Album familiar - short story - Latin America: Private Eyes & Time Travelers

"The Pleasure Palace," he said with a vague expression, "was the best brothel in the country. Maybe on the continent. All luxury, all entertainment, all happiness. To go there was not to buy a woman, no. It was to buy a ticket to a paradise where there was concern, passion, understanding, and friendship. Not just sex. It was for the men and women who loved holistic, total pleasure, not just of the body, but which for lack of adequate words we'll call spiritual. Afterwards, some survivors renovated it, changed a few things, and opened it to the public. Every now and then it's nice to refresh the memory of your mind and your hormones; that's why we're going to the Pleasure Palace tonight."

Max wasn't our leader, but people listened to him more patiently because he was the oldest. He was barely over forty, but in a world of youth he had learned to be patriarchal. Esteban, however, looked at him in horror, imagining, like everyone did the first time, something repugnant.

"Nobody's making you go," said Perro in a friendly, mocking tone, "but you don't lose anything by going and looking. If you don't like it, you leave and it's done."

We finished eating in silence. Esteban and Perro washed the dishes and Perro said in too loud a voice, as if to show us that he was capable of profound observations:

"Without any prejudice, Esteban. So much deliberation on good things will make everything else look bad."

We left the house at five and went to the Pleasure Palace.

The Pleasure Palace is located in the old residential zone of the city and is, in fact, a little marble palace. Esteban took it all in with poorly concealed terror. Max opened the bronze and crystal door and brought us into an empty little room. Marquez took out four bottles of champagne and went to the kitchen. Within a minute he returned, with the beverage chilled.

"It's not magic," Romero explained, catching sight of Esteban's expression, "each group that comes brings at least three bottles, takes those in the refrigerator, and leaves theirs chilling for the next group."

Perro put on a record. Baroque, composer unidentifiable. We drank.

Max nostalgically recounted the glories of the Pleasure Palace. Esteban's terror kept increasing. I was watching him and saw in his eyes the unsettling images that one's fear associates with the unknown. Perro told us about a girlfriend he had, the second and last, who, before, was just barely eighteen. I changed the record.

The walls resonated with sadness, reflecting the outside emptiness more than the songs and sex found inside years ago. I felt a cold shiver and decided to go up. They followed me silently. I entered a room and the atmosphere seemed to metamorphose the palace into a ceremonial temple. On the walls, on the ceiling, dozens of photos. The playmates of years past, all surely dead by now, movie stars, innocent pictures of college girls in mini-skirts, with fifteen-year-old outfits. In the center, a bed with a purple quilt and a tape recorder. Through the windows a cold, clear sun was visible. Esteban retreated when Romero asked me: