The Last Resort (32 page)

What admirable punctuality,
observes Rafael Molinet Rojas, who has always been a true enthusiast of this particular virtue.

“Good morning, Mr. Sánchez.”

“Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Molinet repeats as he stands up and approaches the edge of the pool, where the swimmer prepares to begin his exercise routine. “Do you mind if I watch?” he asks.

Sánchez is slightly taken aback at this. One brief greeting is the extent of the morning ritual at L’Hirondelle d’Or. After that, people steer clear of their fellow guests and their activities.
Oh, who cares?
Sánchez thinks. If this eccentric old fart wants to watch him take his morning swim, so be it.

“A bit of a swim, eh?”

What a perfectly idiotic question,
thinks Sánchez as he removes his yellow robe and begins to warm up his arms by swinging them across his chest and back.

“That’s right, a little morning swim.”

“And do you like to swim on the surface, or underwater?”

Sánchez continues his arm swinging, more energetically now.
Good Lord,
he thinks. What could that decrepit old man possibly know about staying in shape? He looks at Molinet; he’s clearly not a very athletic looking type, but then again you can never tell—perhaps he is a swimmer himself. Appearances can be so deceiving at these hotels, so who knows . . . ?

“Both,” replies Antonio S. “Today I will begin with a few laps of the crawl, then some backstroke, then butterfly and I think I’ll finish up with a half-length underwater.”

“Ah . . . of course. The pool is too large to do an entire lap underwater, isn’t it? Fifteen meters is quite a lot, and after all that exercise your lungs must be exhausted. Of course, of course . . . if you did it the other way around—the underwater part first and then the other strokes, I would wager that you could do two entire laps.”

More arm exercises. In two quick movements, Sánchez removes his yellow flip-flops.

“Well, as a matter of fact, I sometimes do it that way—in that order, I mean. Sometimes I like to start off underwater. It helps open the lungs.”

“Me, I just love the crawl—swimming underwater makes me nervous. After all, a person can only go so long without breathing, and this pool is massive, plus at such an early hour . . . all that time underwater. And then of course there is the matter of the dive. Because underwater swimming calls for a special kind of dive. A very deep dive. Very difficult to execute.”

Sánchez’s toes now curl around the edge of the pool.

“A pike dive,” Molinet says knowingly. “Bent at the waist, knees bent at first, hands by the toes, and then arms up, straighten the legs and dive straight into the water until you reach the bottom. Oh, excuse me. I know I’m an old fool talking on and on. It’s just that you remind me so much of myself, many years ago of course. Swimming was never really my forte, but diving—ah, nobody did the pike better than I. The idea, you see, is to glide as far as you can underwater, although it isn’t absolutely necessary, technically speaking.”

Perhaps it is the chitchat, perhaps Sánchez is simply growing tired of Molinet, for the knuckles on his toes, which are presently gripping the edge of the pool, have begun to turn white.

“If you don’t mind, it’s getting a bit late, and I’ve got my activities here timed down to the minute. So if you don’t mind . . .”

Sánchez stretches his arms out in preparation for a conventional plunge, the kind used to kick off an ordinary, commonplace swim. He is just about to dive in when . . . Perhaps it is the minor glory of being in the presence of an expert in pike dives. Perhaps it is the warmth of the morning sun. Or perhaps it is simply that he now wishes to start off his morning swim with a long stretch underwater. The point is, at the very last moment Sánchez turns to Molinet and says:

“You want a pike? I’ll show you a pike!”

Off he goes. Sánchez’s body soars up and executes the movement to perfection: bent at the waist, knees bent, hands by the toes, and then arms up, knees straight and . . . there! Straight into the water. Perfect. For a moment the water engulfs him, and he is invisible to Molinet. What will come next? Will he emerge or won’t he? Will he rise to the surface or will he push off and swim underwater toward the other edge of the pool, gliding just above the pool floor? Antonio Sánchez López does not come up to the surface, and Molinet congratulates the blue figure underwater that now glides toward the deep end of the pool, the deep end, where he will never hear Molinet’s exclamation:

“What a splendid
plongeon,
Mr. Sánchez. Truly
mag-ni-fique
!”

It is 8:45.

100 Percent Terry Cloth

“People can be so incredibly stupid,” says Miss Guêpe. “Not to mention utterly thoughtless when it comes to others,” she says as she settles in for a very lengthy telephone conversation, conducted almost entirely in French.

“There were no witnesses?” asks the voice at the other end of the line.

“Witnesses,
monsieur
? Had there been a witness, don’t you think he or she would have told the guest that he would have to be mad to try swimming in a pool as it is being emptied—a pool that has been cordoned off with fluorescent tape which has been secured to posts at all four corners. All four corners!” Miss Guêpe does not usually repeat herself like that, but for goodness’ sake, there are times when verbal economy is not the order of the day. “Fluorescent tape that very clearly reads
DANGER: NO SWIMMING.
”

Silence at the other end of the line.

“That is what I am trying to tell you, Monsieur Pitou. Aside from being complete idiots, people have absolutely no consideration for others. I mean, to think of the situation we are in now!”

Monsieur Pitou smokes a cigarette at his end of the telephone line. Perhaps smoking is a rather unusual practice for the general manager of an international hotel chain based in New York, but that is precisely what Monsieur Pitou is doing at this moment.

“Who found him?” he asks after a few moments. “One of the guests?”

“No, thank goodness,” Miss Guêpe replies with a sigh of relief. “It was Karim, an excellent employee, whom I trained myself. And by the way, I recommend him wholeheartedly in the event you need someone of his qualifications. He was the person in charge of emptying the pool according to procedure. He went back to check exactly when he was supposed to, and at first when he spotted the man underwater, he thought he was swimming, because how on earth would anyone imagine that a guest would be held there—sucked,
monsieur
! Sucked and immobilized by the force of the water draining out. My God, he drowned like a . . . like a . . .” Miss Guêpe, recalling the previous pool incident, is on the verge of saying the word “rat,” but she refrains from making the comparison out loud. The Monsieur Pitous of the world need not know such gruesome and pointless details.

“He died quickly, at least,” reflects Pitou. Miss Guêpe decides to steer the conversation toward the rapid, efficient manner in which the well-trained hotel staff responded to this challenging situation.

“Karim, the young man I mentioned to you before, reacted immediately, and following the organization’s instructions on how to proceed in this type of emergency, he shut off the water pump right away. Then he located two of his co-workers and with a bit of difficulty they pulled the guest out of the water. Karim then came to alert me while his two co-workers tried to revive the man at the edge of the pool. But it was too late, I’m afraid.”

Miss Guêpe quickly explains to Monsieur Pitou how she and Karim went straight to the pool area with a large number of towels of all sizes—small, large, all of them 100 percent of the highest-quality terry cloth, the same ones used by the guest. Miss Guêpe always speaks of “the guest,” in precisely that manner. “The guest” this, “the guest” that, she says as she tells Monsieur Pitou how they wrapped Sánchez up in a huge yellow towel.

“He still looked remarkably athletic,” Miss Guêpe cannot help but comment, thinking back to the very solid condition of the guest’s pectoral muscles. And she feels honor-bound to admit that despite her best efforts, it was impossible to prevent the other guests from discovering what had happened. By the time they wrapped the towel around the guest’s body, people began to gather around the winter pool—women in bathing suits and wide-brimmed hats and men who, given the level of distress, had entered the pool area with their golf shoes on, all of them talking on and on about what had just happened.

“Very unpleasant,” says Pitou. “But at least it was very clear that our organization was in no way responsible for the accident. A guest who ignores the security barriers, very clearly marked danger signs, cannot possibly expect . . .” He trails off.

Pitou quickly stubs out his cigarette, pulls out a legal pad, and begins scribbling notes as to how the press release should be written. He continues: “Serenity, my dear. Above all else, serenity. I will take care of all the external details. Within the hotel property, however, I will be counting on you to make sure that this terrible incident goes as unnoticed as possible. Now, what-do-we-do-in-cases-like-this?” he asks, as if reading straight from the hotel-executive bible.

“Normality,” replies Miss Guêpe, in the same tone of voice. “Everything must go on just as it did before. I will take care of everything, Monsieur Pitou. In a short while, the guests at L’Hirondelle will forget that anything ever happened. That is one of the great virtues of our establishment, I promise you. Nothing ever happens at this hotel.”

“Except, of course, to the friends of our ‘guest,’ ” Pitou counters.

“We will take care of all the necessary arrangements so that they may leave as soon as possible,” Miss Guêpe assures him, and almost adds that they will probably be thrilled to leave in the most discreet manner. But her instinct for verbal economy tells her not to bother explaining that the guest’s friends have their own, rather complicated personal situations, which will induce them to disappear without too much of a fuss. The three of them will be back in Madrid on the double, no fear.

“I put L’Hirondelle d’Or in your hands, Miss Guêpe,” says Monsieur Pitou.

“I will take care of everything,” she replies, looking out the window of her yellow office, serenely and peacefully as always.

The Story According to Mercedes, Part Three

It was exactly ten days ago. I remember it perfectly because there I was, in this very lounge chair by the winter pool, trying to jot down a few ideas in this notebook. On the other side of the pool, just as he is now, was that strange individual I have come to think of as the Marquis de Cuevas, accompanied by that odd little dog I foolishly tried to befriend by offering him the slice of cucumber floating in my Pimm’s cocktail. Now, thanks to Bea, I know that the Marquis’s name is in fact Moulinex and that his dog, Gomez, is not interested in anything other than taking long siestas in the sun. I also know that despite the veneer of tranquility, many things have happened here at this hotel—some very tragic things, although you would never guess it to look around. Neither the decor nor the ambience nor the behavior of the guests has changed in the slightest. L’Hirondelle d’Or continues to be synonymous with two things: silence and discretion. Everything is fine; we are all on vacation.

The pool area is completely empty except for Mr. Moulinex, his dog, and myself. I am presently drinking a Pimm’s number 3, the cocktail of the house, so to speak: Pimm’s and plenty of ginger ale. Everything is just as it was the day I arrived, totally and completely tranquil. I still have about twenty minutes before another one of my daily mud sessions, which are proving to be quite effective. I have already lost five pounds, an entire inch off my waistline, and almost all the freckles on my chest, which is nothing short of a miracle, since I have always despised them, that ugly proliferation of stains which proclaim—or, rather, proclaim
ed
—to all the world that I am in my forties. Jaime used to chide me about things like that, telling me that my outlook on life was infuriating and that I was in denial of everything I found unattractive. “You lie to yourself. Even the way you think about things is a form of denial. You can’t own up to your problems—you just avoid them, whenever and however you can. How do you ever plan to take control of your life? You always let things happen to you. You let yourself get carried away with the first thing that crosses your mind . . .”

That was what my poor Jaime used to say, but he’s dead now. And I’m the one sitting here drinking a Pimm’s with ginger ale at L’Hirondelle d’Or.

“Good morning! Good morning!” I call out to Mr. Moulinex. “Did you sleep well?”

“Like an angel, darling. How is your charming friend Mr. Arce?”

Given that we are together all day, every day, those of us who have stayed on at L’Hirondelle d’Or have naturally broadened our repertoire of banal conversation somewhat. Now we actually exchange full sentences, although most require no response, much in the way the English chirp their ritual questions:
How do you do? How are you?
etc. Who answers that kind of question? Nobody, because the answers are irrelevant. And this is exactly the way it is at our hotel. I know, for example, that Mr. Moulinex would be flabbergasted if right now I were to walk over to the other side of the pool and give him a blow-by-blow report of the activities of my attractive new friend Santiago Arce. It would be extremely incongruous for me to get up from my lounge chair and say something like “Listen, Mr. Moulinex. Santi, with whom I have shared a magnificent night of passion—you cannot begin to imagine it: the trembling, the ecstasy—has rented a car and gone off to Fez. We are so content together that Santi has decided to change his return ticket and stay on with me here for a few extra days, probably until sometime next week. He isn’t due back from Fez until the evening, so I have decided to enjoy my day alone down here by the pool. And aren’t you simply amazed at the diligence of the hotel staff? Look at the water. Lovely color, isn’t it? Well, that’s thanks to a new, turquoise-colored emollient that Miss Guêpe mixed into the pool water after Antonio Sánchez died.”