes slid down to a tiny block of print barely visible among the columns: “This morning at 3:25 a.m. the body of a woman was found in the Street of the Three Beds. She has been identified as Rita Morera, age twenty-two, a resident of a boardinghouse located at number five of the same street. Apparently, the victim committed suicide by jumping from the balcony of the third floor.”
Albert’s and Eladi’s voices faded to a buzz. Unaware of what he was doing, Maurici pressed his lips together and breathed in deeply, as if struggling for air. His body grew tense. The surrounding objects disappeared into a nebulous spiral that spun faster and faster around him, leaving his head empty. He couldn’t see anything but tiny sparks that glittered for a moment and instantly faded out, only to burst forth again within a split second. His memory replayed forgotten words Rita had uttered that last afternoon: “The room was spinning like a merry-go-round.” Quite unconsciously he clenched his fingers over the arms of the chair so tightly that the joints whitened, as if the effort could stop the vertigo. But the vertigo persisted. There was no floor, no ceiling, no chair, only the endless drop into the black hole. He didn’t know how long he stayed like that, drifting at the mercy of the emotional typhoon that threatened to swallow him, peering down into the abyss full of dread and horror. He didn’t know when it was that Eladi asked, “Can I do anything else for you, Mr. Aldabò?” and the whirlpool and the buzz finally began to slow down and his fingers, sore as if they had undergone some form of torture, unpried themselves from the arms of the chair. He didn’t know if the other two men ever realized
that the world had fallen on him.
He rose from the chair slowly, with movements that weren’t just languid as usual, but unsteady. As he was about to charge the bill to his father’s account, he abruptly changed his mind and took the money out of his wallet, mumbling to Albert that he’d forgotten some urgent business. Albert gave him a perplexed look.
“What about riding? Can you make it tomorrow?”
“Not tomorrow. I’ll let you know.”
“All right, then. I’ll be seeing you.”
He went down the stairs by holding on to the rail, whose touch felt new because he’d never used it, and found himself in the middle of the square where Amphitrite used to read the future. He stood there like a sleepwalker or an amnesiac, like a friendless, undocumented stranger; a voyager without a compass. A couple of minutes went by before he could start on the way home.
At dinner Lídia cast him furtive glances out of the corner of her eye. As soon as her husband withdrew to his office to smoke, she asked him, “What’s troubling you, Maurici? You barely touched your food and you look pale. What’s wrong?”
He attempted a smile. “Old age, Mother.”
“This is no time for joking. Since you were a child you’ve had the bad habit of never giving a straight answer to a question.”
“No jokes, then. I have a monumental headache.”
“I’ll tell Dorotea to fix a cup of tea and bring you an aspirin.”
He accepted the tea and the aspirin just to kill the conversation and escape to his room. Through a crack in the office door, he said good night to his father who, pipe between his teeth, responded with an absent-minded grunt. With his back turned to the door, he was looking over some papers. Maurici stood watching him as if he knew that one day his father would vanish from his thoughts and he hoped that his gaze could slow his progress toward oblivion.
Once in his room, he flopped on the bed. His eyes wandered over the moldings of the ceiling, striving in vain to evoke Rita’s face and body. When he realized it would be impossible, he was seized by an anxiety that, like an intruder, took possession of his usually calm nature. Maurici’s temperament wasn’t given to extremes but now he felt panic. It seemed as if Rita had never existed and the news of her death was also a figment of his imagination. He jumped from the bed thinking of a picture she’d given him in their early days together. He turned on the lights and rifled through the armoire, the dresser, the bedside table, and the dressing room with a sense of urgency he’d never experienced before, pushing his fingers into the corners of the furniture and the pockets in his clothes. Sweat trickled down from every pore in his skin. At last, buried in a pile of ill-assorted letters he couldn’t remember why he’d kept, the picture turned up. One corner was dog-eared. Rita’s beauty of a country girl without mystery, subtlety, or nuance, looked trite in an affected pose against a background of camellias. Her insistence that he must carry that sort of picture with him had been one of those characteristic whims that had once amused him. At that moment, however, the risible image of the girl that, just like all the others, he’d never loved, moved him. A spasm bent his waist, lingered in his throat, and exploded into tears. He cried as he hadn’t cried even as a child, with impotence and despair, sobbing wholeheartedly and without restraint, relinquishing his body to the stabs of pain.
Incapable of facing the night ahead, he left the oil lamp burning, just as he had when he was a boy. He undressed and, still crying, got into bed, his eyes and cheeks burning as if with fever. He couldn’t say where all those tears came from, or how his heart could pound so violently that it smothered the ticktock of the clock on the nightstand. For the first time he wished to die and, even worse, feared he was going mad. Impossible to think clearly or to explain what had come over him. An unknown emotion attacked him so furiously as to drown out his mental powers. At dawn, exhausted, he finally fell asleep on the wet pillow.
* * *
His early arrival surprised his father. He worked quietly in his office; when there were no tasks to carry out he’d make one up, just to keep his mind focused and his feelings under control. Efficiency made up for lack of energy as he answered telegrams, processed orders, checked the looms, and inspected a load of yarn with the foreman in tow keeping a respectful distance. Close to seven in the evening he asked his father if he needed anything else and, barely aware of his negative answer, walked out into the street and hailed a cab.
He knew what to do but didn’t know anything else: What exactly was La Perla d’Orient? Who was Mrs. Prat? Who had Rita been? Who was his father? Who was he himself? But he did know what to do. The catharsis of the previous night had drained him of emotion and drive for anything outside of his goal. He felt no desire to talk to anybody, see his friends, or resume his daily routine despite the impression of diligence he gave in the factory. He wished to be alone with his purpose and pursue it to its ultimate consequences. If he failed, he’d be lost beyond salvation. How and when the change had taken place, he couldn’t say: he’d fallen asleep in a state of utter confusion and had woken up with a clear vision. It was simple. The roles had been reversed: from that moment on the other Maurici, the one who worked at the factory and played cards at the Equestrian and fulfilled familial and social expectations, would be a phony. The real one had just crossed the square and entered into the Street of the Three Beds.
As he went down the steps of the tavern, Bartomeu greeted him warmly. In those surroundings, his bearing made him easy to remember. Sitting at a nearby table were two gossiping women of dubious air who wore large aprons. A little further, a solemn, lonely drinker stared at them with glazed-over eyes.
He ordered coffee and the evening paper as he took pen and paper out of his pocket.
“How much will it be?” he asked, putting the money on the table in preparation for a quick exit.
During the first ten minutes nobody went by except a man pushing a wheelbarrow and peddling his trade with the timeless call, “Sharpen your knives, sharpen your . . .” A woman ran out to him with a pair of scissors. Having completed the operation the wheelbarrow rumbled off, bouncing noisily on the cobblestones all the way to the square. Throughout the next uneventful minutes the two women cast so many side glances at Maurici that he began to get used to it. The drunken misanthrope slumped in his seat, as still as a mummy.
There was some traffic in and out of other buildings but not at number five, until the shape of a man in his fifties, snooty looking and smartly dressed, appeared at the doorway. Maurici looked up and saw that behind the balcony of the third floor the blinds were down as usual. Determined to wait as long as necessary, he took a sip of coffee and scanned the newspaper headlines. The two women paid and left, giving him a brazen once-over as they swished by. A few minutes later, a man he’d never seen before came from the square and went into number five. Maurici rushed out of the tavern and with great caution crossed the doorway into the lobby. The man had just climbed the first flight of stairs.
Maurici gave up the shelter under the stairway because he knew from experience that voices weren’t audible from there. He stood still for a second and, when he heard the footsteps on the landing of the second floor, slipped off his shoes to minimize noise and began to climb. The stairway was dark and steep; the tiles and wood trims badly worn out. The shabbiness of the landing remained in the shadows, for the light shaft behind the cracked windowpane was narrow. Maurici, holding his shoes and his breath, sat very still on one of the two tiny benches built at the corners, waiting to hear where the footsteps stopped.
The Street of the Three Beds Page 8
