Madame Firmino decided to spend the afternoon sunbathing. Sunlamp therapy is not the preserve of medical science; it’s also one of the essential prescriptions for feminine beauty. Besides, it can be a pleasant distraction, and on that day, the 9th of March, Madame Firmino found herself with no better or more pleasing way to pass the time.
Of course, she could have gone down to the salons to help out with the show of the new spring designs from Casa O’Brian. But she was the one who’d dreamt up those designs, the one who’d created them. They had been born before her eyes and she loved them. All the same, she was not fond of the women who came to see them, desire them and buy them. No, she honestly couldn’t bear to think that one of her designs, conceived and created for the fluid, graceful limbs of their house model, might end up cockeyed over the fat and flabby, dumpy or even lopsided body of a woman who’d buy it just because she could afford to. Madame Firmino had been the artistic director at Casa O’Brian for a year now, and she’d made her name there, but she had never attended any of the fashion shows, where the new collections were flesh of her flesh, blood of her blood.
At three, after giving the final words of advice to the models and dressers, she went back to her rooms on the top floor of the building on Corso del Littorio, where the fashion house was located and she lived with Cristiana O’Brian. She began her sun cure at three-thirty. There wasn’t any sun, at least not in her room, nor was there any sand or water. There was a soft, wide white rug, a huge, shiny, ultraviolet heliotherapy machine with a splendid round reflective dish, and to top it off, there was Dolores Delanay—known to all as Madame Firmino—in a yellow bathing costume with black stripes. She stretched out on the rug wearing white celluloid glasses with blue lenses and bronzed her shoulders and back under the machine’s beneficial rays. Her striped costume made her look like some sort of strange animal, perhaps a cross between a chimp and a zebra. The zebra bit was for her costume, and as for the rest—platinum blonde hair, a small triangular nose, long chin and prominent cheeks, full lips and tiny eyes lost in the hollows under plucked eyebrows—she’d always had noticeably simian features.
After the forty-five prescribed minutes on her back, Madame Firmino was about to lie on the carpet so she could expose her chest and face to the regenerative rays. But a strange noise interrupted her just as she was turning over, a dull thud that actually shook the floor.
The woman leapt agilely to her feet and removed her protective glasses. Her cheeks and neck were slick with oil. Without thinking it through (since they could only remain firmly attached to their square columns), she thought one of the herms had fallen over. She went to open the door: all of them stood upright, unmoving, with fixed, faun-like profiles. A perfectly unruffled, pristine silence reigned. But she had clearly heard a thud.
In her rope sandals, Dolores stepped over the black and white tiles, shiny as mirrors. She carried on, her senses on the alert. When she got to Cristiana’s room she saw that the door was open. In the middle of the floor was a large crimson stain: she instantly recognized Cristiana, lying there motionless. She began hurrying over to her when her gaze fell on the bed: a man lay there, his arms spread and legs splayed. His body was on a diagonal, as if he’d been thrown by a wave during a shipwreck. His wide-open eyes were glassy.
As a young girl, Dolores had been involved in a tragic fire in a large bazaar, and she’d seen many bodies asphyxiated by smoke or by the throng. They’d all worn that glassy-eyed stare and had looked like disjointed puppets. It therefore took her no time at all to see that this man was dead. But the disturbing question was: why had he been killed? There were so many questions…
Slowly and cautiously, she approached the bed. This was certainly a big mess, and on the day of a show, too. Why, though, had Cristiana O’Brian fainted in her room with a man’s body on her bed when she should have been down in the showrooms watching the models and studying her clients’ reactions?
Madame Firmino could now see, below those wide-open eyes, the rest of the dead man’s face. A handsome youth, almost a boy, with fine, perfectly regular features. Long black hair thrown back and naturally a bit messy now. Dolores lowered her gaze to his clothing, all cut from turquoise fabric: a blue silk shirt, even a turquoise tie, heavy and opaque. The dead man’s chubby hands seemed small and expressionless against the grey damask bedspread. Madame Firmino went back to studying his face. But of course. How had she failed to recognize him immediately? Probably because of that staring look. No one knew better than she, an artist, how the face and eyes can change one’s appearance. She broke away from this unhealthy contemplation, which had kept her stunned and fascinated.
How had the young man died? And who could have wanted him dead? Cristiana? She rapidly turned and bent over the woman lying on the floor. She touched her cheeks, felt her wrists. Nothing but a swoon; Cristiana was undoubtedly still alive. Madame Firmino stood up. She felt a strange sense of pressure on her sternum, almost an urge to vomit. When it came down to it, her strength was limited, and she couldn’t forget that her sun cure had been interrupted. It would be ridiculous if she fainted as well, like tin soldiers all lined up and falling, one after the other, when someone touches the first.
She stood, placed her hands on her hips and tried to breathe deeply. She had to act now. But what should she do? Go to the internal telephone? Call Marta, let the dressers know, have the secretary come up? That comical secretary in his ever-present black frock coat? Yes, she should at least do that, but it meant raising the alarm, throwing the whole place into a panic, admitting the scandal in the showrooms… In any case she had to take care of Cristiana first, revive her, hear her speak.
Cristiana wasn’t moving. She was definitely breathing, but fairly weakly, intermittently and with the occasional gurgle. Madame Firmino’s gaze returned irresistibly to the body. This time she saw… she saw the dead man’s slender neck. How had she missed it the first time? Strangled. She tried to stifle it, but a suffocated scream came from her throat and she bolted into the corridor. There, the herms closed in around her, and she ran towards the lift. Incredibly, she suddenly remembered that she was in her black-and-yellow bathing costume, the one that made her look like a zebra. How she managed, miraculously, to go back to her room, grab a dressing gown and put it on, tie the cord round her waist and then jump back into the corridor, Madame Firmino never knew.