The sound of creaking boots died out and there were two knocks at the door of apartment one. He sat at his post on the opposite side, next to apartment two of the second floor, from where he commanded a good view of the scene. Of course, he might in turn be seen, but the darkness of the corner and the grey suit he’d had the foresight to wear reduced the risk. After some jangling of locks and chains, the door slowly opened. A heavy woman with white hair pulled up in a bun greeted the visitor, who produced from the pocket of his coat an object Maurici couldn’t identify as the man’s back shielded it from his sight. He stuck his head further out and, when the woman took it in her hands, it appeared like it might be a card. His impression was confirmed by her words.
“Come in, come in. You’re like family. No need for formalities.”
And the door was quietly closed. He put his shoes back on and descended the steps carefully, almost in the dark. As he entered the tavern again, Bartomeu stopped scrubbing the counter. Ignoring his puzzled look, Maurici sat at the closest table and ordered a second coffee with anisette. He’d barely touched the first.
“Yes, sir, anything you say,” Bartomeu remarked quite freely, taking in his stride the antics of the stranger who liked to pay in advance.
At the back, a group of rowdy men played checkers in a cloud of stinking cigarette smoke. The mummified drinker had vanished, while another of a different variety had just stumbled in. Funny, Maurici reflected, suddenly remembering the ill-named Mr. Sànchez, that there should be so many ways of drinking. The new customer, no spring chicken, staggered to the counter with an empty bottle in his hand.
“F-filler up, buddy, fi-f . . .”
“We’re in a fine condition today, aren’t we, Proverbs?”
“Fill-filler up . . .”
“Sure thing. How much you got on you?”
Bartomeu ransacked the man’s pockets, shaking him in the process like a rag doll.
“F-f . . .”
“All right!”
And he turned his back to him, muttering between his teeth, to fill up the bottle with wine from one of the casks. Meanwhile, Proverbs leaned against the counter facing the audience and declaimed, “Barcelona’s a fine town if you got a fat purse.”
Pause.
“If you ain’t got a fat purse . . .”
Pause, and then in one fell swoop, “Barcelona’s still a fine town.”
“Olé!” shouted one of the checker players.
Encouraged by the warm reception, Proverbs proceeded as could be expected.
“Fat purse or no fat purse . . .”
Extended pause to underscore the punch line.
“Barcelona h-has a hangover.”
The players burst out laughing. Even Maurici, who hadn’t taken his eyes off the street and was in a somber mood, allowed himself to smile.
Suddenly Proverbs faced the owner, grabbed him by the straps of his apron, and moaned rather pathetically, “A bundle, th-there was a bundle . . .”
“Yes, I know. You told me a hundred times. Come on now, go home. The duchess’s getting impatient and the pheasant’s getting cold.”
More laughter coming from the players.
“At the end of the street there was a b-bundle . . .”
“All right, Proverbs, go home to sleep it off and God help you.”
“A big white b-b-bundle . . .”
In the middle of a rambling soliloquy, Proverbs staggered across the room, balanced himself precariously up the steps, and drifted toward the square, babbling about the bundle all the while.
Shortly after Proverbs’s exit, Maurici caught sight of a man who walked past the tavern and into the building. He jumped to his feet and repeated the previous surveillance down to the last detail. When he saw the visitor knock on the same door, he sharpened his senses to concentrate on what came next. The white-haired woman materialized again. Protected by the darkening veil of night and the poor lighting in the stairway, he stuck his head out further than the last time. Like a clone of his predecessor, the man took something out of his pocket and raised it to the woman’s eyes. She inspected it briefly and, opening the door wide, said, “You may come in.”
The key, then, was the card.
* * *
Although he’d come to the Street of the Three Beds determined to knock on the door of the apartment, he realized that if he ruined this chance there might not be another. He was ready to put all his chips on the first card, but the first was also the last. If admission was denied the first time, maybe it would be denied permanently.
At home he didn’t see his father.
“Where’s Father?”
“He has a visitor. Have you had dinner?” replied Lídia, who was reading in the parlor.
Her son had reverted to the self-absorbed state that worried her so much. “Can it be a woman?” she brooded, only to come to the conclusion that no woman had ever crept under Maurici’s skin. On the other hand, what else could it be? Gambling debts? This possibility was even more remote: Maurici played at the Equestrian and it was unlikely that his father, a charter member, wouldn’t have heard about it.
Maurici started down the hallway and, as he passed the office, noticed that the door was closed. A strip of light filtered out through the crack below, but he couldn’t hear voices or sounds.
After he changed his clothes, he had dinner alone without paying attention to the food. As soon as he swallowed the last bite of dessert, he sneaked out to check the office. The visitor must still be there because the door remained closed and the light on. Perhaps they’d already left and his father had forgotten to turn it off, he thought with little conviction, before he gently rapped with his knuckles. Silence. He pushed the door partly open and stuck his head in. Roderic Aldabò slouched on his throne behind the mahogany desk, his cheeks flushed and his white beard resting on his chest that heaved with the rhythm of deep sleep. In the chair turned away from the door somebody was concealed, except for a man’s shoe resting on the rug. He tiptoed across the room and turned to face the visitor. The pale man with the black moustache he’d often seen in the Street of the Three Beds was now sleeping quietly in his father’s office. On a little table next to him stood two glasses, a half-empty decanter of cognac, and a smoking cigar.
Maurici’s eyes rested briefly on the stranger’s slight body and translucent skin. Moving like a cat, he stubbed the cigar in the ashtray and tiptoed out the door. Back in his room he left the oil lamp lit and lay fully dressed on the bed to avoid the temptation to fall asleep. After an interval of listening for any creaking of doors, he heard his mother head for the master bedroom. And thus, keeping watch like an intruder in his own home, he spent the next two hours.
Shortly after half past twelve, there was activity in the hallway. He got out of bed and opened the door a few inches. The darkness was so dense he could barely make out the two shapes. He caught, however, the mutter of subdued voices and the sustained groan of the front door. Evidently, they’d both succumbed hours ago to the comforts of the office and the warmth of the cognac rushing through their veins. They must have woken up past midnight.
He closed his door again, waiting for his father to retire. After twenty minutes he groped his way down the dark hall, taking care not to hit any furniture placed against the walls. Fortunately, his parents’ bedroom and the office were located at opposite ends of the apartment. When he got to his destination, he quietly closed the door behind him and turned on the table lamp instead of the chandelier. He sat in the leather chair, permanently molded to the contours of Roderic Aldabò’s body, and began to rummage through drawers unhurriedly and thoroughly. Inside a cigar box he found cards belonging to the doctor, the tailor, the lawyer, and other acquaintances and business firms that sounded familiar. He checked them one by one, noticing that none of them bore the name of La Perla d’Orient, and restored them to their place. Then he checked papers and notebooks in the middle drawer. Nearly all the way to the back, his hand bumped against a small bundle. It was
wrapped in white silk paper and fastened with a string. He loosened the string and unfolded the paper, scattering a pile of identical cards.
Fidelity
Moving Company
29 Villarroel Street
Barcelona
His attention was struck by the brevity of the text and the volume of cards—a total of twenty-two—as well as by the fact that they were carefully wrapped and placed out of sight. He kept one, retied the bundle with steady fingers, and pushed it to the back where he had found it.
The air in his bedroom was warm and heavy. He opened the windows and, having secured the card in his wallet, took off his clothes and climbed naked into bed. Sleep came almost instantly.
The next evening after work, the carriage took him to Villarroel Street. Number twenty-nine was an old three-story building with a grocery store in the front. Last-minute shoppers stood in line at the counter. He waited his turn at a distance, until the last customer left and the shopkeeper, a small blondish man, addressed him:
“Good evening. You’re not the soap salesman, are you?”
“No,” he smiled, vaguely amused at having been taken for a salesman.
“I didn’t think so. How can I help you?” As he spoke, he wiped the marble top with a rag, picking up bits of cheese and meat.
“I’m looking for a moving company called Fidelity.”
“What’s the address?”
“This one. Twenty-nine Villarroel.”
Maurici took the card out of his wallet and handed it to him. The man dropped his task to read the address and then shook his head.
“There’s only two floors above the store. I live upstairs with the missus and the kids and an old couple live on the top floor. You’ve been misinformed. In all the ten years I’ve been here, I never heard a word about a moving company.”
Chapter 6
That Saturday afternoon Maurici found himself, like a puppet set in motion by mechanical strings, once again in the Street of the Three Beds. Instead of taking his usual post in Bartomeu’s tavern, however, he unabashedly walked through the doorway of number five. As he stepped openly into the lobby, declining the shelter under the stairway and braving the darkness in a white suit, a feeling of liberation came over him. For the first time, he climbed the stairs without imposing silence and invisibility on his footsteps. He knew that this time he was gambling all or nothing and held the trump card in his pocket. He also knew that there was no gain without risk and that, sooner or later, he’d have to face the critical moment.
The steps seemed so high and deep that, despite his good physical condition, he reached the second floor breathless. He paused in front of the gold-trimmed peephole, picked up the bronze hand, and knocked twice. Screams that didn’t sound human echoed from inside. The peephole opened with a circular motion. Behind it, an eye searched for his face in vain, as he’d moved so close to the door that the hole came to the height of his chest. Although this was probably an unnecessary precaution, he found a perverse satisfaction in concealing himself, either as a result of the spying habit or as a subconscious desire of revenge against those who stood between him and the truth.
After the now familiar rattling of locks and chains, the white-haired woman appeared. Maurici, keeping his eyes fixed on her, buried a hand inside his coat and produced the card that advertised Fidelity, the moving company. She craned her neck and strained her eyes, as if she had difficulty reading it in the dimness of the hall. The door, obeying the power of the talisman, opened wide. “Welcome. Come in.”
The foyer, bathed in soft rosy light, was only slightly wider than the rest of the hallway. Maurici hung his hat in a rack, next to another, and followed the woman into a parlor papered and carpeted in dark blues and reds. Among the Louis XV furniture, there was an elegant set of sofa and chairs, and four small tables occupied the corners. On one of them, a silver tray held a glass decanter of port, goblets, and some ladyfingers. A curtain hid the balcony; close to it, a parrot—no doubt responsible for the screams he’d heard from the landing—scrutinized the visitor impertinently from a wooden perch, with a leg up in the air. A musty smell lingered under the low ceiling; the lighting was even poorer than in the hall. Two bucolic pictures—nymphs and shepherds frolicking in some sort of Arcadia—provided the only bright notes, in contrast to a sacred heart crowned with thorns and dripping with blood.
“I’m Miss Pràxedes.”
“Delighted,” Maurici lied, taking the seat she indicated and crossing his legs. “What’s the parrot’s name?”
“Do you like it? We haven’t named him yet. We just got him. When I bought him at a local store he had the foulest language you can imagine. I don’t know who’d taught him to say such atrocities. It’s taken a lot of patience to teach him to say the Hail Mary.”
“Hail Mary! Hail Mary! Rrrr . . . ,” the strident echo repeated.
Miss Pràxedes had buttery cheeks, cloudy little eyes that didn’t focus on anything, and a brief, placid, elusive smile that never left her lips. She offered the tray of goodies to Maurici, her eyes momentarily glowing like embers of her golden age.
“Would you like some refreshments?”
The last thing he wanted was to munch ladyfingers and sip port in the company of that harpy but, as he couldn’t afford to be unsociable, he accepted.
“And how can we help you?”
“That will be for you to say.”
Miss Pràxedes’s smirk widened somewhat.
“You’ve heard about us, haven’t you?”
“Your house has been recommended to me.”
“In that case, let me tell you that we have three pupils: three girls from the country that have no relatives in Barcelona and need a boardinghouse. Of course I won’t have anybody who doesn’t come recommended. We take good care of them here, believe me. Shut up!” she said to the parrot. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to make them feel at home and provide for their needs. They are nice clean girls; no one has ever complained about them. And, thank goodness, they all enjoy excellent health. Would you like to meet them?”
“Please.”
Miss Pràxedes rose and trod heavily down the hall, as if it took her an effort to drag her weight. Now and then she coughed with a rattle of congested lungs. Maurici noticed that, past the foyer, stained-glass doors hid the back side of the apartment. As the hostess opened them, he heard smothered voices and men’s laughter. A few moments later, she returned in the company of two young women.
“Let me introduce two flowers of our garden: Margarita and Hortènsia.”
A potent perfume filled the room. Maurici stood up and greeted them with a nod and a slight smile. They responded with a well-rehearsed bow.
“Ladies, . . . I was told there were three of you.”
“Violeta’s with a customer,” Hortènsia, petite and with disproportionately large, round eyes, chirped in.
“You mean she’s with a visitor,” the madam scolded.
The girl shook her curls in affirmation. “That’s it, yes.” And she threw a furtive, impish glance at Maurici.
Miss Pràxedes proceeded, “If you wish to . . . get to know them all at once, that would be fine. You can make an appointment for another day.”
“That won’t be necessary. Flowers should be picked one by one.”
The flowers burst out laughing and the hostess, with the excuse of going to brew fresh coffee, left them alone. Of course, Maurici was acquainted with a variety of bordellos. But none of them had been an apartment masquerading as a boardinghouse for young ladies who received gentlemen callers according to the rules of bourgeois propriety and respectability; none of them served port in delicate wine glasses instead of champagne by the bottle or featured a parrot that greeted him with a Hail Mary. His debut had taken place, with the pomp and circumstance that befitted the occasion, at Madame Petit’s: a choice establishment catering to boys of his class. The loud opulence of Madame Petit’s proclaimed unapologetically what it was; this discretion, on the other ha
nd, came as a surprise and required tact. In the Street of the Three Beds one wasn’t allowed to refer to facts by their real names.
Margarita was tall and beautiful, with a mop of black hair, an amber complexion, and features that hinted at an exotic origin. A gleam of intelligence sparkled in her intensely blue eyes. He approached Hortènsia and whispered something in her ear that she found immensely amusing, then he offered his hand to her companion and followed her down the hallway.
Maurici had never seen such a constricting, gloomy dwelling. It felt like the inside of a box: a compressed space that evoked the visual effect of nearby objects seen through the wide end of binoculars. Past the foyer, a black porcelain cat with eyes of jade curled up on a window sill. A heavy curtain covered another small window and a crucifix hung on the wall. Behind two closed doors on the other side, he heard the same hushed voices as before. Margarita’s boudoir was in the back. Surprisingly spacious, it contained a dresser, a plush sofa, two armchairs, a couple of small tables, and a large, canopied bed. The open armoire displayed an assortment of silk gowns, fine lingerie, silk and velvet dresses, more or less garish hats, and fluffy as well as leathery accessories. Next to it stood a gramophone. Scattered around the room, potbellied lamps—some of which had survived the transition from oil to electricity—cast a purple glow. Behind a half-closed curtain he made out shelves lined with towels and a washstand with a metal pitcher. A window that presumably looked onto the back street was covered by a curtain, like every other opening in the apartment. The door in the back wall seemed permanently closed. Altogether, the place suggested informal comfort and perfect isolation from the outside world, as if it didn’t exist.
Maurici took off his coat and sat in the sofa.
“Are you comfortable, sir?”
“Let’s drop the formalities. Where are you from?” he asked, noticing Margarita’s slight accent.
“French.”
He gave her a thorough, connoisseur glance.
“Très belle. Our est-ce-que tu est née à la France?”
Her body stiffened as she laid her hands on her hips with ill-repressed irritation.
The Street of the Three Beds Page 9
