Rosa Trènor greeted Frederic with a smile of indifference, not looking up from her cards, as if they had been chatting no more than a half hour before. Anyone familiar with Rosa would not have seen anything unusual in her attitude, knowing as they did how she liked to appear eccentric and disconcert her audience.
Even though Rosa had a vague notion of the precarious situation of her ex-lover, she still hoped that Frederic might once again turn out to be a solution. Rosa believed that though Frederic’s fortune was not, by a long shot, what it used to be, he could still not be mistaken by any means for a pauper, and his sexuality, a bit weaker and more disenchanted with age, might manifest itself with a drop of sickly tenderness, which Rosa could use to her advantage. Frederic’s possibilities would be more generous, he would abandon himself with fewer conditions and, knowing him as she did, Rosa would be able to administer his sentimentalism more profitably than a more tender and inexperienced body could.
In those days Rosa’s head was ruled by her stomach. In the theater of love she would waste no time on the build-up, heading straight for the “bedroom scene.” And here, though Rosa could not wield the weapons she had had at eighteen, she had perfected a technique of turning on and off the switch of pathos, which made her a dangerous woman for a certain type of man. Out of both vanity and the instinct for survival Rosa most definitely subscribed to the rustic aphorism, “The old hen makes the best soup.”
The game of baccarat went on without a hitch with Frederic and Bobby’s contributions; the bets got heftier amidst the electrical vibration of jaws and eye sockets. The women ended up winning, as always, except for Mado, who thought it wasn’t right for the hostess to win all the time, and paid off her losses from Bobby’s wallet. Besides the beverages, Mado offered her friends a bit of caviar sprinkled on salted crackers, which everyone accepted except Rosa Trènor. With her pretensions to being an old-fashioned grand dame, Rosa thought caviar was awful; she betook herself to the kitchen to prepare some toast rubbed with tomato pulp, which she tore into voraciously with an intentionally unsophisticated abandon.
When the time came to retire, Bobby winked at Frederic, and Rosa Trènor showed no desire to envelop herself in her beaver coat. Mado said she was a little dizzy, and Reina offered to stay and sleep with her. Understanding as always, Bobby bade his lady friend farewell with the usual explosive kisses, and the group headed down the stairs, muffling their laughter so as not to scandalize the neighbors. The group was Bobby, Marta, Gisèle, the Baró de Foixà, Ernest Montagut and Pep Arnau, the youngest son of the Comte de Tabartet, a boy as fat and innocent as a pig, who never got beyond the door of his lady friends’ domiciles.
Rosa Trènor had said that she would stay another half hour or so to finish teaching Mado the stitch for her sweater, and everyone found it perfectly natural that Frederic should take the stopper out of a crystal bottle and serve himself a respectable dose of cognac without saying goodbye to anyone.
Then Mado and Reina went into Mado’s bedroom, not before Mado had told Rosa Trènor, “Make yourselves at home, don’t mind us.” On a divan upholstered with silk the color of a turtle dove’s breast, before the half-drunk glasses, the scattered cards, and the occasional inert grain of caviar that had leapt to its death on the tablecloth out of repugnance at dying between Bobby’s teeth, Rosa Trènor and Frederic de Lloberola initiated their dialogue.
After a few exploratory words from Frederic, consisting only of polite remarks and a few inoffensive double-entendres to see how she would react and to try to gain the upper hand, Rosa Trènor, in a vague and apparently cold way, started talking in the blasé tone of “her milieu.”
“Yes, frankly, it was a bit of a surprise …”
Later, in response to an unfortunate question from Frederic,
“Rancor? No, I feel no rancor towards you …”
Silence, a great sigh from Rosa, a fluttering of eyelashes and a natural smile:
“But, now that we’ve said our hellos and we’re friends again … You know what I think? I think you should go home … As for me …”
Frederic began to harbor the terrible suspicion that Rosa Trènor was being sincere. He tried another tack:
“That’s the best thing we could do.”
Fearing this was too strong, though, he added:
“But stop, enough pretending. I wanted to talk with you because I need you …”
At that point Rosa let out a raucous and offensive peal of laughter. Frederic flinched, but he had no choice but to swallow it. Once Rosa stopped laughing, her voice became sweeter:
“You need me, Frederic? Now you realize it?… After … how long has it been?”
Never a good actor, Frederic went for this question like a ton of bricks, and Rosa coquettishly covered his mouth before he could answer:
“No, no! Don’t tell me how long …; it’s rude to talk about age. But, still, it’s been a while, eh? So I guess it’s true that … you really do need me …”
With a maternal air, Rosa knit her brow in mock pity. Smiling, Frederic said:
“Do I look … so bad to you?”
Rosa ran her fingers over his shirt and the knot in his tie and straightened his thinning hair. Like a caged rabbit, Frederic let her do it, and Rosa took a good look at him, cocking her head like a photographer:
“No, you don’t look bad to me at all. But you can be sure I wouldn’t stand for a tie like the one you’re wearing … And now that I think of it, I need you, too, but not for what you think … I need to talk with you about Eugènia D. Yes, yes, your wife’s cousin; you must have heard about it …”
Frederic opened his eyes wide in ignorance. Rosa thought it would be good to stretch the situation out and went back to her foul talk again:
“The other night at the Grill it was all people were talking about. Now, the worst gossips were a couple of drunken urchins like Mado and Kity — who’s running around with that fool, Bonsoms, the eye doctor — wenches whose hands still smell of dishwater.”
It occurred to Frederic, who found the affectation of brazen speech in a woman to be offensive, that one way out would be to pretend that Rosa’s vocabulary was appealing to him:
“Rosa, you’re incredible. When I hear you talk … I just can’t believe …”
“What is it you can’t believe?”
“You make me feel younger by the minute!”
“Oh! I’ve changed a great deal since we’ve been out of touch. I’ve become more ‘refined’ … But don’t you dare make fun of me! Tell me, what have you heard about Eugènia D …? Is it true about the diamond?”
Frederic realized, with some annoyance, that his praise had not had the effect he was hoping for, so, dropping the pretense, he said brusquely:
“That’s none of my business. I don’t keep track of my wife’s relatives. As you can imagine, I haven’t come here to talk about my family.”
Rosa was radiant. Her conversation was annoying Frederic. She went on without batting an eye:
“Oh, aren’t you the babe in arms. Even a dope like Bobby who never catches on to anything knows all about it, and it turns out you … Well, you needn’t worry. I don’t give a hoot, I just mentioned it to pass the time. When push comes to shove, you know very well I won’t be a penny richer or poorer if one of your cousins is giving her jewels away to some piece of trash from the Bataclan music hall.”