Private Life (20 page)

Yet the alleged murderer was entirely innocent. For the reader to have some idea of how things came about, we will have to delve a little deeper into the private life of the Baró and Baronessa de Falset
and their chauffeur, and follow certain paths that until now had been secret and unknown.

The first few years of marriage between Antoni Mates and his wife had apparently been quite normal. Conxa’s husband did not satisfy her in the least, and her own “personal” adventures in that first period of marriage, which we will have occasion to go into at other points in this story, were suspected by no one.

Antoni Mates made a tremendous effort to overcome something he didn’t dare confess even to himself, something he had hoped was long behind him. But he was powerless before his, shall we say, malady. As its effects inflamed his blood, Conxa became colder and more wooden, so much so that at times Antoni Mates felt he was sleeping with a dead body.

As we have said, Conxa had a very special and piquant beauty. Antoni Mates was madly in love with her, but it was a strange sort of love mixed with admiration that didn’t procure him satisfaction, nor was it capable of slaking the other thirst that consumed him.

Neither of them dared confess to the other how cold and empty their encounters were. A pathological sadness, deaf and dumb, crept into the marriage. They kept it out of the public eye by enacting the most delightful of honeymoons.

One afternoon the couple set out on an little trip, intending to spend a couple of days in a town on the coast. Antoni Mates had a new chauffeur; he had been in their service for just two weeks. He was a sporty young man who looked like a ladykiller. He had a youthful grace, and was pleasant and attentive. By nightfall the couple and
their chauffeur reached the town where they would be staying. The inn was clean and quite comfortable, and practically empty because the summer season had not yet begun. At dinnertime, it was as if the time they had spent together, each keeping his and her respective secrets, had had an effect upon their nerves, as if instinct, or the beast, had revealed what the power of reason had denied. Conxa and her husband both looked simultaneously at the chauffeur, who was sitting three tables away, focusing on his plate of chops and not daring to look at his masters. The gaze of husband and wife must have been very particular and not very subtle because, later, when they realized what they were doing, and when their own eyes met, they both blushed, trembling and disconcerted. But that lasted only a couple of seconds because Conxa, with a great sigh, looked at her husband again with a smile. And her husband smiled back, as a flash of liberation flared in his eyes. Antoni Mates saw clearly that Conxa understood him, and accepted what he would never have dared to confess, just as he accepted her thoughts, in turn. Without so much as a word or the briefest remark, with just that redness of cheek, that discomposure, those sighs and that shimmer in their eyes, they came to a perfect understanding and mutual endorsement. The depravity of each was completely different from that of the other, but it tended toward one same objective, one same desire, that would be enjoyed in different ways.

Conxa mentally put the final touches on the idea. It didn’t alarm her in the slightest. She found it eccentric and quite chic. And since she found her husband disgusting, this could not be any worse.

She had read novels that told of similar permutations; in Paris, in the great world of the disabused, such practices were an everyday thing. The fact is, if “that” was what her husband was, and she had already suspected it – in fact, she had been certain of it, for quite a while now – Conxa was much less concerned about it than her husband had been.

When the time came to go to bed, everything happened as if by design. The couple was given the best room at the inn and the chauffeur was to sleep two doors down. Antoni and Conxa left the door ajar. She began to undress, as did her husband. The chauffeur was whistling softly. In a state of exceptional excitement, his voice trembling, Antoni Mates called for the young man. He responded pleasantly, as always. Antoni Mates ordered him to come and the poor boy responded that he was about to get into bed. “It doesn’t matter, come right away,” Antoni Mates responded, his voice more and more subhuman. The chauffeur pulled on his pants and stopped in the doorway. “Come in,” said Antoni Mates. Distraught, the boy went in. He was barefoot, wearing pants and a sleeveless undershirt. Conxa was lying almost naked on the bed. Antoni Mates took the chauffeur by the arm; the boy didn’t understand; his head was spinning. But he didn’t protest. Stupidly, he let himself be swallowed up by the same wave, and the three of them fell onto the bed.

From that time on, Antoni Mates was a happy man. Conxa tolerated, and even enjoyed, the absurd combination. The chauffeur, a bit horrified, soon understood, however, that this was a gold mine, and that it was in his interest to be discreet.

Their idyll lasted four years. During this time Antoni Mates became a sweeter man, more religious and more reactionary than ever. It was at this point that the couple began to give off that air of perfect unity, and husband and wife were joined like Siamese twins. The chauffeur lived like a prince. He exploited his masters and sang the praises of his position. He told his buddies that el Senyor Mates – the title of Baró had not yet been conferred on him – treated him like a son, and that his wife was the loveliest woman in Barcelona. And he said it all with a wink and an air suggesting that something or other might be going on between him and the lady.

The boy was careful not to compromise himself or anyone else. But four years, in he was beginning to feel not only disgusted but in truth even a bit sick.

Antoni Mates planned little trips and arranged things so that no one could suspect a thing. Blinded by his obsession, it would have been easy for him to be careless. But no one, absolutely no one, caught on.

The chauffeur’s condition alarmed his masters. One day the poor boy vomited blood, and within four weeks he was in the cemetery.

A few days before the seizure that did Antoni Mates’s chauffeur in, he had got together with a few other boys his age in a bar on Carrer d’Aribau. This usually happened on Saturday, and this was when he would usually boast of the marvels of his post. But that night, perhaps having drunk more than usual, or perhaps in a bad mood that presaged his imminent death, the boy, who was already quite ill, sang a little more than usual. He didn’t tell the whole story,
but he got very close. His friends didn’t pay him much mind. They supposed it was a joke or a lie his drunken imagination had come up with. At the next table sat a shabby, gray and insignificant little man, who opened his ears as far as they would go. That little man was up on a great many things that went on in Barcelona. That night in the bar on Carrer d’Aribau, the only thing that mattered to him was to catch a name that he didn’t know. He wanted the chauffeur to sing a name, and when he did, the man needed to hear no more. What the other fellows took to be a joke or a lie was an incredibly valuable revelation for the little gray man.

The reader will remember that when we spoke of Dorotea Palau’s beginnings, we noted that in the days when she worked at Leocàdia’s house, she used to be accompanied by a young man, a little older than she, whom Dorotea introduced as her brother. The little gray man who was listening in on the conversation of the chauffeur and his friends in the bar on Carrer d’Aribau was the very same young man who used to accompany Dorotea Palau twenty years earlier to the house of the Lloberolas.

It wasn’t true that they were brother and sister. They had only a vague, distant kinship. The boy had grown up in the creepy, servile atmosphere of a cabaret, doing the duties of a servant and, to some extent, of a go-between. He was sickly, puny, and, according to the other service staff, totally impotent. Polite and accommodating to a fault, the useful little snoop inspired a particular sort of repugnance. He had been getting by without any particular success when he happened upon the conversation with the Mates’s
chauffeur. At that point, he had been working as a night porter for quite a few years at one of the most popular and comfortable
meublés
of Barcelona.

The man’s name was Pere Ranalies, but he was known by his peers as “The Monk.” Perhaps they came up with this name out of sarcasm, because no one had ever seen him with a woman. Pere Ranalies seemed to function with the cold, bitter head of a bar cat, the kind that, as if it were not enough to have been spayed, are only allowed to polish off the herring bones even the wagoners refuse to eat. Pere Ranalies had done great service to his relative Dorotea Palau, when she was a young woman with no connections and just muddling through between needlework and the labors of love. The Monk took particular pleasure in following both Doro tea’s prostitution and that of others in which he had had a hand, unfailingly playing a despicable role. When Dorotea went to Paris, they had a falling-out that lasted years. On her return, they made peace, but the dressmaker was starting to feel her oats and she found conversation with her relative a bit repulsive. Still, she would tolerate him in certain places and at certain times of day, when the man’s presence wouldn’t jeopardize her, and Dorotea could squeeze out a little business and Pere Ranalies could pick up a good commission.

The Monk had gathered a considerable archive on the private life of Barcelona. He was on to the scandals and pecadilloes of many important gentlemen and no few notable ladies. His position in the
meublé
was one of utmost confidence. Everyone knew that his obligation was to keep silent and never lose his composure. The couples
who were entrusted to him when they came for a room looked at him with the same serenity with which a murderer looks at a dog as he commits the crime, never doubting that the dog is mute and ignorant of the judge’s address. Ranalies did not discharge his duties with the indifference of one who is simply making a living and doesn’t care one way or another. He deposited in his woeful office all the sick voluptuosity of his impotence. He was a connoisseur of erotic slander but kept it all to himself. He enjoyed it in secret, and only used it for the sake of business. He became such a cold-blooded authority in this domain that certain gentlemen of Barcelona would seek him out to pull monstrous pranks. Ranalies, both on his own and in association with a cadre of adept middlewomen, found ways to supply what no one else could. The frigid heart of Pere Ranalies was the magical engineer of aberrations and deeds that defied belief, not precluding even the tenderest of morsels. He knew all the most rotten neighborhoods and slums by heart. He was the perfect cop, whose operations hinged on misery and the flesh of monsters. His silence, his honeyed smiles, and his acrobatic reverences had always been his salvation. The confessable part of his existence was that of an exemplary man of few means. He rented a room in a rooming house on Carrer de la Riereta in the heart of the Barri Xino and the landlady, who was a good woman, looked upon him as one of the family. He went to Mass every Sunday; he never got drunk. Thrifty and neat, he never caused a fuss. He was easygoing, his voice was unctuous with humility and veiled with resignation, and even in his speech he employed no interjections or bad words.

If on occasion a bit of important business came up that required preparation and expert collaboration, Pere Ranalies would seek out his relative, Dorotea Palau, for the dressmaker was also a voluptuary of such viands, with a special talent for their elaboration.

When Ranalies learned of the death of the chauffeur in the bar on Carrer d’Aribau, he went straight to Dorotea Palau and told her the whole story. The name Antoni Mates didn’t appear on the Monk’s list and he – who knew everything – had not till that moment had any suspicions regarding that well-known and well-respected gentleman. Ranalies thought that if the story were true – and he didn’t doubt for a moment that it was – there was big money to be had. But it was an extremely delicate operation that would require great tact. Perhaps Dorotea Palau would find a more deft, natural and efficient way of navigating it. Dorotea thought it was superb, and clever as she was, and skillful as she was beginning to be, it wasn’t hard for her to come up with a plan of attack.

Dorotea did not yet have the honor of counting la Senyora Mates among her devotees. She sent her a string of invitations, proposing impossibly low prices. She paid her several visits. Finally, Conxa received her and placed an order. Employing exquisite manners and the flourishes of a grand vedette, Dorotea won her client’s heart. Since Antoni Mates had assumed the obligation of never leaving his wife’s side, she began to win her client’s husband’s heart as well. One day, on her return from a trip to Paris, Dorotea regaled the Mates couple – on whom the barony had just been conferred – with a string of dazzling and fascinating stories. Her performance was so
delightful, with just the right touch of understanding and delicacy, not to mention enthusiasm, that the couple lost all notion of space and time. Since the death of their chauffeur, life had gone dark again for the newly-minted Baron. Antoni Mates was feeling a combination of fear and remorse. He wanted to turn his back on all that. Above all it horrified him that anyone might suspect such a thing of him. Sensing from the gaze of the baron and the baronessa that she could now cast her hook into the water because the bait was irresistible, Dorotea made a few vague, extremely tenuous, gestures, as if the whole thing meant absolutely nothing to her. Among normal people, a situation like this is practically inconceivable. But Dorotea knew what kind of individuals she was dealing with, because Pere Ranalies had presented her with a textbook case and a perfect diagnosis. In the event Ranalies had slipped up, at most Dorotea might lose a client. But there was also a likely chance of gaining many more. If the Baronessa de Falset took her “under her wing” with the kind of protection she had in mind, Palau-Couture would soon reach the summit. Dorotea brought the red cape closer to the horns of the beast and waited a few seconds, during which her heart almost stopped beating. Instead of a mortal goring, she received an ovation. The barons surrendered before the stylist’s tact, talent and discretion.