“Actually, I’m Algerian,” and she added in the same breath, “but my father was French.”
“What brought you to Barcelona?”
Margarita turned on the gramophone and the opening bars of a rumba flirted with the air. She opened her negligee, letting it slip to the floor, and stood in a lace petticoat that revealed more than it concealed. She took a few undulating steps towards Maurici, slipped onto the sofa close to him, and applied herself to the task of delicately unbuttoning his vest.
“It’s a long story. Will you do me the honor to dance with me?” she whispered, burning his ear with her breath.
Maurici stood up and held her cheek to cheek to the libidinous rumba.
“Tell me about it,” he whispered in her ear.
“I was a starving dancer in Algeria from the age of twelve. My father left us and went back to France and my mother didn’t make enough to support herself and a child. They said in Barcelona there were jobs for girls in show business, so when I turned fifteen I stowed away in a ship that brought me here.”
“At fifteen?”
“Don’t be surprised. At fourteen a filthy Moor had already taught me everything I needed to know to succeed in this profession.”
Maurici, who had never asked himself how a prostitute was made, found these revelations so bizarre that he even doubted their authenticity.
“So, did you work as a dancer?”
“At the beginning, in the Paral·lel, which at the time was just a fairground for carnivals. Then I got involved with a two-bit impresario, and when his wife got wind of it, the son of a bitch left me high and dry. For a couple of years I worked for third-rate companies kicking around from fair to fair, doing the same stuff I do now but without getting paid. I was sick of it. Till somebody told me about this house, and here I am. Nothing and nobody will make me leave,” she concluded defiantly.
“Who told you about this place?” he asked.
Immediately she realized she might have made a faux pas. Throwing back her head, she looked into his eyes.
“I’d rather not say, if you don’t mind.”
The music faded. On the other hand, Margarita’s caresses became more impatient as he tried gently but firmly to extricate himself from her hands.
“No rush, honey, I have plenty of time.”
“Just tell Margarita what you want and Margarita will make you happy. Satisfaction guaranteed.”
He insinuated a smile and pulled her toward the sofa, conscious that he must keep a clear head and avoid being at the mercy of such an expert body.
“I don’t doubt it. But what I want, at the moment, is to chat a while. There will be time for everything.”
Margarita smiled openly for the first time since they’d been together. “Nothing unusual about that, I’m used to it. Customers usually end up telling me the story of their lives. But I don’t remember any of them being so interested in mine.”
“I thought you didn’t have customers, only gentlemen callers.”
She smiled again.
“I consider you a gentleman caller, a special gentleman.” She slowly ran her hand over his face. “We don’t see the likes of you very often, sweetheart.”
“Why did you say nothing will make you leave this house?”
“Because one day I’m gonna run it.”
“You’re a smart girl with good looks; if you set your mind to it, you could find another line of work. Maybe one of your friends—who knows, maybe even myself—would lend you a hand.”
“A smart girl who doesn’t know how to do anything else. What other job will pay as much as this? Suppose somebody gets me out of here, what kind of a future can I expect? For a while, the good life in a cozy nest, perhaps. And yes, dresses, jewels, and a good dinner here and there in a private room of some fancy restaurant. I already have that. Sooner or later you gentlemen get tired of us, and then, what? The streets. First The Ramblas, then . . . No, I won’t end up down by the harbor, like those who can’t stand on their feet anymore, sick and living in a pigsty crawling with lice, and on top of that supporting a pimp who beats the shit out of them and drinks the pocket change they bring home. D’you know what they call that part of town? The Black Island. You can imagine why. That’s not for me. I’ll run a business, this business.”
She spoke with such conviction, that this time Maurici didn’t have trouble believing her. Confident to have found a vulnerable spot, he ventured further.
“Even if one day you run the business it doesn’t mean you’ll own it, right? If I’m not mistaken, it doesn’t belong to Miss Pràxedes but to somebody else.”
“Call it what you like. All I know is Miss Pràxedes lives like a queen and, in here, she’s the one who calls the shots.”
Maurici decided it would be useless to try to argue against her logic. “Do they all like it as much as you do?”
She shrugged. “We girls know what’s good for us. If you don’t know, you’re through.”
“How long has each of you been here?”
“Violeta came first, I arrived a year and a half ago, and Hortènsia just last month.”
While she got up to put a new record on the gramophone, he made a mental note of the last date.
This time she’d picked a nostalgic Viennese waltz, seemingly trying to guess what kind of music might arouse the young, fine-looking, dithering man. His mechanism, like that of all the others, must have a detonator. She thought she’d discovered it when he gently commanded, “Come here” and held her by the waist to kiss her.
Actually, Maurici sought to divert her attention from his questions and to weaken her guard, although he knew how little effect a man’s caresses had on a professional. “Has it always been three?” he mumbled in a more intimate tone.
“At least since I came. We honor the name of the street. Centuries ago there was already a cathouse here.”
Somewhat more relaxed she probed his body while he probed her secrets, each one in search of the trigger.
“Who came before Hortènsia?”
“Another Hortènsia, of course.”
“What became of her? Did Prince Charming sweep her away?” he added as casually as possible.
“There aren’t many of those around. Once in a blue moon, perhaps, but that’s all. Let’s not kid ourselves.” She stared at him, hesitating for a moment. “The other Hortènsia did herself in.”
“Why, didn’t this life agree with her?”
She shrugged once again, recoiling to the end of the sofa.
“Everybody carries a story inside. Who knows! I barely knew her, she was around just a few weeks.”
Taking advantage of the truce granted to his senses, he took his time to light a cigar and look for an ashtray before launching the next question. “Did you say she committed suicide?”
“She jumped from the balcony.”
Maurici gestured in disgust.
“That’s too bad. If word gets around, something like that can ruin the reputation of the house. The last thing a man wants when he makes love is to be reminded of death,” he said, feeling a twitch in his chest as he thought of Rita.
Margarita’s reply came wrapped in a naughty, all-knowing smile. “Not always. Come with me.”
She took his hand and, picking up an oil lamp on the way, led him to the back door. It opened onto a windowless room with black walls and ceiling and without lighting or ventilation. Either because of the temperature or the darkness, he felt cold as he breathed the stale air. When she moved to the center, the flame revealed a tall, rectangular frame draped in a velvet coverlet with gold fringes and tassels. A massive candlestick stood at each corner. Giving the coverlet a tug, she exposed a coffin of the best polished wood, with bronze handles. As she opened the lid, the white satin inside glistened like a bridal gown.
“It’s my special act. But I can see it’s not to your taste. If you have whims like this you got to pay for them, believe me.”
Maurici stepped back in revulsion. For a moment R
ita’s image lay in the coffin, not playing but really dead, her body broken by the fall. He had to repress a cry of anguish like those that can awaken a person from a bad dream. Slowly, he turned around and walked away from the funeral chamber. Margarita closed the door behind her, placed the oil lamp on a table, and resumed her place next to him in the sofa.
“About this business of the house reputation and the girl’s suicide, I don’t think they have anything to do with each other. Only she knew what was eating her inside. All I can say is, it started before she came here.”
A tone of indifference masked his inner turmoil as he posed the riskiest question so far, “Did she tell you what it was about?”
“No.” She pulled back, studying him with a hint of suspicion before she said, “Do you really want to keep talking about a poor devil that’s dead and pushing up daisies? What is it? Did you know her?”
“No, but I feel a certain curiosity.”
“Curiosity about what? Her?”
“About all of you.”
Margarita brought her face close to his as her hands resumed their interrupted exploration. “Will you let me satisfy your curiosity in my own way?”
The dark blue of her eyes softened in the purple glow of the room. The waltz had expired long ago under the needle of the gramophone. Somewhere in the distance Miss Pràxedes coughed and the parrot grumbled. Maurici understood he’d exhausted all the possibilities of the interview and that, if Margarita knew what had happened to Rita, she was too wily or too afraid to tell him. Admitting defeat, he drew a tired, enigmatic smile. “Why not?”
And obligingly, he let her unbutton his shirt.
* * *
Throughout the next days, he was in the throes of a feeling rather foreign to his nature: impatience. It took an effort to concentrate on anything beyond “the case,” as he called it to himself, and he couldn’t wait to go back to the apartment on the Street of the Three Beds and query the other girls. In his mind the bordello, like so many other things since Rita’s disappearance, took the shape of an unlikely, imaginary place that remained unreal until he could verify its existence again.
In the mornings he woke up earlier than ever, went to the factory, and worked listlessly. As he walked the rows of looms, Remei Sallent proudly showed him the scar on her disfigured finger; he would bend down, pretending to examine it, and reward her with his incomplete smile. Some days his eyes lingered on her with a touch of sadness; the girl then pierced him with a protracted look, as if she intended to unveil the mystery of his innermost self. At home he avoided his parents’ conversation—easy to do in the case of Roderic Aldabò, who grew more self-absorbed every day. A couple of times he declined Lídia’s musical entreaties, claiming to be too tired to play the piano.
Periodically Lídia, increasingly suspicious, broached the subject with her husband. “Have you noticed how distracted Maurici seems these days? Has he told you anything?”
“What’s there to tell? He’s finally got some sense, that’s what it is. Would it make you happier to see him out carousing every other night as he used to? High time!”
He didn’t go near the Equestrian—not even to ride with Albert—or join his friends in their binges of booze and girls. The only persisting habit was squash. He, who had always blossomed in human company, now instinctively craved solitude. He, who used to slide along as if his youth were a smooth cruise on a toboggan, had for the first time stumbled on an obsession, and he intended to nurture and cosset it as one does a plant in the hope it will live a long time.
Reluctantly, he let a long week go by before resuming his inquiries because he feared that frequent visits full of questions would arouse suspicion. Probably the girls—maybe even the madam—shared confidences about the customers, so it was essential to play it safe and find out which of them could be most useful to his purposes.
In the second attempt the same preliminaries were observed. Even though Miss Pràxedes recognized him immediately, she didn’t forgo the close inspection of the Fidelity card. Maurici speculated that over time men’s faces must blend with each other as in a labyrinth of mirrors and, given the circumstances, there was no such thing as too much caution. Two hats stood on either end of the rack; Maurici perched his in the middle in perfect symmetry.
“Come in, come in. Today we have another visitor in the parlor.”
On one of the chairs sat a man in his sixties who reeked of cheap lotion and wore a large glittering diamond on his finger. His hair and moustache were dyed and his entire person appeared to be fastidiously polished and touched up. The hostess, adhering to the policy of anonymity, deftly avoided introductions. Instead, she began to talk about the weather and the cost of living, as she might do among neighbors standing in a shopping line at the market. Suddenly, she was interrupted by a coughing fit. The port, the ladyfingers, and the conversation seemed so absurd that Maurici took the opportunity to get down to business. “Would you be so kind as to call Hortènsia, if she’s free?”
“She has a visitor, but I doubt he’ll be there much longer.”
A few minutes later he heard steps in the hallway. Panting heavily, Miss Pràxedes struggled to her feet to see the customer off. The two men remained alone in the parlor amidst a tense silence, in the middle of which the stale dandy threw an unnecessarily fierce glance at his rival. The parrot broodingly studied both of them.
A girl came in who could only be Violeta. The mannequin bent dramatically to kiss her hand. Maurici found it difficult to conceal his surprise. She looked like a governess or a nurse, the least likely type of woman to be found in a place like that. She wore a plain, brown skirt and a cream-colored blouse with puffy sleeves buttoned up to her neck. Her rich auburn hair was pulled up in a simple, graceful bun. Without being a beauty, her asymmetric features were intriguing. Maurici had a hunch that the interview with her would be the most productive.
The couple vanished down the hall. Shortly after, Hortènsia made a grand entrance, shaking her foamy blond curls and immaculately white flounces of lace. She looked like a pubescent virgin dressed up for her first communion. The smile she lavished on Maurici exposed her teeth and wrinkled her nose. She latched herself on his arm as if his presence was an unusual event that called for celebration.
In contrast to Margarita’s room, hers could never be called a boudoir. It was a different world. The bed, together with the washstand and the pitcher, was tucked out of sight behind a screen. The centerpiece was a swing that hung from the ceiling, with swags of artificial flowers curling around the ropes. Inside the armoire Maurici saw a collection of dresses and hats in pastel colors, all of them of a naïve style, plus a school uniform and a nun’s habit.
“Do you like any of those?” The girl’s voice startled him.
“No. I like the one you’re wearing much better.”
The wicker chairs were covered with flowery cushions that harmonized with the plants scattered all over the room. On one of the chairs sat a doll batting her eyelashes at regular intervals. From the top of a lacquered, white dresser other dolls surveyed the scene. One of the lamps, which did double duty as a music box, had a revolving screen painted with fish that projected green, blue, red, and yellow beams. The air was perfumed with talcum powder and cologne. If Margarita’s special act was necrophilia, it didn’t take too much imagination to guess Hortènsia’s.
“Welcome to the doll house,” she announced like a formula. “Would you like to take off your coat?”
After following her suggestion, he walked to the window and opened the curtain, only to discover iron bars beyond the glass panels and a wall a few feet across. Hortènsia’s big, round eyes, perfect replicas of a full moon, gave him a puzzled look. As soon as her visitor ceased his window inspection, she sat on the swing and started to rock herself back and forth, gathering height and speed until the flight of her flounces revealed an absence of underwear. The arch of the swing grew wide like a semicircle, and while Maurici worried it might hit the ceiling, she laughed e
xcitedly. Then she let her legs go limp and the curve decreased. Cheeks aglow, skin beaded with sweat, she jumped from the swing and, rubbing her body against his as she walked past him, rewarded him with a caress and a comically provocative pirouette.
In the middle of the floor lay a rug decorated with scenes from Perrault’s fairy tales. Hortènsia pulled it back, uncovering a hopscotch board.
“Shall we play?”
“You’re a very clever girl,” he replied, humoring her. “Come sit with Daddy.”
With a few short steps, she landed in Daddy’s lap.
“So tell me, why do they call you Hortènsia?”
“Don’t you like it?”
“Why shouldn’t I like it? Such a pretty name.”
“The girl before me was called Hortènsia.”
“The girl before you?”
“Yes, the one who . . . died.”
For a second, the dimples on her cheeks and chin disappeared.
“I see. And you replaced her?”
“Right. And grown-up gentlemen say I’m better than her.” She smiled coyly, slipping her hand under his shirt.
“You won’t find any candy in there, honey.” He drew away her hand, thinking those girls were remarkably efficient.
“Oh!” she said, making the face of a disappointed child.
“Daddy will give you some later, if you’re a good girl.”
Hortènsia welcomed the promise with applause, her lips fluttering over his face and neck like a hummingbird.
“And we’ll play?”
“We’ll play as much as you like. But first, Daddy wants to have a serious conversation with you, as if you were a big girl.”
“Anything you say.”
“You didn’t know this girl who died, did you?”
“No. They brought me here when she . . .”
“What do you mean, they brought you here?”
Hortènsia resumed the hunt for candy under his shirt.
“I was a maid, but housework wasn’t for me. Till my lady told me, look, she says, if you want to make a good living . . .”
The Street of the Three Beds Page 10
