The Street of the Three Beds (3 page)

Without changing her expression or raising her eyes from the counter, the woman replied, “As you can see, there's just the front door.”

“She came in to buy . . .” he tried to remember, “a strip of embroidery and something else . . . And, by the way, this isn't the first time she's been here. You must know her.”

“No, sir. I haven't sold any embroidery strip to anyone this afternoon.”

Reluctant to leave, Maurici touched his hand against the rim of his hat and slowly headed for the door.

“Good evening,” said the woman tiredly and still gathering up rolls of cloth.

The situation was too absurd to be real. For just a moment he stopped to look at the passersby and thought that, knowing where Rita was hiding, they were laughing at him with the smugness of people who share a secret. Someone was pulling his leg. He had the feeling that he was floating, immersed in a world as elastic and dense as the world of dreams.
Let's take this step by step,
he said to himself, clinging to reason as if it were an anchor.
No matter how strange things seem, sooner or later there's always an explanation. Rita can't have just up and vanished. That's physically impossible. She has to be somewhere. I saw her go in there: I'm sure of that. But I didn't see her leave, which doesn't mean she didn't leave. While I was looking at the paper and preoccupied with my own worries, she might have sneaked out. That's unlikely because I did keep an eye out for her, but not impossible. Besides, she had her reasons to pull a stunt like that. She was angry and sore at me, and so she decided to give me the slip. What a nerve! She's got even more gall than I thought. What doesn't jibe is that the owner denies having seen her. Why? That I don't swallow for a second. That woman knows more than she's telling. Why wouldn't
she simply say that Rita came in and then left? What possible reason could she have to lie to me?

He merged with the bustle of the street, stepping aside to avoid a gypsy woman selling flowers.

But then, again, I may be a stranger in La Perla d'Orient, but perhaps Rita isn't. I've heard my mother send her there once or twice. What if Rita . . . What if she asked the owner to play dumb if I came in asking for her? But why wouldn't she tell me she'd left ten minutes ago? What would have been wrong with that? If what Rita wanted was to leave me standing there, she'd already done that. Perhaps she wanted to make sure I didn't follow her to her boardinghouse. But how does she know I won't go there looking for her now? She must have realized if it got late I'd go on home, she heard me say I planned to be back for dinner. It all sounds too complicated but she's capable of that and more . . . She wants to keep stringing me along, I know her. Does she expect me to go to the boardinghouse and apologize? That'll be the day!

Even so, an anxiety that resisted reason kept gnawing at him.
What if something's happened to her? But what could have happened to her in broad daylight in front of so many people? Nonsense! The fight with Rita and her dirty trick have ruined my afternoon. I don't know why I'm still brooding about it. Do I have some sort of obligation to her? What sort of obligation? She's just a dressmaker—“dressmaker” my foot: all she is a mere seamstress, a hick from the sticks trying to sell me a bill of goods. She made her play, and it didn't work. Hey, she knew what she was getting into!

Suddenly he found comfort in a thought that hadn't occurred to him before.
Truth is, she's given me the perfect excuse to break it off. Let's wait and see if she shows up at the house next week. I bet she's gone for good! And if she comes back, let her come back. That's when I'll put her in her place. Hello, goodbye, see you later. And
if she has the gall to go to my father making demands, I'll beat her at her own game. When it comes down to it, it's better this way. Still, it's sad to end on a sour note. I was planning to take her out to dinner, show her a good time, and give her a little something as a parting gift. Too bad, it's her loss.

He raised his head, and when he looked at the sky he saw that the moon, keeping its immemorial appointment, had replaced the sun. As for the earth under his feet, the trolley tracks were still in place, and the pigeons, like every evening, fluttered up to their nests and made cooing sounds. It was perfectly clear. The incident with Rita had not altered the cosmic order in the slightest; by the same token, why should it alter the rhythm of his life?

That evening he barely tasted his dinner.

When Maurici turned twenty-six, his parents did everything within their power to mark his birthday on the calendar of eternity. To that effect, Lídia Aldabò hired extra help to serve delicacies concocted by the elite chefs of Barcelona. The guests streamed in to the murmur of rustling silk. Shiny, leather boots stepped on the wine-colored carpet, between collections of fans and Limoges porcelain that lined the walls of the hallway. The display was illuminated by multicolored stained-glass windows that opened onto a large skylight. When the sun poured through, the glass panes glittered like gigantic jewels of every hue in the rainbow. Soon, circles of people formed in the parlor that featured mahogany furniture, a grand piano that had belonged to Lídia since she was a young girl, and a Japanese screen: a wedding gift from an errant uncle. Maurici's grandmother and other elderly relatives sank in the plush, oriental-style sofas. The coup de grace struck when the sliding doors, paneled with mirrors, were finally opened. Beyond them, an endless table offered an anthology of temptations to the palate. The pièce de resistance was a marinated, boneless salmon some three feet in length, surrounded by lemon wedges and lying on a bed of lettuce in a silver platter. Nearby a pyramid of oysters rose above canapés of caviar, ham, and anchovies, as well as an assortment of cold meats trimmed with gelatin. The Aldabòs dreaded empty spaces, so between platter and platter they'd squeezed dishes of cheese, olives, and other hors d'oeuvres. This was the buffet: the light refreshments Lídia had announced to family
and friends. And now they were ready to sample them along with wines from the region, but mostly from France, which Lídia favored and her husband tolerated.

Maurici made a late entrance, judging it in bad taste to show up on time at a party given in his honor. In truth, he was never in a hurry. His figure—slim as a sword—his chiseled jaw and cheekbones, and a lock of black hair that would not be tamed by grease, stood out more vividly in slow motion. Even the smile didn't break out at once; rather, the lips opened gradually like curtains to let in the light. His lanky, languid frame retained traces of adolescence that would likely be slow to disappear. On the subject of his personal charms there was unanimity among the women at the party: he was “a treat,” “a sweet boy,” “a delicious
froufrou
.” Pirula Camprodón—who wrote poetry, held
soirées
with literary pretensions at her home, and whose teeth stuck out like those of a rabbit—had proclaimed him “a dream of verticality.”

With the indolence he cultivated as the key to his allure, he sauntered amidst human and inanimate obstacles seeking the company of those who might bore but not inconvenience him—like Grandma or his cousins Flora and Albert. But before he could reach them he felt on his back—on the innermost spot of his waist, between his coat and his shirt—a steely hand like the hook of a pirate. As if his flesh had actually been pierced, his body arched in reaction. No need to turn around to identify it. It was the unmistakable grip of Mrs. Ramalleres. Previous to the affair with Rita, Mrs. Ramalleres had caught him by surprise in a weak moment and had made him lose his head. He was ashamed of the incident and had tried to forget it. At the time, a fling with a woman almost twice his age had seemed quite chic, but that geriatric prodigy turned out to be insatiable. Not even his twenty-five-year-old vigor sufficed to neutralize the lady's predatory instincts. He turned around as calmly as one turns to face an inevitable disaster.

“Mrs. Ramalleres! How are you?”

The precaution not to call her by her first name was useless. She came up closer, breathing in his ear, “Where have you been hiding, you beast?”

Maurici, eyeing her claw search again for cover under his coat, cut the conversation short. “Excuse me! I'm being summoned from the parlor . . .”

Before he could reach his grandmother it was also necessary to avoid Mrs. Roura, although for different reasons. She was a stout woman with a habit, since he was a boy, of pinching his cheek with the strength of a vise and the ferocity of a cannibal. In spite of these annoyances, Maurici paid tribute to convention because it gave meaning to his life. He'd rather endure Mrs. Ramalleres's assaults, his grandmother's deafness that forced him to shout, or the soporific data his father's accountant mercilessly fired at him, than engage in conversation with a friend or read in a quiet corner. He swam happily and effortlessly in those waters and couldn't imagine a future that wasn't a repetition of similar rituals. Stepping like a dancer—one step forward, one step backward—he made his way through the jungle of industrial vegetation in which the textile barons of Barcelona and Sabadell stood as the tallest trees. Kisses, hugs, handshakes, and jocular pats descended on him like puffs of incense.

Lídia Aldabò was dressed in black and wore the emerald set her husband had given her on their silver anniversary. Her eyes, rather than her lips, commanded the servants immediately to refill whatever was empty. Her husband had donned his customary dark colors and expression of intense concentration. With his head down, he listened to the explanations of another manufacturer whose name Maurici didn't recall. The three children present hid under the table and now and then tugged at the tablecloth, threatening to bring the entire arrangement crashing down. Right before dessert, Pirula Camprodón recited a homemade, entirely forgettable ode. The sight of the cake, with its
twenty-six golden flames, stirred a collective “ahh!” of anticipated delight. As every year, somebody prompted Maurici to make a silent wish—only he didn't know what to wish for. Nothing was lacking in his life. It seemed perfect as it was.

A fleeting thought of Rita insinuated itself into his otherwise complete satisfaction. It had been a week since the incident at La Perla d'Orient, and Rita hadn't come back. He hadn't asked his parents, who might have found his interest in the absence of a seamstress strange. Knowing at least where she'd gone would help bring the matter to a close. Wouldn't it be something if an uppity seamstress cast a pall on his day? Facing the cake as if it were a flaming altar, this might be the moment to wish that Rita would go away forever, without a trace. He wished, then, that history undo itself so that he could redo it to his own liking. It wasn't too much to ask. Without another thought, he blew out the candles. A minute later the cake melted in the mouths of guests while champagne flowed from an apparently inexhaustible source.

As expected, he sat at the piano and by request played Mozart's “Turkish March,” a few passages of Spanish operetta, and two traditional Catalan songs that were performed by Flora—who had a pleasant enough voice. The grand finale was a piece by Brahms, played in a duet with his mother, which received a warm round of applause. Maurici knew how to delight in more than one way.

The scent of women's perfumes blended with blue cigar smoke. Grandma had fallen asleep long ago with her chin on her necklace while one of the young boys sobbed tiredly, as if he didn't mean it. As it grew dark more people sank in their seats, more glasses of Venetian crystal were abandoned to their brittle fate, more maids came and went, more cheeks became flushed, and the air grew thicker with coffee and alcohol fumes. Lídia had one of the steamed-up bay windows opened to let in the cool April breeze. Maurici, generous as he was in every respect, called the servants to distribute
extra gratuities. This gesture confirmed his fine qualities in the eyes of the guests, who welcomed it with due admiration. The maid, the cook, and the chambermaid curtsied and, whispering, “God bless you, sir!” withdrew to the kitchen to face the spoils of battle. When, at last, the Aldabòs felt reassured that Maurici's birthday had achieved posterity, they brought the party to a close.

* * *

The opulence of the Aldabò home was as oppressive as it was recent. Roderic Aldabò had grown up in a dark, humid first floor on Príncep de Viana Street, where his parents ran a corner store: a hole-in-the-wall that sold firearms to policemen and the military. They named him Roderic after his father, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather, and, since they had only one son—the second had died in early childhood—and lived frugally, they could afford to give him an education. The boy turned out to be serious and disciplined, not in the least inclined to mischief. He was also quite reserved, and didn't have any vices or a hole in his pocket. Soon he found employment at a textile business where he worked hard from dawn to late evening. Shortly after he turned twenty he fell in love—with the intensity of introverted temperaments—with an uptown girl who moved in circles well beyond his reach. Lídia Palau was tall and dark, had an amber complexion, and heavy black eyes. Roderic was an accountant and lived surrounded by numbers; Lídia played the piano with a passion she concealed under the serene exterior her son would inherit.

Lídia wanted a villa with a garden in Sant Gervasi but her husband was opposed to it.

“Too expensive, too ostentatious, and too far from work.”

“Daddy would put some money down, I'm sure.”

“I'd rather buy a house I can pay for with my own income.”

Lídia sighed. “All right, but nowhere near Príncep de Viana.”

Thus they moved to a spacious second floor with a north and a south side on the fashionable Passeig de Sant Joan by the Arc de Triomf.

Ten months later, when the baby was due, his father took for granted that it would be a boy and that he, too, would be named Roderic. To Lídia, Roderic sounded too warlike, too feudal. Besides, she felt an unspoken animosity toward her father-in-law and didn't want to evoke his harsh figure every time she addressed her child. Maurici, on the other hand, was a sweet name of nuanced musicality that suited a sensitive spirit. Given the fact that Lídia's father was the child's godfather, her preference prevailed.