“At your age and in your position, cynicism opens no doors.”
“That explains everything.”
“Go on, say hello to good old Manuel. He’s always asking after you.”
I looked out the window, and when he saw me the driver, who always treated me like a gentleman and not like the bumpkin I was, waved up at me. I returned the greeting. Sitting on the passenger seat was his daughter, Cristina, a creature of pale skin and well-defined lips who was a couple of years older than me and had taken my breath away ever since I saw her the first time Vidal invited me to visit Villa Helius.
“Don’t stare at her so much, you’ll break her,” mumbled Vidal behind my back.
I turned round and met with the Machiavellian face that Vidal reserved for matters of the heart and other noble parts of the body.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Never a truer word spoken,” replied Vidal. “So, what are you going to do about tonight?”
I read the note once again and hesitated.
“Do you frequent this type of venue, Don Pedro?”
“I haven’t paid for a woman since I was fifteen years old and then, technically, it was my father who paid,” replied Vidal without bragging. “But don’t look a gift horse in the mouth …”
“I don’t know, Don Pedro …”
“Of course you know.”
Vidal patted me on the back as he walked toward the door.
“There are seven hours left to midnight,” he said. “You might like to have a nap and gather your strength.”
I looked out the window and saw him approach the car. Manuel opened the door and Vidal flopped onto the backseat. I heard the engine of the Hispano-Suiza deploy its symphony of pistons. At that moment Cristina looked up toward my window. I smiled at her but realized that she didn’t remember who I was. A moment later she looked away and Vidal’s grand carriage sped off toward its own world.
3
In those days, the streetlamps and illuminated signs of Calle Nou de la Rambla projected a corridor of light through the shadows of the Raval quarter. On either pavement, cabarets, dance halls, and other ill-defined venues jostled cheek by jowl with all-night establishments that specialized in arcane remedies for venereal diseases, condoms, and douches, while a motley crew, from gentlemen of some cachet to sailors from ships docked in the port, mixed with all sorts of extravagant characters who lived only for the night. On both sides of the street narrow, misty alleyways housed a string of brothels of ever-decreasing quality.
El Ensueño occupied the top story of a building. On the ground floor was a music hall with large posters depicting a dancer clad in a diaphanous toga that did nothing to hide her charms, holding in her arms a black snake whose forked tongue seemed to be kissing her lips.
“Eva Montenegro and the Tango of Death,” the poster announced in bold letters. “The Queen of the Night, for six evenings only—no further performances. With the guest appearance of Mesmero, the mind reader who will reveal your most intimate secrets.”
Next to the main entrance was a narrow door behind which rose a long staircase with walls painted red. I went up the stairs and stood in front of a large carved oak door adorned with a brass knocker in the shape of a nymph wearing a modest clover leaf over her pubis. I knocked a couple of times and waited, shying away from my reflection in the tinted mirror that covered most of the adjoining wall. I was debating the possibility of hotfooting it out of the place when the door opened and a middle-aged woman, her hair completely white and tied neatly in a bun, smiled at me calmly.
“You must be Señor David Martín.”
Nobody had ever called me “señor” in all my life, and the formality caught me by surprise.
“That’s me.”
“Please be kind enough to follow me.”
I followed her down a short corridor that led into a spacious round room, the walls of which were covered in red velvet dimly lit by lamps. The ceiling was formed of an enameled crystal dome from which hung a glass chandelier. Under the chandelier stood a mahogany table holding an enormous gramophone that whispered an operatic aria.
“Would you like anything to drink, sir?”
“A glass of water would be very nice, thank you.”
The lady with the white hair smiled without blinking, her kindly countenance unperturbed.
“Perhaps the gentleman would rather a glass of champagne? Or a fine sherry?”
My palate did not go beyond the subtleties of the different vintages of tap water, so I shrugged my shoulders.
“You choose.”
The lady nodded without losing her smile and pointed to one of the sumptuous armchairs that were dotted round the room.
“If you’d care to sit down, sir. Chloé will be with you presently.”
I thought I was going to choke.
“Chloé?”
Ignoring my perplexity, the lady with the white hair disappeared behind a door that I could just make out through a black bead curtain, leaving me alone with my nerves and unmentionable desires. I wandered around the room to cast out the trembling that had taken hold of me. Apart from the faint music and the heartbeat throbbing in my temples, the place was silent. Six corridors led out of the sitting room, each one flanked by openings that were covered with blue curtains and each corridor leading to a closed white double door. I fell into one of the armchairs, one of those pieces of furniture designed to cradle the backsides of princes and generalissimos with a predilection for coups d’état. Soon the lady with the white hair returned carrying a glass of champagne on a silver tray. I accepted it and saw her disappear once again through the same door. I gulped down the champagne and loosened my shirt collar. I was starting to suspect that perhaps all this was just a joke devised by Vidal to make fun of me. At that moment I noticed a figure advancing toward me down one of the corridors. It looked like a little girl. She was walking with her head down, so that I couldn’t see her eyes. I stood up.
…
The girl made a respectful curtsy and beckoned me to follow her. Only then did I realize that one of her hands was fake, like the hand of a mannequin. The girl led me to the end of the corridor, opened the door with a key that hung round her neck, and showed me in. The room was in almost complete darkness. I took a few steps, straining my eyes. Then I heard the door closing behind me and when I turned round, the girl had vanished. Hearing the key turn, I knew I had been locked in. For almost a minute I stood there without moving. My eyes slowly grew used to the darkness and the outline of the room materialized around me. It was lined from floor to ceiling with black cloth. On one side I could just about make out a number of strange contraptions—I couldn’t decide whether they looked sinister or tempting. A large round bed rested beneath a headboard that looked to me like a huge spider’s web from which hung two candleholders with two black candles burning, giving off that waxy perfume that nests in chapels and at wakes. On one side of the bed stood a latticework screen with a sinuous design. I shuddered. The place was identical to the fictional bedroom I had created for my heroine, Chloé, in her adventures in The Mysteries of Barcelona. I was about to try to force the door open when I saw that I was not alone. I froze. I could see a silhouette through the screen. Two shining eyes were watching me and long white fingers with nails painted black peeped through the holes in the latticework.
“Chloé?” I whispered.
It was her. My Chloé. The incomparable operatic femme fatale of my stories made flesh—and lingerie. She had the palest skin I had ever seen and her short hair was sharply angled, framing her face. Her lips were the color of fresh blood and her green eyes were surrounded by a halo of dark shadow. She moved like a cat, as if her body, hugged by a corset that shone like scales, were made of water and had learned to defy gravity. Her slender, endless neck was circled by a scarlet velvet ribbon from which hung an upside-down crucifix. I watched, unable to breathe, as she slowly approached, my eyes glued to those lusciously shaped legs in sil
k stockings that probably cost more than I earned in a year and shoes, pointed like daggers, that tied round her ankles with silk ribbons. I had never seen anything as beautiful—or as frightening.
I let that creature lead me to the bed, where I fell for her, literally, on my backside. The candlelight hugged the outline of her body. My face and my lips were level with her naked belly and without even realizing what I was doing I kissed her under her navel and stroked her skin with my cheek. By then I had forgotten who I was or where I was. She knelt down in front of me and took my right hand. Languorously, like a cat, she licked my fingers one by one and then fixed her eyes on mine and began to remove my clothes. When I tried to help her she smiled and moved my hands away.
“Shhh.”
When she had finished, she leaned toward me and licked my lips.
“Now you do it. Undress me. Slowly. Very slowly.”
I understood then that I had survived my sickly, unfortunate childhood just to experience that instant. I undressed her slowly, as if I were pulling petals off her skin, until all that was left on her body was the velvet ribbon round her throat and those black stockings—the memory of which could keep a poor wretch like me going for a hundred years.
“Touch me,” she whispered in my ear. “Play with me.”
I caressed and kissed every bit of her skin as if I wanted to memorize it forever. Chloé was in no hurry and responded to the touch of my hands and my lips with gentle moans that guided me. Then she made me lie on the bed and covered my body with hers until I felt as if every pore was on fire. I placed my hands on her back and followed the exquisite line of her spine. Her impenetrable eyes were just a few centimeters from my face, watching me. I felt as if I had to say something.
“My name is—”
“Shhhhh.”
Before I could make any other foolish comment, Chloé placed her lips on mine and, for the space of an hour, spirited me away from the world. Aware of my clumsiness but making me believe that she hadn’t noticed, she anticipated each movement and directed my hands over her body without haste, and with no modesty either. I saw no boredom or absence in her eyes. She let herself be touched and enjoyed the sensations with infinite patience and a tenderness that made me forget how I had come to be there. That night, for that brief hour, I learned every line of her skin as others learn their prayers or their fate. Later, when I had barely any breath left in me, Chloé let me rest my head on her breast, stroking my hair for a long time, in silence, until I fell asleep in her arms with my hand between her thighs.
…
When I awoke, the room was still in darkness and Chloé had left. I could no longer feel the touch of her skin on my hands. Instead I was holding a business card printed on the same white parchment as the envelope in which my invitation had arrived. Under the emblem of the angel, it read:
ANDREAS CORELLI
Éditeur
Éditions de la Lumière
Boulevard St.-Germain, 69. Paris
On the back was a handwritten note:
Dear David, life is filled with great expectations. When you are ready to make yours come true, get in touch with me. I’ll be waiting. Your friend and reader,
A.C.
I gathered my clothes from the floor and got dressed. The door was not locked now. I walked down the corridor to the sitting room, where the gramophone had gone silent. No trace of the girl or the woman with white hair who had greeted me. Complete silence. As I made my way toward the exit I had the feeling that the lights behind me were going out, the corridors and rooms slowly growing dark. I stepped out onto the landing and went down the stairs, returning, unwillingly, to the world. Back on the street, I made my way toward the Ramblas, leaving behind me all the hubbub and the nocturnal crowds. A warm, thin mist floated up from the port and the glow from the large windows of Hotel Oriente tinged it with a dirty, dusty yellow in which passersby disappeared like wisps of smoke. I set off as Chloé’s perfume began to fade from my mind and I wondered whether the lips of Cristina Sagnier, the daughter of Vidal’s chauffeur, might taste the same.
4
You don’t know what thirst is until you drink for the first time. Three days after my visit to El Ensueño, the memory of Chloé’s skin still burned my very thoughts. Without a word to anyone—especially not to Vidal—I decided to gather up what little savings I had and go back, hoping the money would be enough to buy even just one moment in her arms. It was past midnight when I reached the stairs with the red walls that led up to El Ensueño. The light was out in the stairway and I climbed cautiously, leaving behind the noisy citadel of cabarets, bars, music halls, and random establishments that the years of the Great War had strewn along Calle Nou de la Rambla. Only the flickering light from the main door below outlined the stairs as I ascended. When I reached the landing I stopped and groped about for the door knocker. My fingers touched the heavy metal ring and, when I lifted it, the door gave way slightly and I realized that it was open. I pushed it gently. A deathly silence caressed my face and a bluish darkness stretched before me. Disconcerted, I advanced a few steps. The echo of the streetlights fluttered in the air, revealing fleeting visions of bare walls and broken wooden flooring. I came to the room that I remembered, decorated with velvet and lavish furniture. It was empty. The blanket of dust covering the floor shone like sand in the glimmer from the illuminated signs in the street. I walked on, leaving a trail of footsteps in the dust. No sign of the gramophone, of the armchairs or the pictures. The ceiling had burst open, revealing blackened beams. The paint hung from the walls in strips. I walked over to the corridor that led to the room where I had met Chloé, crossing through a tunnel of darkness until I reached the double door, which was no longer white. There was no handle on it, only a hole in the wood, as if the mechanism had been yanked out. I pushed open the door and went in.
Chloé’s bedroom was a shadowy cell. The walls were charred and most of the ceiling had collapsed. I could see a canvas of black clouds crossing the sky and the moon projected a silver halo over the metal skeleton of what had once been a bed. It was then that I heard the floor creak behind me and turned round quickly, aware that I was not alone. The dark, defined figure of a man was outlined against the entrance to the corridor. I couldn’t distinguish his face, but I was sure he was watching me. He stood there silently for a few seconds, time enough for me to react and take a step toward him. In an instant the figure withdrew into the shadows, and by the time I reached the sitting room there was nobody there. A breath of light from a sign on the other side of the street flooded the room for a second, revealing a small pile of rubble heaped against the wall. I went over and knelt down by the remnants that had been devoured by fire. Something protruded from the pile. Fingers. I brushed away the ashes that covered them and slowly the shape of a hand emerged. I grasped it and when I tried to pull it out, I realized that it had been severed at the wrist. I recognized it instantly and saw that the girl’s hand, which I had thought was wooden, was in fact made of porcelain. I let it fall back on the pile of debris and left.
I wondered whether I had imagined that stranger, because there were no other footprints in the dust. I went downstairs and stood at the foot of the building, inspecting the first-floor windows from the pavement, utterly confused. People passed by laughing, unaware of my presence. I tried to spot the outline of the stranger among the crowd. I knew he was there, maybe a few meters away, watching me. After a while I crossed the street and went into a narrow café packed with people. I managed to elbow out a space at the bar and signaled to the waiter.
“What would you like?”
My mouth was as dry as sandpaper.
“A beer,” I said, improvising.
While the waiter poured me my drink, I leaned forward.
“Excuse me, do you know whether the place opposite, El Ensueño, has closed down?”
The waiter left the glass on the bar and looked at me as if I were stupid.
“It closed fifteen years ago,” he said.
“Of course I’m sure. After the fire it never reopened. Anything else?”
I shook my head.
“That will be four céntimos.”
I paid for my drink and left without touching the glass.
The following day I arrived at the newspaper offices before my usual time and went straight to the archives in the basement. With the help of Matías, the person in charge, and going on what the waiter had told me, I began to check through the front pages of The Voice of Industry from fifteen years back. It took me about forty minutes to find the story, just a short item. The fire had started in the early hours of Corpus Christi Day 1903. Six people had died, trapped in the flames: a client, four of the girls on the payroll, and a small child who worked there. The police and firemen believed that the cause of the tragedy was a faulty oil lamp, although the council of a nearby church alluded to divine retribution and the intervention of the Holy Spirit.
When I returned to the pension I lay on my bed and tried in vain to fall asleep. I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out the business card from my strange benefactor—the card I was holding when I awoke in Chloé’s bed—and in the dark I reread the words written on the back. “Great expectations.”
5
In my world, expectations—great or small—were rarely fulfilled. Until a few months previously, the only thing I longed for when I went to bed every night was to be able to muster enough courage to speak to Cristina, the daughter of my mentor’s chauffeur, and for the hours that separated me from dawn to pass so that I could return to the newspaper offices. Now, even that refuge had begun to slip away from me. Perhaps if one of my literary efforts was a resounding failure I might be able to recover my colleagues’ affection, I told myself. Perhaps if I wrote something so mediocre and despicable that no reader could get beyond the first paragraph, my youthful sins would be forgiven. Perhaps that was not too high a price to pay to feel at home again. Perhaps.
The Angel's Game Page 3