The Last Resort (33 page)

No, no. Mr. Moulinex obviously does not expect me to tell him any of that. Nor does he expect the two of us to sit around gabbing away like a couple of old scullery maids about the grisly accident that took place only yesterday, for Moulinex is a man of few words. Even yesterday, in all the commotion that broke out after they found Sánchez dead in the pool, he had only one thing to say to me and it was in passing, something he whispered in my ear like a secret:

“Don’t take it too hard, darling. It’s just one of those things, one of those terrible accidents that happens. There’s nothing anyone could have done. Just look the other way and be happy.”

I don’t know why he said that to me, for I don’t consider myself to be the kind of person who likes to gossip about morbid things like that. In fact, I have never been able to understand the way a lot of people behave when an accident occurs—on the highway, for example, when all the cars slow down to see the mutilated bodies that some charitable person has covered up with a jacket or a shirt and then those pools of blood and the shoes lying on the road alongside some bloody leg. Perhaps some people find death fascinating, but I prefer to avoid it entirely. I always try not to see anything—after all, what good does it do? For that very reason, I didn’t even try to go near the winter pool yesterday like all the other guests did. Instead, I went straight to the garden, which is where I found Mr. Moulinex, very doggedly searching for a sprig of mint to adorn his white caftan. That was when he made that strange comment. “Look the other way and be happy,” he said. In the middle of all that chaos, people running around like mad, Bea smoking like a chimney, Bernardo talking nonstop on his cell phone, and Ana Fernández de Bugambilla leaning against one of the columns sobbing inconsolably, even though it does seem rather odd that she would cry so desperately over the loss of such a recent lover. In the middle of all this, Moulinex just strolled his way through the garden in his white caftan with that little dog that follows him around everywhere and stopped to whisper his little comment to me. As he did this, he looked over at Arce, who was with all the other guests, and then he looked at me, as if he were some kind of endearing old maiden aunt who had just given me the most wonderful gift, an old family heirloom, a cameo or something. Although . . . better yet, I would say that Moulinex looked at me with an artistic air. Yes, that’s it—like a sculptor admiring one of his own works. It was so unbelievably bizarre, really, it just made no sense at all. Although, I don’t know, maybe it’s not such a big deal—after all, it was an extremely tense moment and people say and do strange things in difficult circumstances. That might very well have been the case with Moulinex. He certainly is an amiable old man, but in the end he is still a complete stranger to me and my life. All I know is that he said the same thing to me twice in the middle of all that uproar and all those people coming and going—nervous guests, Moroccan policemen with big mustaches, et cetera. The general atmosphere was so stressful and harried that it took the talented Miss Guêpe and her able staff quite a while to calm everyone down.

Today, thank goodness, things are quiet again. It is a spectacular morning, and we are once again the same group that we were the day I arrived at L’Hirondelle in the hopes of putting things behind me (Jaime and his unfortunate death, for one) and getting some distance from all the gossip in Madrid. Once again I feel that soothing sensation of solitude that comes from being surrounded by total strangers—not even Santi Arce is here now. My “charming friend Santiago Arce,” as Mr. Moulinex calls him. I still haven’t really figured out our . . . romance? Is that what I should call it? I’ve never been one to exaggerate, for I’ve always thought exaggeration brings bad luck, and I really have no idea what will happen with us. For the moment, it’s fair to say that we have laughed a lot together, we have become lovers, and we do plan on seeing one another when we get back to Madrid. But he is so very attractive, and I know what it is like to live with a man whom women adore and who adores women, perhaps too much . . . Oh, come on, Mercedes! Are you forgetting what you said? The first promise I made to myself when I got here was not to think about the past—it’s finished, story over . . . I can’t tell if it’s the Pimm’s I’m drinking or if it’s the peaceful atmosphere at this hotel, but I feel so content here—I have no desire whatsoever to get back to Madrid. I wish time could stop right now, at this very moment, because there are so many things I still have to think about—calmly, quietly, just as I am doing right now, spelling things out for myself. That, I suppose, is the luxury of being far away. Distance has the same effect as time. It makes everything seem so far away, almost irrelevant, and I like it that way. My poor Jaime used to say that I am not in control of my own life, that I let myself get carried away—and at my age, my God. But really. What did he know? I haven’t made out too badly with my system: Going wherever destiny takes me, doing nothing at all, waiting and seeing what happens. My relationship with Santiago Arce, for example. I didn’t plan it, it just happened—or, rather, it is just beginning to happen. So why should I sit here looking back when the future has so many things—much more interesting things—in store for me? Over the past few days, I feel as if I have finally learned to enjoy my freedom. Of course, the surroundings don’t hurt—here nobody interferes in anyone else’s life, and I hope I can take that lesson home with me to Madrid so that I will remember to simply ignore the things people say about me and to approach my life a bit differently than I might have otherwise. Thanks to this trip, I do believe I will be a lot calmer about things. For example: this past week I finally realized that being a widow actually has certain advantages—as long as one is rich and young, of course. Oh, how awful! How can I even allow myself to think such things? All I do is brag about how I hate to exaggerate, and the minute I drink half a Pimm’s with ginger ale, I act as if I couldn’t care less about my husband’s death and everything that went along with it. Why, you’d think I took life and all the emotions wrapped up in it to be some kind of joke. Oh, I’m not like other people. Other people are so much more consistent with their feelings of grief, of love . . .

And Arce? Where does he fit in the middle of all this chaotic hypothesizing? Santi is adorable and successful and attractive, but I’ve been married to a man like that, and I know the price that comes with someone like him. Conclusion—Pimm’s in hand, the winter pool in the background, the Marquis de Cuevas my only company: Life is short, Mercedes; don’t fool yourself. You’re better off taking the good, only the good—the passion but not the commitment, the cream but not the milk. What I need is love with no strings attached—no more “Darling, this soup is cold,” “Darling, don’t wait up for me tonight; I’m going to have to work late.” Enough. I am through with all of that. Enough. It’s amazing how much a person can learn in an isolated hotel, where it seems that nothing at all ever happens, with so much dead time, so much time to think.

In the end, then, was Jaime right when he said that I lie to myself even in the way I think about things–or, rather, the way I choose
not
to think about things? If so, then I would do well to take a few minutes to contemplate the death of poor Antonio Sánchez, for I feel I may have banished the event from my thoughts rather unjustly. What happened to him was perfectly terrible—after all, nobody ever expects to die while on vacation, much less while on vacation with a woman other than one’s wife. Oh, come now . . . don’t forget what we said, Mercedes: No looking back.

Very well. All I will say, then, is that the whole incident has been very unpleasant. I actually find it kind of incredible that these sorts of awful things really happen. Not that I knew him very well. Before running into him and his friends here, I had heard of Sánchez, of course, who hasn’t? He is a well-known man with a very influential radio show; everyone’s always talking about him. Now, if I were a person who really lied to herself, I would say that I am sorry he died, that I feel his pain—after all, the situation is very similar to the one I recently went through. But I don’t. It would be a lie, because I don’t feel sorry at all. I was appalled by the accident, for it was truly horrific and it affected all of us here in some way, but the commotion that ensued has actually been very convenient for me, wretched as it may sound. You see, when I return to Madrid, everything will be different. By then nobody will even remember Jaime; we will be nothing but old news. Good-bye to the thousand and one versions of what happened the night he died; good-bye to all the hypotheses, all the speculation, all the conjecture; good-bye. It’s over, and what a relief it is. The old
tam-tam
of the jungle no longer beats to the sound of my name.

The
tam-tam
of the jungle. That is how my friend Fernanda refers to it—all the gossiping and chitchat, especially the kind that revolves around one event in particular, the one event that is on everyone’s lips: the “I swear, I swear, I heard it from a very good source.” I am talking, of course, about the Gossip of the Moment, the gossip that will spice up so many conversations over the next few days, months, or however much time it takes for another, more outrageous scandal to surface. Not so long ago, the
tam-tam
was about us, and people said such stupid things. Now, however, the drums will beat for Sánchez.

What will they say? It isn’t too hard to guess. They will say everything, they won’t speak of anything else, because the great advantage of this
tam-tam
business is that it can only handle one scandal at a time.
One
sin,
one
unforgivable crime,
one
tale of marital infidelity—whatever it is, there can only be
one
of it, and the
tam-tam
’s new rhythm drowns out the old one. And the one that beats for Antonio Sánchez will drum up plenty of whispers indeed. What will the gossips say when they hear the news? I don’t know because I am here at L’Hirondelle d’Or savoring a Pimm’s with ginger ale as the drums beat away—the smoke must be coming out of their ears by now from all the effort. And they’re not gossiping about
how
the poor man died, either. Because his accidental death, in the end, as spectacular as it was, could have happened to the most exemplary of husbands. They are all probably gossiping about the “where” and “with whom” aspect of the story. That is the other dismal thing about death, the one thing everyone always forgets about: Death is like a photograph that freezes reality at one specific moment, and there are some realities that a person would rather not see frozen in time—such as the one that existed here at L’Hirondelle between Antonio Sánchez, Bea, Bernardo, Ana. For the dead person the moment is frozen, but for the survivors it has a way of becoming an indelible stain. This will be the case, no doubt, of Ana Fernández de Bugambilla, poor thing. Not that she was a saint—but even if she were, even if this had been her very first time as the “other woman,” they would nevertheless look upon her forevermore as the weekend mistress. Death has that quality, that uncanny way of turning happenstance into something solid and permanent.

Then there is the matter of Bea and Bernardo. Another delicacy for the most frenetic of the
tam-tam
mers. Now, this is not new information—Bea and Bernardo’s love affair has been vox populi for years, six or seven at least. Everyone in Madrid knows about them. But it’s one thing when “everyone knows,” and another thing entirely when a sudden and unexpected death has left you—as Bea herself would say it—with your goddamn pants down.

With your goddamn pants down . . . Call me a complete idiot, but I am always shocked when I see, time and again, how people summarily decide to call something a “scandal” even though everyone in the world has known about it for years and years. And that moment, the very moment the game is exposed and not an instant earlier, is when all the well-mannered souls will turn their back on the sinner and stick it to them where it hurts. Not to incriminate them for their errors or sins (because everyone already knew about their errors and sins), but to say, “Go rot in hell! I don’t even remember your name, because you were stupid enough to get caught.”

Mr. Moulinex is looking at me. Contrary to his usual habits, it seems that he has actually asked the waiter to bring him a drink. I suppose it will be a Pimm’s. I don’t know him well, but he looks like the type who would observe the worldly rituals of this place—and, anyway, what else would one drink at this hour at L’Hirondelle? A Pimm’s, I am sure of it. What else? Now, let’s wait for the waiter to come around to see if I am right. I would even lay money on it. Pimm’s, Pimm’s . . .

The people I really feel sorry for in all this are Ana and Bea, especially Bea. This is what suddenly runs through my mind as I look over at Mr. Moulinex. What a dismal situation for them, and I don’t just mean the accident—I mean the way all three of them had to leave so quickly, so suddenly. Before dinner, even. I did, however, have time to stop by Bea’s room to talk to her for a moment. In the end, she was my one friend in that group and I wanted to tell her how badly I felt, and I meant it, because I know what everyone will be saying about her relationship with Bernardo. And Bea just laughed. She always laughs, whether or not she’s smoking at the same time.

“Oh, who knows, honey?” she said, as if shrugging her shoulders about the whole thing. “Who knows? Men never get divorced once they start having a real affair, not even when they fall in love. But now that the whole thing is going to go so public, maybe Bernardo’s wife will summon up her pride, threaten him with divorce, put his suitcases at the front door, and then, who knows? Maybe I’ll finally get my chance. ‘It was scandal that brought them together.’ Isn’t there a movie by that name? Yes,
United by Scandal,
something like that,” she said, with a cackle that came out sounding a lot more like a cry for help.

I like Bea, and I think Mr. Moulinex does, too. I didn’t manage to catch what they said to each other last night just before Bea and her friends left, but I did see Mr. Moulinex very ceremoniously kiss her hand. Then he pulled her close and gave her the closest thing to a hug that a person like him was capable of. Perhaps he said the same thing to her that he said to me in the garden. “Be happy, darling.” What a strange man, that Mr. Moulinex. He speaks to us as if he actually knows us. Perhaps he was able to get to know Bea a bit more, chat about this or that. I, on the other hand, have exchanged nothing but a handful of pleasantries with him. And yet somehow I feel as if he knows my life story . . . oh how stupid. Nobody knows my story. Nobody at all. Impossible. It isn’t worth a second of my time to go worrying about that.
Silence,
I tell myself. Ah, but look at this. If it isn’t Mr. Moulinex’s little dog trotting over to me now, just as he trotted over to me that first morning.