Books Burn Badly

The Hotel of Mirrors

‘THE HOTEL OF Mirrors?’

O had asked everywhere and people in the street didn’t know, though some of them gave her a funny look, as if she’d been carrying a pink neon advertisement on top of her head. There must be a mistake with the address. She then dared to push open that door, the one with the neon sign for La Boîte de Pandora. There was a very steep staircase, a dark tunnel leading down to the basement. She felt the desire to go back outside, but the music climbed the steps and offered her its hand. The instruments were in conversation, sharing good and bad times, drawing and accompanying her footsteps. It was evening. When she reached the last step, there was a sudden movement of shadows and she felt with disgust a claw on her shoulder. She froze, unable to speak. The musicians carried on playing, as if they couldn’t drop their notes so suddenly. She had the impression there were lots of them, huddling in a dark corner, around a piano’s large set of teeth. She turned and stared into the small, bright eyes of the parrot which had landed on her shoulder. In fact, there were four musicians and the one who came over had a circle on his lips. The mark of the trumpet’s mouthpiece. She looked at him, bewitched. Forgot about the bird’s furtive presence. The trumpet player grabbed the parrot and returned it to its perch. As the darkness dissipated, she realised the establishment was full of exotic birds. And the wall at the end was made of water. Water that kept changing colour.

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 said. ‘He takes after Judas. Pretends to be a gentleman, but bites before he barks. He’s never satisfied, the pig. He’s bought off everyone, sealed their lips. But I’ve got it all in here, girl. Inside my noddle. I wish the rest of my body worked as well as my head. Do you know how he started? No, how could you?’

Anyone who stared at O for long enough felt like storing things inside those large, open eyes.

‘He started with wolfram. Do you know what wolfram is? No, of course you don’t!’

O nodded. She’d never actually seen it. She couldn’t discuss its colour or appearance. But she knew everything about wolfram. There were three wolfram mine shafts in Polka’s right leg. Two in his ankle and one in his knee. He’d been forced to work as a prisoner in the River Deza mines. Had been wounded while trying to escape. A steady supply of this mineral, which was abundant in Galicia, was essential to the munition factories in Nazi Germany. Polka’s scars changed colour according to the season. In summer, they were pink. In winter, they turned dark violet. Which was when he limped the most. He’d received poor treatment. Polka said it had given the ants time to come inside him.

‘And why do you live here?’ O dared to ask.

‘I live here because it belongs to me. But now he wants to throw me out. Leave me in the street like a beggar. What am I supposed to do — sleep in a doorway? Trouble is he finds papers where there weren’t any. He puts himself about and, wherever I go, buildings or offices, they look at me like I’m a scarecrow. I’m not stupid. He’s taking everything. Making a mint with the old Dance Academy. I had it all, girl. Almost all. A lot. Something. I had something. You never heard of me, girl? Never heard of the Dance Academy? Look at that portrait. That’s hardly a scarecrow, now, is it? That boyish haircut. You should have seen me dancing the Charleston, foxtrot, cuplé. And all the rest of it. I was always ahead of the fashion. I always loved life, girl, though it’s a bitch. I got up to all kinds of things. But you won’t catch me in a confessional. You have to have a little bit, just a little bit of shame.’

She pointed to another portrait on the wall, that of a thin woman wearing an Andalusian costume. ‘Take her. Her name was Flora. She was a brave woman. Always contradicting me. She was almost always right. I was a bit bossy. And she did look better dressed as a flamenco dancer. She was right about that too. She disappeared during the first days of the war. That was the last I heard of her. I suppose, if she could, she died fighting.

‘Others had a better time of it. Even during the war. That one there’s Pretty Mary. She seemed very shy and delicate, like an eggshell. She was very devout back then, I suppose she still is, you can be both things at once, there are mystical women you had to see in order to believe when they let themselves go. They really could drive a man crazy. Pretty Mary is Manlle’s sweetheart. She still sings from time to time, but her job is to stand at a window, OK, it’s a luxury apartment, watching out for boats. Customs patrol boats, if you get my meaning. All she has to do is sing down the phone. “They’ve just left, Daddy. They’ve just come back, Daddy.” That way, the smugglers never get caught. There’s a merchant ship which is always just inside international waters. Called Mother. With a bellyful of tobacco. That’s the one that keeps everyone supplied. Manlle knows more about port traffic than the customs chief and police combined.

‘You know why I know so many things? Because I’m also a Mother.’ She draped the boa artistically over her shoulders, stroked her breasts and burst out laughing. ‘I used to be more of a Mother than I am now. This boat’s spent lots of time out in international waters. And some things only naughty mothers find out.’

O was curious about a smaller photo which was more worn than the others, had a serrated edge and showed a woman with a mattress on top of her head.

‘That’s Milagres. The cook who fluffed up the wool.’ She again shrieked with laughter. ‘The cook who fluffed up the wool! You probably know her son. He’s a travelling photographer, large as a lighthouse, called Hercules. Goes around with a wooden piebald horse.’

O knew Hercules. Of course she did. He’d always enquire after Polka. One time, the photographer with the horse and O with the donkey met. ‘What’s the donkey’s name?’ ‘Grumpy. And the horse?’ ‘Carirí.’ ‘They’d make a good couple, Grumpy and Carirí.’

‘I was there at the son’s birth. Curtis was already a lighthouse when he was born. He would have been champion of Galicia.’

Every time O went to the Hotel of Mirrors, she saw the Old Woman with the Feather Boa, who knew things others didn’t. Sometimes she was frightened by what she heard. She’d leave the hotel with the exciting and dangerous sensation of knowing too much. On top of her head, she’d be carrying a load of clothes and another one of Samantha’s secrets.

‘Were you called Samantha as a child?’

She used a long holder to smoke scented cigarettes. O realised, whenever thorny episodes came up, Samantha created a cloud.

‘I was never a child. I didn’t have time to be a child. Childhood didn’t exist when I was born.’

On such occasions, the smoke would pour out of her mouth’s exhaust, in a grimace her make-up multiplied by three. O reached the following conclusion: everything in that woman was multiplied by three because of her superimposed faces. It wasn’t farcical, it was real. When happy, very happy. When sad, three times dark.

‘I had to run away from childhood. Hence my physique. I had to grow up quickly. Were you not maltreated when you were little?’

‘By whom?’

Three times horror. Samantha blew out another cloud of smoke. Her face had turned deathly pale.

‘I won’t let them abuse me now I’m old.’

She went back to the subject of Manlle. He’d started making money transporting wolfram to the docks from the Carballo and Silleda mines. At the start of the Second World War, when the Nazis redoubled their efforts, wolfram became a precious mineral. ‘Anyone with initiative and four wheels could make pots of money. He sought out vehicles wherever he could find them. Vehicles requisitioned during the war. Belonging to official organisations. To the army. Under wraps. He also covered up for others. Made lots of contacts. He can pull strings in the most unlikely places. But he’s a spendthrift as well. He’s like a spoilt child who’s never had enough. To start with, I liked him for it. His background was poor, but he was open-handed. We came to an agreement. I’m not the peace of the world, its daily bread, but I keep my word. He’s false. Like Judas. When he acquired the Dance Academy, he swore he’d give everyone work and he promised me the mirror suite for life. I trusted him. More fool me!

‘Milagres, Hercules’ mother, the woman with the mattress, eventually left for South America when her son came down from the mountains, having been on the run because of the war. She left with a harpooner who’d worked on a whaling ship in Cee. The harpooner had a cetacean’s goodness. They went to Brazil. Opened a restaurant in Recife called the Whale’s Belly. I’m not surprised. He was always giving Milagres things that had turned up in the bellies of whales.’

‘What things?’ O asked the Woman with the Feather Boa incredulously.

‘You can find anything inside a whale’s belly,’ she replied. ‘St Gonzalo once entered a whale and came back with an image of the Virgin. So just

imagine what it’s like now!’

‘For example?’ insisted O.

‘He gave her a beautiful doll whose hair grew because it was natural.’

‘What else?’

‘A revolver,’ said Samantha, twirling her feather boa.

‘He gave her a revolver and a doll?’

‘No. He gave her the doll with the china face and goatskin body. I got the revolver, girl. Do you want to see it?’

‘No way! Oh, go on then.’

O wanted to see what was used to kill men.

‘It’s called a Bulldog.’

And that’s what the revolver was like. Snub-nosed and fierce.