“I never would have if she hadn’t encouraged me. I’m not used to drinking from fountains as maids do, . . . but she drank so eagerly . . . and she kept saying, ‘Aren’t you thirsty, Madam?’ And it was so hot under the afternoon sun, and the water was so cool . . .”
Dr. García also examined Doro, who showed no symptoms so far. Then he stepped into the office where father and son waited in a state of high tension.
“I’m afraid it’s typhus.”
“What?” Roderic Aldabò’s face was distorted with shock.
“You mean there is a typhus epidemic?” asked Maurici, also stunned by the blow.
“We have one every time there’s hunger and hardship.”
“Hunger and hardship?” Roderic repeated. “Barcelona’s more prosperous than ever. How can hunger and hardship affect my wife?”
“Hardship affects everyone, Mr. Aldabò. Who knows what lives in the sewers of this city besides thousands of rats.”
Maurici’s memory replayed like a phonograph the last conversation with Rita. He could hear the echo of his own voice repeating what he’d read in the papers: that in Barcelona rats outnumbered people. At the time, it was just a meaningless statement—a figure, an abstraction. Since that day, he’d plunged into sewers and smelled them from inside. He’d seen a few rats, big and small. Up close, they looked worse than from a distance.
“This time there are infected waters coming down from the mountains,” Dr. García went on, wiping the sweat off his forehead with a wrinkled handkerchief. “I must be frank with you, it’s a severe case. When the symptoms are so virulent . . . you’d better watch out. It’s highly contagious.”
Roderic moved to the guest room. Maurici, with an air of defeat he’d never shown before, explained to Caterina that his mother was seriously ill and he’d have to postpone the move for a few days, perhaps a few weeks . . . Dr. García had given her less than a month. Father and son took turns going to the factory, so that one of them could stay home monitoring the course of the disease.
The doctor, on his frequent visits, instructed Doro to scrub the bedroom with bleach and change the sheets daily. All the windows remained open. A nurse wearing a mask bathed the patient, rubbed her body with alcohol, and stayed with her at night. Even so, father and son—both alert to her every whisper and breathing—rarely slept. Lídia lost weight—and hair in handfuls, while a smattering of red flowers bloomed on her skin. She refused to eat, but the thirst she’d attempted to quench that hot afternoon constantly revived, like an inexhaustible longing. The water she’d drunk from the fountain had exacerbated rather than extinguished it.
Sometimes her temperature would subside and a wave of euphoria would ripple through the Aldabò home. It was a hallucination. A few hours later the fever climbed with renewed vigor, reclaiming that body contaminated by a rare moment in her life when she’d blended with the people.
The second week inaugurated the phase of mental confusion Dr. García had foretold. In the wee hours she called “Maurici! Maurici!” It was useless for the nurse to try to calm her down. When he went to her, her vacant gaze wandered over his face, “You’re not Maurici.” If Roderic sought to reassure her, she replied in a tone of strange desolation, “Roderic, where’s my son? I want Maurici. I’ve lost my child.” On those few occasions when she recognized him she whispered secretively and in feverish excitement, “Let’s run away to the country!” Or she begged him to play the piano at four in the morning. One night when the nurse dozed off, Lídia drew strength from some deep recess of her being and left her bed. Trailing the sheet like a bridal train, she wandered into her son’s bedroom. In those days it didn’t take much to wake him up. He jumped to his feet in time to catch her before she fell to the floor. As he took her back to her room, she repeated like a naughty child, “Let’s go, Maurici, now that no one can hear us! You are the real Maurici, aren’t you? Not the other one, are you?”
One early morning, while night and day fought the battle of dawn, her breathing became irregular. The two men, alerted by the nurse, rushed to the sickroom. For an instant, she stared at them with the expression of someone who has glimpsed an extra dimension. She turned her head slightly to the oil lamp on the nightstand and said, “Blow it out.” It was the definitive good night.
After mass at Santa Anna’s church and the funeral at the new cemetery in Poble Nou, Roderic and Maurici Aldabò shook hands like automata with the endless line of mourners. Maurici felt as if in a state of weightless levitation, his legs flabby at the knees. Maybe it was he who had died. Despite his ashen complexion, the circles of fatigue under his eyes, and the trails of tears on his cheeks, his face had the vulnerability that makes men beautiful.
As he stood alone in the Palau pantheon, he realized that his father was not only crushed with grief but deprived of the emotional resources to release it. Roderic’s eyes appeared glazed over, his body limp, his pain unable to flow. Maurici felt an impulse to embrace him for the last time, but his father’s gaze froze it. Maurici understood that he blamed him for everything. His mother’s death, instead of bringing them together, had pulled them apart.
* * *
The next Monday when Maurici left the factory, where unattended business had piled up throughout Lídia’s illness, he went to La Mina. It was unlikely he’d find Dr. Miralpeix there, but he wanted to inspect the place and see if somebody could give him information.
When, a long time ago, Proverbs had mentioned La Mina, Maurici hadn’t imagined it as it was: a ramshackle tavern with a front entrance and a side door that opened to a courtyard, where two women picked minuscule fauna from each other’s hair. Inside there was a metallic bar, and ill-assorted tables and benches were scattered everywhere. Beyond the tavern, Maurici saw a larger room under a dome held by columns. The dark, humid stones of the floor were unevenly covered with sawdust. One of the walls was lined with wine casks; the others featured built-in benches with ropes hanging from hooks at either end. The purpose of the ropes eluded him. The architecture of the building betrayed its past as a medieval convent, which had survived as an anachronistic witness to the period when the neighborhood had been the sacred ground of the city. Even though some sunlight squeezed into the narrow street, the inside atmosphere was a murky brew of smoke, sweat, alcoholic breath, and germs.
One man stood up every time a pedestrian tossed a cigarette butt in the street. He picked it up eagerly and buried it in his pocket. When he’d collected a few, he rolled a cigarette and tried to sell it to one of his mates.
The stench and squalor made a strong impact on Maurici’s state of mind, already devastated by his mother’s recent death. He felt faint and it took him a few seconds to stop the objects from spinning around him. When he gathered the strength to face the cave dwellers he identified tubercular men, tattooed sailors with protruding jaws who seemed stuck in a lower rung of the evolutionary ladder, hustlers and rogues flashing knives under their belts, and over-the-hill women clinging to their necks, . . . the debris of the harbor, jail, or syphilis—faces that didn’t know if they were inside or outside and whether it was night or day.
When he asked the bartender for Dr. Miralpeix, he met with a hostile look.
“Nobody’s got a name in here.”
Uneasy about the concentration of jackknives mounting around him, he took a couple of bills from his wallet. Instantly men, women, and specimens of other sexes—not enough among all of them to compile a full set of teeth—swarmed to the summons.
“Tell me who you’re lookin’ for, I’ll find him.”
“What did you lose, honey?”
He gave a description of the abortionist. As he fought off an army of hands prying at his clothes an old woman broke through the crowd, palm held out. Her speech was so slurred Maurici had to cock his ear to make it out.
“Come back six in the mornin’, when they wake ‘em up. They—us—see, we mostly sleep here. Come six, they kick us out. Then you’ll find ‘im . . . some day or other.”
Mumbling his
thanks, Maurici tossed out a handful of coins to buy his escape.
* * *
It took him almost a year to find Dr. Miralpeix. He’d lost track of how many days he’d risen at five o’clock; of the winter nights when, fending off desperate hookers and fearing criminal assaults, he’d landed at La Mina around midnight, when drunken fights peaked at the stage of pandemonium. Sooner or later, amidst the parade of nameless ghosts, he’d identify the light frame, the waxy skin, the wilted moustache, the narcotized eyes. Come that moment, he didn’t know what he’d do.
At last he saw him. He saw him one day long after he’d deserted the family home and the factory and had lost all contact with his father. It was a rainy morning. At ten minutes before six, La Mina looked darker than ever. His memory brought back the corridor at La Perla d’Orient and a shiver ran through his body—hard to tell if it was the recollection or the morning frost.
The benches along the walls were packed full. Men and women slumbered sitting up, pressed against each other. Some snored noisily, others muttered fragments of dreams dictated by alcohol. The taut ropes, tied at the hooks, held the torsos up at a forty-five degree angle, while the heads dangled like those of the hanged. The stench of communal sleep was nauseating.
The bartender lit an oil lamp and to the summons of “C’mon, on your feet!” he went around the room unhooking ropes. As soon as the rope slackened, the sleepers tumbled forward like rag dolls, some of them all the way to the floor. Watching them, Maurici forgot why he’d come, until his gaze stumbled on Dr. Miralpeix’s brittle frame bending at the waist. His eyes were still closed. As they blinked open, they roamed around the room. His head bobbed on his chest, his face gave no sign of recognition. His body swung limp on the bench without losing its balance.
He watched his antagonist for a long time. The good doctor was the only customer wearing a coat and tie. The cuffs of his trousers and sleeves were frayed; the black fabric shone unevenly with wear and tear. Curiously, it was he, Maurici, who felt vulnerable and strangely helpless. Other pursuers of Dr. Miralpeix had beaten him to the punch and done his work for him. Giants had become windmills.
And he knew what to do. For the last time, he walked away from La Mina.
Chapter 12
Hotel Colón
December 5, 1914
Dear Maurici,
I expect that, after years of not hearing from me, this letter will come as a surprise. No doubt you will ask yourself what I want from you. Do not fear that in my old age I should call on you to make claims as a father, to complain about loneliness, or to meddle with your life, whatever it may be. On the contrary, I have instructed my lawyer not to forward you this dispatch until a week after my death. By this provision you will be exempt from the obligation—if you, indeed, regard it as such—to attend my funeral.
You should know exactly how my possessions will be disposed of. You may not be aware that shortly after we saw each other for the last time at the cemetery, on the saddest day I ever knew, I sold the factory. Without Lídia, that which had been at the center of my life no longer interested me. I didn’t feel capable of getting up in the morning, sitting at the breakfast table by myself, and working as a slave all day just to come back to an empty apartment where she wasn’t waiting for me. I lacked the strength to do it. Moreover, our foreign clients—especially the French ones—often asked about you. I won’t say you were indispensable—no one is and, besides, you never cared for the factory—but a few people, not just customers but also workers, did miss you. In any case, it was too big a burden for one man alone. The buyer was a powerful investor who owns all sorts of business concerns in Barcelona. In truth it was no bargain, for right away he had to replace the looms.
I have donated the country villa to San Juan de Dios Hospital. Given its ideal climate and location, it will be converted into a health resort for respiratory patients. Neither you nor I—both of us, each one in his way, urban men—have ever had any use for it. If you ask me, not even your mother was as partial to it as she pretended to be. It was the idea of a villa that appealed to her. A two-story house with a garden and a lily pond . . . That’s how your mother was, may she rest in peace.
As you know, we seldom went to the country after your early childhood. The state of neglect the house had fallen into would have required costly repairs: there were leaks in the second floor, under the roof, and broken windows downstairs; the bottom of the pond was cracked and the water, murky and covered with brown leaves, bred maggots and toads instead of goldfish; the fountain spout was clogged. God knows when the gardener had last been there, for the hedges stood higher than the walls and the weeds had suffocated the rosebushes. It was a ruin, but the plot is valuable and there’s still time for the monks to salvage the building.
And now I must come to a matter that will make you unhappy and that you’d rather not hear about again. Most likely, you’ve managed to avoid it these past years. I imagine that’s why you left home. Unpleasant things, however, can’t be put off forever. Sooner or later we must face them, sometimes even accept them.
La Perla d’Orient, which no doubt brings you bad memories, goes to Mrs. Prat. I know full well that you, too righteous to dirty your hands with this sort of enterprise, would not have wanted it. Suit yourself. No matter how much you may hate Mrs. Prat and how morally superior to her you hold yourself to be, consider that she’s the widow of a ne’er-do-well who left her penniless. On top of that, she supports a retarded brother who needs constant attention. You’ve never been in financial straits; otherwise, you might not despise her as much as you do.
As for the boardinghouse on the Street of the Three Beds, which surely you don’t want under your responsibility either, after Miss Pràxedes’s death I turned it over to Josephine Délacourt (alias Margarita, as you may have known her). She’s a capable woman who now enjoys the freedom and resources to make what she wants of it. The oldest tenant, the one with the strongest claim to ownership, left a few years ago. Rumor has it that she married a well-to-do young man. As you can see, Maurici, everyone looks after number one.
I haven’t heard anything from Dr. Miralpeix. At some point he left his apartment and moved from one hotel to another until I lost track of him.
In all honesty, I hope you will give up your foolish pursuit and that, if you don’t, you’ll never find him. Nothing good could come from this encounter. You must protect yourself, must build a wall around you that sets you apart from undesirables. Certain people, like Dr. Miralpeix, are necessary but must be kept at arm’s length—away from your circle. Never allow someone of his kind to sit at your table. There lies the secret, in that distinction. If you haven’t yet learnt that, let me tell you that you have to open two compartments in your mind: one for those you love and one for those you use. You must come to terms with the idea that what your eyes don’t see never happened. The right hand needs to know nothing of what the left does. If this strikes you as too cruel, I’m sorry. I haven’t written the laws that rule the world. They have been passed down from century to century.
Finally, the family apartment belongs to you. I moved out a few months after your mother passed away. Without her, it seemed to grow so big that I felt lost in it. As you can see from the stationery I’m writing on, I live quite comfortably at the Hotel Colón. The only reason why I didn’t sell the apartment was because the maid and the cook would be put out in the street and, of course, I didn’t need the money anyway. I could provide Júlia with a reference letter and, no doubt, she’d find a good position, but Doro is too old. No one will hire a maid over sixty. Not that we have any obligation toward her—we’ve treated her well, we’ve always paid her on time, and I’ve even set up a small allowance for her. The latter seemed to me a bit extravagant, but your mother in her last days asked me to do it. On my death, you will inherit the apartment and also the problem of what to do with Doro, who for the time being is living there and keeping house with Júlia. Since you’re so fond of moral dilemmas, I’m willing you
this one: it’s in your hands.
Frankly, when we parted ways I intended to teach you a lesson by disinheriting you completely and leaving you with only the clothes you had on. Nevertheless, over the years I reached the conclusion that the apartment rightfully belongs to you. In a certain sense, you’ve earned it. You grew up in it, and you took care of your mother in her final days. In it there are all the things—the piano, the Japanese screen, the art works she had personally picked—that, because of your affinity with her, if nothing else, should be yours. If, unfortunately, I can’t say that you’ve been a good son to me, I suppose you were to her. I wouldn’t want her to curse me from the grave, particularly now that I will soon be joining her.
Perhaps you’ll wonder what my life is like at the Hotel Colón, I who had always worked from dawn to dusk and had never known how to enjoy myself. When I lost your mother—the only person I’ve really loved and needed—those values I had respected as if they were written on the Bible turned upside down. I realized that she was right after all—that wealth is to be spent and even squandered, that life must be thoroughly consumed like a lavish feast. For the first time, I was piqued by the curiosity to sample the pleasures that both she and you so relished.
It may surprise you to know that I keep a suite with lacquered furniture and satin drapes. I get up in the late morning, after having my breakfast served in bed, and throughout the rest of the day I enjoy, at last, the benefits of my membership at the Equestrian Club. I play cards, and the habit of dining at the best restaurants has awakened in me an appetite for oysters, caviar, and lobster. I drink champagne with every meal, and I’ve traded Spanish cigars for the Cuban brand you used to smoke. I go out every Saturday evening. I don’t miss a single opera when it’s in season; the rest of the year I go to the theater or am invited to the homes of old acquaintances with whom I still maintain good relations.
As you can imagine, at this rate my fortune won’t last long. You could say that I blow money for the sake of it, without rhyme or reason. You need to understand that for the first time I’m not responsible to anybody and I must confess there are moments when this thought is liberating. What will I do, you may wonder, when the cash flow stops? Everything has been planned. Once I’m down to the amount needed for my funeral expenses, I’ll gladly bid farewell to this world. It will be my decision. I have a right to it, don’t you think? No need to wait for a stroke, or some unmentionable disease, or typhus—which has recently ravaged Barcelona again. I’ll leave when I please and as I please, and it will be a week before you read these lines.
The Street of the Three Beds Page 19
