The Street of the Three Beds (9 page)

The stairway, fairly well lit, became narrower after the first floor. He climbed it, pressing his body against the wall, taking every precaution to be unheard and unseen.
There were two doors on each floor. Out of the first came a well-groomed woman with a big, white dog which insisted on sniffing Maurici's shoes. To her “Good night” he responded with a slight nod and a touch of his hat. The dog's growling as it tugged at the leash in its rush to get to the street and the clicking of its mistress's heels drowned out any sound he might make as he ascended the stairs. Now he could hear the woman's and Jaumet's panting and tired footsteps between the second and third floor, until they stopped in front of apartment two. He leaned tentatively over the railing and looked up. She took a bunch of keys out of her purse while Jaumet pointed at the lock and sang a guttural tune of impatience.

“Just a moment!” the woman pleaded sweetly.

Maurici retreated to the shadows of the wall. The keys jangled, the lock clicked open, and the door slammed shut. The stairway became so quiet one could have heard a pin drop.

He descended the stairs leisurely and even greeted the doorkeeper on his way out. Under a lamppost, he wrote down the address. So, that was where they lived.

* * *

On Saturdays, Maurici never went to the factory. It was past nine when he got up and mid morning when he made his entrance at the Equestrian, where Albert, Sebastià, and other acquaintances who'd missed him gave him a warm welcome. Although he felt no particular desire to be there, it was prudent to show up in order to give the impression of business as usual.

“Can you tell us where the hell you've been?” his cousin asked. “The other day I stopped by your place to check if you were sick or something.”

“Yes, the maid told me. The only thing wrong with me's too much work.”

Sebastià burst out laughing. “Work? What work?”

“Not all of us can goof-off all the time.” Maurici, unflappable, let loose his indulgent, luminous smile. “My father needs me at the factory.”

“Since when?” Sebastià persisted slyly. “Don't try to pull my leg. You're up to something . . .”

And, sticking his elbow in Maurici's ribs, he added, “And you want it for yourself!”

The smile still shone on Maurici's face.

“You don't believe me? All right, it's up to you.”

“Let's have a drink and make plans for the weekend,” Albert suggested.

He humored them by taking part in the conversation that ranged from the ups and downs of the stock market to Sebastià's latest affair with a vocalist at a nearby music school. When the other two ordered a second round of Martinis, Maurici passed.

“What's wrong with you?” Sebastià charged again, eyeing him suspiciously. “You used to put down three or four Martinis in an hour without flinching.”

Reluctantly, Maurici resorted to the unfortunate accident outside the theater a few weeks before. “You know heavy drinking doesn't agree with me lately.”

“That was just the absinthe, my boy. No harm in a couple of Martinis.”

As the hours dragged on he had trouble concentrating on Sebastià's inane chitchat. Every minute he either checked his watch or threw side glances at the clock on the wall. His friends talked about going to La Buena Sombra that night and taking a few of the girls to Sebastià's bachelor apartment uptown. When, at last, the clock struck one, Maurici jumped from his chair and made for the bar.

“I'll try to come but I can't promise anything.”

“Well, how very mysterious!” Sebastià replied sarcastically.

Maurici strolled down Portal de l'Àngel. There was plenty of time, but he'd rather kill it in the street than be forced to listen to Sebastià's banalities. The shop windows and the human parade streaming along the sidewalks provided enough entertainment. Who were all those people who had nothing to do with him? It was hard to imagine where they were going, how they lived. Who was that woman at La Perla d'Orient and the poor idiot that followed her? And the owner of the boardinghouse? Even Rita, who was she really? Were they all obscure, forgotten shadows like his Aldabò grandparents? Interchangeable ants that worked from sunrise to sunset and then disappeared into their holes without a trace? That didn't hire carriages, or have tea at the Lyon d'Or, or join a club? That on Sunday morning perhaps danced to band music on the square? His mind, incurious by nature, now wandered down unbeaten tracks until he almost ran out of time. When he realized, he quickened his step and soon arrived at his post by the door of La Perla d'Orient, vaguely hoping that, since it was Saturday, the couple might take a different route.

Indeed, after they left the store they headed for Portal de l'Àngel instead of The Ramblas. As they walked past, he turned his back to the street to light a cigar. Satisfied that they hadn't seen him, he started to trail them at a safe distance until they took a side street and he mumbled aloud, “To the Street of the Three Beds.” He was right. After a few twists and turns in a labyrinth of alleys, he found himself in front of the familiar façade with the three balconies. Confident in his mastery of the dubious and monotonous art of the stakeout, he calculated how many seconds he should allow before he went in and crouched in the nook under the stairs. He heard their footsteps on the third floor and then only the ticktock of the watch in his waist pocket. Two knocks and the squeak of the door as it opened. The woman's flat voice and another unknown voice.
Muffled words bouncing off the walls of the stairway. The door slamming shut. Ticktock, ticktock.

When he was about to emerge from his hiding place, footsteps coming down the stairs sent him back to his position. As they grew closer, he recognized the clicking heels of the storekeeper unaccompanied by Jaumet.

The woman and Maurici, connected by the proverbial invisible thread, meandered through the old district till they came out at The Ramblas. He'd never walked so much, used as he was to travel even the shortest distances on wheels. The enduring habit of playing sports, however, enlivened his stride. Soon it became apparent that the sphinx wasn't going to her home on Aribau Street. Unimpaired by Jaumet's sluggishness, she marched at a clipped pace down one of the boulevards that encircled the old city. To the right, the ruins of a bridge exposed the dry river bed like a scar on the urban flesh, soon to be buried under a new road. The last block of the boulevard took its afternoon nap under the patchy shade of the trees. Maurici felt his heart pound so loudly that it seemed to fill the silence; suddenly he wished he could go back and lose track of the sphinx forever, but he knew it was too late. At the intersection with the familiar avenue, she turned left, and, shortly after, crossed the doorstep of the building where the Aldabòs lived.

From that moment on, Maurici's movements became mechanical. He went in without greeting the doorkeeper, who gave him a puzzled look, and stopped at the foot of the stairway holding his breath. For some reason he couldn't have explained, what happened next didn't surprise him in the least. The woman climbed to the second floor, knocked on the door, and told the maid who opened: “Tell Mr. Aldabò Mrs. Prat is here.”

* * *

Maurici left the building, this time greeting the doorkeeper like an automaton, and walked past the first corner. At that point his mind drew a blank, basking in the privilege of not thinking at all; it simply vegetated and sifted reality through the senses: the trickle of the fountain in the garden that ran through the middle of the avenue, the warmth of the sun, the whisper of the leaves on the trees, a window that opened, a woman who carried a box of baked goods, a girl who left a scent of rose water as she passed him by on the broad sidewalk. He stood on the corner, in a contemplative state that enabled him to believe he could sit on the fence watching events unfold or even suspend them indefinitely. He lit a cigar and inhaled the blue smoke of the first puff. His memory traveled back to a remote December when the entire family had gathered at the midnight church service, waiting for the bells to toll the end of the nineteenth century. After the last ringing echo died out, eight minutes slipped past unrecorded by any watch or calendar; eight minutes that, poised between two centuries, didn't exist; eight purely biological minutes without history or chronology, of which the world would make no mention and have no knowledge. Maybe the last eight minutes had also been unreal; maybe they too could be stuffed in that same sack of oblivion that remained closely tied and impermeable to the filtering of time.

A gust of cool wind blew and closed the parenthesis with a shiver. His watch and brain were ticking again. He leaned against a building, bending his knee. Apparently Mrs. Prat—at last she had a name—knew his father. That had been the discovery of the day. Fine. There was no need to rush to premature conclusions. His father had contacts and stakes in many businesses in Barcelona. Was it so surprising that a manufacturer of silk stockings had dealings with a lingerie retailer? In principle, this
circumstance had nothing to do with Rita. The fact that his mother periodically should send her seamstress to La Perla d'Orient was also to be expected: if Roderic Aldabò had shares in the business, it made sense that his domestic staff did the shopping there instead of going to the competition.

In any case, he must consider what he'd been doing for the past few days as nothing but a game. An exciting game at times, he had to admit, but also an unsuitable one for his temperament and station in life. A game in which he pretended to be another Maurici walking in a different skin and living an alternative life, just as Don Quixote, when bored with his, set out in search of chivalric adventures on the plains of central Spain. It was impossible to take his incursions into the sordidly picturesque seriously: the afternoons spent at foul-smelling taverns, the ridiculous stakeouts under the stairway, the trailing of the two grotesque characters, the repetitive circular wanderings in the old city, the worthless data scribbled in his notebook. As he reviewed these recent activities, he judged them so childish and absurd that he almost had to repress a smile. Let's face it, that was not the real Maurici: it was a clone that lived at his expense. What would his factory clients say if they knew that the other Maurici wasted his time and energy trying to decipher nonsensical riddles? And how his friends at the Equestrian would laugh if they saw him plunge into shabby surroundings for any purpose other than to titillate his taste buds! It was hard to believe he'd thrown himself so passionately into playing that masquerade. Even the incident with Rita, what was it but mischief? Maybe her disappearance had been nothing but the final prank. The time had come to call the curtain on adolescent adventures and to face reality because, from that moment on, every minute would count and be recorded on the calendar.

He wasn't expected home for lunch, so he retraced his steps to Cafè de la Lluna. He carefully picked a few delicacies from the menu and, after the last sip of coffee and the
last drop of cognac, killed another half hour scanning the paper. Then he headed for the Equestrian, ready to make up for lost time. His grand entrance in the game room was cause for celebration, both for those who were genuinely fond of him, like his cousin, and for those who'd rather keep him at a distance so that they would not be overshadowed. He took off his coat, rolled up his shirt sleeves, ordered Scotch, and plunged into the poker game Albert, Jaume, Sebastià, and a couple of greenhorns had just started.

“Today I'm gonna clean you all out!”

It was a prophecy as well as a boast. In the course of the next few hours, he won more than he lost and paid for several rounds of drinks.

“Weren't we talking the other day of bringing some girls to Sebastià's apartment?”

“The plan fell flat. Sebastià's little friend had a cold and the three of us ended up watching a film at the Napoleon. Ghastly!”

“Sebastià's little friend will have recovered by now. Let's find three or four more little friends and have ourselves some fun.”

“Maurici, welcome back to the fold,” proclaimed Sebastià with comic solemnity.

They had dinner at a musical theater and left after midnight with champagne bottles crammed in their pockets and in the company of Sebastià's friend, Aurora, plus five more showgirls. Outside they hailed an open buggy that didn't have enough seats for everybody, so the girls settled in the men's laps. One of them staked her claim on Maurici's knees, pushing off a rival who fought a brave if losing battle for the same position. While they rode she kissed him avidly, as if she'd made up her mind to devour him before sunrise.

Sebastià's love nest, perched on a top floor and flanked by two large patios, was well provisioned with drinks, plants, rugs, sofas, and other plush surfaces as well as a number of dark corners designed to screen orgiastic intimacies. Amid the detonation of corks and cascades of bubbly froth, Maurici sat at the piano and played a couple of pieces by Granados from memory. When the portable girl who hung from his neck complained that they were too slow, he merrily attacked a polka. Alcohol, instead of tripping his fingers, lent them lightness and agility. The girl clapped and tossed peals of laughter at the ceiling, her arms so tightly wound around his neck that they threatened to strangle him.

The breeze that drifted in through the open doors was humid, fragrant, and complicit. Sebastià joggled the gas switches till he achieved a diffused light. In the early stages of the party the guests toasted, danced, and successfully conquered their inhibitions. Gradually, the uproar and frenzied cavorting began to subside, giving way to the final phase of whispers and a quiet retreat to the territory each couple marked as their own. Maurici couldn't say precisely when he slid from the bench and how the portable girl—whose name he'd never know—had dragged him under the piano. He caught glimpses of his cousin embracing a large body with dark hair spread wildly over the shoulders. Sebastià disappeared down the hallway with somebody who must have been Aurora and whose face he wouldn't have recognized if he'd run into her the next day. Later his memory would retain, enwrapped in a fog of sighs, panting, and the sound of buttons popping, the urgency of the girl's caresses and the rhythmic, automatic response of his own body, as if it belonged to someone else far way. He remembered the feeling of evaporating till the last drop, just like the music and the alcohol spilled on the floor.