3
In those days, the street lamps 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 specialised 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 either side of the street, narrow alleyways, buried in mist, housed a string of brothels of ever-decreasing quality.
El Ensue?o occupied the top storey 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 its 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 Se?or David Martín.’
Nobody had ever called me ‘se?or’ 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 enamelled 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 as silent as a tomb. 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 certain weakness 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 towards 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 realise that one of her hands was false, 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 materialised 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 candle holders 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 ineffable femme fatale Chloé, in her adventures in The Mysteries of Barcelona. I was about to try to force the door open when I realised I was not alone. I froze. I could see the outline of 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. I swallowed hard.
‘Chloé?’ I whispered.
It was her. My Chloé. The operatic and insuperable femme fatale of my stories, made flesh - and lingerie. She had the palest skin I had ever seen and her short hair was cut at right angles, framing her face. Her lips were the colour 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. Unable to breathe, I watched her as she slowly approached, my eyes glued to those lusciously shaped legs under silk stockings that probably cost more than I earned in a year, ending in shoes with points like daggers, tied round her ankles with silk ribbons. I had never, in my whole life, 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 realising 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 towards me and licked my lips.
‘Now you do it. Undress me. Slowly. Very slowly.’
I then understood that I had survived my sickly and 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 memorise 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 centimetres 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 the brief space of an 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 towards 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 towards 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 the Hotel Oriente tinged it with a dirty, dusty yellow in which passers-by 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.