It was for all these reasons that Frederic asked Bobby to go with him to Mado’s house, where he was sure to run into Rosa Trènor.
And the day after that decision, stretched out between the sheets, mechanically interrogating the stuffed dog with his gaze and once again lightly running his fingernails over the initials on the pillow, he started reconstructing the scenes of the previous night.
AT HALF PAST ELEVEN, he and Bobby were on their way up the stairs. Mado herself opened the door; she was wearing colonial blue and silver striped pajamas. The satin pajama fabric strained over her breasts, which resembled two boxes of bonbons of the kind you would have seen at the turn of the century on top of the piano of a family of modest means. Frederic took much more notice of Mado’s pectoral ploy than of the explosive kiss the young woman planted on Bobby’s lips, forcing up his nostrils the dregs of smoke that clung to her gums. Frederic ran the nail of Mado’s pinky finger over his lips, and with an almost musical peal of laughter she pushed the two men into the dining room.
Mado’s living room contained the expectation produced by sudden twists of fate; gambling dilated the eyes, producing stinging and natural tears, and causing mascara to be forgotten. Tics, cold stomachs, or cold feet, and a displacement of the jaw and nasal creases disturbed the equilibrium of the features. In such a place, when things were going badly for someone, an atavistic simian air left its bold imprint on the faces there.
Among the players was Reina, a very young girl with platinum hair, her back exposed to below her kidneys, revealing a stretch of bloodless whitish muscles molded into the casing of a more vegetal and decorative skin.
Reina was Mado’s best friend, and there were those who attributed certain predilections to them, because Reina treated the young men who surrounded her as if she always had a fissure ready through which the eel of her soul could make its escape.
When it came time to play cards, Reina’s concentration breached the limits of the most elementary manners: she allowed no jokes, her extremely forced smile revealed teeth with an excessive secretion of saliva, produced by her state of nerves, not unlike that of a group of hyenas that have convened upon the cemetery. More superstitious than the others, when Reina was dealt a card, before looking at it she would press down on it with her index finger until it hurt, leaving behind the slight imprint of her nail. Suspicious minds attributed this to a wish to mark the cards, but this was an entirely false accusation, because Reina had no intention of cheating when she did this. It was a superstitious quirk that she combined compulsively with lifting her chin and staring off into the distance. At moments like this Reina’s eyes took on the alluring artificial brilliance of fake gemstones. As Frederic walked into the dining room, propelled by Mado’s laughter, the first thing his eyes fell upon was that stare. Frederic, who was acquainted with Mado and the other girls in the game, felt repelled by those eyes, which appeared to him as a new and hostile thing. His first reaction was to fall back, not to continue forward toward the encounter with Rosa Trènor. Reina’s involuntary gaze, which bore no ill will toward Frederic, had cooled the temperature of his audacity, and Frederic had felt like a coward again; but before he could formulate any kind of decision, Rosa Trènor’s small, plump hand was covering Frederic’s lips, and he felt bound by the warm, dry silk of that hand.
In Mado’s living room, Rosa abstained from any complicated toilette; she was wearing a simple dress topped by a cherry-colored sweater; the same clothes she would have worn at home, on a winter’s night, with a migraine or the vague beginnings of a cold. Her lack of concern for clothing was considered a characteristic of good taste; when the time came to say good-bye, Rosa enveloped her flesh and the worn clothing that covered it in a great beaver coat, a bit moth-eaten and the worse for wear, with the tender good humor of a person who was going off to rest with no intention of giving anyone cause for alarm.
When Rosa paid this kind of visit to the girls, she carried with her an enormous snakeskin bag, which she opened with the unctuous sigh of a philanthropist of popular lore ready to hand out bread and cheese to a band of raggedy children. In point of fact, Rosa didn’t hand out anything she carried in the bag; she would rummage around inside and extract skeins of multicolored wool and a sweater she had just started. Mixed in with that bit of feminine handiwork, Rosa had books, papers, notebooks, a little bottle of peppermint, the keys to her house, and an entire battery of rouges, mirrors, compacts, and combs. Rosa Trènor’s bag was one of her most personal belongings. She talked about “her” bag in the same way that a hairdresser with fantasies talks about “his” hair-growing elixir.
When Rosa started weaving her web, she would tantalize her admirers with hints and meaningful glances. She would attribute a lie she had just read in a trashy novel to some fashionable fellow – someone from “her world” as she put it – far-removed from the present company of kept women and famous for his wife’s fur coats and infidelities. Rosa had a special gift for twisting gossip and for making tacky, trashy comments without altering her tone of voice or the monotonous movement of her lips. Sometimes her conversation meandered onto paths of tenderness and morality, and she affected dismay at something some honorable gentlemen had told her about a lady of the finest reputation.
Rosa’s natural grace consisted of a sort of careless, authentic Barcelona flair that she, the daughter of a notary, born in the old city center, had not entirely managed to lose despite the bastardization of her contacts and the coming apart of her life.
When the time came to shuffle the cards, Rosa left off pontificating and set to trying her luck, in the flaccid, voracious way of a leech sucking blood from bruised flesh. On those occasions, Rosa would produce a discreet amount of money and lay her bet with the yellowish grimace characteristic of people with kidney problems. In general, Rosa didn’t lose much, but when she did, her sweater turned a deeper red, by contrast, because all the rouge on Rosa’s cheeks was not enough to veil her pallor.
When gambling, the disinterested feelings those bosom friends affected towards one another turned into a miserly and ferocious conduct known only in the world of insects.
The presence of men neutralized the corrosive tension of the game. Which didn’t mean that some of them, like the insignificant and tubercular Baró de Foixà, did not apply an intricate technique to their wagering, or were not intransigent and unwilling to entertain any kind of irony when their money was at stake. The Baró de Foixà was very wealthy and more than once he had settled a baccarat debt by appropriating a diamond or taking a mink coat to the pawnshop himself, taking no notice of the ladies’ tears or the coarse comments of the gentlemen regarding his sanctimonious regard for the letter of the law. There were those who recalled that the baron had once lost the favors of a girl he was head over heels in love with, because of his insistence on collecting an insignificant gambling debt from her.
Rosa Trènor greeted Frederic with a smile of indifference, not looking up from her cards, as if they had been chatting no more than a half hour before. Anyone familiar with Rosa would not have seen anything unusual in her attitude, knowing as they did how she liked to appear eccentric and disconcert her audience.
Even though Rosa had a vague notion of the precarious situation of her ex-lover, she still hoped that Frederic might once again turn out to be a solution. Rosa believed that though Frederic’s fortune was not, by a long shot, what it used to be, he could still not be mistaken by any means for a pauper, and his sexuality, a bit weaker and more disenchanted with age, might manifest itself with a drop of sickly tenderness, which Rosa could use to her advantage. Frederic’s possibilities would be more generous, he would abandon himself with fewer conditions and, knowing him as she did, Rosa would be able to administer his sentimentalism more profitably than a more tender and inexperienced body could.
In those days Rosa’s head was ruled by her stomach. In the theater of love she would waste no time on the build-up, heading straight for the “bedroom scene.” And here, though Ros
a could not wield the weapons she had had at eighteen, she had perfected a technique of turning on and off the switch of pathos, which made her a dangerous woman for a certain type of man. Out of both vanity and the instinct for survival Rosa most definitely subscribed to the rustic aphorism, “The old hen makes the best soup.”
The game of baccarat went on without a hitch with Frederic and Bobby’s contributions; the bets got heftier amidst the electrical vibration of jaws and eye sockets. The women ended up winning, as always, except for Mado, who thought it wasn’t right for the hostess to win all the time, and paid off her losses from Bobby’s wallet. Besides the beverages, Mado offered her friends a bit of caviar sprinkled on salted crackers, which everyone accepted except Rosa Trènor. With her pretensions to being an old-fashioned grand dame, Rosa thought caviar was awful; she betook herself to the kitchen to prepare some toast rubbed with tomato pulp, which she tore into voraciously with an intentionally unsophisticated abandon.
When the time came to retire, Bobby winked at Frederic, and Rosa Trènor showed no desire to envelop herself in her beaver coat. Mado said she was a little dizzy, and Reina offered to stay and sleep with her. Understanding as always, Bobby bade his lady friend farewell with the usual explosive kisses, and the group headed down the stairs, muffling their laughter so as not to scandalize the neighbors. The group was Bobby, Marta, Gisèle, the Baró de Foixà, Ernest Montagut and Pep Arnau, the youngest son of the Comte de Tabartet, a boy as fat and innocent as a pig, who never got beyond the door of his lady friends’ domiciles.
Rosa Trènor had said that she would stay another half hour or so to finish teaching Mado the stitch for her sweater, and everyone found it perfectly natural that Frederic should take the stopper out of a crystal bottle and serve himself a respectable dose of cognac without saying goodbye to anyone.
Then Mado and Reina went into Mado’s bedroom, not before Mado had told Rosa Trènor, “Make yourselves at home, don’t mind us.” On a divan upholstered with silk the color of a turtle dove’s breast, before the half-drunk glasses, the scattered cards, and the occasional inert grain of caviar that had leapt to its death on the tablecloth out of repugnance at dying between Bobby’s teeth, Rosa Trènor and Frederic de Lloberola initiated their dialogue.
After a few exploratory words from Frederic, consisting only of polite remarks and a few inoffensive double-entendres to see how she would react and to try to gain the upper hand, Rosa Trènor, in a vague and apparently cold way, started talking in the blasé tone of “her milieu.”
“Yes, frankly, it was a bit of a surprise …”
Later, in response to an unfortunate question from Frederic,
“Rancor? No, I feel no rancor towards you …”
Silence, a great sigh from Rosa, a fluttering of eyelashes and a natural smile:
“But, now that we’ve said our hellos and we’re friends again … You know what I think? I think you should go home … As for me …”
Frederic began to harbor the terrible suspicion that Rosa Trènor was being sincere. He tried another tack:
“That’s the best thing we could do.”
Fearing this was too strong, though, he added:
“But stop, enough pretending. I wanted to talk with you because I need you …”
At that point Rosa let out a raucous and offensive peal of laughter. Frederic flinched, but he had no choice but to swallow it. Once Rosa stopped laughing, her voice became sweeter:
“You need me, Frederic? Now you realize it?… After … how long has it been?”
Never a good actor, Frederic went for this question like a ton of bricks, and Rosa coquettishly covered his mouth before he could answer:
“No, no! Don’t tell me how long …; it’s rude to talk about age. But, still, it’s been a while, eh? So I guess it’s true that … you really do need me …”
With a maternal air, Rosa knit her brow in mock pity. Smiling, Frederic said:
“Do I look … so bad to you?”
Rosa ran her fingers over his shirt and the knot in his tie and straightened his thinning hair. Like a caged rabbit, Frederic let her do it, and Rosa took a good look at him, cocking her head like a photographer:
“No, you don’t look bad to me at all. But you can be sure I wouldn’t stand for a tie like the one you’re wearing … And now that I think of it, I need you, too, but not for what you think … I need to talk with you about Eugènia D. Yes, yes, your wife’s cousin; you must have heard about it …”
Frederic opened his eyes wide in ignorance. Rosa thought it would be good to stretch the situation out and went back to her foul talk again:
“The other night at the Grill it was all people were talking about. Now, the worst gossips were a couple of drunken urchins like Mado and Kity – who’s running around with that fool, Bonsoms, the eye doctor – wenches whose hands still smell of dishwater.”
It occurred to Frederic, who found the affectation of brazen speech in a woman to be offensive, that one way out would be to pretend that Rosa’s vocabulary was appealing to him:
“Rosa, you’re incredible. When I hear you talk … I just can’t believe …”
“What is it you can’t believe?”
“You make me feel younger by the minute!”
“Oh! I’ve changed a great deal since we’ve been out of touch. I’ve become more ‘refined’ … But don’t you dare make fun of me! Tell me, what have you heard about Eugènia D …? Is it true about the diamond?”
Frederic realized, with some annoyance, that his praise had not had the effect he was hoping for, so, dropping the pretense, he said brusquely:
“That’s none of my business. I don’t keep track of my wife’s relatives. As you can imagine, I haven’t come here to talk about my family.”
Rosa was radiant. Her conversation was annoying Frederic. She went on without batting an eye:
“Oh, aren’t you the babe in arms. Even a dope like Bobby who never catches on to anything knows all about it, and it turns out you … Well, you needn’t worry. I don’t give a hoot, I just mentioned it to pass the time. When push comes to shove, you know very well I won’t be a penny richer or poorer if one of your cousins is giving her jewels away to some piece of trash from the Bataclan music hall.”
Rosa’s chatter about his cousin and the call girl from the Bataclan was of the most indecent and uncharitable kind; Frederic was getting nervous. Rosa didn’t let up and, with a condescension that suggested that the interested party was in fact Frederic, she added:
“What’s more, if you must know … That’s exactly what I said yesterday to those little snipes: as long as they leave me out of it … Because as you well know, I’ve never enjoyed this kind of rubbish …”
Rosa Trènor knew through Bobby and other friends of Frederic’s that Eugènia D. was his wife’s dearest friend, and that, beyond their blood relationship, there was a genuine closeness and affection. She was certain that Frederic would find these conjectures – absolutely false, in point of fact – about some supposed depravity on the part of Eugènia D. offensive. Realizing he had no other recourse, and simply to have something to say about Rosa Trènor’s remark regarding “this kind of rubbish,” Frederic responded in a completely idiotic tone:
“How old-fashioned you are!”
He might just as well have said, “How rude you are!” or “What a piece of work you are!” Rosa Trènor pretended not to have caught Frederic’s tone, and quickly responded:
“Indeed I am! That’s what I always tell these young guttersnipes. We did things differently in my house … A man, oh yes! With a man, the sky’s the limit. But only if he’s well-mannered, a “gentleman.” Don’t you think I’d have diamonds just like Mado if I weren’t so choosy, if I took up with the first young buck who showed up at the Excelsior?”
Even though at the moment Frederic was starting to feel a sort of peculiar pleasure at being drawn into Rosa Trènor’s low, wretched domain, he couldn’t suppress a skeptical laugh.
�
��All right, go ahead and laugh,” Rosa said. “I don’t mean, of course, that the first guy you run into will come bearing diamonds. But one thing leads to another, and if you have no scruples, before you know it you find a couple hanging from your earlobes. And mine have been in hock for years now.”
Sensing that the sauce was starting to thicken nicely, Rosa took the conversation down a different, slightly more undulating and benevolent, path:
“But I’m being tiresome. Yes, I am, don’t deny it, I’m boring you to tears … Isn’t it funny … It feels as if it were only yesterday that we were talking … I don’t know, what can I say … this all seems so natural … As if we were just as close as before …”
And then she brought the first notes of the aria down to earth with a sneeze, and an anecdote about perfume:
“I have a cold, you know …? Have to keep my handkerchief close by at all times …”
Rosa ran her handkerchief under Frederic’s nose, and, closing his eyes, he relaxed a moment as he inhaled the fragrance, while he searched for a way to broach the big subject.
“So you like this perfume … Oh yes, as you will soon see, I haven’t lost my good taste. Mado and Reina smell exactly the same: an unremitting horror from Guerlain that they consider the height of chic. Sara brought them a sample bottle. Four hundred francs, not counting what they had to pay the customs agents at Portbou. I’m surprised I didn’t pass out today. Lucky for me my nose is stuffy … But, my darling, what a sleepy face! You mind me, grab your hat and go home. I want to look in on those silly girls. They won’t mind. It’s perfectly safe. They’re probably reading some dirty book; Reina, that is, because Mado doesn’t know how to read. Bobby lent them a picture book, a filthy thing … Now, you mind me, go home and sleep; what will your wife say …? You married men have to behave …”
Frederic looked up and burned Rosa’s eyes with an acid smile. She added, in an afterthought:
Private Life Page 2