AT THE WATERING CLUB

AT THE WATERING CLUB

The club, four rooms in all, three of which could be accessed even by people who were not members of the club, was located on the third floor on an old building,   a building with stone stairs and no lift,  that stood on one side of the largest square of the city.   So that, like the palace ( building) that club, very original, and almost innovative, came to be right in front of what was known as the most infamous bar in the city. This bar, the Richard bar, was frequented not only by petty criminals , but also by highly respected exponents of organized crime who, of course, were fugitives and wanted, who, as fugitives, should have been sought.

The Watering club had been founded by three elderly women: Miriam and Mildred B., who were sisters, and their friend Colette G.  The Watering Club had only one mandatory rule, which was valid both for club members and for all people who frequented the bar and the other club spaces ( facilities) to which everyone had free access. No one would have drunk alcohol there in the club. Not only: not one drop of alcohol should come in there, too.  The bar would not serve alcoholic beverages ( drinks), and it was also strictly forbidden to bring them from outside. Not that in the bar of the club you could drink only water, oh, no! You could in fact enjoy excellent, delicious fruit cocktails, very good chocolate and cream smoothies, and juices of berries, smoothies with almonds, nuts and honey, and then tomato juice, celery juice with lemon, and fennel juice with bell pepper…..and, of course, coffee and tea of excellent quality. In addition to delicious drinks and cocktails at the bar of the Watering club you could find refreshing, relaxing, energetic herbal teas. You could also eat in there, and not only sandwiches, canapés and cakes. You could order, at every time of the day, dishes which Therese, the cook, prepared carefully. They were very tasty dishes, specialties as the jugged rabbit, the stuffed turkey , the mullet  caramelised with the rosemary....And all at  an affordable price.

The Watering club was frequented mainly by women, especially forty women and middle aged women. But there were also young and old customers. There were even children, who came in the company of their mothers, grandmother, and housekeeper. Nor the club neither the spaces with free access were reserved exclusively for women So it happened, albeit not frequently, that one man entered the bar of the club, ordered a tea and, sitting at a table in front of his cup of tea, looked around for someone to talk ( chat) with.. It could even happen that someone, either woman or man  went to the Watering club to take a bath. In fact in that club there was also a wide bathroom, all in white marble, splendidly furnished , and with all the desirable comforts____there was also the hydro massage___in which everyone, for a few dollars, could enter to take a bath and could stay in there, in the marble bathroom, almost as long as they wanted. The comfortable, fragrant, welcoming bathroom, available to all, had been strongly wanted ( desired) especially by Miriam and Mildred Bell, perhaps since they were passionate of marble furnishings... Indeed some people kept whispering about something that had happened right in the bathroom of the sisters Bell’s house when they were too young ( little) to be trusted as witnesses. Then, when Miriam and Mildred were child of three, four years, their mother had been found dead in the bathtub. It had been established that she had died of natural causes. And no one had even mentioned suicide. There had been no suspects, no one had been investigated as responsible for her death. But there had been even rumors whispering, and claiming too, that Gretel M., the young mother of the sisters Bell, had been killed. The rumors had said that the young woman had been killed with overdosed drugs by her husband and her mother-in-law, who, after Gretel had died, had taken her into the bathtub, where it was said she had died for a sudden illness.

It had been almost two years since the Watering club had opened its headquarters that in the infamous bar, which stood ( was) in front of the old building where also the Watering was located, there was a shooting between rival criminal gangs. Two men were killed and two were wounded. When the policemen arrived, those who had shot had run away. It was then said that a leading exponent of the Anonymous Kidnapping , specialized in kidnapping for obtain ransom, had taken part in that shooting. And it was also said that this big criminal, multi- condemned, wanted for years, had narrowly escaped capture, There were those who insinuated that he had managed to escape arrest by hiding  in the premises of the Watering club.

The Bell sisters, but also Miss Colette G., they resented very much for those insinuations. The  three women firmly protested that it was slander, it was defamation. How could anyone think that respectable people like them could have hidden, to save him from arrest and prison, a criminal like that George P. , who had no qualms about kidnapping children for whose release he asked  great sums of money? One who had killed some of the kidnapped and had fed their bodies to pigs, one who cut off ears and fingers of the kidnapped to send them to their families as proof that the kidnapped was still alive?

Just over two months after the shooting in the infamous bar in front of the building where the Watering club was also located, as those rumors about the Bell’s sisters, and Miss Colette G. too had not ceased at all, despite the firm and resentful protests of the three women, Miriam and Mildred were found dead in the luxurious, shining bathroom of the Watering club. The news shocked not only the club’s members and the people who frequented the club’s premises, but the whole city. It was said  that the Bell sisters had drowned in the marble bathtub , a version that aroused no little disbelief.  But how could they have both drowned in the tub at the same time? People wondered, incredulous.   Why then the two sisters had gone to bathe together , and precisely in the bathtub of the club? People still wondered.   There were then, among the journalists who ventured the hypothesis that Miriam and Mildred Bell had been killed on the orders of that big criminal who(m) they, a few weeks before ( earlier) had hidden there in the club, to save him from capture. But even this version of what had happened seemed not convincing.  Oh, but criminals as those of the Anonymous Kidnapping would not have killed the two women by drowning them into the bathtub, people thought and said. It was more likely that criminals like those, after having killed them,  would have made their bodies disappear, feeding them to pigs. The investigators continued to argue that Miriam and Mildred Bell  had drowned in the bathtub, and that it had been an accident. They did not talk not only of homicide but even of suicide. Those ( people) who remembered the death of their mother, she also found dead in the bathtub, couldn’t help but think that the Bell sisters had killed themselves___or maybe they had been killed___drowning them in the bathtub for something going back precisely to the death of their mother. Those people thought that then Miriam and Mildred had to have seen who had killed their mother but, as they were too young, they had not been believed. There were also those who suspected their friend and partner Colette G. had killed them.

The Watering club continued to exist even after the death of Miriam and Mildred, but the wonderful  bathroom was closed and remained closed forever.