The Angel's Game (3 page)

Dear friend,

I’m taking the liberty of writing to you to express my admiration and congratulate you on the success you have obtained this season with
The Mysteries of Barcelona
in the pages of
The Voice of Industry
. As a reader and lover of good literature, it has given me great pleasure to discover a new voice brimming with talent, youth and promise. Allow me, then, as proof of my gratitude for the hours of pleasure provided by your stories, to invite you to a little surprise which I trust you will enjoy, tonight at midnight in El Ensueño del Raval. You are expected.

Affectionately
A.C.

Vidal, who had been reading over my shoulder, raised his eyebrows, intrigued.

‘Interesting,’ he mumbled.

‘What do you mean, interesting?’ I asked. ‘What sort of a place is this El Ensueño?’

Vidal pulled a cigarette out of his platinum case.

‘Doña Carmen doesn’t allow smoking in the
pensión
,’ I warned him.

‘Why? Does it ruin the perfume from the sewers?’

Vidal lit the cigarette with twice the enjoyment, as one relishes all forbidden things.

‘Have you ever known a woman, David?’

‘Of course I have. Dozens of them.’

‘I mean in the biblical sense.’

‘As in Mass?’

‘No, as in bed.’

‘Ah.’

‘And?’

The truth is that I had nothing much to tell that would impress someone like Vidal. My adventures and romances had been characterised until then by their modesty and a consistent lack of originality. Nothing in my brief catalogue of pinches, cuddles and kisses stolen in doorways or the back row of the picture house could aspire to deserve the consideration of Pedro Vidal - Barcelona’s acclaimed master of the art and science of bedroom games.

‘What does this have to do with anything?’ I protested.

Vidal adopted a patronising air and launched into one of his speeches.

‘In my younger days the normal thing, at least among my sort, was to be initiated in these matters with the help of a professional. When I was your age my father, who was and still is a regular of the most refined establishments in town, took me to a place called El Ensueño, just a few metres away from that macabre palace that our dear Count Güell insisted Gaudí should build for him near the Ramblas. Don’t tell me you’ve never heard the name.’

‘The name of the count or the brothel?’

‘Very funny. El Ensueño used to be an elegant establishment for a select and discerning clientele. In fact, I thought it had closed down years ago, but I must be wrong. Unlike literature, some businesses are always on an upward trend.’

‘I see. Is this your idea? Some sort of joke?’

Vidal shook his head.

‘One of the idiots at the newspaper, then?’

‘I detect a certain hostility in your words, but I doubt that anyone who devotes his life to the noble profession of the press, especially those at the bottom of the ranks, could afford a place like El Ensueño, if it’s the same place I remember.’

I snorted.

‘It doesn’t really matter, because I’m not planning to go.’

Vidal raised his eyebrows.

‘Don’t tell me you’re not a sceptic like I am and that you want to reach the marriage bed pure of heart and loins; that you’re an immaculate soul eagerly awaiting that magic moment when true love will lead you to the discovery of a joint ecstasy of flesh and inner being, blessed by the Holy Spirit, thus enabling you to populate the world with creatures who bear your family name and their mother’s eyes - that saintly woman, a paragon of virtue and modesty in whose company you will enter the doors of heaven under the benevolent gaze of the Baby Jesus.’

‘I was not going to say that.’

‘I’m glad, because it’s possible, and I stress possible, that such a moment may never come: you may not fall in love, you may not be able to or you may not wish to give your whole life to anyone and, like me, you may turn forty-five one day and realise that you’re no longer young and you have never found a choir of cupids with lyres, or a bed of white roses leading towards the altar. The only revenge left for you then will be to steal from life the pleasure of firm and passionate flesh - a pleasure that evaporates faster than good intentions and is the nearest thing to heaven you will find in this stinking world, where everything decays, beginning with beauty and ending with memory.’

I allowed a solemn pause by way of silent ovation. Vidal was a keen opera-goer and had picked up the tempo and style of the great arias. He never missed his appointment with Puccini in the Liceo family box. He was one of the few - not counting the poor souls crammed together in the gods - who went there to listen to the music he loved so much, a music that tended to inspire the grandiloquent speeches with which at times he regaled me, as he was doing on that day.

‘What?’ asked Vidal defiantly.

‘That last paragraph rings a bell.’

I had caught him red-handed. He sighed and nodded.

‘It’s from
Murder in the Liceo
,’ admitted Vidal. ‘The final scene where Miranda LaFleur shoots the wicked marquis who has broken her heart, by betraying her during one night of passion in the nuptial suite of the Hotel Colón, in the arms of the Tsar’s spy Svetlana Ivanova.’

‘That’s what I thought. You couldn’t have made a better choice. It’s your most outstanding novel, Don Pedro.’

Vidal smiled at the compliment and considered whether or not to light another cigarette.

‘Which doesn’t mean there isn’t some truth in what I say,’ he concluded.

Vidal sat on the windowsill, but not without first placing a handkerchief on it so as to avoid soiling his classy trousers. I saw that his Hispano-Suiza was parked below, on the corner of Calle Princesa. The chauffeur, Manuel, was polishing the chrome with a rag as if it were a sculpture by Rodin. Manuel had always reminded me of my father, men of the same generation who had suffered too much misfortune and whose memories were written on their faces. I had heard some of the servants at Villa Helius say that Manuel Sagnier had done a long stretch in prison and that when he’d come out he had suffered hardship for years because nobody would offer him a job except as a stevedore, unloading sacks and crates on the docks, a job for which by then he no longer had the requisite youth or health. Rumour had it that one day, Manuel, risking his own life, had saved Vidal from being run over by a tram. In gratitude, when Pedro Vidal heard of the poor man’s dire situation, he decided to offer him a job and the possibility of moving, with his wife and daughter, into a small apartment above the Villa Helius coach house. He assured him that little Cristina would study with the same tutors who came every day to his father’s house on Avenida Pearson to teach the cubs of the Vidal dynasty, and his wife could work as seamstress to the family. He had been thinking of buying one of the first automobiles that were soon to appear on sale in Barcelona and if Manuel would agree to take instruction in the art of driving and forget the trap and the wagon, Vidal would be needing a chauffeur, because in those days gentlemen didn’t lay their hands on combustion machines nor any device with a gaseous exhaust. Manuel, naturally, accepted. Following his rescue from penury, the official version assured us all that Manuel Sagnier and his family felt a blind devotion for Vidal, eternal champion of the dispossessed. I didn’t know whether to believe this story or to attribute it to the long string of legends woven around the image of the benevolent aristocrat that Vidal cultivated. Sometimes it seemed as if all that remained for him to do was to appear wrapped in a halo before some orphaned shepherdess.

‘You’ve got that rascally look about you, the one you get when you’re harbouring wicked thoughts,’ Vidal remarked. ‘What are you scheming?’

‘Nothing. I was thinking about how kind you are, Don Pedro.’

‘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 of the window, and when he saw me, the driver, who always treated me like a gentleman and not 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 towards 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 of the window and saw him approach the car. Manuel opened the door and Vidal flopped onto the back seat. I heard the engine of the Hispano-Suiza deploy its symphony of pistons. At that moment Cristina looked up towards my window. I smiled at her, but realised that she didn’t remember who I was. A moment later she looked away and Vidal’s grand carriage sped off towards its own world.

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 Ensueño 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 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 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.