The Street of the Three Beds by Roser Caminals-Heath

Author:Roser Caminals-Heath
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Cultural Heritage, Fiction, Gothic, Historical, Mystery & Detective
ISBN: 9781453264805
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2011-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Pleased with his son’s progress at the factory, Roderic Aldabò sent him to Paris to meet with a recently acquired client. Maurici hadn’t gone back to Paris since he was eighteen, when his father had delivered on a promised birthday present. A few months earlier he’d have welcomed the trip as a change of scenery and an opportunity to sample new amusements. In his present circumstances, it came as an annoying interruption.

He only stayed for a week. Even though he found the city gloomier and rainier than he remembered it, the dizzy boulevards, sparkling cafes, and stylized Parisian life temporarily rescued him from his dark thoughts. On his previous visit he hadn’t explored the left bank because, as everybody knew, the right bank or rive droite was the respectable one. No Barcelona bourgeois who regarded himself as a man of taste would go near the poor side of the Seine, scattered with seedy hotels, bars that were home to broken-down artists, and tiny squares that served as stages to street mimes, all of it divided from the neighboring Montparnasse cemetery by a desolate stone wall. On some free evenings, perhaps under the spell of his incursions into the underbelly of Barcelona, he followed the notes of an accordion into Saint-Germain-des-Près and stopped for dinner at an auberge with just a few tables where the owner sat to chat with patrons. He went to the hotel only to sleep at night. The crowds gathered in the sumptuous parlors and in the restaurants overwhelmed him.

As soon as he set foot in Barcelona, however, Paris became distant not only in space but in time. It faded into a remote memory unrelated to real life. By contrast, the interview with the last Sherezade, Violeta, summoned him with urgency.

The parrot’s Hail Mary, forgotten for the past few days, assaulted him as soon as he crossed the doorstep. Inside he had to endure Miss Pràxedes’s ongoing monologue punctuated by coughing.

“I come from a good country family, you know? I’ve never washed a dish or made a bed in my life. We still have property but, even though I was an heiress, country life’s not for me. Oh my word, how boring it was! Since I was a young girl I dreamt of coming to the city. When my family finally let me go—they were really strict, you know—I came to Barcelona to live with my aunt, who was very fond of me. I love going out to the street and seeing people, stores, cafés, lots of action. Here you step outside and find yourself in The Ramblas. There’s no prettier street than The Ramblas, don’t you think?”

While Maurici glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, telling himself that any similarity between that story and the truth was mere coincidence, the third flower materialized. She was dressed exactly like two weeks before when he’d seen her for the first time. No curtsy, no hip swishing, no flouncy swirls. Just a delicate hand with pinkish nails rising to his lips.

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