Little Indiscretions Read online

  FOR KAREL, ONLY one thing measured up to bodybuilding: cultivating the magical sounds of the human voice. And this was to be the other focus of the young Karlicek’s adolescent enthusiasms before his departure for the West.

  It all began with the last gasp of Czech-Cuban fraternity (Anno Lenini 1992), when Karel was invited to compete for the José Martí Medal for young sportsmen at the XXth Spartacus Games, a sporting event of great revolutionary value, held that year in Camaguey, Cuba. It was there, among his comrades from the Most Beautiful Land (i.e., Cuba), that Karel succumbed, at the tender age of fourteen, to the rhythms of Latin music: the son, the cha-cha-cha, the bolero, and the conga. The spell was so strong that from the moment he returned to the Sportovni Skola in Prague, his burning ambition was no longer to be a weight lifter, or even a bodybuilder, but to become a member someday of the magnificent Cuban son band, famous throughout Eastern Europe, that rejoiced (and still does) in the name of Los Bongoseros de Bratislava.

  Sadly, since destiny is not in the habit of granting every wish, his musical vocation had to go on hold. Three more years went by: 1993, 1994, 1995 . . . and then, one fine day, an opportunity came up to emigrate to the West. First to Germany, a natural destination for Czechs, but things weren’t easy there. So Karel flew a little farther south, to France (where things were no easier), and then farther south again, ending up in Spain, where he couldn’t find work as a bodybuilder, and certainly not as a cha-cha singer, and had to make do with a job helping out and running errands on a motorcycle for a catering company called Mulberry & Mistletoe.

  SOME ADOLESCENT OBSESSIONS, however, leave indelible traces. Which explains why that morning, many miles from Bratislava, and many more from Camaguey, when Karel emerged from his room in the Teldis’ house and went down to the kitchen in search of Häagen-Dazs ice cream to help him get going at that ungodly hour, he was singing and moving to the rhythm of the well-known tune “El son montuno.”

  THE SONG FROZE on his lips at the sight of Nestor inside the cool room, eyes wide open and his left hand still scratching at the door, or so it seemed. There was a scrap of paper in his right hand, but Karel barely noticed it: there were far more urgent things to do, like finding out whether his friend was dead or if there was still some hope of bringing him back.

  The long years of military training that all elite sportsmen underwent in the former Soviet Union can come in handy in a situation like this. Trainees learned how to respond to all sorts of accidents. Karel Pligh had learned, for instance, that freezing does not always cause immediate death but sometimes induces a kind of lethargy, similar to hibernation, from which the victim may be revived by a relatively simply procedure, which he applied as best he could for a good ten minutes after dragging Nestor out of the cool room. First he gave him heart massage, pressing down rhythmically with his fists as required by the so-called Boris technique, then he tried mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, over and over, and not until the eleventh or twelfth attempt did he finally give up. Only then did he notice the piece of paper in Nestor’s right hand.

  Although Karel had been thoroughly trained in first aid, his education in television and film had, by contrast, been sadly neglected. Otherwise he would have known, like everyone else, that you don’t touch anything at the scene of an accident. “Be careful, leave things exactly as they are until the police get here. . . . Remember that anything, even the most insignificant detail, could turn out to be some kind of clue . . .”

  We know the cautionary words so well. But as soon as it was clear that Nestor was dead, Karel’s priority was to notify the other people in the house. So without giving it much thought, he pulled the scrap of paper from the cook’s clenched fist. It had torn in Nestor’s tightening grip, and all he could decipher was fragments of a list of desserts:

  especially delicious with cappucci

  lso be served with a raspberry coul

  which prevents the mering

  not to be confused with frozen chocolate

  but rather with iced lemon

  Poor, poor Nestor, poor dear friend, thought Karel, pondering death’s curious habit of visiting the conscientious when they are absorbed in their work. A true chef, right up to the last, he said to himself as he took the piece of paper. And then he removed the dishcloth tucked into Nestor’s apron string: a little quirk that death had underlined. The most respectful thing to do, he thought, was to ensure that these objects were properly laid to rest, now that their owner was sleeping eternally. And so, with great tenderness (and some difficulty), Karel managed to fold the frozen dishcloth. As to the list of desserts he had removed from the deceased’s hand, he thought the most appropriate thing would be to put it in a cookbook, and it just so happened that over on the marble benchtop lay a copy of Brillat-Savarin’s Physiology of Taste, Nestor Chaffino’s bible and constant companion through thirty busy years in the profession. Karel slipped the piece of paper between the pages of the book, shut it, and placed the folded dishcloth on top, making a neat little pile. Only then did he go back to the door of the cool room.

  With the light shining in from the outside, he had no trouble finding the alarm button that Nestor had been searching for. He pressed it. Nothing. He’d have to find some other way of waking up the others. Ringing the bell at the service door, for instance. But Karel’s faith in electronic devices had been shaken. A good shout would be much more effective. So Karel Pligh shouted. He shouted with all the force of his well-trained lungs.

  3

  THE SHOUT

  FIVE PEOPLE HEARD Karel Pligh’s shout in the early hours of the morning on the twenty-ninth of March.

  Serafin Tous, a friend of the family

  When you haven’t had a wink of sleep all night, the sound of a man shouting can have a decidedly odd effect on your mind. Serafin Tous thought it was a factory siren, and since he was a respectable independent magistrate with no links at all to industry, he rolled over and made the best of his last chance to catch a little sleep after a night of merciless insomnia.

  He had spent hours worrying about that man. Was it Nestor? Yes, that was the fellow’s name, according to his friend Adela. It didn’t ring a bell at all, but there was no mistaking that mustache, even if he had seen it only twice, and briefly both times. The first time was the worst, about three weeks back, at a club called Freshman’s. And just as he always did when he remembered that discreet establishment, which he had discovered quite by chance—he just happened to be passing by, God knows he wasn’t looking for the place—Serafin Tous tried to focus his thoughts on his late wife. Nora, he said to himself, and he even pronounced her name out loud, counting on the calming effect of those two syllables. Nora darling, why did you have to leave me so soon?

  In the course of that terrible night at the Teldis’, which was almost over now, Serafin Tous had told himself a thousand times: If Nora were still alive, I would never have even thought of visiting an establishment like Freshman’s. And he would never have seen that gossip-mongering chef appear in the kitchen doorway, preceded by his mustache, or heard him chatting with the owner of the club (it sounded like they’d both been knocking around in the hospitality business for years). And if he had never encountered the proud owner of that mustache, he would have been sleeping peacefully instead of suffering the effects of that terrible insomnia.

  05:31, CLICK . . . 05:32, click . . . While Serafin lay there worrying, his alarm clock, a rather old-fashioned model, showed the time with square, phosphorescent numbers that flipped over like the pages of a calendar. Minute by minute. Like the artful drip-drop of Chinese water torture.

  Forty-three years! Forty-three long years, perhaps not years of happiness exactly, but years of peace at least. That is what Nora had given him: more than half a life together, just the two of them. No children with whom to share their affection, no nephews or nieces, no adolescents. A long, peaceful stretch of entirely adult life, from his distant student days when, to pay his way through a law degree, he’d worked as a piano t
eacher in a school run by the Christian Brothers, up till that afternoon when Nestor had seen him at Freshman’s. Forty-three years of perfect respectability: more than enough to make up for a moment of weakness. Forty-three years since his last glimpse of that unforgettable boy with his blue eyes and his crew cut (where could he be now? what could have become of that body, so thin for a fourteen-year-old, and those downy blond knees?) up till the ill-fated moment when he crossed the threshold of that private club.

  After a brief welcome and a few questions from the owner, he was shown to a room that smelled of erasers and chalk dust. Perhaps there were other rooms at Freshman’s with other sorts of décor. Glancing into one on the left as he passed, he thought he could make out an old American gramophone and a soda fountain, but the room to which he had been taken was more like a classroom, and it did indeed smell of chalk and erasers, and of colored-pencil shavings too. The worst thing, though, was the upright piano against the far wall. He couldn’t resist. He went over to the instrument and even dared to lift the lid and caress the keys. They were so beautifully smooth, as if someone had been playing on them continuously for the last forty-three years. Dear God, so many impulses that he had thought were dead and gone had been simply lying dormant, for there he was, in a little room at Freshman’s, caressing a piano and gazing at the owner, who, to cap it off, looked for all the world like an arts-and-crafts teacher.

  “This way, sir, if you please. Perhaps it would be best to start by having a look through our photograph albums. The boys have been hard at work this year making them up, and they’ve done a lovely job, as you’ll see.”

  The classroom with its smell of colored pencils . . . the piano . . . and that man going on and on, holding two large albums bound in red leather.

  “We are very proud of our boys. Why don’t you have a look? Go on, there’s absolutely no need to worry, everything’s aboveboard here. None of the lads are underage, I assure you.”

  The way the photos were set out, it was like an old school album: row after row of diligent pupils. A large range of adolescent faces for Serafin Tous to admire: blond boys and dark ones, some smiling broadly with braces on their teeth to make them look younger than they really were.

  “Take your time, sir,” said the arts-and-crafts teacher. “Take as much time as you like. We’re in no hurry, me and the boys.”

  More photos of bright-eyed lads, some wearing knee-length shorts, like his pupils back in the old days when he used to give piano lessons all those years ago before Nora’s love (and her money) had come to shelter him from harm.

  “What do you think, sir? Perhaps you’d like to be left alone for a minute? It’s often easier to think that way. While you’re doing that, I’ll go and chat with a friend of mine, a colleague who’s dropped in to see me. I’ll be back in a moment.”

  Serafin felt calmer on his own, flipping through the pages, and was able to concentrate on the multitude of young faces before him. Some boys were wearing spotless white sports gear. Three or four were dressed as explorers, and he flicked back to the pictures of muscular youths with dirty faces, dressed as commandos. Page after page of faces, until the click of the door almost made him slam the album shut: the arts-and-crafts teacher had returned.

  “No hurry, sir, please keep looking. Can I bring you something? Fruit juice with soda water, perhaps? It’s very nice the way we make it here. You’ll see, just like the old days . . .”

  And suddenly, just like the old days, there it was, that face. Well, perhaps it wasn’t exactly the same as the face he had loved. Serafin sat back in the chair. It couldn’t be . . . but how could anyone resist those eyes, that limpid gaze, that blond crew cut? You couldn’t see his hands in the photo, but Serafin was sure the fingers would be nervous, like the fingers that had once entwined with his on the keyboard as he taught them to play a simple sonata. He preferred not to remember what had happened next, that day and so many others throughout the course of a whole ruinous year. Serafin shook his head. No, no. There are memories that should remain securely locked away.

  “How are we doing? May I take a look, sir, if you don’t mind? So Julian has caught your eye, has he?” he heard the owner of the establishment saying. “Excellent. I’ll go and call him.”

  And he disappeared before Serafin could say a word.

  We’ll just have a drink together, he promised himself as he sat there waiting, when out of some dark nook in his subconscious came the imperious urge to bite the nail of his index finger. What would his wife have thought if she could have seen him? Just a couple of drinks, I swear, Nora, he thought, mentally trying to reassure her. I’ll have a fruit juice with soda water, like in the old days, and I guess he’ll have a Coke.

  And that was exactly what happened. He bought the boy a drink, and that was it. So that fellow with the pointy mustache, Nestor or whatever the hell he was called, had no right to be spying on him from the kitchen door as if he were some kind of criminal. Serafin Tous had a clear conscience.

  But now that they had run into each other again, what if the chef were to reveal the circumstances of their first encounter? What if this Nestor fellow took it upon himself to tell Ernesto or Adela or one of their friends? It’s a sad fact, thought Serafin Tous, that what actually happens in life doesn’t matter half as much as what people say about it, and it’s safe to assume that they rarely err on the side of generosity.

  06:05, click . . . 06:06, click. Every time the numbers flipped over, it was like a reminder or a warning: he was that much closer to the moment when he’d have no alternative but to confront that loathsome man with his pointy mustache. No one gossips like a cook. What a squalid profession it is: scurrying around among pots and pans, they remind me of cockroaches, thought Serafin with a bitterness quite out of keeping with his normally mild personality. They’re like insects creeping in through cracks, turning up everywhere, going from house to house as they please, carrying filth, and that’s how they end up knowing all about other people’s private lives.

  All we did was have a drink together, Nora. I had a fruit soda and he had a Coke. I swear by all our years of happily married life, you have to believe me. Those forty-three years were a new life for me, without the music I once loved so much, without the memory of childish fingers on piano keys. I haven’t touched a piano since then. You changed my life, darling, and I let you do it. We were so safe in our grown-up world, Nora, a world without temptation, where a grown man has little likelihood of coming across a boy in flannel shorts and with a crew cut. But then Serafin stopped. What are you saying, Nora dear? Something about my visit to that tarot reader the other day, the famous Madame Longstaffe? Please, don’t think I’m looking for . . . you’re wrong, I swear you’re wrong. It’s just that I’m so lonely . . . Look, he added, no longer sounding quite so contrite. I don’t mean to be reproachful, darling. I know I should be grateful for all the years of peace you gave me. But really, with all the unpleasant people there are in the world, all the horrible individuals who would be better off dead and buried, why did you, my love, you of all people, have to go and die so soon?

  Chloe Trias, the kitchen hand

  Chloe also heard Karel’s shout from the kitchen, but after a few seconds she was sleeping again, like the little girl she still was at heart. She reached across to the side of the bed where her lover should have been, but instead of Karel Pligh she found a reassuringly familiar hand, one that for many years had kept her company at night. Then she rolled over and went back to sleep, with her chestnut brown hair, cut in a bob, falling across her face.

  Seeing her half-asleep like that, you wouldn’t have thought she was almost twenty-two, especially when she curled up with that invisible hand, which was in fact nothing more than a lump in the sheets. Other nights, a corner of the bedspread or a pillowcase would do the trick: a strong enough longing can easily transform cotton or linen into human skin. So holding the imaginary hand of her brother, Eddie, Chloe lapsed again into a deep and innocent slumber, as if outsid
e it were still the black of night.

  Sometimes, like that morning of the twenty-ninth of March at the Teldis’, she dreamt that Eddie was coming to take her to visit Neverland. But Neverland, that island haven for boys who refuse to grow up, has changed a good deal since the days of Peter Pan and Wendy, of Mr. Smee and Captain Hook: no more crocodiles going tick-tock or pirates stealing Lost Boys. No, these days visitors to the island may find themselves unpleasantly surprised, as if, before landing, they had been dosed with an evil drug. True, the coastline is still skull-shaped; it is, after all, the same island lost in time that she used to visit as a child, flying off after her brother’s shadow. And yet, for some time, or to be more precise since Chloe had met Karel and Nestor Chaffino, a treacherous wind had been blowing her off course, so that she never quite knew where she would end up.

  And on this occasion, the visit to Neverland was completely wrecked by Karel Pligh’s second cry for help from the kitchen.

  Cries from the real world have a regrettable tendency to distort the dreams they infiltrate. Some can even turn peaceful idylls into nightmares, and so this second shout, though it did not succeed in waking Chloe, dredged up a mass of memories she would have preferred to leave undisturbed. She pulled her hair across her face, trying to shake off the bad dreams, and this strategy did give her a moment of relief. A relatively inoffensive childhood memory came back to her: a banal scene, at least for a start. “But, darling,” said a voice, “what extraordinary names to have chosen for your children. Oedipus and Chloe, truly! . . . Another one of your caro sposo’s whims, no doubt. Psychiatrists do come up with the strangest ideas. It might seem amusing at first, but what about later on, when they grow up? Imagine going through life with a name like Oedipus. Just as well it didn’t occur to your caro sposo to call the girl Electra while he was at it.”