Books Burn Badly - Manuel Rivas [204]
The trumpet player seemed to be watching her through the concentric mark of his lips. To avoid the circle becoming undone, O ran back upstairs.
She finally found the entrance she was looking for, on the other side of the building. There was no sign on the outside, not even the small, blue plaque indicating a boarding-house. But this did not mean it had been abandoned. The hotel had recently been refurbished and, already in reception, had the pride of decrepit premises that have suddenly grown chandeliers on the ceilings and mirrors on the walls. The reception desk clearly fancied itself as a bar, its counter having been clad in red imitation leather. To start with, O thought the receptionist had a tie which was also made of imitation leather. A man placed among the furniture and chandeliers. She could imagine this was a place for what Polka called ‘women with schedules’ – he was always very careful with his words. Polka was a great friend of women. One day, they’d laughed at him for calling Olinda ‘sweetheart’ in public. ‘I’ll be off now, sweetheart.’ Since when it had been like a second nickname: Polka Sweetheart. He felt better with women. When he started working as a gravedigger, he used to pass in front of the Cuckoo’s Feather bar, packed with men, many of them playing cards, and shout from the doorway, ‘There’s no money to be made here for a gravedigger!’ He’d often go down to the river to help Olinda carry the clothes. O too, after Olinda died. And he loved to take part in conversation. He liked to play with words and make people laugh and think, like a comical priest: ‘Let whoever is without a stone throw the first sin.’
Amalia came straight out with it, ‘It’s a brothel, darling, rooms by the hour, for fucking.’ What did O care? She didn’t mind what clothes she washed. It was only for a short period. Until she sorted out her papers, since she’d made up her mind to leave. What did she care? It was better even. No small, fiddly garments to wash. Just bedclothes. From beds for strangers with secret rendezvous. That’d give her something to think about while she was washing. There was a special room. A room full of mirrors. The ceiling itself was a mirror. The lady showing her around, who lived there and was a mysterious figure, it was unclear whether she was a guest or manager, explained in a whisper, as if she didn’t want the mirror images to hear, that this was the suite used by Mr Manlle to unmake the bed with his little friends. Unmake the bed. Little friends. O found it funny the way she talked. She spun around, multiplying her image in the mirrors.
‘Two people unmaking the bed here is like twenty people doing it twenty times.’
‘Yes, it’s more pleasurable.’
‘Who’s this Manlle?’
It was now the turn of Samantha, the Woman with the Feather Boa, to scan her multiple images in the mirrors. Despite being talkative, she seemed to have to weigh up her answer to that question.
‘Don’t you know who Manlle is? Better not to know. He’s the owner of this and a lot more.’
She closed the door to the suite of mirrors.
‘Come, come to my room,’ she gestured.
It was a small room stuffed full of things. A strange mixture of luxury and second-hand. The walls were covered in photographs and portraits with the boa woman’s unmistakable presence. Here there are no mirrors, but another kind of multiplication made with fragments of time. Everyone has their own air, which they always carry with them, thought O, but it was still surprising how much that woman resembled herself. She changed age, clothes, hairstyle. One thing remained the same in almost all of them and that was her sturdy physique. And yet in one of the larger photos she was extraordinarily thin, as if she’d wasted away. Strangely enough, she was more herself than ever. Because of that look she had.
The look she was giving her now. Hard and shocked at the same time.
‘That Manlle’s a bandit,’ she