Then a twinge she had been trying to ignore for years made her linger over the image of a faceless man, melting into her sister Soledad’s blood, spilled on the patio of her house in Buenos Aires. Fortunately, the film didn’t stop there but rushed on to show other trivial affairs intended to blot out the memory of that blood. A long string of inconsequential adventures culminating with the appearance of Carlos’s beautiful body in the mirror, as if he were physically there.
Then the elevator reached the ground floor and the door opened.
“At last, about time,” said Teldi, gathering his things. He looked for his tie, which had ended up in a corner, then his shoes. “Where’s the left one? How can I possibly have lost it in such a tiny space? We just about melted in here.”
Adela bent down. She was about to pick up the shoe and give it back to him without further ado when a perverse impulse stopped her and she froze in that servile posture. She looked at Teldi and, as if needing to confirm with an act what she had discovered in the last fifteen minutes, she said to him:
“Let me help you, Ernesto.”
Kneeling before him, she made herself put his shoe on.
“What are you doing, Adela? Have you gone crazy?”
But Adela hadn’t gone crazy. She wanted to smell that old flesh again; she wanted to plunge to the very pit of all miseries to be sure that when she got out of the elevator, the daily routine wouldn’t make her forget what she had felt in the last fifteen minutes, that foretaste of what the future held for her. Old age is losing all your personal space, she repeated, and by the time it comes, I won’t have the strength to flee or any reason to change my life, because my life will have shrunk so much there will be nowhere to go, and no one to go with. The heat had made Ernesto Teldi’s foot swell; she had to force his heel into the shoe, and the stiffener broke.
“Leave it, will you. What the hell are you doing? Come on, get up,” said Teldi, and when he saw her face, he added: “You look terrible, Adela. You should get changed, and me too.”
“Yes,” she said. “But this time I think I’ll take the stairs.”
Adela didn’t look back. She didn’t know if her husband had stayed in the elevator to go back up to the room or what he had done. All she knew was that she had three flights of stairs to climb while thinking about Carlos and trying to sort out her feelings. It’s too late to cancel the dinner now, she told herself. I’ll go ahead with life as planned for the next few days, but then it’s good-bye, Ernesto. Adela was not tired. She felt as light as a child climbing those three flights of stairs, because she had just sworn that for once in her life she was not going to do the sensible thing. She was going to give love a chance.
Part Four
THE MIRROR GAME
“There has been in this incident,” he said, “a twisted, ugly, complex quality that does not belong to the straight bolts either of heaven or hell. As one knows the crooked track of a snail, I know the crooked track of a man.”
G. K. CHESTERTON
The Innocence of Father Brown
“This trick is done with mirrors, isn’t it?”
AGATHA CHRISTIE
1
ARRIVAL AT THE LILIES
HOUSES IN WHICH a sudden death is about to occur do not differ noticeably from more innocent dwellings. Their wooden stairs do not groan like crows cawing, nor do their walls stand guard like melancholy sentinels waiting for something evil to happen. And Westinghouse cool rooms whose doors are destined to click definitively shut behind someone in a few hours’ time do not purr invitingly, tempting the reckless to step inside. All that is sheer fantasy, and yet there on the doormat of the Lilies was an enormous cockroach, plain for all to see. Cockroaches are unpleasant creatures, with an obstinate team spirit. Often, as soon as you dispose of one, another will appear as if from nowhere to replace it, a second offender just as fat and shiny as the first, imitating its behavior with a sort of stoic exactitude, like the several cockroaches that the characters in this story kept finding on the doormat as they arrived at the Lilies.
If this renewed presence was some kind of portent or sign, it was a sign that everyone could see, sitting there, bold as you please, wiggling its antennae. And each guest, noticing this insect on arrival, did what people normally do when they see a cockroach: step on it.
ERNESTO AND ADELA TELDI were the first to arrive at the house and set eyes on that ugly insect. It gave them something to say to each other. They hadn’t spoken in the plane from Madrid and had exchanged a bare minimum of words during the trip from the airport to their house, which was near Coín. It was an old house largely covered with wisteria, which ignorant people often mistook for the lilies that gave the place its name.
“I told you those caretakers you took on were hopeless,” said Ernesto Teldi. “You don’t often see a cockroach in the garden. I hate to think what it’s like inside.”
As he pushed the key into the lock, he glanced around. The rest of the garden seemed to be in reasonable shape: there were blue hydrangeas on either side of the front door, and the flower beds were looking good. A few leaves could be seen swirling in a corner of the otherwise carefully raked lawn, which stretched away to a little fountain with lilies and, beyond that, a box hedge.
“At least the gardener seems to be doing his job,” said Teldi. “But the caretakers are a lazy pair, not even here to let us in. I wonder where they can have gone,” he added as he turned the door handle.
Stepping in, Ernesto Teldi squashed the cockroach, which went crunch under the sole of his shoe. “Shit,” he said, wiping the remains of its carcass onto the doormat. Inside the Lilies, Ernesto and Adela were to be confronted with another domestic setback. They found the caretakers in a state of high anxiety: a very serious family problem had come up and they had to leave urgently for Conil de la Frontera. “It’s terribly serious, madame,” they said. “We’re awful sorry, such a bad time.”
“Well, go then, right now, and don’t bother to come back,” said Teldi, looking not at his employees but at Adela, as if she were the one who should have been awful sorry.
But Adela poured oil on troubled waters and persuaded them to stay until the team from Mulberry & Mistletoe arrived, so that they could explain all the ins and outs of the house. Teldi then deigned to address the caretakers directly with the tone of offended authority generally reserved for deserters: “One last thing: do me a favor and remove that dead cockroach. Then I never want to see the pair of you again.”
“GROSS! A COCKROACH!” said Chloe two hours later when she found an identical creature on the doormat, but very much alive, waving its antennae to welcome her. “It’s disgusting; someone’s got to kill it. It’s against my beliefs to harm animals and all, but this is too gross.”
Nestor and Carlos stooped to examine the insect. Like all chefs, Nestor found cockroaches deeply repugnant, as he told the caretakers when they came to open the door.
“I don’t know where it can have come from,” said the woman. “We just got rid of another one like it. Mr. Teldi must have brought it in on the sole of his shoe, because there are no vermin in this house. The kitchen is clean as a whistle, I swear. Come in, come in and have a look.”
Nestor went in with the caretakers.
“And what about this bloody cockroach?” asked Chloe. “You kill it, Carlos.”
So Carlos, who had no problems with that sort of thing, squashed the insect just as Ernesto Teldi had done.
“Done,” he said. “Come on, Chloe, take that stuff to the kitchen while Karel parks the van. I’ll go help unload the rest of the gear.”
OH YUCK, A disgusting sváb! thought Karel Pligh, seeing a third cockroach on the doormat, as glossy and slimy-looking as its cousins. Now, how the hell do you say sváb in Spanish? He hesitated for a moment without realizing that, thanks to his comprehensive knowledge of Latin music, he had on many occasions sung a famous Mexican song named after the insect in question. But right then Karel didn’t have time for further entomological or
musical reflections—he was carrying a basketful of pots, pans, and other kitchen utensils that Nestor needed to prepare the meal at the Lilies that night—so he squashed the sváb with all the force of his Nike and continued on his way to the kitchen: there was a lot to do before the guests arrived.
THE TELDIS AND the staff of Mulberry & Mistletoe spent the whole of the morning and a good part of the afternoon getting ready, each in his or her own particular domain. Ernesto shut himself in the library to make a series of phone calls. He wanted to be sure that none of his guests would be prevented from attending by a last-minute hitch. As for Adela, she had a lengthy discussion with Nestor about the details of the menu. (How odd; she was certain she had seen his face somewhere before, but where? Where had she seen that mustache? It would probably come back to her in a minute, but in the meantime it was best to pretend she hadn’t recognized him, always the wisest strategy in such a situation.) Then Adela told him she would prefer not to have to deal with his staff directly.
“If you could look after everything, Mr. Chaffino, including the flower arrangements—you can take what you need from the garden. I have a few things to sort out with my husband upstairs, and as soon as I’m free, I’ll come down and we can discuss any changes of plan.”
Nestor put her mind at ease: that was what he was paid for, after all, to take care of everything so that the hosts could relax. She needn’t worry about the food or getting the house ready (in spite of the caretakers’ desertion). “We’re a small but efficient team,” he said, “and we get on well together. That’s the main thing. It’s almost like a family business. The young ones are like children to me, as you’ll see, my dear, especially Carlos.”
After this declaration, culminating with that surprisingly familiar “my dear” (he must say that to everyone, thought Adela; it doesn’t necessarily mean anything), she watched Nes-tor slip away discreetly like a true hospitality professional.
FROM THAT MOMENT on, Mulberry & Mistletoe took possession of the Lilies.
The Teldis handed the reins over to Karel, Chloe, Carlos, and Nestor, who proceeded to organize everything, setting tables, arranging flowers, moving furniture. “Do whatever you think is best,” Mrs. Teldi had said, and having catered for many similar parties, they knew just what needed to be done. Soon they were coming and going as if they’d known the place for years. Each employee worked without supervision, at his or her own rhythm, and so each came to discover a different facet of the Lilies. Some say the personality of a house is completely subjective: the same house can be charming or menacing, beautiful or ugly, inviting or hostile, depending on the eye and state of mind of the observer. Some say that no two visitors will see the place in the same way, and it may well be true, because the Lilies certainly made a different impression on each member of the Mulberry & Mistletoe team. Nestor, for one, got a fright when he entered the sitting room intending to give it a quick dust. An uncomfortable little chill ran down his spine, but it wasn’t so much the style of the décor that disagreed with him as one object in particular: the mail tray.
“What are you looking at?” asked Ernesto Teldi, who had come in to get the paper.
Nestor started flicking the feather duster with a dexterous wrist action and moved away, intently scrutinizing the walls and sundry insignificant objects while raising a protective cloud of dust.
“Lovely room, beautifully decorated,” he said. “With a bit of dusting and some flowers from the garden, it’ll look splendid,” he added, turning his back so Teldi couldn’t see what had caught his attention.
Ernesto then picked up the only thing on the mail tray: a thick envelope addressed unsteadily in green ink.
Shit, he thought, before disappearing with the envelope.
Shit, thought Nestor, too, flicking the feather duster even more vigorously, as if the house were suddenly full of invisible cobwebs.
FOR CARLOS GARCIA, however, the Lilies was a calm, light-filled house that reminded him strongly of his childhood. While trying to keep his mind on the job, he found pretexts for visiting one room after another, haunted by the impression that he was at Number 38 Calle de Almagro—not the run-down, neglected property that he was about to sell but the mysterious apartment full of nooks and crannies that he had known as a child, the domain of his grandmother Teresa. For Carlos, the Lilies and Number 38 were like mother and daughter. He noticed that even the choice of colors was identical. The entrance hall was painted red, the sitting room yellow, and what colors would the bedrooms be? For a moment Carlos forgot that this house belonged not only to his lover from the Palace Hotel but also to her husband, and like a curious child, he decided to investigate each of the bedrooms, hoping perhaps to find a lavender-hued dressing room or a secret chamber with an armoire in it.
“Might I inquire what you’re doing up here?” said a voice that, luckily, did not belong to the owner of the house but to Nestor Chaffino, who was standing in the doorway. “What the hell are you doing opening armoires?”
“Nothing, Nelly. Nothing, I swear,” said Carlos.
Nestor looked at him quizzically. His expression was quite different from Nelly’s when she scolded him for looking in the armoire, but the situation was the same.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” asked Carlos. He would have preferred a reprimand to the inscrutable silence of his friend. “Aren’t you going to tell me to stop ferreting around in other people’s armoires and get back to work? Aren’t you going to ask me why, Nestor?”
But Nestor, who was already leaving the room, turned back and said: “Cazzo Carlitos, one day you’ll learn that in life there are times when it’s best not to ask questions. Especially when you suspect you’d be better off not knowing the answers.” And then he added, in a different tone of voice: “Come on, let’s go down to the kitchen. I need you and Chloe to help me prepare the dinner.”
FOR KAREL PLIGH, the Lilies wasn’t warm or yellow or full of nooks and crannies. Nor did it revive childhood memories. To him it seemed like the sort of place you only read about in novels, an unreal mansion full of bathrooms, more than one per person, he calculated, and all that wasted space; at least fifteen families could have lived in it. He was walking up and down the dining room positioning the chairs around the five tables, on each of which he had placed a candelabra and a floral arrangement. He was amusing himself, setting the scene with a meticulous attention to detail. In the West, he thought, you feel like you’re living on a film set. It was a feeling Karel enjoyed. In the course of the evening he would no doubt learn a good deal about sophisticated gatherings of this sort, and if he was observant and did his job well, who knows, maybe one day he would be a guest at a dinner like this or even have a house like the Lilies. It was just a question of hard work and good luck.
Chloe would be proud of me then, he thought. Or maybe not. Karel wasn’t so sure. Who knows what goes on in the mind of an adorable, capricious girl like Chloe, with her pierced lips and her hair shaved up the back? And, stumped again, all he could do was to count it among the mysteries of the inscrutable West.
CHLOE WAS IN the kitchen with Nestor and Carlos, peeling tomatoes. Hundreds of tomatoes, mountains of them, which left her no time to think about the house. She would no doubt have found it every bit as awful as her parents’ place, a showpiece rather than a home. Its welcoming appearance was fake, the inviting warmth of the entrance hall a lie, the homeliness of the open fire a sham. No genuine feeling anywhere in this shit heap, Chloe would have concluded if she hadn’t been so busy peeling tomatoes.
But she soon tired of this repetitive task and said to Nestor: “This is a drag. When me and my brother were kids, we used to hang around in the kitchen and they’d always come up with a story to tell us. Have you got your book of little indiscretions there, Nestor? Why don’t you read us something to pass the time? Come on, read us something.”
“Fifty-four, fifty-five. Just concentrate on the tomatoes for now and forget about stories. We need exactly sixty-six skins to ma
ke the decorative flowers, two per dish. I’ll be watching to see how yours turn out, Miss Trias,” said Nestor firmly.
For a few minutes the conversation lapsed into silence as they went on working methodically. The Lilies was abuzz with the noise of different activities. From where he was standing, Nestor could hear sounds emanating from various places: Carlos breaking ice in the kitchen sink, Karel setting the table in the dining room next door . . . And Ernesto and Adela, what were they up to? Nestor imagined them far away, up in their rooms, although Adela would have to come down to the kitchen soon. It was getting late.
“Come on, Nestor, this is a real pain in the ass . . . Why don’t you tell Carlos and me another one of those stories you’ve got hidden away in your notebook? I love stories,” she insisted, “but not for the gossip value, seriously. People are always getting the wrong idea about me. I know you think all I want to do is have a good time, but I’m interested in other things, too, like literature for example. I bet you wouldn’t have guessed that. It’s ’cause of my brother, Eddie, who wanted to be a writer, like you, Nestor.”
Chloe chattering on in her usual silly way, thought Nestor. A cook with a meal to prepare for a large group of important guests has no time to lose, so he didn’t pay much attention to what she was saying. He missed the bit about her dead brother and the bit about how he wanted to be a writer, but he did catch the “like you, Nestor” at the end.
Little Indiscretions Page 17
