Free On the Edge by Rafael Chirbes Page A

its sofas, swimming pools, jacuzzis and saunas, and the tortuous labyrinth of small rooms with beds of various sizes. He can’t resist telling these secrets—out of sheer boastfulness and egotism, he can’t help it: they make him seem different, more interesting, more mysterious, in the eyes of the person he’s talking to, in my eyes too, me, the bored carpenter who, for the last four decades, has barely gone any further than back and forth to the marsh or to some small room at the Lovely Ladies Club, but who, in his now distant youth, did his fair share of globe-trotting too and can, therefore, be of use as a confidante (you know what I’m talking about, Esteban, you’ve been around a bit, you traveled when you were a young man, although you rarely leave the house now, I mean, would you ever even go to the local pick-up joint if I didn’t drag you there?—and you’re single, for heaven’s sake, you don’t have to account to anyone), and these confidences make him grow in his own eyes too, because among us prestige is consolidated by such anecdotes, which seem to slip out as unexpectedly as farts, but which he has learned to ration out, knowing that such stories are as easily transmitted as flu, and are vague enough not to get him into any trouble with the authorities. In order to make sure that everyone finds out, he only has to use the words: This is just between you and me, in confidence.
    “I told you that ? I certainly didn’t mean to. Had we had too much to drink that night? I’ve really got to drink less and be more careful and watch what I say when I leave the house. Please, not a word to anyone else.”
    Even though he was supposedly as drunk as a lord, he still couldn’t resist whispering to me—his mouth pressed to my ear—about the oysters in champagne that he ate in Monte Carlo ( I won’t tell you why I went there , he says, adding further to the mystery, while I yelp: ugh, you’re sticking your tongue in my ear , and wipe away the saliva). He boasts about the luck he had at roulette that night, the Russian bitch I was with seemed to have seriously lucky nipples—she kept sticking her roulette chips down her front and rubbing them on her tits before putting them down, and the ball stopped on her number every time; then he tells me about the journey from Monte Carlo to Paris in her convertible BMW ( la douce brise de la Provence sur mes joues, la huître au vent : needless to say, she wasn’t wearing any panties, and while she drove, my hands roamed around) and about the half pound of caviar that they bought in Kaspia—on the Place de la Madeleine, next door to Fauchon—and ate in their room in the Hotel Lutetia on the Boulevard Raspail. Actually, the hotel’s a real disappointment. The furniture, the bathroom fittings, the room with its dusty corners, all very shabby and dated, hotels in Spain are much better maintained and a much better deal too—it really needs a complete overhaul, he says. He probably suggested to the manager that he could carry out the renovation himself (his architects, his teams of bricklayers, his decorators, leaving the Lutetia like new), he probably left his card on the desk and, in exchange, got a free bottle of champagne, although it’s hard to get anything out of the French—stingy bastards. But—oh, and the champagne I drank out of that Russian oyster was Krug Millésimé, so rich, so nutty, so strong, have you never tried it? Ask your friend Francisco about it. He’ll tell you. Ask his opinion as an expert, as a connoisseur. It’s certainly my favorite, and I know more about champagne than you might think, in fact, I know a lot. Krug champagne is, now how would your friend Francisco describe it?—serious, elegant, noble. Justino continues to allow himself to be carried away by details: do you know that French painting called The Origin of the World ? Do you know the one I mean? With that great furry hole in the foreground. Well, that was the scene I had