When Montse was old enough she took a job at a haberdashery in Les Corts de Sarrià, and worked there until Se?ora Cabella found her relatives unwilling to take over the family business and the shop closed down. “You’re a hardworking girl, Montse,” Se?ora Cabella told her, “and I know you’ll make something of yourself if given a chance. You’ve seen that eyesore at the Passeig de Gràcia. The Casa Milà. People call it La Pedrera because it looks like a quarry, just a lot of stones all thrown on top of each other. An honest, reliable girl can find work as a laundress there. Is that work you can do? Very well—go to Se?ora Molina, the conserje’s wife. Tell her Emma Cabella sent you. Give her this.” And the woman wrote out a recommendation that made Montse blush to read it.
She reported to Se?ora Molina at La Pedrera the next morning, and the conserje’s wife sent her upstairs to Se?ora Gaeta, who pronounced Montse satisfactory and tied an apron on her. After that it was work, work, work, and weeks turned into months. Montse had to work extra fast to keep Se?ora Gaeta from noticing that she was washing the Cabella family’s clothes along with those of the residents she’d been assigned. The staff turnover at La Pedrera was rapid; every week there were new girls who joined the ranks without warning, and girls who vanished without giving notice. Se?ora Gaeta knew every name and face, even when the identical uniforms made it difficult for the girls themselves to remember each other. It was Se?ora Gaeta who employed the girls and also relieved them of their duties if their efforts weren’t up to scratch. She darted around the attic, flicking the air with her red lacquered fan as she inspected various activities. The residents of Casa Milà called Se?ora Gaeta a treasure, and the laundry maids liked her because she sometimes joined in when they sang work songs; it seemed that once she had been just like them, for all the damask and cameo rings she wore now. Se?ora Gaeta was also well liked because it was exciting to hear her talk: She swore the most powerful and unusual oaths they’d ever heard, really unrepeatable stuff, and all in a sweetly quivering voice, like the song of a harp. Her policy was to employ healthy-looking women who seemed unlikely to develop bad backs too quickly. But you can’t guess right all the time. There were girls who aged overnight. Others were unexpectedly lazy. Women who worried about their reputation didn’t last long in the attic laundry either—they sought and found work in more ordinary buildings.
It was generally agreed that this mansion the Milà family had had built in their name was a complete failure. This was mostly the fault of the architect. He had the right materials but clearly he hadn’t known how to make the best use of them. A house of stone and glass and iron should be stark and sober, a watchtower from which a benevolent guard is kept on society. But the white stone of this particular house rippled as if reacting to a hand that had found its most pleasurable point of contact. A notable newspaper critic had described this effect as being that of “a pernicious sensuality.” And as if that wasn’t enough, the entire construction blushed a truly disgraceful peachy-pink at sunset and dawn. Respectable citizens couldn’t help but feel that the house expressed the dispositions of its inhabitants, who must surely be either mad or unceasingly engaged in indecent activities. But Montse thought the house she worked in was beautiful. She stood on a corner of the pavement and looked up, and what she saw clouded her senses. To Montse’s mind La Pedrera was a magnificent place. But then her taste lacked refinement. Her greatest material treasure was an egregiously shiny bit of tin she’d won at a fairground coconut shy; this fact can’t be overlooked.
—
THERE WERE A FEW more cultured types who shared Montse’s admiration of La Pedrera, though—one of them was Se?ora Lucy, who lived on the second floor and frequently argued with people about whether or not her home was an aesthetic offense. Journalists came to interview the Se?ora from time to time, and would make some comment about the house as a parting shot on their way out, but Se?ora Lucy refused to let them have the last word and stood there arguing at the top of her voice. The question of right angles was always being raised: How could Se?ora Lucy bear to live in a house without a single right angle . . . not even in the furniture . . . ?
“But really who needs right angles? Who?” Se?ora Lucy would demand, and she’d slam the courtyard door and run up the stairs laughing.
—
SE?ORA LUCY was a painter with eyes like daybreak. Like Montse, she wore a key on a chain around her neck, but unlike Montse she told people that she was fifty years old and gave them looks that dared them to say she was in good condition for her age. (Se?ora Lucy was actually thirty-five, only five years older than Montse. One of the housemaids had overheard a gallery curator begging her to stop telling people she was fifty. The Se?ora had replied that she’d recently attended the exhibitions of some of her colleagues and now wished to discover whether fifty-year-old men in her field were treated with reverence because they were fifty or for some other reason.) Aside from this the housemaids were somewhat disappointed with Se?ora Lucy. They expected their resident artist to lounge about in scarlet pajamas, drink cocktails for breakfast, and entertain dashing rascals and fragrant sirens. But Se?ora Lucy kept office hours. Merce, her maid of all work, tried to defend her by alleging that the Se?ora drank her morning coffee out of a vase, but nobody found this credible.