Authors: Carmen Posadas
“Twenty, thirty pounds? I can’t give you any more than that, but you know I am your friend, Reza—I told you so the other day. I don’t want you to have to go around asking other people for money. What is it this time?”
“Nothing serious. I owe a friend some money.”
It was always the same story. He had heard it a thousand times, from so many other Rezas. The only thing that changed was the name and the country of origin. The blue-eyed René. Gustavo. Gianfranco. Timothy, the waiter with the strong hands. He was never able to save them from danger, and only rarely did they ever truly acknowledge his friendship, for which he requested nothing in return. Occasionally, of course, one of these boys would compensate him with an ambiguous, careless brush of the hand or, if they were feeling generous, perhaps a couple of pats on the lower back. Nothing much, but after all, a destitute, dirty old queer couldn’t really expect much more than a few crumbs of affection. He had a special weakness for macho types, exceedingly masculine queers, and with each and every one of them he would relive his old, worn-out dreams, as he did now with Reza. But Reza seemed different from the others. He really did. He loved animals, didn’t he?
“Thirty pounds. Not much, but it should do.”
Molinet handed over the thirty pounds, and Reza reciprocated with nothing but a pat on the arm, dry and manly.
“Wait, don’t go just yet. Now, would it be all right for me to leave Gomez with you?”
“I’d love it, chief—you know how I adore that little pup—but I can’t do it. My boyfriend is coming down this weekend. I told you about him, didn’t I? He lives in Liverpool, he’s got a laundromat there. Oh, he’s such a good boy. You know how it is, chief. There’s no way. Mohammed hates my animals.”
“What happened to your other friend, Reza? The one that was so good-looking? Don’t tell me you’ve already . . . ?”
Reza fidgeted slightly, but Molinet paid no mind.
“You know who I mean. He’s Italian, isn’t he? I saw him leave your apartment the other day. Now, he looked like a real gentleman. I’m good at noticing certain things, Reza, and you would be smart to notice them, too, instead of wasting your time with boys named Mohammed who run laundromats. You’re not going to be young forever, you know.”
“You’re not going to be young forever, you know,” he had said, as if he were the screenwriter of a bad Italian soap opera,
porca miseria.
And he knew that it came out sounding like the advice of a maiden aunt to the nephew she has always been in love with in the most incestuous and inappropriate way, but Molinet didn’t give a damn. He also knew that young Reza did not take kindly to his recommendations, but he nonetheless remained in the apartment, pacing about the sitting room as if waiting for the moment to object—or perhaps provoke Molinet further. He chatted, he laughed, but most of all he took special care to strut around in front of Molinet like a cowboy, splaying his legs so that the metal-tipped comb peeking out from his back pocket shifted positions: First it bristled against his ass, then it tilted diagonally, always erect, always provocative. And he chatted away about Morocco as if he actually gave a damn about Molinet’s trip. What did he care? Such a stupid concept, Molinet said to himself. Nobody gives a damn about anyone.
Reza finally left, but his scent hung in the room for a long while afterward. Molinet hadn’t quite ascertained the nature of his aroma—it was a mix of disinfectant and the aggressive, cloying sweetness of young skin. Reza’s love for animals, however, was entirely undetectable, which was a good thing, for it would not have produced a very felicitous olfactory blend.
Reza’s scent was still present in the room when, suddenly, he returned—this time through the front door—to give Molinet his dog. He didn’t even cross the threshold. Nothing more than a brief farewell, a few words, and that was it.
As Molinet watched him retreat down the hallway, he called out, “Good-bye, Reizzaah, don’t get into any trouble, now.” And as he hugged his little dog, running his hand through all the little nooks and crannies of his warm body in search of elusive tenderness, he thought about what Dr. Pertini had said: “Whenever you start to feel nostalgic, dear Molinet, why not write to a friend, get your feelings out on paper. Why, anyone would be thrilled to receive a letter from you. Your life is like a novel . . .”
Like a novel! Dr. Pertini could rot in hell for all Molinet cared, Dr. Pertini and the rest of those goddamn doctors at Cedars of Lebanon. Who did he think he was kidding? His life was the most typical, commonplace soap opera, and it could be summarized in all of three lines: He was nothing but an old queer who hadn’t been smart enough to take advantage of his beautiful flesh in his youth—flesh that had once been as young and beautiful as Reza’s, and much more willing for that matter. That was why he had ended up old and decrepit, cast aside by all. And so, in his old age he had turned to his mother with an adoration that was equaled only by his hatred for his dead father, the person he blamed for everything, even though, of course, it was far too late to do a damn thing about it. That was his story. It wasn’t even original.
Molinet stood at the door to his flat for some time, which was rather remarkable given that the hallway was filled with all of its usual abominable odors. Gomez was squirming about in his arms, his young body searching for a comfortable position, when the phone rang.
Molinet did not move. Two . . . three . . . four rings. He waited for the answering machine to pick up, because the phone was not usually a harbinger of good news, and he silently prayed that it wasn’t some obnoxious creditor demanding to speak with him.
After five rings, the telephone stopped to recite a friendly message that Molinet had recorded in his most sophisticated voice. Following the beep, a female voice rang through the air:
“Rafamolinet, it’s me. Are you home?”
Fernanda most definitely
was
the kind of person who thought that “it’s me” was a universally effective mode of identification, but Molinet decided not to pick up the call. He let her go on speaking.
“I just called to say that I hope you have a wonderful vacation, Uncle, and to thank you for lunch today. And don’t go thinking that I am calling you out of obligation, because I am not that kind of person, you know. I just wanted to tell you how lovely it is to know that I have an uncle in London who . . .” That was where her message got cut off. His machine allowed fifteen seconds of aggravating, undesirable messages before cutting off the caller. Now, however, Molinet was wondering if perhaps he ought to call his niece at her hotel to see if she had anything else to say. But then he decided against it. Fernanda was delicious only in small doses. Even so, her voice on the answering machine was like a tonic, for it was a cheerful call, bless her little heart. And this tiny reminder of the world to which he had once belonged was enough to make him think far more pleasant thoughts, such as:
Tomorrow, finally, everything will be different.
He repeated this over and over again, like a mantra. Then he let go of Gomez so that he could focus on more practical matters, such as packing for his trip to Morocco.
All his things were in a jumble on the bed that had once belonged to his mother: his medicine, his clothing, his shoes. Now he had to ask himself which of his Bermuda shorts he should take with him: the blue ones? The leaf-green ones? He was undecided. Far more important, however, were the three bottles of pills that Dr. Pertini had prescribed, which he would ingest all at once on the day of his choosing, at L’Hirondelle d’Or, a fabulous hotel for only the wealthiest of vacationers, a most tranquil little hideaway.
Little by little, with the aid of this positive thinking, he began to formulate a plan of action. He had always believed in the importance of the mise-en-scène, and it seemed exceedingly obvious to him that death would be far more pleasant if experienced in luxurious, expensive surroundings and not in the squalid little room that had been witness to all his failures.
He paused for a moment in front of the armoire mirror, and before forming any opinion about his appearance or the state of the bedroom (which, for him, was utter chaos), he lifted his white caftan off the bed and put it on over his street clothes. He had selected this article of clothing precisely because it contrasted so divinely with his dark, distinguished looks. And right then he felt certain that not even Truman Capote in his golden years, the fabulous queer and darling of Lady Luck, had ever cut such a grand figure as he did right then dressed in that impeccable white linen sheath.
“God bless frivolity, for it puts everything in its proper place,” he said to himself. Prompted by this sudden thought, he began to speak to Gomez. In reality, he had never been very fond of lap dogs, but the presence of Gomez, a previously unwanted dog, somehow helped him mold the persona that slowly had begun to take shape in the mirror, a persona that was not at all unattractive.
“What do you think?” he said. “As I look at the two of us, it occurs to me that perhaps before ending it all with a theatrical finale, I might just try my hand at a few long-forgotten techniques—like mooching off rich people, for example.” After all, he reasoned (not out loud this time, since he was not given to chatting with dogs), it should be easy as pie to find some rich old matron desperate for company at a hotel like L’Hirondelle d’Or. Elegant places are always filled with lonely people.
“What do you think, Gomez?” he said, out loud this time. “Wealthy old ladies are not exactly my specialty, but . . .” He wasn’t very well versed in the art of mooching off wealthy old men, either, tricking innocent fools, or taking advantage of hapless tourists. In the past, he had tried all those methods, with rather pathetic results. The truth is, he was a sorry disciple of the arts of Arsène Lupin, and it was a shame, because they really would have come in handy at so many junctures in his life.
“None of this is my specialty, no, but we shan’t forget what the prophet has indicated,” he said, and he was suddenly overcome by a wave of laughter as he saw how quickly he had grown into this new persona he had fashioned.
“Yes, Gomez, the prophet to whom our dear neighbor Reza entrusts his soul every night says that victory belongs only to the man who is prepared to lose everything. Very wise, wouldn’t you say? Especially in my case, because I have
nothing
to lose, absolutely nothing. I mean, think about it: Before saying good-bye to this world, why shouldn’t I have a little fun, play whatever role strikes my fancy? Who knows? Make myself out to be an eccentric, meddlesome old busybody, for example, or perhaps a gambler. I’m not so bad at gambling, and who knows, maybe I can even win a little money to sweeten my two weeks at the hotel.” He sighed, and then paused for a moment.
“Well, that is that. Whatever I do, whatever I dream up, no matter how extravagant, will be just perfect. And that,
mon cher,
is the advantage of being almost dead. And now,
viens,
my darling little dog,” he said in the worldliest, most sophisticated tone. “It is time for dinner. No matter what happens in these next two weeks, the one thing I can promise you is that this will be our very last night living in squalor.”
PART TWO
The Book of Worldly Customs
If spitting chance to moove thee so
Thou canst it not forbeare,
Remember do it modestly,
Consider who is there.
If filthiness or ordure thou
Upon the floore doe cast,
Tread out and cleanse it with thy foot,
Let that be done with haste
“B
OOKE OF
D
EMEANOUR
,” R
ICHARD
W
ESTE
, 1619
At the Hotel L’Hirondelle d’Or
65 MILES FROM FEZ, MOROCCO
(Fax received at L’Hirondelle d’Or at 11:45 a.m., and delivered
to Mercedes Algorta in the solarium just before the 12:30 Pimm’s
)
Dear Mercedes:
Sweetheart! You can’t even imagine what I have been through trying to track you down. Finally, I got hold of your sister Carmen who gave me this fax number (L’Hirondelle d’Or, Fez, Morocco . . . where on earth are you??). Anyway, I am herewith sending you the proposal we discussed last week over lunch. As I said to you before, I do hope that our newfound friendship will inspire you to at least consider the idea. As you can see, it is a very flexible project that can be developed in any number of different ways, and I also have to say that after everything you’ve been through in the past few months, a light distraction like this would do you a world of good. On that note I also must reiterate my admiration for the aplomb and class with which you have handled your situation. To lose a husband, and in such circumstances, must have been doubly painful. With all the opportunists out there, I imagine someone has already tried to convince you to tell your story, to write about everything that happened. Because, after all, a well-known, classy woman like yourself who has endured what you have endured really makes for quite an interesting story. But don’t you waste any time thinking about them, sweetheart, because they are all vultures.
Now, I am writing because I would like to propose an idea I am sure you will absolutely love. What we are interested in is an elegant book filled with worldly advice on customs and traditions. And now, I mean real customs, not a bunch of jokes for people to laugh about around the water cooler. To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, the Baroness of Rothschild in France has written two or three books of this type and they have been runaway bestsellers. When you’re back in Madrid I’ll send them over to you. One is called
The Baroness Will Return at Five,
and the other,
The Art of Savoir-Faire.
They’re classy books, the kind that are worthy of such an important woman. For the moment, take a look at the outline I’ve drafted for you here, and when you get back we can talk further. How does that sound?
Following the letter was a three-page outline as to how the book might be structured: “How to react in an embarrassing situation,” “How to receive guests,” “The proper way to conduct oneself at a variety of social occasions: baptisms, weddings, gala dinners, funerals . . .” And so on. The last page ended with a two-line postscript:
Don’t say no, darling. You’d be great for this. Let’s get together when you return—and don’t stay in the sun too long, it’s terrible for the skin. Hugs and kisses from your friend,
JP Bonilla
When she finishes reading, Mercedes takes off her Giorgio Armani glasses and takes a long sip of her Pimm’s. She peers into the glass and fishes out the cucumber garnish (peel and all) and pensively nibbles. Suddenly, she spies a basset hound, his head cocked a bit, observing her from nearby and she motions for him to come over. She offers him the tiny slice of cucumber, but the dog trots away in the opposite direction. The silence is total and unbroken except for the sound of the dog’s paws clicking very faintly against the clay floor. The two are inside a glass-walled solarium with a hot-water pool. Outside, the sun shines down rather weakly, but inside it is hot, and a sticky sort of steam casts a shadow on the yellow of the walls, the red of the floors, and the bright green of the giant plants and trees, which veritably engulf the surrounding environment.
The Story According to Mercedes, Part One
I suppose I ought to start off by saying that i am not a great fan of small hotels in the middle of nowhere. But then again, this thought—and many, many others, for that matter—would never have even occurred to me a few months ago. The truth is, I knew very little about what I liked and didn’t like back then. Stupid, I know, and ludicrous if you consider that my passport says I am forty years old—two years younger, in fact, than my real age. But I must admit that L’Hirondelle d’Or is a far cry from your average hotel, and it is exactly as the brochure described: “One of the most exclusive luxury spa hotels in the world, a haven in the middle of the red lands of Morocco, where guests come to rest, eat well, exercise, and escape from all worldly distractions.” I doubt I will actually run into “. . . Martin Amis, finishing his latest novel in quiet solitude, or Mick Jagger, unwinding after his tour with the Rolling Stones” as the pamphlet attests. Something tells me that at this time of year I would be hard-pressed to “bump into Isabelle Adjani indulging in the spa’s legendary restorative mud treatments,” and as of yet I still haven’t seen a single “. . . pop star sharing confidences with the crème de la crème of the English aristocracy near the buffet table by the pool,” but I can easily imagine that this would be “. . . the kind of place where one might cross paths with Italian signoras who are devotees of exquisite, healthy cuisine, French men utterly taken with the notion of ‘clean living,’ and people from all over the world who absolutely insist on conducting their private lives in the most rigorous solitude.”
All of this is straight out of the hotel’s promotional brochure, which is designed as soberly and seriously as this elegant hotel, printed on vellum paper with blue ink-drawings—no photographs, God forbid. Strictly drawings—this isn’t the Holiday Inn, after all. One thing is true, however. For the moment, at least, I haven’t bumped into a single person from Madrid, and that fact alone divests me of any guilt over paying 700 euros per night for my tiny room at the southern end of the hotel, called the
chambre pistache,
according to the little plate that came along with my key. Here there are no room numbers, of course.
Right now I am sitting by the winter pool, and my sole companions are two or three senior citizens who are strolling past me now, bundled up in giant terry-cloth robes, silent, pleasant, discreet . . . foreign. What a splendid idea it was to come here. Before this trip I had never traveled alone, but a hotel catering especially to people wanting to eat well and exercise is the perfect place: Lots of people come to L’Hirondelle wanting to diet. Nobody thinks it at all odd when they come alone. And anyway, if anyone did happen to find it strange, I don’t believe it would bother me in the slightest, because that is what this trip is all about: From now on, I plan to do what I want without thinking twice about it. Someone else, I don’t remember who, once said something to that effect—that solitude is only an unpleasant synonym for the word “freedom” and that one must learn to enjoy it. Very well; that is exactly what I intend to do.
Not long ago I was widowed, in the most unexpected fashion. W-i-d-o-w-e-d. As I write it for the first time, it seems so strange. Painful, too, I should add, but I have recently discovered that grief is a slow sentiment compared with other, more instantaneous feelings one goes through, such as shock and bewilderment. The emptiness takes a while to set in, but I suppose that is a good thing, for it gives a person time to sort things out.
This is the first time I have spoken—or, rather, written—about what happened, and I can’t decide if this is a good or bad idea. I’d like to think it is good, because if there is anything I have learned in recent times, it is that life’s experiences become real only when you put them down on paper.
Not long ago I was widowed in such a ridiculous fashion that people have jumped to the wildest conclusions about my situation. There it is. I’ve said it and everything is perfectly fine. I have written it down and made it real. Now, I suppose, I might consider adding a few pertinent details. I might describe the people present when everything happened, and explain that my husband died a rather undignified death: He choked on an almond. My God, how humorous our misfortunes sound when we write them down so succinctly. But that is exactly what happened to him; I swear it is just as I said. Absurd, isn’t it? Tragic too. And nevertheless, absurdity and tragedy are apparently not enough for some people—this has become extremely obvious to me, given all the wild speculations my situation seems to have inspired. As I know all too well, people have been saying the most preposterous things about what happened that evening: Some people claim that Jaime was in bed with another woman when it happened, while others insist that he had financial troubles and that his blood pressure and stress were really what killed him, and there are others who say that he died from some mysterious allergy—to what, I can’t even imagine. There are so many unbelievable stories, so many, that I wouldn’t be surprised if one day someone came out and said that I, tired of all his philandering, was the one who pushed him to his death, although I hope people wouldn’t actually go that far. No, no . . . that would really be too far-fetched. My God, the ridiculous things that a person thinks of . . .
So then why am I writing all this, if my goal was to talk of the present and only the present, not a word about the past? Ideas . . . memories . . . It feels a little silly to let them all out, because they are all still such a giant jumble in my mind, and after all, the reason I came here was specifically not to spend my time thinking about those things. So there it is. Enough with my musings. They are of no interest to anyone anyway. And now I shall go back to what I was explaining earlier about this hotel, because that was my original intention when I began to scribble these lines, sitting here in front of the pool.
Now, I have no desire to act as a travel guide of any sort, but I do feel it necessary to mention that L’Hirondelle d’Or is a hotel some sixty-five miles from Fez, and it is run like a very exotic country home, a place people go to under the pretext of taking care of their bodies and resting their minds. It is a sanctuary, a monastic retreat, in the form of a luxurious red building that rises up in the middle of nowhere. And I am serious when I say this: There is nothing anywhere near this place, just dusty tracks in the dirt everywhere. But once you get here, you quickly forget that you are practically in the middle of the desert. L’Hirondelle is like a world unto itself, different from anything I have ever seen—I’ve never known anything like it. Everything is organized, from the morning workouts to the massage sessions to the skin treatments to the food, which is of course delicious. As far as the decor goes, a few palm trees here and there serve as a kind of homage to the African landscape, as do the outfits of the waiters and the ubiquitous spearmint aroma which emanates from the bath towels, the afternoon tea, the lamb, even the couscous. Everything else, however, especially in the area of creature comforts, is very European . . . although now that I think about it, nothing is quite
exactly
as it appears—the tea, for example, isn’t plain tea, it is a highly sophisticated infusion of concentrated herbs; and the minute you bite into the lamb, you can instantly tell that it is completely fat free, light as a feather. And the couscous? Well, maybe the couscous is made from semolina, but I would bet that it is made in the USA, as they say.
The amenities here are also very European—like the little golf course, for example, so green I don’t even want to think what the upkeep must cost. And then there are the two pools: a summer pool, which is closed at this time of the year, and the indoor winter pool, which is where I am right now. And then there is the bath or spa area, which, they say, draws its mud from some old Roman hot springs in the vicinity. The other glass-enclosed building just to my right is where we all spend hours and hours indulging in various treatments according to the recommendations of the very efficient spa staff. Efficient and almost invisible. That is another of the more surprising aspects of L’Hirondelle d’Or: You never see anyone. Yes, it may seem odd, but beneath its exotic veneer, everything at L’Hirondelle d’Or functions with the precision of a Swiss clock—and in fact, the secret powerhouse behind this place is a real-life Swiss clock by the name of Miss Guêpe. I have never seen her in person, though, because she only communicates via telephone. It is easy to see how this efficient management style works in the day-to-day operations, but it is even more apparent in what you might call the exceptions to the rule—like the little accident out on the golf course yesterday, for example. One of the guests (a Swiss man, in fact) almost electrocuted himself on a fallen wire. It was all quite frightening, really, a case of truly rotten luck. But wouldn’t you know it, nobody around here is even
talking
about it today. It almost seems as if there is some kind of tacit agreement that we are all bound to uphold: silence, discretion; everything is fine; we
are
on vacation, after all.
This is a world apart. Really and truly. Just consider my first day here. The hotel jeep picked me up at the airport and drove me down an endless labyrinth of dusty roads until we finally arrived at what felt like a real-life oasis. And I am not just saying that: from the start, L’Hirondelle makes you feel as if you are the guest of a mysterious, highly discreet host whom you never see but who very quietly makes sure that everything runs like a well-oiled machine, with the most sublime hospitality. Even speaking with the other guests somehow seems in poor taste. All of this was rather strange at the beginning, but you do get used to it very quickly, and now I would even go so far as to say that it is possibly the best thing about the hotel. After all, why on earth would any of us want to encourage that horrendous camaraderie that one must always confront on package tours: