Rosa’s chatter about his cousin and the call girl from the Bataclan was of the most indecent and uncharitable kind; Frederic was getting nervous. Rosa didn’t let up and, with a condescension that suggested that the interested party was in fact Frederic, she added:
“What’s more, if you must know … That’s exactly what I said yesterday to those little snipes: as long as they leave me out of it … Because as you well know, I’ve never enjoyed this kind of rubbish …”
Rosa Trènor knew through Bobby and other friends of Frederic’s that Eugènia D. was his wife’s dearest friend, and that, beyond their blood relationship, there was a genuine closeness and affection. She was certain that Frederic would find these conjectures — absolutely false, in point of fact — about some supposed depravity on the part of Eugènia D. offensive. Realizing he had no other recourse, and simply to have something to say about Rosa Trènor’s remark regarding “this kind of rubbish,” Frederic responded in a completely idiotic tone:
“How old-fashioned you are!”
He might just as well have said, “How rude you are!” or “What a piece of work you are!” Rosa Trènor pretended not to have caught Frederic’s tone, and quickly responded:
“Indeed I am! That’s what I always tell these young guttersnipes. We did things differently in my house … A man, oh yes! With a man, the sky’s the limit. But only if he’s well-mannered, a “gentleman.” Don’t you think I’d have diamonds just like Mado if I weren’t so choosy, if I took up with the first young buck who showed up at the Excelsior?”
Even though at the moment Frederic was starting to feel a sort of peculiar pleasure at being drawn into Rosa Trènor’s low, wretched domain, he couldn’t suppress a skeptical laugh.
“All right, go ahead and laugh,” Rosa said. “I don’t mean, of course, that the first guy you run into will come bearing diamonds. But one thing leads to another, and if you have no scruples, before you know it you find a couple hanging from your earlobes. And mine have been in hock for years now.”
Sensing that the sauce was starting to thicken nicely, Rosa took the conversation down a different, slightly more undulating and benevolent, path:
“But I’m being tiresome. Yes, I am, don’t deny it, I’m boring you to tears … Isn’t it funny … It feels as if it were only yesterday that we were talking … I don’t know, what can I say … this all seems so natural … As if we were just as close as before …”
And then she brought the first notes of the aria down to earth with a sneeze, and an anecdote about perfume:
“I have a cold, you know …? Have to keep my handkerchief close by at all times …”
Rosa ran her handkerchief under Frederic’s nose, and, closing his eyes, he relaxed a moment as he inhaled the fragrance, while he searched for a way to broach the big subject.
“So you like this perfume … Oh yes, as you will soon see, I haven’t lost my good taste. Mado and Reina smell exactly the same: an unremitting horror from Guerlain that they consider the height of chic. Sara brought them a sample bottle. Four hundred francs, not counting what they had to pay the customs agents at Portbou. I’m surprised I didn’t pass out today. Lucky for me my nose is stuffy … But, my darling, what a sleepy face! You mind me, grab your hat and go home. I want to look in on those silly girls. They won’t mind. It’s perfectly safe. They’re probably reading some dirty book; Reina, that is, because Mado doesn’t know how to read. Bobby lent them a picture book, a filthy thing … Now, you mind me, go home and sleep; what will your wife say …? You married men have to behave …”
Frederic looked up and burned Rosa’s eyes with an acid smile. She added, in an afterthought:
“Though with me … after all …”
Frederic was starting to worry, but her last words, her “Though with me … after all …”, gave him license to press on, and Frederic said:
“Now, see here, Rosa, don’t you realize what an exciting woman you are? You’re the most delightful, intelligent …”
And here Frederic let out a grotesque, inarticulate moan, something akin to the whining of a dog, because Rosa had placed her hand upon his mouth to keep him from adding more adjectives. Stubbornly, her hand still on his mouth, Frederic tried to continue, and when he was convinced it was no use, he bit gently into the soft flesh of her palm, grabbed her hand violently, and covered it with kisses. Rosa didn’t stop him. Both of them were breathing heavily. Rosa improvised a couple of tears:
“But no, dear boy, no; don’t you see that my mascara will run! Can’t you see the tears in my eyes?… What is this! What is happening? You, too?… Are you really crying, Frederic?”
Frederic confessed as if in a cut-rate melodrama (“I was a dog with you, a dog!”). He confessed as if in an Italian opera (“How could I tolerate such slander!”). Frederic evoked scenes from his past with Rosa, moments of intimacy, he stumbled over his words, he blushed, because those moments included ludicrous or indecent details, which, naturally, he omitted; but omitting them punctured the effect of the phrase a little, and it came out flat. At the end of his confession, Frederic himself was taken aback at his own words: “What we meant to each other, what we had together, has been the only truth in my life …”
Frederic’s speech had the effect of a musical interlude. After hearing Frederic out, Rosa abandoned her crass talk, and adopted the attitude of an abandoned Niobe, bedecking herself in the folds of the most solemn tunic. Rosa played her grand role with an eye to Frederic’s emotional range, to marvelous effect. With a dancer’s grace the abandoned Niobe lifted the solemn folds of her tunic, and Frederic found Rosa Trènor’s calf, warm beneath her chiffon stocking, in his hands. Rosa had been — and still was — famous for having perfect legs. The fruition of those legs had been one of Frederic’s most legitimate sources of pride, and in that critical moment it was her legs that contained the most positive evocative power of the past, with all the consequences of a fierce arousal.
Frederic felt that words were of no use and, while still respecting the border that separates man from gorilla, he attempted to achieve a definitive outcome on top of that silk divan, the color of a turtle dove’s breast; but modestly, yet still strongly insinuating, Rosa objected:
“No, Frederic, not here …”
“Why not?”
“Because …”
Convinced that everything was going perfectly, Rosa stood up all at once, enveloped herself in the beaver coat, and said:
“Let’s go, they must be asleep by now … Little darlings!..”
Frederic obeyed Rosa Trènor without a word, and they started down the stairs of Mado’s house on Carrer de Muntaner. The street was the color of milk and ash. Frederic started to hail a cab; Rosa hinted:
“No need for a cab. It’s just a few steps away …”
Frederic felt all the sadness and cold of the dawning day run down his spine. He no longer had the heart to continue living out his chapter in the Rosa Trènor novel. When they reached the door to her house, Rosa opened her famous bag, turned the key in the lock twice, and took Frederic by the hand. At that point the Frederic of the family worries and the loan about to come due briefly confronted the Lloberola gentleman. He had just heard the screech the wheel of an early morning trolley car makes against the rail the moment it brakes. That little screech that sets your teeth on edge echoed too mechanically in Frederic’s chest cavity, in a painful, yet liberating, way. Frederic felt as if the festering in his heart were being scraped clean. Frederic had had enough of Rosa Trènor. But his pride — perhaps simply the Lloberola weakness and cowardice — wouldn’t let him abandon her. Every convention, every comfort drove him homeward; but the true gentleman — or at least this was the justification Frederic came up with — must reject convention and comfort and follow the path of duty. And his duty at that moment was to go to bed with Rosa Trènor. Rosa, the grand dame, knew how to read a gentleman perfectly. After a look from Frederic, Rosa shrugged her shoulders, smiled — the smile of an eighteen-year-old — and began climbing the stairs arm in arm with Frederic.